The convincing example of a few people
Throughout history true reforms have come about not by getting the governments to “do something about it,” or by popularizing the issues through newspaper editorials, but by the convincing example of a few people – even of one man or woman – with a shared vision whose influence has reached out gradually to touch many lives until, lo! vast numbers find themselves thinking in new ways.

A case in point was the scientific revolution. It was not decreed by any government. The Vatican, indeed, did its best to stop it; it accused Galileo of heresy. The revolution took place because the discoveries of a very few people inspired a few others, who in turn inspired many more. Today, what sane person would reject the findings of those early scientists?

The early Christians, being a persecuted minority, had no vote at all. Outwardly, the influence they exerted was less than zero. Their moral and spiritual convictions, however, were so strong that they converted the whole Western world, eventually, to their views. The change they wrought was a metamorphosis in consciousness, not in civic law.

What are the mechanics of reform?
The mechanics of true reform are perfectly simple. The way to get people to change their behavior is to inspire them to desire the change. One cannot coerce others, not even for their own good.

The mission of religion is to inspire people with a desire for goodness and truth. The reformed lives of a few saints have inspired countless people to live better lives themselves. Everyone knows at least something of Buddha, and Jesus, and Mohammed, and of the impact they had on world history. Can anyone name even one worldly leader whose impact was even faintly comparable?

Countless rulers through the ages have hurled vast armies into campaigns of world conquest. They, and their paltry deeds, lie all but forgotten on the sands of time. Jesus Christ, on the other hand, inspired a mere handful of disciples, who in turn inspired hundreds more, who in their turn inspired thousands. He initiated thereby a change in human consciousness that endures to this day. Buddha’s impact—again, an expansion outward from a few to many others—had a far greater influence on Eastern history than that of any Tamerlane or Genghis Khan.

The influence of Jesus Christ and Gautama Buddha is a greater force for peace even today than any treaty has ever been or is ever likely to be. The consciousness of true peace, similarly, in a mere handful of men and women could inspire the masses everywhere with a longing to live at peace. This, then, is the need today: Individuals must transform themselves. If we want peace on earth, we must achieve peace first within ourselves.

Can the world be perfected?
The thought that this world can ever be perfected is one of man’s greatest delusions. What this world is, simply, is a school, through which the soul passes on its upward evolution. Perfection is, in other words, an ideal to be sought for the benefit of the students, not of the school. Were this school, our earth, to complete its educative purpose, by means at present unimaginable, it would mean simply that souls still in need of its instruction would have to be enrolled elsewhere.

No outward improvement in the world will ever guarantee a corresponding improvement of the individual. Ultimately, man’s betterment depends always on his own recognition of his need for it.

I don’t say, never try to improve things. Do improve them if you can, always calmly and in support of the good, never with anger. But realize that there are simply too many wrongs in the world for all of them to be improved very much. Your first need, always, is to remain calm and undisturbed in your Self.

How do we best help others?
One of the many pitfalls that await the seeker on the spiritual path is that of doing good works for their own sake, rather than out of devotion to the only true good, which is God. Many religious believers hide a dread of divine love, all-absorbing as they know it must be, behind good works. Good works are their means of, at least hopefully, placating God. The truth, however, is that good works, too, often constitute a kind of outward involvement that leads to forgetfulness of God.

When, as the Bible relates, Judas suggested that the precious oil of spikenard be sold and given to the poor. Jesus replied, “The poor you have always with you, but me you have not always.” Judas Iscariot was, or seemed to be, pleading for social upliftment over soul-communion with God. To Jesus Christ, however, mankind’s relationship with God is the most important issue there is.

Jesus certainly was not indifferent to human suffering, including poverty, which so many endure. His entire life was a veritable beacon-light of compassion. His highest mission, however, was to awaken people to the divine truth within them.

Thus, when he told Judas, “The poor you have always with you,” his meaning was that injustice will never be eradicated so long as God is ignored. All suffering springs from trying to live without God. The eradication of earthly sorrows depends above all on eradicating our indifference to the Lord, and only secondarily—though not insignificantly—on hard work. Poverty cannot be alleviated except temporarily by gifts of money, the chief reason being that charity fails to attack the problem at its roots.

“Social injustice,” Jesus implied, “is inevitable as long as people choose to cling to delusion. The world’s problems will be solved only by increased awareness of the only reality, that is to say, God.” To give gifts of money may be good, but it can enslave others and also oneself. To give others joy and uplifted awareness, however, can enable them to solve their own problems permanently.

Everyone’s highest duty is to seek God
People who want to do good in the world often desire to pursue certain actions in the personal conviction that the world needs these things. Such actions may or may not be laudable, but a sattwic person allows God to decide in such matters. He acts to please God, and not for any other motive. Moreover, he acts in accordance with divine guidance, either what he receives from his guru or from God directly.

Everyone’s highest duty is to seek God. To pursue this duty may effectively cancel out every other karmic pattern, so that if the schoolteacher decides to go off and live with a group of people who are seeking God, and is not able in that new environment to teach children, he will in any case have chosen a higher dharma, and one which will take him more surely up to that divine summit where all duties end. To fail in that task will also be more liberating for him than to succeed as a schoolteacher, for it will take him eventually out of karma altogether, whereas teaching school will only aid him on the path toward good karma, but not necessarily toward liberation.

The unique gift of the devotee
Outward service to mankind is not, as such, the highest calling, though it can be a path to God if it is truly the Lord one is serving through others. Service with devotion is also, of course, a means of channeling God’s love to others and, therefore, of purifying the heart. God’s call in our souls, however, is to reverse the direction of our energy-flow from matter identification to infinite freedom in Spirit. Everything we do should have God’s love for its focus.

What practical service, indeed, can the unskilled devotee offer to the decrepit, the ill, or the needy compared to that which is competently offered by doctors, nurses, and charitable institutions? Outward efficiency, however, is not the deeper issue where spiritual service is concerned. The truly poor are not those who have no money, but those who haven’t God.

The unique gift of the true devotee is the grace he receives to channel God’s love and grace to others. To serve in this way, one must offer the fragrance of devotion at the feet of the Lord. In silent inner communion, one’s attunement deepens gradually, and one becomes an ever-clearer channel for God’s love.

Thus, the true devotee plays a vital role in banishing spiritual poverty from the world. He also helps to free the world of those attitudes which attract material poverty. Through meditation, one’s outer service, too, can be perfected. Most importantly, in divine union the soul knows infinite bliss. Every soul, once it becomes enlightened, uplifts the entire world in ways that could not be equaled even by millions of people dedicated to social betterment.

Excerpted from books and talks including, The Essence of the Bhagavad Gita, The Promise of Immortality, and The Peace Treaty (Introduction).

The post Social Activism: Change the World or Change Yourself? appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

Astrology is the study of man’s response to planetary stimuli. All parts of creation are linked together and interchange their influences. No matter what your environment, the surrounding rays of the earth and universe will have an impact upon you. Astrology was intended to assist you on your inner journey, by helping you become more aware of the interrelationships between the objective universe and the inner aspects of yourself.

The relation of the stars to the human body and mind is very subtle. There is a correlation between the six centers (chakras) in the spine, which become twelve by polarity, and the twelve signs of the zodiac. Millions of volts of electrical current are lodged in these spinal centers. If your body and your mind are very strong, you will be impervious to the evil vibrations from the stars when they begin to shed their rays upon you. But if your body and mind are weak through transgressions of wrong eating, wrong thinking, bad character, and bad company, then the stellar rays will have the power to affect you.

How the stars affect us
The stars influence your life only in accordance with patterns that you yourself established in the past. A child is born on that day and at that hour when the celestial rays are in mathematical harmony with his individual karma (past actions). The astrological configurations serve only as symbols of karmic influences, which you have set into motion in the past. The stars and planets themselves can no more choose how they will affect you than you can select your own karmic destiny.

The message boldly blazoned across the heavens at the moment of birth was not meant to emphasize fate, the result of past good and evil, but to arouse your will to escape from this universal bondage. What you have done, you can undo. You can overcome whatever effects are now prevalent in your life because you created them by your own actions in the first place, and because you have inner spiritual resources which are not subject to planetary pressure.

The best way, therefore, to improve your lot is deliberately to act in such a way as to counteract the evil effects of past deeds. Especially if this course of action springs from inner attunement with God, or is adopted under the wise guidance of one who knows God, it will serve as an antidote to all baneful actions of the past.

Avoid passive dependence on astrology
Superstition means to seek guidance from effects, in ignorance of their causes. Many people look to the heavens for signs instead of choosing the wiser path of seeking guidance in their souls, from God. Some people refuse to do anything for themselves until the planetary positions are favorable.

While it is not unwise to initiate worthwhile undertakings at astrologically auspicious times, it merely affirms your passive dependence on fate to wait for a shift in the planets’ positions before making important changes in your life. Anything you do with deep faith in God will blossom under better influences than you could hope to find by consulting the heavens for favorable aspects.

Do not wait for changes in astrological influences to change your destiny. Look, rather, to Him who made the heavens and the earth and who alone can grant you eternal freedom. The lawful effects of your karma may seem irrevocable, but the effects of past actions can be changed by seeking God. Unless you remember that, you can not spiritualize astrology.

How to spiritualize astrology
While studying astrology in a reasonable way, you must always remember that God’s influence is the supreme influence. All human ills arise from some transgression of universal law. The scriptures point out that man must satisfy the laws of nature, while not discrediting the divine omnipotence. You should always say, “Lord, I trust in Thee, and know Thou canst help me, but I too will do my best to undo any wrong I have done.”

You have been given the free choice and intelligence, as a child of God, to surmount the difficulties of life. You are made in the image of God, not in the image of the stars. Strive unceasingly, from a center of inner calmness, to surmount every material, mental, and spiritual difficulty. Cooperate with His will by offering up to Him all the strength of your human will.

If you can hold onto your happiness during all the difficulties in your life, then you will begin to rise above the influence of the stars. If you can retain your smile in spite of repeated challenges, that is a sign of the awakening of the consciousness of divinity within you. Through all such actions, you are changing your body and mind and how they are affecting the twelve centers in your spine. As a result of these changes, the stars will begin to smile upon you.

By communing with God, you will reinforce the power of the twelve spinal centers, which will then act in cooperation with the twelve signs of the zodiac. The deeper your communion with God, the more you will automatically harmonize the influences of all planetary forces and transcend the evil effects of the powerful, but distant, planets.  In these ways, you can spiritualize astrology.

Seek help, therefore, not from the stars and planets, but from Almighty God. God is harmony; and if you attune yourself to Him, you will never perform any action amiss. Your activities will be correctly and naturally timed to accord with astrological law. After deep prayer and meditation you are in touch with His divine consciousness; there is no greater power than that inward protection. By plunging deeply into your own divine nature, you will discover those deeper levels within yourself that enable you to rise above all karmic realities.

The masters go beyond astrology
Some people study astrology to ascertain the influence of their karma through the medium of planets, thus trying to counteract evil influences by astrological foreknowledge. But the great masters go beyond astrology. The man of realization does not choose any auspicious hour to perform noble deeds or initiate new wholesome ventures. He acts, moves, and sleeps under the one influence of God. He consults God instead of the stars for guidance.

Although there is a certain vibratory influence of stars upon all human lives, a man of infinite will power tuned in with God, uses his free will to change his circumstances. He marches on, influenced only by the Sun of all Suns, the Almighty Spirit. To him, from the depths of his determination and faith, all things are possible. He burns the seeds of difficulties in the fire of wisdom, consults only God for guidance, and performs all of his actions according to divine guidance.

Superstitious awe of astrology makes one an automaton, slavishly dependent on mechanical guidance. The wise man defeats his planets – which is to say, his past – by transferring his allegiance from the creation to the Creator. The more he realizes his unity with Spirit, the less he can be dominated by matter. The soul is ever-free; it is deathless because birthless. It cannot be regimented by stars.

If you live by astrology or anything else you will be bound by it. Depend wholly and solely on God. Live by God alone. Then nothing can hurt you.

Follow the way to inner freedom
In karma’s realm, karma rules supreme. Yet all human beings have the power to withdraw to another realm altogether. You cannot change the outer astrological influences, but you can do a great deal to change the way you receive them, inwardly.

Instead of accepting fatalistically the decrees of karma, follow the inner way to freedom. Meditate daily. Commune deeply with God. Learn from Him, through the silent voice of intuition, the way out of soul-degrading serfdom to bad habits. Ultimately, by ever deeper meditation, you will reach a point where you receive your influences from God alone.

From books and articles.

Related reading, Your Sun Sign as a Spiritual Guide by Swami Kriyananda, Crystal Clarity Publishers

The post How to Transcend Astrological Influences appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

A. Yes to both questions. We’ve known for some time that stress is a major factor in the onset or worsening of many diseases, but we now have solid scientific research identifying the main biological changes triggered by stress and explaining how they undermine the immune system’s function. There is also recent scientific research which shows that meditation is an important safeguard against stress-related diseases and that it can produce effects equal to standard medications.

Q. What are the main biological changes caused by stress?

Cortisol: a natural anti-inflammatory
A. One of the key scientific breakthroughs in the last decade is a better understanding of the role of cortisol, a hormone produced by the adrenal glands. Cortisol is our “stress hormone” and it plays a major part in how the body responds to stress.

Cortisol functions primarily as a natural anti-inflammatory. Because so many diseases are inflammation-based, nature has given us our own internal anti-inflammatory, which is cortisol. Some examples of diseases that have significant inflammation are asthma, pneumonia, rheumatoid arthritis, hepatitis-C, Crohn’s Disease, coronary heart disease, multiple sclerosis and other auto-immune disorders.

What we’re learning, however, is that prolonged stress decreases our body’s sensitivity to the anti-inflammatory effects of cortisol. In response to stress and to protect the body from inflammation (and ultimately disease), the adrenal glands make more cortisol.

However, what the scientific research shows is that when there is prolonged stress, although the body produces more and more cortisol to fight inflammation, even these highly elevated levels of cortisol no longer decrease inflammation. The result is what one scientific researcher describes as “runaway inflammation,” a serious condition which promotes the development and progression of many diseases.

The landmark April 2012 study
Q. Have there been any scientific studies showing exactly how prolonged stress affects cortisol’s ability to control inflammation?

A. Yes. There were studies in 2010 that found a correlation between high cortisol levels and high death rates in patients with acute coronary syndrome – an impending heart attack.

But the first study to show that prolonged stress effectively shuts down cortisol’s ability to control inflammation was published only last year, in April 2012.  Everything I’ve said so far about the new understanding of how elevated cortisol levels affect inflammation is based on the April 2012 study.

Q. Do you consider the April 2012 study a landmark study?

A. Yes. This study may be the “Rosetta Stone” (or key) for helping physicians understand why so many of the diverse diseases that we deal with in medicine are inflammation- based.

For example, if you ask most people and even some physicians what causes coronary artery disease – which is hardening of the arteries in the heart – they would probably say, “too much cholesterol.” However, the most recent studies show that coronary artery disease is an inflammatory disease of the cardiovascular system.

The substance we call “plaque” in the areas of hardening in the arteries consists mostly of scar tissue from the inflammatory process, mixed in with some cholesterol and calcium. Today there are cardiologists who, as part of their standard evaluation of a person at risk for cardiovascular disease, will measure what’s known as an “inflammatory reactive factor” (C-reactive protein) to see if there’s evidence of inflammation. When an inflammatory illness is present, whether cardiovascular disease, pneumonia or some other disease, C-reactive protein will be elevated.

To sum up: what happens with cortisol is very similar to what happens with diabetes. The most common form of diabetes is not caused by a lack of insulin; it’s caused by the body cells becoming insensitive to the higher levels of insulin produced to control blood sugar. Similarly, inflammation is not caused by a lack of cortisol; it’s caused by the body cells becoming insensitive to the higher levels of cortisol produced to control inflammation.

The real culprit of disease
Q. Do you need to see more research before you can form a definite opinion about the correlation between stress, inflammation, and disease?

A. No, I’m convinced the correlation exists and that science has uncovered the real culprit of disease. But the research is very recent and medical doctors are only beginning to understand that it has many implications. However, the new understanding of cortisol’s pivotal role in the disease process enables us to draw a lot of different threads together.

For example, such widely different diseases as fibromyalgia and acute coronary artery syndrome both stem from disorders in the body’s regulation of cortisol. Fibromyalgia, which affects primarily women, is an inflammatory disease caused by inadequate production of cortisol. We’ve already discussed how inflammatory diseases can occur when the body cells become insensitive to the highly elevated levels of cortisol. But we now know that inflammatory diseases can also occur when the body does not produce enough cortisol to control the level of inflammation caused by a disease, as in fibromyalgia.

One of our main therapies for fibromyalgia is sleep maintenance (encouraging 8-9 hours a night) because most of our cortisol production occurs naturally at night during sleep. Without that nightly cortisol surge, we would have low cortisol levels and be at a higher risk for a disease like fibromyalgia.

Meditation strengthens the immune system
Q. What has science learned about meditation’s ability to offset the disease-producing effects of prolonged stress?

A. A number of studies published in 2011 and 2012 show that meditation can actually reduce the activity of certain immune cell proteins linked directly to increased inflammation. In other words, the research suggests that meditation can reverse the inflammation effects associated with the highly elevated cortisol levels brought about by prolonged stress. This is a truly astounding discovery with broad implications!

Q. Is this the only study showing the effects of meditation on the immune system?

A. No, but it is the first study to show the beneficial effects of meditation on the inflammatory process that we now know causes most diseases.

Q. Can you tell us about the other studies of meditation’s effects on the immune system?

A. Yes. In 2008, there was what I consider also a landmark study though it did not focus on cortisol or inflammation. The research on the relationship of stress to cortisol levels, inflammation and disease is very recent. The 2008 study was done several years before that research was available.

This study involved two groups of people with HIV who were suffering from stress. The HIV virus attacks the cells known as CD4 T lymphocytes (often called CD4 T cells), which coordinate immune system activity when the body comes under attack by infection. The HIV virus slowly eats away at the CD4 T cells, gradually weakening the immune system. Psychological stress can accelerate CD4 T cell decline.

In the 2008 study, one HIV group participated in an 8-week mindfulness meditation stress-reduction program; the other group did not. The group in the meditation stress reduction program showed no loss of CD4 T cells during the 8-week period. The control group, by contrast, showed significant declines in CD4 T cells.

The immune system’s most important cells
Q. Can you explain in more detail why you consider this a “landmark” study?

A. The 2008 HIV study was the first to show one of the ways meditation affects the immune system. The CD4 T cells are the “brains” of the immune system. Because of this study, we now know that meditation directly impacts the immune system’s most important cells—and prevents their decline.

The lead HIV researcher commented on the far-reaching implication of this study: “Given the stress-reduction benefits of meditation training, these findings indicate there can be health protective effects not just in people with HIV but in folks who suffer from daily stress.”

Q. For meditation’s benefits on the immune system to be lasting, I assume there must be ongoing meditation?

A. Yes, that’s true. One early study showed that a single 20-minute meditation could significantly reduce the unhealthy oral bacteria in patients whose gum disease did not respond to standard dental treatments. Amazingly, that single meditation caused a reduction in unhealthy bacteria count which persisted well beyond 24 hours. For lasting effects, however, regular meditation is necessary.

The first long-term study of meditation
Q. Have there been any long-term studies of the effects of meditation on stress and disease?

A. Yes. The results of the first long-term study of meditation, which I consider another major breakthrough, were published in 2012. This study shows that meditating 20 minutes, one to two times a day, for ten years can significantly reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke in adults with heart disease.

For the 2012 study, researchers divided 200 adults with heart disease into two groups: one group was taught to meditate for twenty minutes twice a day; the other group was encouraged to spend a similar amount of time exercising and preparing healthy meals, activities which physicians usually recommend for patients with heart disease.

After nearly a decade, researchers found that those who had meditated for twenty minutes twice a day had reduced their risk of heart attack and stroke by 66% percent compared with those who hadn’t. The risk of heart attack and stroke for those who meditated twenty minutes a day eight times a week (essentially once a day) dropped by nearly 50%. The meditators also reduced their blood pressure and reported feeling better able to control their anger.

Most people today understand the importance of the kind of lifestyle changes that we now recommend routinely in medicine to improve health and reduce risk of premature death — better diet, more exercise, sufficient sleep, reduced stress. If we monitored people with heart disease who made these lifestyle changes over a ten-year period, they would have a lower risk of heart disease and stroke than people who don’t pay attention to these things.

But when, along with these normal lifestyle changes, people add in meditating for twenty minutes 8-14 times a week, they can reduce their risk of heart attack and stroke by an additional 50% to 66%.

A cornerstone of preventive health care
Q. Do you think these recent studies will encourage more physicians to recommend meditation?

A. Yes. I think meditation will become one of the cornerstones of good preventive healthcare along with a good diet with plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables; regular exercise; adequate sleep; and paying attention to stress levels by trying to lead a balanced life. Meditation is the last aspect of preventive health care that has not been adopted broadly as a therapeutic tool.

Q. Is there resistance in the profession to seeing meditation as a therapeutic tool?

A. Not nearly as much as there was even a decade ago. It’s become much more common to see meditation courses offered in hospitals for patients or training courses offered for physicians on how to teach patients to meditate in a short time. Physicians are becoming aware of the benefits of meditation, including its disease-prevention effects.

Peter Van Houten, a Lightbearer and resident of Ananda Village, is the founder and CEO of Sierra Family Medical Clinic near Ananda Village.

The post Meditation Protects You against Stress and Disease: The Latest Scientific Research appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

There are three stages to meditation: relaxation, concentration, and expansion. Each one is important and none can be neglected, especially if you want to achieve the deeper states that are possible.

Step One: Relaxation

Relaxing the body
The ability to relax the body at will is the vital first step for meditation. There is a feedback loop between the body and the mind. If the body is tense or restless, the mind will follow, and vice versa. Just observe the tension in your muscles the next time you are about to have a difficult meeting. We can use this feedback loop to our advantage—by relaxing physically, we will automatically start to relax mentally.

It is very helpful to do a few simple relaxation techniques before actually starting meditation. There are two easy yoga postures that will help prepare both the body and the mind: the Deep Yogic Breath and the Corpse Pose. Brief descriptions of these two techniques appear in Appendix A at the end of the article.

Relaxing the mind
Mental tension is caused primarily by worries –– either preoccupations about the past or anxieties and desires about the future. One of the most effective ways to relax the mind is to observe the breath. The science of controlling the mind through breathing techniques, called pranayama, is one of India’s great gifts to the world.

The word prana has three meanings: energy, life, and breath. Prana is used, first of all, to describe the universal sea of energy that infuses and vitalizes all matter. Every atom, molecule, and cell is an extension of prana, just as waves are extensions of the sea that lies beneath them.

Secondly, prana is used to mean the vitalizing power that flows in all living forms and performs vital functions. Paramhansa Yogananda called this aspect of prana “life-force.” He further explained that life-force possesses an inherent intelligence enabling it to carry out the life-sustaining processes. Underlying the physical body is a subtle or astral body made up of prana.

Finally, and very important to the science of yoga, prana is used to refer to the breath. When we take a physical breath, there is a corresponding movement of prana in the subtle or astral spine. Prana flows up in the astral spine in conjunction with the inhalation, and down with the exhalation. By controlling the breath, which is easily felt, we can influence the flow of prana, which is much more subtle and difficult to feel.

Regular and Alternate Breathing
Immediately after you have finished relaxing the various body parts, use Regular Breathing to relax the mind. This simple technique involves inhaling, holding the breath, and exhaling for the same number of counts.

Alternate Breathing, another simple breathing technique, is similar to Regular Breathing, except that the breath is inhaled through one nostril and exhaled through the other. Alternate Breathing is “cooling” to the nervous system and helps calm the mind because it works in harmony with the natural flows of magnetic energy in the body.

These two basic breathing exercises are extremely effective in stilling the thoughts. For one thing, they serve as a focal point for concentration, which breaks the momentum of mental tumult. But more importantly, these techniques work with subtle energies little understood in the West. More complete descriptions of these two techniques appear in Appendix A below.

Once the body and mind have been relaxed, we are ready to proceed to the second stage of meditation: concentration.

Step Two: Concentration

While concentration is helpful for success in any area, it is absolutely essential for meditation, which by definition requires deep concentration. A special kind of attention is needed in meditation, where the mind is focused on inward realities rather than on external objects.

In meditation, all of our scattered forces must be brought to a single point of concentration at the spiritual eye, which is located at the point between the eyebrows in the frontal part of the brain. This is the center of will and intuition, and the seat of superconsciousness or total awareness. Meditation is, in large part, a conscious redirection of the outward flowing life-force in an upward and expansive direction. By concentrating at the point between the eyebrows, we automatically create a magnetism that draws the energy upward.

There are a number of practices that help us concentrate and interiorize the mind. The relaxation and breathing techniques we have already discussed will start the process. But yogis have developed more powerful techniques to help us focus mental energy. Three of the most powerful are watching the breath, chanting, and visualization.

Watching the breath
After relaxing both body and mind, you need a focal point for concentration. This focal point is the breath. Begin by taking a deep breath, followed by a triple exhalation to expel the air completely. Then mentally watch the natural flow of the inhalation and exhalation but make no effort to control them in any way.

To help deepen your concentration you can use a powerful word formula, or mantra, called Hong Sau, which is especially effective for calming the flow of prana in the spine. Silently repeat Hong (rhymes with “song”) with the incoming breath and Sau (sounds like “saw”) with the exhalation.

If the mind wanders, immediately bring it back to concentrating on the breath. This is very important. One of the problems with a wandering mind is that, without a reference point, we don’t have an easy way to recognize that it has wandered. The breath gives us that point. Any thought or mental image other than observing the breath can now be recognized as being a distraction.

As the breath becomes calmer, gradually feel it higher and higher in the nostrils until you are watching it high up in the nasal cavity. It may take some minutes to get calm and centered enough to feel the breath there.

Now you can transfer your concentration from the flow of the breath to the point between the eyebrows, the spiritual eye. By concentrating at this point and keeping your attention from wandering, you gradually bring the flow of prana under control, enabling you to interiorize it.

Total interiorization of the mind
The key to success with the Hon Sau technique is to deepen your concentration at the spiritual eye until you no longer think of anything except the rhythmic flow of the breath. As the breath and life-force begin to calm down, the mind is naturally able to concentrate more deeply. Deeper concentration brings about an even greater calming of the breath and life force, allowing yet deeper focusing of the mind.

The final stage of this cycle is the complete withdrawal of life-current from the body and the senses, and total interiorization of the mind. In very deep meditation the prana becomes completely focused at the spiritual eye, and the body’s need for oxygen and breath ceases.

You can think of the Hong Sau technique as a kind of bridge allowing a shift from the more physical aspects of our being, represented by the breath, to a calm inward focus. Normally the technique of watching the breath should take up about a quarter of your meditation. Without concentration, which helps interiorize the life-force, any time spent supposedly meditating is largely ineffective.

Other methods of concentration and interiorization
There are three more methods of achieving a state of deep concentration. The first, chanting, works with the verbalizing function of the mind.

• Chanting: Paramhansa Yogananda often said, “Chanting is half the battle.” We will make little progress on the spiritual path until we can direct the natural love of the heart toward higher realities, and chanting is one of the very best ways to awaken spiritual fervor. Chanting also helps direct and focus the mind by giving us a clear focal point for our thoughts.

• Visualization: Visualization bypasses the verbalizing functions of the brain and therefore helps enormously to focus and calm the mind. One of the best things to visualize is simply the face, and especially the eyes of Jesus, Yogananda, or another saint that might be dear to you. Try to see them clearly so that they are alive within your mind.

• Chanting AUM at the chakras: Chanting AUM mentally at each of the chakras has a powerful, interiorizing effect. Start at the coccyx center, at the base of the spine, and slowly work your way up, mentally chanting AUM at each chakra. Pause and concentrate briefly at the point between the eyebrows, then slowly work your way down, again mentally chanting AUM at each chakra. Do several rounds of this, ending the final round at the spiritual eye.

Don’t let go of techniques too soon
Techniques that concentrate and interiorize the mind will normally take up the greater part of a meditation. With the mind deeply concentrated and interiorized, you can now go on to the next stage of meditation, expansion, in which you focus on inner realities. At least the final quarter of your meditation should be spent in silent inner communion with your own higher Self and God.

Step Three: Expansion

The final stage of meditation is the expansion of consciousness. In fact, until we reach this stage, we are not truly meditating.

In his book, Metaphysical Meditations, Yogananda writes, “Meditation is not the same as concentration. Concentration consists in freeing the attention from objects of distraction and focusing it on one thing at a time. Meditation is that special form of concentration in which the attention has been liberated from restlessness and is focused on God.”

This distinction is vital. Concentration, a mental faculty, can simply increase the ego and therefore lead us further into delusion. True meditation, on the other hand, involves the superconscious and will always lead us toward truth. The final stage of meditation requires that we hold our attention on some aspect of the Infinite — Light, Love, Joy, Peace, Calmness, Sound, Wisdom, or Power.

We might think of these traits as being qualities of a vast sea. Concentration techniques get us to the shore of the sea, but deep meditation requires that we enter the sea and eventually merge with it.

After finishing the preliminary techniques of concentration, spend some time immersing yourself in whichever of these eight qualities most attracts you. True meditation is deep concentration or absorption in any of these qualities. Those who have found a guru might meditate on God as He manifests through that soul, or through one of His saints. Try to draw the consciousness of the master or saint into your own.

Whether communing with God in an impersonal or personal form, try to dissolve all sense of individuality and separation. Become one with the object of your meditation! Hold this expansive state of consciousness for as long as you can. This state of total absorption will seem perfectly natural, when it happens, because we are merging back into our own soul nature.

The ultimate state of expansion
The ultimate state of expansion is known as samadhi in Sanskrit. In this state you no longer perceive any sense of separation between yourself and the Infinite. You do not merely think, but know, that everything in creation is an expression of one Infinite Consciousness, of which you are a part.

******

Try always to keep your meditations fresh, energetic, and intuitive. Too little use of techniques will result in shallow meditations, but too much routine can make your meditations dry. Try to find the balance that brings you the most joy. Increasing inner joy is the truest hallmark of deepening meditation.

From How to Meditate by Jyotish Novak, Crystal Clarity Publishers.

Nayaswamis Jyotish and Devi are Acharyas (spiritual directors) for Ananda Worldwide. Nayaswami Jyotish is also Acharya for the Ananda Sevaka Order, worldwide.

Appendix A

Relaxing the Body

Deep/Full Yogic Breath
Begin by standing upright, arms at the sides. Close your eyes and feel centered in the spine. Breathe slowly and deeply from the diaphragm. Now slowly bend forward, keeping the knees relaxed.

Exhale slowly and completely as you bend forward, allowing your body to come down only as far as is comfortable and your hands to relax toward your feet. Pause and relax for a few seconds in this position. Now inhale slowly as you raise the torso. As the inhalation continues and your body slowly comes upright, draw the hands up along the sides of the body, elbows extended outward. With the incoming breath, feel that you are drawing not only air, but also energy and life-force, into every cell of the body and brain. Continue inhaling and raising the trunk and arms, finally stretching the hands high above the head, inhaling as completely as possible. Hold this position for a few seconds, then slowly exhale and relax into the forward bend again.

Repeat three or four times. End by exhaling into the original standing position with the arms at the sides.

The Corpse Pose (Savasana)
The Corpse Pose helps withdraw all tension from the muscles. It is both the simplest and yet one of the most difficult of all the yoga postures. Physically it is extremely easy. The difficulty is that to practice it to perfection one must relax totally—not an easy thing for most people.

Lie flat on your back with your legs extended, feet slightly apart, and your arms along the sides of your body. The body should be properly aligned, with the head, neck, trunk, and legs in a straight line. It is best to have the palms turned upward to help to induce a feeling of receptivity.

After assuming this position, begin a systematic relaxation of the whole body. Start by ridding the body of unconscious tension: first, tense the body to increase the tension and then relax completely. There is a special “double breath” which helps oxygenate the system and remove toxins. It is done by inhaling through the nose with a short inhalation followed immediately by a longer one, in a huh/huuuuhh rhythm. The exhalation with a double breath is through both the nose and mouth with the same short/long rhythm.

Inhale deeply with a double breath, tense the whole body until it vibrates, then throw the breath out in a double exhalation and relax the body by releasing the tension. Stay relaxed for a few seconds and then do practice the double breath again, three to six times, trying to relax your whole body after each round. You can follow this with a deep relaxation of the various body parts, starting with the feet. It may help to think of the area being relaxed as filling with space and growing very light. Gradually work your way up the body.

Relaxing the Mind

Regular Breathing. Inhale slowly, counting to 8, 10, 12, or higher, hold the breath for the same number of counts while concentrating at the point between the eyebrows, then slowly exhale for the same number of counts.

Alternate Breathing is similar to Regular Breathing, except that the breath is inhaled through one nostril and exhaled through the other. Close the right nostril with the thumb of the right hand and inhale through the left nostril for a count of 8, 10, 12, or higher. Then, gently squeeze both nostrils shut for the same count, using the thumb for one nostril and ring finger for the other. Then, keeping the left nostril closed with the ring finger, exhale through the right nostril.

The post Three Steps to Deepening Your Meditations appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

Alone in nature and worry-free
Last summer I decided I would take a day of seclusion and go backpacking at Grouse Ridge, a beautiful camping area in the Tahoe National Forest, not far from Ananda Village. I was looking forward to being alone in nature, where I could enjoy life, worry-free. As I was driving up there, I was chanting and already feeling blissful.

It was August and the road up to Grouse Ridge usually opens in June, but the previous winter there had been nearly two hundred percent of the usual snowfall. My destination was the parking lot outside the campground. I hadn’t been on the road long when I saw lots of cars and trucks parked by the side of the road. Since there was no place to turn around, I continued on and was soon driving on a snow-covered road and, after that, through snow banks. My twenty-seven-year-old Ford truck was not the ideal vehicle for these conditions and I became concerned.

Nonetheless, I managed to make it all the way to the parking lot. There was not a car in sight, which was not a good sign. After parking my truck, I put on my backpack and started hiking.

Fighting the worry habit
Right away the worries started: “How do I get back through those snow banks? You know, it was downhill driving in. How are you going to get back, driving uphill? Oh it’s okay. We’ll worry about that tomorrow. No you don’t worry about that tomorrow! How are you going to get out? You’re going to get stuck. You could be here forever. You are going to have to hitchhike out. You’re going to miss work on Monday. You’re going to have to come back and get your truck!”

The worries continued until finally, I said, “No! I’m here for seclusion. I don’t want to do this!” Mentally I offered my concerns to God and Guru and prayed for their assistance to get me home the next day. As I hiked, I chanted, which calmed my chattering mind. Later, when I sat to meditate, I willed myself to focus on the techniques and, for a while, experienced the peace and calmness of meditation. But as soon as my mind started to drift, the little nagging voice came back: “You know you’re not going to get out!” When I finally got to sleep, I was dreaming about going through snow banks.

The next morning, I hiked back to the truck and looked at the snow banks. They weren’t quite as bad as my mind had suggested. I thought, “Okay, let’s go for it!” I made it out with no problem, but the worry habit of my mind had put a damper on my seclusion.

The antidote to worry
I had learned a valuable lesson. I realized that my worry habit reflected the mistaken notion that by thinking and fretting about the “critically important details” I had to juggle in my job, I would somehow make the situation better. But worry pulls the mind down into “problem-consciousness,” which offers no solutions. The antidote to worry is raising one’s consciousness through chanting, meditation, and offering the situation back to God.

For me, daily meditation has brought increasing non-attachment and a greater awareness of my wrong attitudes and habits, and how best to transcend them. With greater non-attachment, I am less bound by habit and am gradually gaining the discrimination to choose how I respond to the challenges in my life.

An explosion of anger
I’m not usually an angry person but I recently had a very interesting experience involving anger. At Ananda Village we had a voice mail system for a number of years which worked very well and enabled us to do many useful things. But we decided to change to a new one. There were some very good reasons for this change, but the new voice mail system was not, in my opinion, as well conceived as the old one. It gave us options to do things we didn’t need, and it was difficult to do some of the important things we needed to do. I found it frustrating.

Anger is born of frustrated desire. I had a desire to be able to communicate more easily than the new phone system allowed, and that desire was being thwarted. Unbeknownst to me, inside I was getting angry.

Our phone administrator decided to hold a class for those of us having difficulties with the new phone system. As soon as he walked in the room I “shot” him with my anger, and started ranting about “who programmed this thing?” Fortunately, he remained calm and I was able to take a step back and observe myself getting sucked into the anger that had been lurking just beneath the surface. All of us in the room were regular meditators. No one fed the anger and calmness was quickly restored.

The phone class taught me a number of ways I could bypass the aspects of the new system I found frustrating. The experience also taught me an important spiritual lesson. I don’t consider myself an angry person, but if we have certain kinds of desires and those desires are thwarted, we will become angry.

Why people recoil from the world
Fear is another emotion that uses up a lot of bandwidth on our channels. Paramhansa Yogananda said, “People recoil from the world because of fear; they don’t want to engage because they want to protect themselves from all those problems that are coming up.” He said, “It’s our religious duty to embrace every problem that is coming to us that demands a solution because it has been given to us by life for our own growth.”

Courage is the antidote to the fear. We have to be strong and say, “Whatever comes I am going to be happy!” My wife and I recently visited a devotee in Mexico, whom I will call Antonio, who has this kind of courage. For five or six years, Antonio has been in charge of an Ananda meditation group in a small town on the tropical coast of Mexico.

From the moment Antonio discovered Ananda five or six years ago, he was on fire for the spiritual path. He started the meditation group practically single-handedly, and thereafter supported nearly every aspect of the group’s activities, not only spiritually but also financially. As often happens with meditation groups, people came and went, and Antonio had to work very hard to keep the group going. My wife and I have visited him a number of times.

An abrupt change of fortunes
Antonio is a very successful architect and also a contractor. However, last year was a very difficult year for him — he lost nearly everything he owned. First his computers were stolen from his office. A short time later his office was burglarized again and nearly all of his equipment, including his truck, was stolen.

Around the time of the second burglary, Antonio was renovating a house for a woman. During the renovation, one of Antonio’s workers opened up a wall and found a box of jewelry worth about one hundred thousand dollars, which the woman had hidden there.  The worker absconded with the jewelry and, when the woman found out, she blamed Antonio for the loss. She sued Antonio and refused to pay him for the work he had done on her house. His business was ruined.

Antonio was forced to take a job working six days a week with his brother, providing safety services at the local steel mill. He is in debt and struggling, but when we asked him how he was doing, he said, “I’m doing well. I am much closer to Divine Mother and the meditation group is much stronger. I have no money and no ability to do what I used to do, but I am closer to God and stronger.” The meditation group is stronger because Antonio could no longer carry the entire spiritual and financial responsibility for the group. He attracted the people he needed to keep the group going.

Antonio attributes his ability to transcend a test of this magnitude to his faith in God and Guru and his practice of Kriya Yoga. He wasn’t certain what karma had brought on his abrupt change of fortunes but his familiarity with the teachings of Paramhansa Yogananda, and his deep faith, enabled him to remain unwavering in his spiritual commitment.

With courage we can embrace whatever comes to us. How do we reach the point of courage, acceptance, and non-attachment that Antonio reached? There are three key steps:

Step one: We first have to become aware of the attitudes, habits, and vortices of likes and dislikes that pull our consciousness down. When we become aware of them, we can start leaving them behind.

Step two: The second step is to aspire to live by God’s will, and not by our own desires and attachments. This means calling on God and asking for guidance in every situation involving a choice. We need to do everything with God, and after we’re finished, to give the results back to him. When we aspire to live by God’s will, no matter how imperfectly we do that, we begin to break the hold of ego.

Step three: The third step is to keep the consciousness of infinity. When we think of the omnipresent nature of God, or of the existence of billions of galaxies, or of the 24,000-year yuga cycle, we get the right sense of proportion and our problem with the new phone system seems pretty small.

Ultimately, we must strive to leave behind all wrong attitudes and replace them with devotion and other God-reminding attitudes and practices. We are already one with that Infinitude. When we get rid of bad attitudes and habits, we will realize that truth.

Based on a May 5, 2012 Sunday Service at Ananda Village.

Atman and his wife Bhaktimarg are Lightbearers who have lived at Ananda Village since 1992. He currently serves as Ananda Village Manager in charge of planning and the day-to-day operations of the community.

The post How to Overcome Worry, Anger, and Fear appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

Walking to his home, the sailor passed a pet store. He looked in the window there for a long time, and then went inside and used all of his money to buy as many caged birds as possible. He took the birds outside and, one by one, opened the doors of the cages and let all of the birds fly away. Someone later asked him, “How could you spend all your money to free those birds?” The sailor said, “After experiencing prison myself, I couldn’t stand to see those birds in prison.

A pathway to inner freedom
This story was told by an Indian saint as a metaphor for the Guru. The Guru is one who was once imprisoned by his desires and attachments and long ago freed himself from those bonds. When he sees us imprisoned by desires and attachments, he says, “I can’t bear to see you in prison. I’ll do anything to free you.” Thus the Guru returns to the world, not once but many times, and having found the path that leads to freedom, he creates a pathway for us through his teachings, techniques, and the soul vibrations of one united with God. He says, “Follow my pathway and attune to me.”

Paramhansa Yogananda would often say to his disciples, “Practice the techniques. I can help you through the techniques.” He said that without spiritual techniques, it is very difficult to develop the inner power needed to find God – the mind tends to scatter too much.

Swami Kriyananda describes a time, early in his life as a disciple, when for a year and a half, he hated doing Kriya Yoga, one of the most important techniques brought by Yogananda. But he continued to practice Kriya Yoga faithfully because, as he put it, he had no other choice if he wanted to stay in tune with his Guru. By practicing Kriya Yoga despite his reluctance, Kriyananda gradually emerged from that difficult period more in tune with the technique itself, more deeply in tune with Yogananda, and much deeper in his spiritual life.

How we push the Guru away
Paramhansa Yogananda often said to the disciples who came to him for training, “Stay in tune with me so I can help you.” Toward the end of Yogananda’s life, there was the kind of “house cleaning” which often occurs at the end of a Guru’s life –– quite a few disciples, including some of the monks, began leaving the ashram. Kriyananda was in charge of the monks and as he saw monks who had once been deeply dedicated to the spiritual search begin to leave, he became very concerned, even frightened, about his own vulnerability: Would he also leave?

During a satsang with Yogananda, Kriyananda was feeling a desperate need for his Guru’s reassurance that he would not leave the path. When he looked at Yogananda for reassurance, Yogananda looked at him and smiled encouragingly. Despite his Guru’s smile, Kriyananda continued praying desperately, “Master, don’t let me leave, don’t let me leave.” Yogananda never looked at him again that evening.

Later, meditating on what happened during the satsang, Kriyananda realized that through his desperation, he had actually pushed his Guru away. Yogananda had smiled at him saying, “It’s okay,” but Kriyananda, because of his emotional turmoil, had not able to receive Yogananda’s reassurance.

I had a much less dramatic experience that illustrates this same point about receptivity. While in a store and considering whether or not to buy something I thought might be useful spiritually, I rather desperately wanted to know if my Guru approved of this purchase. Standing in the aisle, I silently prayed to Yogananda, “Master, should I buy this or not? What do you want me to do? I want to do the right thing.” I repeated these questions over and over, but no answer came. Fortunately, at some point, I remembered Yogananda’s promise: “Stay in tune with me so I can help you.”

I realized that I would never get an answer because, in my agitated state of mind, I was not even remotely on Yogananda’s wavelength. So I centered myself by focusing at the spiritual eye, waited until I could feel the Guru’s presence within, and then asked the question. The answer was obvious.

Attunement: harmony and devotion
Swami Kriyananda once gave a very simple answer to the question: “What is attunement?” He said attunement is harmony. When there is any kind of emotional turmoil — Kriyananda’s desperate need for reassurance or my angst about the purchase I was considering — inner harmony is lacking. How do we develop and maintain the inner harmony that makes us receptive to the Guru’s blessings?

Swami Kriyananda, in his autobiography, The New Path, has included an entire chapter on attunement. I was living at Ananda Village in the 1970s when Kriyananda was writing the book, and because of how that particular chapter was written, I’ve always tried to tune into it. In those days before computers, his then secretary, Asha Praver, would go to his house each day to pick up what he had written and type it up at her office. When she went to Kriyananda’s house the day he finished the chapter on attunement, she found him in a state of great exhilaration because, as he told her at the time, “The chapter just wrote itself.” It didn’t come out at all as he had planned.

In that chapter, Kriyananda discusses negativity as the biggest obstacle to attunement. He describes a time when he became caught in negativity by associating with a certain group of monks, and by being drawn into their negative criticisms of how some of the more senior disciples were running the main office. When the monks took it upon themselves to reprimand the “erring” senior disciples, Yogananda upbraided the entire group, but directed most of his criticism at Kriyananda, probably because he knew that Kriyananda was the only one who would stay on as a disciple. When Kriyananda later apologized, Yogananda told him he needed to develop more devotion. Explaining, Kriyananda writes:

Our “bondage” to Master was a bond purely of love. When love was missing on a disciple’s part, the bond broke, or was never formed…. In heeding the negative criticisms of my older brother disciples I had fallen — from what had seemed to me good motives — into judgmental attitudes, forever inimical to love.

Devotion insulates us from negativity by lifting our energy inward and upward in ever-increasing love of God and Guru. For attunement with the Guru, an attitude of deep, loving receptivity is essential.

Be patient with yourself
At a recent astral ascension service, Swami Kriyananda described the devotee who had passed on as being without flaw and “free.” How do we reach the point of perfection where we are totally without flaws?

First and foremost, we need to understand that the spiritual path is not a straight shot upward to that state of perfection. During my first months at Ananda Village, I had great meditations and I thought, “Wow, at this rate, God-realization in three years. I just know it!” But it didn’t turn out that way. A lot of times instead of going up the mountain, we’re going down and we can’t even remember where the peak was. We hit some of those walls of pain, confusion, or stress and we can’t maintain the same level of intensity in our spiritual practices.

But the Guru is always working on us in a profoundly transformational way. And if we stay connected to the Guru and try to be in tune, however poorly we’re doing it, he will still help us. We start over and we keep going.

A devotee friend of mine is a very quiet person, very inward, loves to meditate and had always led a very quiet life. Then she had a child and her life became very busy, and she wasn’t meditating very much at all. She thought, “Am I never going to find God?” She had a dream in which she was on a bus going to Jefferson City, the capitol of Missouri, which to her mind represented spiritual freedom. But the bus was going incredibly slowly. It was making stop after stop. She said to herself, “I could walk to Jefferson City faster than this. I’m going to get off this bus and walk. I could even jog a little. And I’m sure I can beat this bus.”

So she got off the bus and instantly she was lost – completely lost. She had no idea where she was. Then she said, “Oh I get it. I’ve got to get back on that bus because no matter how slowly it goes, I know it’s going to get there.”

And that is our journey. We have to keep ourselves attuned because the Guru knows what will make each one of us free. It will be different for each of us — we can’t compare ourselves with anyone else. We just have to say, “I will trust the Guru and link myself with him because he is someone who has found the freedom I am seeking.”

Stand in the presence of the Guru
I would like to share something that you can use as a visualization. After Sister Gyanamata, Yogananda’s most advanced woman disciple, met Yogananda in Seattle she didn’t see him again for a long time. To deepen her attunement with him, she would visualize Yogananda and mentally stand in front of him. She would attune to his vibrations flowing into her.

This is a wonderful practice! Any time you feel troubled or simply want to lift your consciousness, think of Yogananda standing in front of you. Tune in to the pure love and joy that flow from him. Feel yourself bathed in his love and lifted toward his state of communion with God.

From an August 21, 2012 talk at Ananda Village.

Nayaswami Anandi teaches at The Expanding Light guest retreat at Ananda Village. She is a founding member of Ananda, a Kriyacharya, and was initiated into the Nayaswami Order in 2009. She also works as an editor for Crystal Clarity, Publishers. She is married to Nayaswami Bharat.

The post Living in the Presence of the Guru appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

People nowadays scoff at this as “superstition.” My Guru said it is a mistake to do so. It is, he said, important not only to draw what we can from nature, but also to give back to it, by praying to God through those subtle entities, and by loving and showing them gratitude. It is an error to treat them as though they had no existence. In seizing what we can only for ourselves, we withdraw ourselves from nature’s abundance. When we do that, nature, in return, withdraws her abundance.

Famines, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and other natural disasters are on the increase these days. My Guru said it is because of the growing disharmony in people’s hearts. Everything in the universe is conscious. Man, being more conscious than the lower forms of life, has a powerful influence on his environment and, in the aggregate, on the planet. When people live in harmony with one another and with nature, all good things flourish. When people live in disharmony, however, they starve themselves of divine energy. Our planet then reacts with outrage.

******

In meditation, picture to yourself a large garden in the springtime. Flowers abound everywhere. Alas, they feel the coldness of human selfishness and greed. Even though the weather has been growing warmer, the flowers keep their buds tightly closed.

Now, pass mentally among them. Instead of demanding that they open their buds, so that you may enjoy their beauty, smile at them with warm sympathy. Mentally breathe on each of them, offering them your kindness and love. Watch now: See how, wherever you pass, the petals open in gratitude for your love and good will.

Develop an attitude of generous giving. Don’t take from life, selfishly. All nature, now, is responding to your love. Feel love for everything, and feel your love expanding like a roseate cloud, blessing and bringing everything joyfully to life.

You and all life are one. You and infinite life forever share together, dancing in rhythms of perpetual laughter and love.

Affirmation
“I am one with all life! I am one with all Nature. We are all dancing together in God’s joy.”

From Material Success through Yoga Principles, Lesson 11 (Currently out of print).

The post A Practice to Heal the Planet appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

He met many saints, whom he questioned as to where he could find such a god-guru. After a strenuous search, he found that all the saints he met gave him the names of the same three forms of God– Brahma, Shiva, and Vishnu, who was then incarnated as Krishna—and assured him that one of them was sure to be the right one.

Saint Bhrigu heard that Brahma could create anything, that Shiva could destroy anything, and that Krishna (Vishnu) could preserve anything from annihilation, for they represented the creative, destructive, and preservative principles active in all creation.

Bewildered as to who was the humblest and greatest of the three, Bhrigu conceived an unusual plan to test them. His great powers, gained through meditation, enabled him to leave his body and find God, in the form of Brahma, on the astral plane. Without much ceremony of introduction,  he began to criticize him in a very disrespectful manner. “Hey, Brahma, what is the matter with you? Why don’t you stand up and greet me when I come?”

Brahma was astonished at the audacity of this mortal man and retorted, “Do you know to whom you are talking?” “Yes sir,” said Bhrigu, “of course, I know that I am talking to that despicable God who is the creator of vermin, plagues, mosquitoes, diseases, criminals, and all ugly things in creation. Why don’t you reform yourself and create only good things?” Brahma was beside himself with wrath and threateningly replied, “Get back to earth before I convert you into a stone by the gorgon gaze of my will.”

Saint Bhrigu laughed at him and left, saying, “Oh no, you cannot hate me or make me into a stone, for God and I are One.” Brahma suddenly awoke from his error and apologized. Bhrigu said, “I forgive you Brahma, but I am disappointed not to have found in you what I hoped to find.”

Bhrigu then repaired to Shiva, who was getting ready to meditate on all the things beyond their prime that must be brought to an end. As soon as Bhrigu’s eye met Shiva’s gaze, the saint shouted savagely, “Hey Shiva, you grand cosmic killer. Why don’t you stop shattering worlds, murdering innocent babies, and inventing ingenious death-dealing devices? Why don’t you cease destroying the beautiful and useful things of the earth and get busy annihilating the wicked things?

Shiva could not believe his ears –– that a mortal man like Saint Bhrigu could be so audacious in his speech. Shiva shouted, “Shut up, or I will reduce you to ashes with the burning magnetism of my spiritual eye.” Saint Bhrigu derisively retorted, “Fine. Use you your spiritual eye. Go ahead. I dare you to burn up the God in me, you grand killer!”

Shiva, who had been nearly paralyzed with anger, became speechless at the awakening words of Saint Bhrigu, who soon melted away from his sight, saying, “Oh, what a disappointment you are.”

At last, almost despairing because he could not find the world’s most humble God, Saint Bhrigu skeptically resorted to the third God—Vishnu, who controlled the preserving principle of the cosmos. But this time he stayed on earth and sought out the prophet Krishna, in whom these great powers were manifesting. Saint Bhrigu found Krishna sound asleep on a sofa in his palace. He stood there for a moment observing the halo of peace radiating from Krishna’s face. Then, unable to think of any way to test him, in a fit of emotion Saint Bhrigu kicked Krishna on the chest, shouting, “You sleeping fool. Wake up. See who is here.”

Krishna awakened with the sweetest, most loving smile and immediately embraced the foot Saint Bhrigu was using to kick him. While massaging his foot, he said gently, “Ah, my lord Bhrigu, is your foot hurt?”

Saint Bhrigu, beside himself with both remorse and joy, cried out, “I have found him. I have found him. O Krishna, thou art the world’s most humble being, even as God is. Thou art, O Krishna, the greatest, the most humble form of God. You can teach me. I accept you as my Guru. Will you accept me?” And Krishna accepted Bhrigu as his disciple.

Now, dear friends, you realize that if you want to know the greatest of all beings, our God, you must be humble, for the humble man makes an altar for God in himself, and establishes his altar of humility in the heart of everyone he meets.

From the 1934 Praecepta Lessons.

The post The Most Humble God appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

Dear__________

Much of our daily life is spent in work or in other outward activities. Our minds may often become engrossed in what we are doing at the expense of the thought of God. We must somehow discipline ourselves to carry at least the feeling of His presence into everything we do.

How is this to be arranged? I think the simple advice, “Do it,” is not enough. Some sort of exercise is needed to help us form the habit.

In the early years of his work, Paramhansa Yogananda conducted early morning group meditations at his Mt. Washington headquarters. After each such meditation, so one of his early disciples recalls, he would lead the disciples out of doors to sweep the walks. And he would urge them, as they swept, to continue in the thought of God. In this mild activity it was comparatively easy for them to practice God’s presence. Having once established the habit of feeling the divine presence outside of their meditations, it was easier for them to carry it into the more strenuous daily labors that followed.

I think we should follow on our own the training Yogananda prescribed for the disciples in those early years. We should start our practice of sharing every thought, every labor with God by first thinking of Him during uninvolving activities—those requiring little concentration or physical effort, such as sweeping the walks, strolling quietly, or mopping the floor. During such unexacting occupations, we should make every mental effort to bring the Lord into our motions. As we are able to do so, we shall gradually develop the habit of bringing Him into all our activities—even into those requiring great effort of body or concentration of mind.

Let us suppose you go for a walk. Try mentally to share every movement, every sense impression, every thought, with Divine Mother. Ordinarily we may consider most of our thoughts and impressions too trivial to share with God. But that is how we cut ourselves off from Him. We must sense Him in every thought, in every feeling.

If, therefore, as you walk, you hear a whistle blowing at a downtown factory, or a bird singing nearby, or a car passing on the road outside the colony, try to let Divine Mother in on this little experience. If you see a tree waving gently with the breeze, or notice the golden sunlight on a palm branch, share these impressions of sight with Divine Mother. As you feel your body walking, feel Divine Mother walking through you. And every thought that passes through your mind, try to remember to share it with Her.

If you share my experience during this practice, you will presently begin to feel that there is one great sea of Life underlying everything. The whistle’s blowing and the bird’s singing will seem to carry some special message from Divine Mother for you! How beautiful those sounds will seem then! The waving tree, the sunlight, will seem to be means Divine Mother uses to signal something of a very personal nature—to you! How lovely those sights! Your body will no longer feel like your body. It will be Her body. For somehow you won’t seem to have a separate existence anymore. You will be just another whistle note, bird call, or spot of morning sunlight on a vast sea in which Divine Mother is the Sole Reality. How inexpressibly close She will seem then!

Later, as you work, you may find that it is a long time before the feeling of Her presence subsides. Alas, it probably will subside—at least on most days. That is why we must renew our practice daily. But in time, so Yogananda promised us, we shall find God with us always. May that day come soon!

In divine friendship,

Swami Kriyananda

Related reading: In Divine Friendship by Swami Kriyananda, Crystal Clarity Publishers.

The post How to Grow Closer to God in a Busy Life appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

Every evening before going to sleep, mentally build a bonfire to destroy some aspects of your life you have created around your ego.

First night: Think of all your possessions: your house (if you have one); your furniture; your clothing; your jewels; your kitchen; your books and recordings. Throw these into the fire one by one, until all of them are consumed. Meditate on your freedom, not on your loss.

Second night: Offer into the fire your attachment to home and country; to any racial identity that you fee; to every kind of membership, including church (remember, God alone is the truth; He is beyond all definitions of truth); to any belief with which you feel yourself too firmly identified.

Third night: Offer into the flames every desire you expect others to fulfill for you; even such things as their consideration and respect.

Fourth night: Offer up all pride of pedigree, of position, of skill in anything, of respect from others. You are so much more than any of these. Why limit yourself to such petty self-definitions?

Fifth night: Try to offer up every self-definition, including gender, age, nationality, race, job, and ability.

Sixth night: Offer up every expectation of life: of what you hope to receive from others; from your work place; from your family; from your friends; from everyone you meet. Don’t be a slave to others’ willingness to give you anything. You are the master of your own self; you need nothing and no one

Seventh night: Cast into the fire, finally, your own ego; your very sense of human identity; your sense that you are separate from anyone or anything else. Your true identity is that of a wave on the great ocean of Spirit.

The post A Powerful Tool for Developing Non-Attachment appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

In Divine Friendship is a book to read slowly and meditatively. For of course these letters are addressed not only to individual seekers, asking help with individual questions and tests, but universally to all sincere seekers in need of answers to their deeper concerns. We who read Kriyananda’s letters, if we read humbly and receptively, can find answers to our own unasked questions, or can bring our deeper concerns into the light, and in doing so, strengthen our inner magnetism to attract the guidance we are ready for.

At the heart of his advice
As I worked my way through the book, the thread that I found most moving was that of the book’s title: “divine friendship.” Underlying each letter is Kriyananda’s friendship in God for those he addresses. The same divine friendship is at the heart of any advice he gives. Here, for example, is his response to a call for help in dealing with a judgmental attitude – judgment of others or of oneself, avowedly one of the most pernicious tests for the devotee. Kriyananda’s suggestion:

Try to develop a God’s eye view of things – to see others as divine sparks that are trying to merge back into the Infinite Fire, instead of leaping out of the fire as many sparks do. Then there will be no sense of judgment, but only an acceptance of them as they are, and of seeing them, with love, as they might be. Love them as a divine friend, and do what you can, even if only mentally, to help them to know who they really are: expressions, like yourself, of the Infinite Lord.

The more deeply we read, the more we relax in Kriyananda’s presence. He is our divine friend, and we are – and can become ever more perfectly – his as well. Kriyananda writes of his own role:

I am only my Guru’s instrument. His power is much greater than mine, though I am aware that through me people have come closer to him…. I am your friend. What I aspire to be is a channel for the only true Friend any of us will ever have: God alone. I see each of you, too, as channels above all for my Infinite Friend.

A reciprocal relationship is the essence of divine friendship, however. “Toward God Himself,” he writes, “there is the beginning of a right relationship when we offer ourselves back to Him lovingly, and when we don’t seek merely to receive passively.”

Profound compassion and intuitive understanding
A profound compassion and intuitive understanding inform Kriyananda’s writing. Over a lifetime of discipleship he has perfected the ability to open a clear channel with his readers—one that allows his Guru’s teachings to flow through with grace and power.

The letters grouped under “Marriage and Renunciation” penetrate to the divine center of what are commonly called “relationships” – the longing for romance that is really the soul’s longing for union with God. In these letters we see reflected not only the ideal but the down-to-earth, day-to-day experience of Ananda community members trying to live up to the ideal. It is the ultimately hopeful story of fellow seekers doing their best to work with the powerful sex energy.

Not for the faint of heart are the letters gathered under the heading “Strong Medicine.” But the devotee who sincerely welcomes God’s disciplining guidance will find here a healthy dose! With a shock of recognition, I could feel Kriyananda’s suggestions to someone else addressing my own inner questions. The recipients of those letters know they are not being judged, but encouraged by one who sees in their divine potential the ability to make the effort to rise from darkness into God’s light and joy.

Infusing Kriyananda’s writing there is always the sense that however difficult or great the test, however discouraging the failure, there will always be another day, another chance to grow into divine friendship with others, and into true divine union with God.

Misunderstanding, betrayal, and heartbreak
The practice of friendship in God comes through perhaps most touchingly in letters showing Kriyananda’s response to attacks and vilification from those whom he has given his friendship. How to be a divine friend in the face of betrayal, especially when the betrayal has continued for years and shows no signs of ending?

“There are two kinds of love,” Kriyananda writes:

The first is given in response to love received. It is conditioned by what it receives. The other is a commitment. As Shakespeare wrote, “love is not love which alters when it alteration finds.”…Love that comes with commitment is one’s own to give. It doesn’t depend on anyone else’s attitude or behavior.”

Through misunderstanding, betrayal, and heartbreak, Kriyananda has held firm to the principle and the reality of divine friendship. He has never blinded himself to the darkness pressing in on him through the lawsuits and other attacks, but has always maintained, even in the midst of the fray, an attitude of respect and divine friendship to everyone involved.

Letters have also come in response to great shared trials such as 9/11. In that dark time, Kriyananda’s letters projected his spirit into the midst of those who looked to him for support and guidance, to share his own inner response so that they too might find the inner strength to remain anchored in God and Guru and to “stand unshaken amidst the crash of breaking worlds.”

And into the hands of many devotees facing their approaching death have come letters of comfort and joy. In many of these letters, Kriyananda brings such light that we can feel the reality of the ancient scriptural saying, “even a moment in the company of a saint can be a raft over the ocean of delusion.”

The central message
The concluding section, “Seek Ye First the Kingdom of God,” leaves the reader with Kriyananda’s central message—the essential life stance of the devotee: “In the last analysis, no one can know when God will come. The less we focus on ourselves, and lose ourselves, instead, in the thought of Him, the more we find that we have Him already, and that we have had Him always.”

Nayaswami Prakash is a long-time member of Ananda. He currently serves at Ananda Village doing forestry and landscaping work. Before moving to Ananda Village in 1974, he taught English and Literature at North Carolina Central University in Durham, North Carolina.

To order In Divine Friendship, Letters of Counsel and Reflection from Swami Kriyananda, Crystal Clarity Publishers

The post Book Review: What Is Divine Friendship? appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

That said, I must say that riding a motorcycle in Indian traffic is seriously dangerous, but it’s a great way to blend in and feel a part of the scene. It’s a terrific education too, so I thought I’d share a few observations and lessons.

1. Expect the unexpected
Once, late at night and before I bought a motorcycle, I was driving from the Delhi airport to the Ananda ashram through four lanes of interweaving, bumper-to-bumper traffic. After a mile or two of intense congestion I saw the approaching headlights of a car coming toward me in the center lane, seemingly oblivious to the fact that he was going the “wrong” way. He had probably missed his exit and was going back by the shortest route. Traffic parted and flowed around him as he proceeded nonchalantly to his destination.

A driver in India should never allow himself to say, “I never thought he’d do that!” Just like the fellow going the wrong way didn’t invite undue concern, you can expect behavior of any and all kinds: indifference to traffic signals, turns from wrong lanes, passing on blind curves, murderous road conditions, buffalos/cows/camels/goats, and suicidal pedestrians

In America, you can drive and have your mind elsewhere. Not here. You must be 100% alert at all times

2. Space is measured differently here
In America, personal space between people is not the same as in India. Americans keep a greater physical distance between themselves and others and feel uncomfortable when someone “invades” their space. Here, people stand close to one another and the same goes for cars.

In America, clearance between vehicles is measured in feet. Here, it’s measured in inches. It’s a bit disconcerting to have someone pass you by at high speed with only inches to spare. In the West, this would elicit a nasty reaction but here, it’s normal.

Maybe it’s because space in India is at a premium and the population is high. But cars manage to squeeze into the tiniest of openings and you soon understand the utility of a motorcycle.

3. Know when to yield – and when not to
Indian culture is hierarchical and it’s the same for driving. You yield to tonnage, or else! The car yields to the truck or bus. The motorcycle yields to the car. The pedestrian yields to the bike. Everyone yields to the cow or buffalo.

While driving on a two-lane road, a car coming in my direction will pass another and bear down on me in my lane. No problem. I’m expected to move to the far edge of my lane since I’m only driving a motorcycle. I understand that the on-coming cars will allow me enough space to slip by. The attitude is, “There’s enough space for all of us to get by, so why waste it?” This is why you’ll see cars passing on blind curves.

That’s also why you never yield space if you can help it. To defer and yield will turn a ten-minute errand into an hour-long journey of frustration. If you wait for someone to let you into traffic, you’ll be on the sidelines for a long time, and it can be dangerous. You have to ease in and force others to accommodate to you.

4. Indians are great drivers
Typically, one’s first reaction to traffic in India is, “What terrible drivers.” Actually, I’ve come to see it as just the opposite. If you can drive in India, you can drive anywhere. You have to be a good driver simply to survive.

In America we mistakenly equate driving ability with following rules, but if we measure ability in terms of successfully navigating a ton of metal through impossible conditions, you gain a healthy regard for the Indian driver. He and she are among the best.

5. Merging—learn to flow
Although Indians don’t drive by rules, there are “unspoken rules.” Traffic flows and you have to move with it, kind of like dancing. Once you get into the flow, you glide along in a natural way.

When riding my bike, I inevitably find myself going faster and faster as I weave in and out of traffic, and must constantly remind myself that there are least a quarter million young men in Pune between the ages of 16 and 5 fully capable of winning motocross races in America. Slow down! Relax and enjoy!

6. The horn is your friend
Newcomers get a kick out of the signs on the back of trucks that say, “Horn Please.” But it’s true. Truckers appreciate you giving a honk before passing.

An Indian friend said that when she first learned to drive, her instructor began Lesson One with instructions on “How to use your horn.” Brakes can be done away with, along with mirrors and other unneeded accessories, but when your horn is on the blink, you have to fix it. Typically, when you are about to pass someone closely or on a blind curve you honk as a warning to anyone approaching and to the person you are passing. It’s a self-preservative courtesy.

A resilient country
The interesting thing about living here is that, after awhile, it all seems so very normal. Last summer, upon returning to America, I noticed that I had picked up some Indian driving habits.

Actually, after living in India, I’ve started to feel that Americans are rather “up tight” about a lot of things, rules for example, and let themselves be bothered by things too easily. India is a resilient country and the people find a way to navigate just about anything. Compared to everything else Indians face, fighting traffic is a minor bother.

Nayaswami Jaya is a founding member of Ananda and a Kriyacharya. Together with his wife, Nayaswami Sadhana Devi, he lives in India where he serves as spiritual director of Ananda’s work in Pune.

To learn more about Ananda’s work in India click here

The post Glimpses of India: Driving in India – Lessons Learned appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

My garden was once green with life, but as the gray ghosts of half-dead hopes and low vitality glided in, surrounded by dark doubts, I began to fear. Would they frighten me as, with timid footsteps, I turned at last toward Thee?

Come to my aid, O Divine Friend! Give me the strength now to be ambitious only in my quest for Thee.

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

The post The Fire of My Ambition Is Focused on Thee appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

Four Creative Ways to Get Hired

• Applicant put up posters of himself in the company parking lot.
• Applicant announced his candidacy with a singing telegram.
• Applicant rented a billboard, which the hiring manager could see from his office, listing his qualifications.
• Applicant delivered prepaid Chinese food, including a fortune cookie with his name and phone number.

  Unemployed Biologist

An unemployed biologist was looking for a job and finally got interviewed at the local zoo. He was told that their only gorilla, their star attraction, had died recently and that they needed someone to dress up in a gorilla suit and pretend to be a gorilla until they could replace it. The biologist, though embarrassed, was desperate for money and accepted the job.

Although reluctant at first, he put on the gorilla suit and really got into the act. He jumped up and down, and roared and beat his chest. The people cheered.

The following day, the biologist entered the lion’s cage by mistake. The lion roared and rushed toward him. Terrified, the biologist turned and ran screaming for help. The lion leaped onto the gorilla, knocked him to the ground, and whispered in his ear, “Hey, it’s me, Leonard, your former co-worker. Don’t blow it or we’ll both lose our jobs!”

A Delicious Mistake

Needing to escape her hectic office, my friend fled to the mall and bought a candy bar. She sat down on a bench next to a businessman. Soon, she heard the sound of a crumpling wrapper and realized that the man was eating her candy bar. When he started to eat an ice cream cone, she leaned over and took a huge lick.

“There!” she declared. She then stormed off to her car, reached into her purse for her keys, and pulled out the candy bar she thought he’d eaten.

Two Elderly Married Couples

Two elderly married couples were walking down the street. One man told the other couple that he and his wife had been to a restaurant the night before which served great food at a reasonable price.

“And the name of the restaurant?” his friend asked.

“Well,” the first man said. “I’ll need some help on this. Let’s see, there’s a flower that smells great and has thorns on the stem?”

“That would be a rose,” his friend replied.

“That’s it!” the man said. Then he shouted to his wife, who was hard of hearing, “Hey, Rose! Do you remember the name of that restaurant we went to last night?”

The Attorney

Just after midnight, an attorney telephoned the governor of his state insisting that it was a matter of the utmost importance.

Eventually, the governor agreed to take his call.

“So, what is it?” grumbled the governor.

“Judge Smith has just died” said the attorney, “and I want to take his place.”

“Well,” replied the governor, “it’s OK with me if its OK with the undertaker.”

Murphy’s Law of Computing

For every action, there is an equal and opposite malfunction.

He who laughs last probably made a back-up.

When you get to the point where you really understand your computer, it’s
probably obsolete.

Evicted

The young man walked into a pet shop and asked if he could buy 75 beetles, 12 rats and five mice.

“I’m sorry sir,” the owner said, “but we only sell mice. What do you need the other creatures for?” Is it some kind scientific experiment?”

“No,” The young man replied, “I was thrown out of my apartment this morning, and the landlord said I must leave the place exactly as I found it.”

Your Move

I was playing chess with my friend, and he said, “Let’s make this more interesting.”

So we stopped playing chess.

The post Humor: A Smile a Day appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

1.    The River Clyde
2.    Jamuna River
3.    The Congo River
4.    The Ganges

The name of the world’s largest river basin.

1.    The Amazon River
2.    The Yangtze River
3.    The Indus River
4.    The Yuba River

This river is mentioned in the title of a famous waltz.

1.    The Rhine River
2.    The Rio Grande River
3.    The Danube River
4.    The Zambezi River

Jesus Christ was baptized by John the Baptist in what river?

1.    The Tigris River
2.    The Euphrates River
3.    The Colorado River
4.    The Jordan River

Native Americans often referred to this river as the “Father of Waters.”

1.    The Missouri River
2.    The Mississippi River
3.    The Potomac River
4.   Chattahoochee River

In the Old Testament, Moses is left in a basket amid the bulrushes along what river?

1.    The Jordan River
2.    The Nile River
3.    The Tiber River
4.    The Brahmaputra River

Click here to view answers >>

This river is intimately associated with the life of Lord Krishna.

1.    The River Clyde
2.    Jamuna River
3.    The Congo River
4.    The Ganges

Answer: 2

The name of the world’s largest river basin.

1.    The Amazon River
2.    The Yangtze River
3.    The Indus River
4.    The Yuba River

Answer: 1

This river is mentioned in the title of a famous waltz.

1.    The Rhine River
2.    The Rio Grande River
3.    The Danube River
4.    The Zambezi River

Answer: 3

Jesus Christ was baptized by John the Baptist in what river?

1.    The Tigris River
2.    The Euphrates River
3.    The Colorado River
4.    The Jordan River

Answer: 4

Native Americans often referred to this river as the “Father of Waters.”

1.    The Missouri River
2.    The Mississippi River
3.    The Potomac River
4.   Chattahoochee River

Answer: 2

In the Old Testament, Moses is left in a basket amid the bulrushes along what river?

1.    The Jordan River
2.    The Nile River
3.    The Tiber River
4.    The Brahmaputra River

Answer: 2

The post One Minute Quiz: Famous Rivers appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

******

Divine grace is like the most precious of those rare diamonds. It is there to be found by all who will seek it diligently.

******

Divine grace can make fertile the most arid heart, transforming its brown desert into a verdant garden of inner happiness and peace

******

The river of grace forever flows in the hidden depths of our being. There is no need to cry out to God for help. He is forever near us—nearer than our most secret thoughts and feelings.

******

Affirmation is man’s part of the labor of self-transformation. United to the flow of divine grace, affirmation becomes the sort of prayer that alone achieves results.

******

God’s grace flows constantly in our lives. Prayer and meditation are the best ways to part the curtains of the mind, making it receptive. So also is an attitude of willingness.

******

The goal of yoga practice is simply to deepen one’s receptivity by stilling the body, mind, and emotions, thereby making oneself more aware of the movement of divine grace within.

******

Divine grace must be received not only inwardly, in meditation, but also outwardly, through a true spiritual channel. Such a channel will be sent to every sincere seeker by God.

******

The differences that we see in the religions of the world are only “colorations” given by the human mind. Whatever differences exist in the flow of grace and power depend on the individual’s sincerity, and not on the outer forms of worship.

******

To think of God as the Doer doesn’t make a person passive. It takes a great effort of will to be receptive to Him. The devotee must offer himself positively and joyfully into the flow of inner grace.

******

The degree of faith, and of the flow of divine grace in your life, is determined by your depth of Self-realization. What you attempt to accomplish by grace should be tempered by what you have received of God’s power in your life.

******

The essence of spiritual development is a steadily increasing receptivity to God’s light and grace, through deep, humble love for the Lord.

******

Ultimately, what liberates the soul is divine grace. It is unrealistic, however, to claim that man plays no part in the process. One must cooperate consciously with grace.

From the works of Paramhansa Yogananda and Swami Kriyananda.

The post Quotations: Grace appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

BOOKS

Abraham Lincoln: Lessons in Spiritual Leadership
by Elton Trueblood

In this classic work, Christian philosopher and statesman Elton Trueblood reveals how Lincoln’s leadership skills flowed directly from his deep faith in God and his deep desire to follow God’s will. Trueblood shows how the combination of moral resoluteness and astute political skills enabled Lincoln to accomplish what few thought possible—to save the union and abolish the evils of slavery.

Elton Trueblood (1900-1994), a former chaplain both at Harvard and Stanford universities, was a noted 20th century American Quaker author and theologian, and the author of several bestselling religious books.

An Untamed Land
by Lauraine Snelling

In this the first of six books in Lauraine Snelling’s Red River of the North series, Roald and Ingeborg Bjorklund are lured from their beloved home high above the fjords of Norway and travel to America drawn by the promise of free land and a good life for themselves and their children. They settle finally in the Dakota Territory of the 1880s, on the banks of the Red River of the North. But the virgin prairie refuses to yield its treasure without a struggle.

Lauraine Snelling, a bestselling author of over forty novels, also writes for a wide range of magazines and teaches at writers conferences across the country.

Treasures against Time
by Brenda Lewis Rosser

Shortly after Paramhansa Yogananda arrived in Boston, MA as a delegate to the Congress of Religious Liberals in 1920, he met Doctor and Mildred Lewis, who became his first disciples in America and worked with him throughout their lives. Their accounts of their early years with Yogananda are filled with humor and many inspiring stories.

Edited by Brenda Lewis Rosser, the daughter of Doctor and Mildred Lewis, Treasures Against Time gives us a beautiful, intimate portrait of Dr. Lewis’s relationship with his Guru and provides insight into the earliest beginnings of Yogananda’s mission to the West. Included are 97 previously unpublished letters from Yogananda to Doctor and Mildred Lewis, written over a 32 year period.

Ayurveda: The Science of Self-Healing
by Dr. Vasant Lad

Dr. Vasant Lad, considered one of the foremost Ayurvedic practitioners in the United States, explains clearly and concisely the principles and practical applications of Ayurveda, the oldest healing system in the world. With more than 50 charts, diagrams and tables, as well as a glossary of terms, this book is an excellent introduction to the principles and practice of Ayurveda and a holistic approach to good health.

Saint Teresa of Avila
by Marcelle Auclair

This well-researched book is considered the definitive biography of the dramatic and courageous life of Saint Teresa of Avila. First published in 1953, the author lovingly captures the energy, magnetism, intelligence, and the genius of this great woman saint and, above all, her deep attunement with Christ in her search for spiritual perfection.

The Fabric of the Cosmos
by Brian Greene

Brian Greene, one of the world’s leading physicists takes the reader on grand tour of the universe that helps us see reality, and especially space and time, in a completely new way. From Isaac Newton’s theories of absolute time and space, to the world of quantum mechanics, Greene reveals our world to be very different from what common experience leads us to believe. Sparked by wit, humor and brilliant use of analogy, Greene takes us on a journey to new levels of reality lying just beneath the surface of our everyday world.

MOVIES

Forrest Gump, 1994
Forrest Gump, a 1994 romantic comedy-drama, depicts several decades in the life of am Alabama man, whose boyhood IQ fell a few points short of minimal school requirements. Aided by a loving and determined mother, Gump goes on to become a college football star, a Vietnam War hero, a beacon of the peace movement, an international Ping-Pong champ, and a shrimp tycoon. Despite his charmed life, all he deeply cares about is finding his childhood sweetheart and best friend, Jenny, whom he eventually marries. Tom Hanks excels in the role of Forrest Gump.

Based on Winston Groom’s 1986 comic novel, the film won seven Academy Awards including Best Picture, Director, and Actor, and multiple other awards. In 2011, the Library of Congress selected Forrest Gump for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.

Available: DVD; Rated PG

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, 1986
In the year 2286 Admiral Kirk and his crew of the USS Enterprise discover that planet earth in grave danger of being destroyed by an unknown alien probe attempting to contact now-extinct humpback whales. In order to save mankind they must travel back in time to the 20th century to recover two humpback whales, the only creatures that can answer the probe’s calls.

Great science fiction entertainment and the best of the Star Trek movies.

Available: DVD; Rated PG

The Wizard of Oz, 1939
When young Dorothy Gale finds herself somehow magically transported to the enchanted land of Oz, she must follow the Yellow Brick Road to the all-knowing Wizard to find her way back home. Along the way she meets the Scarecrow, the Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion, who help her to fend off the Wicked Witch of the West.

Notable for its use of special effects, technicolor, fantasy storytelling, and unusual characters have made The Wizard of Oz one of the best known of all American films.

Available: DVD; Rated G

Cool Runnings, 1993
Cool Runnings is a wholesome, engaging, inspirational film that captures the spirit and determination of the first Jamaican bobsled team to compete in the Winter Olympics. Against all odds the team makes it to the 1988 Olympic finals, but in the end discovers that winning isn’t everything.

Available; DVD; Rated PG

The Rookie, 2002
This movie is based on the inspiring true story of Jim Morris, whose major league baseball career was cut short by a shoulder injury at age 27. After teaching high school chemistry for 12 years and coaching the school baseball team, Morris agreed to a professional try-out if his team won the district championship.

As his team went from worst to first, the 39year-old father of three was forced to uphold his end of the bargain. Finding himself at a rookie try-out camp for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, his all-but-forgotten dream of pitching in the big leagues is revived.

Available: DVD; Rated G

Seasons: IMAX, 1987
Narrated by actor William Shatner, this arresting visual presentation, originally released to IMAX theaters, captures the changing seasons in vivid detail, and takes viewers on a spellbinding journey of close up photography of the best that nature has to offer. Set to the musical accompaniment of Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons,” this movie offers an unforgettable visual experience of spring, summer, fall, and winter.

Available: DVD; NR

The post Book and Movie Recommendations appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

The post Love Is Shared Understanding – 4:30 appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

The post Love Is the Doorway to Freedom – 2:05 appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

The post Love Is the Search for One’s Own Self – 4:02 appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

The post Love Is the Memory of a Lost Joy – 6:14 appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

The post Love, Like a Garden, Needs Tending Daily – 2:50 appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

The post Love Is the Perfection of Friendship – 4:41 appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

The next step for the Jewish people
The most important step on the spiritual path, however, is to make oneself receptive to divine guidance. The next step for the Jewish people would have been to welcome practical spiritual guidance—not only through written laws, but through enlightened masters like Jesus Christ who themselves were in tune with God’s will.

Jesus came to teach the Jewish people the true meaning of freedom: not liberation from outer slavery such as they’d endured in Egypt and in Babylon, and were enduring to a lesser degree under Roman rule, but freedom from the tyranny of delusion: from material desires and attachments, from the demands of an arrogant and self-affirming ego. He came to help them understand that their original “contract” with God was primarily inward. Inner communion with God was the essence of Jesus Christ’s message and was recognized as such by spiritually-minded Jews.

The challenge the Jewish people faced was to awaken to God’s love by accepting the guidance of Jesus Christ, an enlightened master, and through that love, to enter into communion with God. But for this next step the Jews, as a people, were not ready.

The early Christians and the Greco-Roman world
Jesus, not surprisingly, was opposed by the narrowly orthodox Jews of his day – the pedants and the prelates who, enclosed in high walls of dogmatism, condemned his fresh perception of truth, inspired as it was from within. The orthodox Jews’ rejection of Jesus had the effect of pushing his followers out into the Greco-Roman world, where the overall approach to life was radically different from the more-or-less unsystematic teachings of Jesus Christ.

In the Greco-Roman world, institutionalism had already been developed to a fine art. As Christianity entered into that world, the early church leaders thought it necessary to adapt Christ’s message to that culture—for most of them, the only culture they knew. They therefore perceived a need to get organized, and to encase Christ’s teachings in a formal structure, under strict administrative control.

As Christianity became absorbed by the Greco-Roman world, it adopted the rigid disciplines of Greek reasoning to bolster the teachings it was formulating, and shunned the more fluid perceptions that come with soul-intuition. Slowly there emerged an authoritarian Church, centralized and all-powerful. As soon as the Church was in a position to do so, it declared a need for fixed definitions—that is to say, dogmas— to protect Christ’s teachings from numerous ideological assaults. Dogmatic definitions offered a safe and easy way of “refuting” error.

Who were the Gnostics?
During the early years of Christianity, the importance of inner communion and a personal relationship with God was widely recognized. This importance was particularly emphasized by the Gnostics, a school of early Christians who were eventually suppressed by those Christians who wanted to establish a formal religion.

Much has been made by scholars recently of the Gnostic teachings. Indeed, from everything Paramhansa Yogananda said and wrote on the subject, there were Gnostics who came much closer than the churches to the original teachings of Jesus Christ, for they emphasized inner grace and truth, not outer law and authority. The Gnostic teachings were, in fact, more Eastern than Western in their orientation. The Gnostics  insisted—and Yogananda endorsed their statement—that Jesus Christ’s emphasis had been on seeking personal verification of truth by direct, inner experience of God.

The Apostles, including St. Paul, were true Gnostics, for they believed in verification by direct inner experience. Of the four gospels, St. John’s is the most inward in emphasis. John was the “beloved of Jesus,” his closest and most highly advanced disciple. In the first chapter of his gospel, John describes Christ as the Infinite Light and also, in the tradition of all great masters, as a doorway to the Infinite Light. Repeatedly St. John  urges the reader to seek God in inner communion, and not only in outward religious observances.

The suppression of the Gnostics
The Gnostics’ more mystical school of thought had its own shortcomings, however. After the passing of the Apostles, other teachers emerged whose statements were not always rooted in wisdom. Errors crept into their teaching, including the reasonable, but mistaken, belief that Jesus Christ, being the Son of God, could not possibly have suffered on the cross. There were also Gnostics who mistook the ego for the higher Self. But there were also very deep Gnostics, who were saints, who communed with God and taught the importance of loving God and experiencing our oneness with Him.

The Gnostics’ emphasis on inwardness, which went against the Church’s efforts to centralize its authority, gave the Church ample reason to discredit their teachings, though Church leaders were not lax in searching out other reasons as well. It is more than likely that the Church, in discrediting the Gnostics, exaggerated their fallacies, and passed lightly over their virtues. Christ’s emphasis on inner communion could only have been an embarrassment to it, for the Church wanted large congregations. That goal made it necessary to emphasize the outer symbols of truth, and to minimize the inner experience of God. To church-minded Christians, Jesus Christ would never become a major influence in the world if his message was given too mystical a slant. His promise of salvation to all men would, in that case, remain unfulfilled.

Unfortunately, the errors of the false Gnostics stiffened the Church in its denunciation of Gnosticism as a whole. Thus, the Gnostics ended up being condemned by the Church as heretical, and then persecuted. Writings that emphasized inner communion with God were determinedly destroyed and “true” (which is to say, formally recognized) Christians were exhorted to heed only outer authority, and to engage only in outer ritual.

It wasn’t until the Twentieth Century that many long-buried Gnostic texts, which the early Church had tried to destroy, were rediscovered. They had been buried and hidden until an age when people would understand again.

A major loss for Christianity
The suppression of the Gnostics constituted a major loss for Christianity. When Gnosticism was suppressed and fixed doctrines were formulated, Christian leadership came wholly under the control of church dignitaries, who sought to make Christ’s teachings uniform in order to strengthen the authority of the Church. “Universal truth,” as they understood it, meant virtually any statement that strengthened the Church’s authority.

With the suppression of the Gnostics, error entered the official teachings, including a diminishing emphasis on inner communion. Instead of personal contact with God, congregational worship and Eucharistic communion were given increasing importance. The development of the Judeo-Christian tradition thus passed from Mosaic law to form-bound definitions that enclosed Christ’s teachings in organizational restrictions and dogmatic definitions.

Saints without a supportive tradition
From time to time in the history of Christianity, there have appeared true men and women of God, great saints who, experiencing Christ’s actual presence, have infused the Christian religion with renewed faith. Without them, the churches would long ago have come to resemble elegant mausoleums.

These were individuals who accepted the commandment of Jesus to love God with all one’s heart, soul, mind, and strength. Jesus Christ remained, for them, not only someone to be addressed with formal hyperbole during church services, but their own divine Friend, with whom they could commune in a relationship of love.

Unfortunately, however, those saints were never given the freedom to join hands with one another over the centuries, and thus to create a coherent spiritual tradition. Always, they had to give primary recognition to the authority of the Church, which insisted that public revelation ended with Jesus Christ and the Apostles. Anything experienced since then, it decreed, falls into the category of private revelation. Thus, no tradition ever developed comparable to the ancient yoga tradition in India.

The living essence of the Christian religion
It was to remind Christians of their forgotten heritage that Paramhansa Yogananda was sent to the West. Yogananda declared that it was by the will of Jesus himself that he was sent to the West to revitalize Christianity by re-emphasizing the importance of meditation and inner communion.

Yogananda’s most important message on the teachings of Christ was that man is, and cannot but be, a child of God. There is nothing, anywhere in all creation, but God’s consciousness. Attunement with Christ must be sought more and more deeply in the silence of meditation. Jesus Christ himself, not church dogma, has been from the start the living essence of the Christian religion. The deeper our communion with Him, the less outer forms of religion seem important to us. The more attention we pay to outer law and forms, the more we become distracted from loving God deeply.

In Christianity today there is a noteworthy movement that emphasizes the need for developing a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. The adherents of this movement do not reject church affiliation, nor Bible study, but they claim that if one doesn’t also seek a personal relationship with Jesus he is missing the true meaning of Christianity.

This movement represents an important step toward emerging from the stone-enclosure of Churchianity into the experience of Christianity as a living religion. Jesus constantly urged his disciples to attune themselves to his spirit. He also discouraged mere doctrinal squabbling. Only by direct inner experience of truth can one attain wisdom. Indeed, lacking inner experience, one can twist scripture itself to conform with any bizarre notion one fancies.

“Gnosis”– knowledge of the inner Self
We live in a new age. “Self-realization,” Yogananda declared, “will someday be the religion of the world.” People everywhere will realize that the essence of religion is true “gnosis”– knowledge of the inner Self.

From: Promise of Immortality; Revelations of Christ, and related talks and articles.

The post Why the Early Christians Changed Christ’s Message appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

Occasionally one reads dire pronouncements regarding an imminent “end of the world.” The latest prediction of doom was given by a well-known minister in Pasadena, California, who publicly set the “Day of Judgment” for September 21, 1945. When reporters asked my opinion, I explained that world cycles follow an orderly progression according to a divine plan.

No earthly dissolution is in sight. Two billion years of ascending and descending equinoctial cycles, or yugas, are yet in store for our planet in its present form. The earth is currently on an ascending cycle, and eventually the world will become a better place. The figures given by the rishis for the various world ages deserve careful study in the West.

Complete and partial dissolutions of the world
The Hindu scriptures declare that an earth such as ours is dissolved for one of two reasons: the inhabitants as a whole become either completely good or completely evil. The world-mind then generates a power which releases the captive atoms held together as an earth. In a partial or temporary dissolution, only a part of an earth or a world is dissolved, as happened during the flood experienced by Noah. But in complete dissolution the entire system of universes, all stars and planets, and all things are dissolved.

Partial or temporary dissolutions, such as Noah’s flood, are a result of the accumulated wrongdoing of mankind. Mankind’s destructive thoughts and deeds distort the ether and throw the atomic and thermal combinations out of balance, creating natural disasters— earthquakes, spitting volcanoes, tidal waves, and cataclysms. All natural calamities are the indirect results of the accumulated evil actions of individuals and nations.

World War I produced a world-chilling snowball of karma that swelled into the devastations of World War II. Immediately after this war there will be great famines, influenza, new kinds of diseases, earthquakes, and floods — offshoots of the bad vibrations caused by the hatred and selfishness of warring nations and the agonies of the slaughtered and injured.

Forgiveness and nonviolence
Consulting history, one may reasonably state that mankind’s problems have not been solved by the use of brute force. The use of “jungle logic” instead of human reason in settling disputes will restore the earth to a jungle.

The horrors of modern warfare show just how much the so-called civilizations of modern times need Christ’s teaching, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” To bring lasting peace to earth, forgiveness is necessary. “One should forgive any injury,” says the Mahabharata. It has been said that the continuation of the species is due to man’s forgiveness. By forgiveness the universe is held together. Forgiveness is holiness, the might of the mighty.

Nonviolence is the natural outgrowth of the law of forgiveness and love. Americans may well remember with pride the successful nonviolent experiment of William Penn in founding his 17th century colony in Pennsylvania. The Quakers had no militia, forts, soldiers, or arms. Amidst the savage frontier wars and the butcheries that took place between the new settlers and the native Indians, the Quakers of Pennsylvania alone remained unmolested. Others were slain but they were safe. When the Quakers were finally forced to give up the government of the state, war broke out and some Pennsylvanians were killed. But only three Quakers were killed – three who had so far fallen from their faith as to carry weapons of defense.

It takes a fairly strenuous course of training, and the disciplined life of a soldier, to attain a mental state of nonviolence. The perfect state is reached only when the mind, body, and speech are in proper coordination. Every problem would lend itself to solution if individuals and nations determined to make the law of truth and nonviolence the law of life.

Nations must look after one another
If nations realized that all possessions are gifts of God to be shared equally, they would continue on for centuries without wars and famine. God alone is the maker of life and the creator of the sunlight, water, and air that support human life. By no human effort can man maintain himself without the help of God. Man cannot create the grains, or the power of digestion to digest food, or the life force which absorbs the grains’ nutrients and chemicals into his tissues. But because man must do his part to acquire God-given things, he easily forgets the direct hand of God in all human affairs.

The prosperous nation might think: “What do we care for other nations; let us roll in plenty. What do we care for the starving nations whose people are dying by the millions, as long as we are prosperous?” The prosperous nation must realize that national prosperity depends not only upon a plentiful supply of natural resources, but also upon moral conduct, harmony, and spiritual living. Any nation, no matter how successful, which becomes debauched, selfish, and inharmonious, will find its prosperity disrupted by civil wars, treachery, and foreign aggression.

The karma of warfare
The outcome of wars is not decided by the mere brute power of nations. Victory or defeat is determined mathematically (though seemingly mysteriously), according to the stored-up effects of the nations’ good and bad actions (karma), performed through the centuries. God alone is the Supreme Judge who knows all, and whose inscrutable laws mete out victory or defeat to a nation according to its past karma.

The karma of a nation depends on the degree to which its people as a whole have acted in keeping with cosmic law. I have often said that America cannot lose in the long run, if her enemies attack her, because her karma is basically very good, despite a few wrong things she has done. The karma of her present enemies, by contrast, is bad, and they will have to pay for it.

We are constantly moving forward
I am often asked if the economic, political, social, and religious revolutions and transitions now experienced by most major nations will result in greater international understanding and harmony in the years ahead. The answer is yes. Every religious and educational revolution shakes up the sleeping souls, and quickens the receptive ones, awakening in them a desire to follow the path of Truth.

Modern methods of transportation and communication have brought the nations of the world within a stone’s throw of one another. Universal depression and the devastation of war are making nations realize more and more that national security and prosperity are dependent upon international development and upliftment. Some nations may stumble on the way; others may slip backward a little, but they will be moving steadily toward the goal of greater understanding.

The cosmic plan for the future
In Inner Culture Magazine* for December, 1939, I made certain prophecies about the outcome of the war which had just broken out in Europe. Now, some two and a half years later, I wish to record here some further and more detailed prophecies, which have recently come to me, about the postwar world. History will bear testimony to the truth of this blueprint of the general future happenings in the world:

1. The United States of the World will not come in a day, or in our lifetime, but a great deal of groundwork will be prepared in this twentieth century.

2. After this war, the world will see an unprecedented brotherhood of nations; a revival of scientific, universal religion; advances in commercial and military aviation; and the betterment of the masses.

3. As we move forward, there will be a greater understanding of  international hygiene, drives to destroy poverty from all parts of the globe, free exchange of commodities, vast changes in our financial systems, equality of capital and labor, advanced yoga practices, and the establishment of world colonies to serve as models for the world.

4. Science and religion will join hands to free religion from superstition, thus giving the world a more secure civilization. Experimental psychology will investigate religious methods and yoga techniques for human perfection and God-contact.

5. Somewhat farther into the future, the material efficiency of America will combine with the spiritual efficiency of India, to lead the world to a more balanced existence.

6. No matter what happens, the world will become better and better until The United States of America are joined by The United States of India, The United States of Asia, and The United States of Europe, and are ready to amalgamate into The United States of the World.

Remember that God is the Author of this cosmic drama. Every page of his cosmic drama is filled with inexplicable mysteries, which will ultimately be solved in the last act of the cosmic play. Only devotees who are in tune with God are in a position to know the cosmic plan and the divine wish in regard to nations and human lives.

Our united soul force
Only through our united soul-force can God help this world. Real brotherhood can never come unless we feel it in our hearts, and such feeling can only be attained through Self-realization and contact of God in meditation. The laws of God are the laws of brotherhood and love. All nations must come into the temple of universal love and understanding.

From articles and lessons, 1938-1942.

*One of the early magazines published by Paramhansa Yogananda.

The post Is There Hope for the World? appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

The system of yugas outlined by Sri Yukteswar teaches us to look to the distant past for clues to what lies ahead, in our own future.  Sri Yukteswar asserts that in ancient times, say 12,000 years ago, human beings had far greater capacity for understanding than we enjoy today – an idea directly at odds with mainstream conventional archaeology, which insists that only small groups of primitive hunter-gathers roamed the earth in those days, ignorant of the trappings of civilization, and certainly not capable of coordinated projects.

Recent discoveries, however, provide persuasive support for Sri Yukteswar’s assertions while discrediting those of mainstream archeology.

Scientific support for Sri Yukteswar’s theories
In plain sight in south-eastern Turkey is an archeological dig, ongoing since 1995, which is forcing a drastic change in thinking. It is called Göbekli Tepe.  Picture if you will a hill with perhaps twenty stone circles somewhat Stonehenge-like, but with T-shaped finely finished pillars with a scattering of elegantly carved positive reliefs of animals. When Stonehenge was built, Göbekli Tepe’s monumental architecture was already more ancient than Stonehenge’s is to us today. After about two thousand years of use, the Göbekli Tepe site was very carefully buried, preserving it intact. Then the people who built it seem to have simply disappeared.

The four stone circles of Göbekli Tepe so far excavated have been radiocarbon dated, not only from organic material found at the site, but also from accumulated mineral deposits.  This analysis indicates that the site dates to 12,000 to 11,000 years ago and was intentionally buried about 10,000 years ago.

In the conventional theory of linear progress from cave-man to astronaut, there is really no place for Göbekli Tepe, but it fits well in a Satya Yuga, 12,000 years ago, when mankind had no need of farming or metal tools or writing, or mechanical means of transportation and communication.

The “new archaeology” movement
It is an accepted notion in science that, while a theory can never be proved to be true for every possible case, if it is known to fail in even a single instance it is clearly at least partly false or incomplete. Has Göbekli Tepe overturned the conventional linear picture of the development of human society?

Not quite yet! Many a scientific career is firmly wedded to the status quo, and conventional archaeology is slow to accept the full implications of Göbekli Tepe – that such a refined level of megalithic construction could exist at such an early date.

However a “new archaeology” movement is developing that is open to examining the facts rather than following established dogmas. A leading light in this movement is the scientist Robert Schoch, geology professor at Boston College. In addition to his many technical academic works, Schoch is the author of a whole shelf of books and articles addressed to the general reader. *

The new archaeology is but one aspect of the revolution in thinking that is underway, a sweeping revolution that crosses all boundaries of narrow academic disciplines – as it must if a more coherent world view is ever to emerge. Robert Schoch’s latest book is a great example, touching as it does on plasma physics, paleoclimatology, astronomy, archaeology, geophysics and mythology. Yet the book is very readable and accessible to a lay audience.

Did solar outbursts end the last ice age?
Starting with the scientific observation that the sun is presently increasing in its activity and thereby posing a threat to our high-tech society, Schoch looks at geological and archaeological evidence of past solar eruptions and associates a major solar outburst with the very sudden global warming that ended the last ice age. He ties that solar event, which would have been a horrendous catastrophe, to archaeological evidence from Göbekli Tepe, Easter Island and elsewhere.

We are accustomed to think of our sun as the epitome of constancy and dependability, but astronomers know that stars in general are variable to some degree – some extremely so, and many, if not most, varying in a cyclic way.  Although a roughly twenty-two year cycle of sunspots has long been well known, it is only recently, with the advent of space probes, that detailed observations of solar activity has been possible.

Occasionally the intense magnetic fields around a sunspot will generate a brilliant flare and create an eruption called a “coronal mass ejection,” or CME. Such outbursts are now observed with a variety of instruments, and their trajectories through the solar system to the earth and beyond are carefully tracked. When a CME is directed toward our planet, astronauts on the International Space Station head for protected areas to wait out the onslaught of charged particles, and observers in the far northern and southern latitudes watch for magnificent auroral displays.**

Are we vulnerable to a major solar outburst?
In his recent book, Forgotten Civilization: The Role of Solar Outbursts in Our Past and Future, Robert Schoch calls our attention to such a major such outburst that struck the earth in 1866, one called the Carrington Event after the astronomer who spotted its brief initial flare on the sun. As a result of the Carrington Event, the magnetic field of the earth was wildly disrupted and the currents induced in telegraph lines caused fires and nearly electrocuted operators. If such an event occurred today it would be devastating to our modern interconnected electronic society, and Schoch attempts to describe the horrendous consequences that would result.

Ancient tree-rings provide an indirect record of solar magnetic activity extending back some 9600 years, almost to the end of the last glaciation. This record reveals that in the course of the last 70 years, the sun’s overall level of activity has risen higher than it has been at any time since about the end of the last ice age. That ancient period of high activity was marked by wild fluctuations from one cycle to the next.

Schoch points out that the sun is currently following a similarly erratic pattern:  In 2008-2009 we experienced an unusually low and extended minimum count of sunspots. (Sunspot count is one of several correlates of solar activity.)  Now, at the close of 2012, the sun is approaching a sunspot maximum which some computer models had initially predicted would peak in 2012 at a level significantly higher than the previous maximum of 2001.Yet by mid-2011 scientists reported an unusual and unexpected drop in solar activity and now anticipate a much lower maximum. So far (December 2012) the sunspot count is only about half of the previous peak and may not even reach the low count presently expected.

An analogy to earthquake faults
If this erratic, unpredictable behavior during a period of overall higher activity is similar to the sun’s behavior 9600 years ago at the close of the ice age, as Schoch suggests, we may well be in for trouble ahead.  Schoch suggests an analogy with earthquake faults that often remain quiet for long periods as they build up energy that is then released all at once in a major quake. Could the sun be building up magnetic energy in this quiet cycle to be later released in an outburst of giant coronal mass ejections?

While Robert Schoch is not alone in his concern with our vulnerability to the expected solar outbursts, the connection that he makes to the archaeological evidence of prior solar events is a unique and very important contribution to the discussion.

Four evidence-backed themes
In sum, Robert Schoch weaves together four themes in Forgotten Civilization: The Role of Solar Outbursts in Our Past and Future:

1) Schoch cites mainstream research that establishes that the sun has recently become more active than at any time since a period of intense activity that coincided with the end of the last ice age about 12,000 years agond explores the catastrophic consequences we would experience from a solar outburst even as minor as the well-known Carrington Event of the 19th century.  Schoch’s point is a clear warning to our very vulnerable society of a threat that seems to me more probable than the comet or asteroid impacts that others have been so concerned about.

2) He proposes that the solar eruptions of 12,000 years ago which scientific evidence shows were far more intense than anything since were actually the cause of the end of the ice age  (or more exactly the very sudden end of the 1000-year cold snap called the Younger Dryas which began circa 10,900 BC and ended circa 9700 BC)

3) Excavations at Göbekli Tepe have clearly demonstrated that ancient peoples were capable of very sophisticated works 10-12,000 years ago, a far earlier time period than mainstream archaeologists have yet dared to consider assigning to sites of comparable complexity. Schoch examines other sites in that light as well. Against the very vocal objections of conventional archaeologists, he had already assigned the Great Sphinx of Giza to a very early date. In this book he also examines the statues, script and rock drawings of Easter Island as possible remnants of that early period.

4)  Schoch looks to these ancient sites for evidence of the solar outbursts that closed the Younger Dryas period and finds it in rock art and symbols that resemble figures that have been produced in the laboratory in plasmas – clouds of charged particles.  Such figures would have been seen in the sky as the earth was impacted by the solar eruptions. Schoch also finds evidence in the legends from around the earth of great floods and of ancestors who emerged from underground, and in the extensive ancient tunneling found in various parts of the world, which might have been dug for protection from the solar outbursts. He suggests that these catastrophic events could well account for the disappearance of the advanced cultures that built Göbekli Tepe, the Great Sphinx at Giza, and the Easter Island Moai.

An earth science researcher, Schoch is able to examine archaeological evidence without bias. He lets the evidence of his own eyes and the works of other scientists lead him forward in his ongoing quest for understanding. In a field where most books of this genre are written by journalists, Schoch’s books stand out because as a scientist, he chooses to report the details another scientist would want to know – details that other writers might consider insignificant or too difficult to explain.

We are warned!
In a nutshell:  A period of major solar outbursts that may have brought a sudden end to the last glacial period had cataclysmic global consequences for which there is ample mythological, geophysical and archaeological evidence. During the last 70 years the sun has entered a period of higher activity. Our electronics-based society is far more vulnerable to even relatively minor outbursts than humanity ever has been. We are warned!

Byasa Steinmetz’s background includes forty years of scientific work, including astronomy at the University of Arizona and optics at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center. Currently, he teaches about the yugas, ancient world cultures, astronomy, and physics at the Ananda College of Living Wisdom. He has been writing and lecturing on the topic of the yugas for more than a decade. A longtime Ananda member, he is a Lightbearer and a member of the Nayaswami Order. He lives with his wife at Ananda Village. He is co-author of The Yugas–Keys to Understanding Our Hidden past, Emerging Energy Age, and Enlightened Future, Crystal Clarity, Publishers.

* To learn more, go to Robert Schoch publications

** For daily solar conditions and often spectacular images, go to Spaceweather

The post Solar Outbursts, Cataclysmic Events, and the Yugas appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

The “placebo effect” refers to a health benefit caused by a person’s expectation that a certain treatment will be helpful, even though the treatment itself is a substance with no intrinsic value, possibly even a sugar pill. Science has shown that the more a person believes in a treatment, even when the treatment is a placebo, the more likely it is that the treatment will be beneficial. More recently there are studies showing that people can be helped even when they know they are taking a placebo.

The power of the mind
The placebo effect illustrates the importance of the mind for both wellness and disease. “Mind” comprises far more that just thoughts. It also includes our subconscious and emotional realms as well as our intuitive superconsciousness. Mind and consciousness are one and the same.

Delusion tries to persuade us that the physical world is real and that the world of the mind, of consciousness, is imaginary. But just the opposite it true. It is our consciousness, working through the subtle laws of magnetism, which creates our circumstances, just as it is God’s consciousness that creates the universe as a whole. Consciousness, not form, is the ultimate reality.

The first step to wellness is to accept and utilize the enormous power of your intentions. As you think, so you will become. A clear resolution to be well can produce amazing results, helping you to avoid illness and adding years to your life.

Banish the thought of disease
It is very helpful to watch how Swami Kriyananda uses the power of the mind to transcend the limitations of ill health. When we were last in India, Kriyananda gave a satsang at the Ananda community in Pune. He was not feeling very well and planned to rest when he returned home after the satsang. But Indians love spirituality in much the same way that many people in the West love new technology. Kriyananda had just settled into a chair when the door opened and in came three Indian ladies—an elderly mother and her two middle-aged daughters. They didn’t speak any English but, as a gesture of appreciation and respect, they wanted to touch Kriyananda’s feet.

When Kriyananda first saw them enter the room, the look on his face said, “I don’t know if I have any more energy to give.” But in one or two seconds he became radiant. Using the power of the mind to banish all thought of illness and fatigue, he shifted his focus to the indwelling Spirit and allowed the power of God to flow through him.

The early stages of a disease are often filled with fear and confusion. If you are ill, always try to identify with wellness not disease. Identifying with the illness shuts down the flow of positive energy. You need to pursue whatever treatments you think will help, but not identifying with the illness helps to break the hold that it has on your mind. A clear resolution to be well can add years to your life.

A dear friend of ours was diagnosed with AIDS and told she had but a few months to live. Swami Kriyananda told her, “Don’t identify with the illness.” She often credited that advice with giving her nearly a decade of “extra time” during which she became a glowing source of strength and courage for others. By acting as if robust wellbeing is just around the corner, you will help it to manifest in your life.

We are not our mistakes
We need to learn to accept the challenges and difficulties of our lives, without allowing them to define who we are. These challenges or difficulties include not only those of ill health but also of our jobs, relationships, family life, or any other area of life.

There’s a book about a woman who had a near-death experience following a suicide attempt and went to one of the lower astral regions. She was very surprised, as she looked around, to see many people who were nuns and monks. Her first thought was, “What are they doing here?” She realized that they had been drawn to that region because they had identified with their weaknesses or mistakes: “Oh, I was such a bad person!”  “Oh, I didn’t do twenty Ave Marias!”  “Oh, I didn’t go to Mass that day!”

Compared to most people, these monks and nuns had led exemplary lives. But because they died with the thought “I’m a terrible person,” they generated a negative magnetism which took them to the lower astral regions — though not for long. Their good karma from dedicating their lives to God would eventually pull them into the light.

As devotees, it’s very easy to get into negative mindsets by identifying with our weaknesses or mistakes. We’re supposed to get up early and not sleep too much because sleep drugs the mind. So we get up early, we do our energization exercises, we meditate, and then we turn to our “to-do” lists with all the things we’re supposed to complete by the end of the day. And if we don’t complete the list, it’s easy to get down on ourselves for not having done enough. But all  we will have accomplished is that we get to join those monks and nuns,  in the lower astral regions, who are blaming themselves for not doing enough.

Always use your intellect to discriminate between mind-sets that are helpful spiritually and those which are not. Identify with your soul nature, not with weakness or error. One way to avoid the placebo effect of wrong attitudes is always to ask the question, “Does this attitude move me toward God, or away from God?”

Be grateful, receptive, and positive
What are the attitudes that always move us toward God?  Swami Kriyananda gave us the answer in the advice he gave to a devotee suffering from a serious illness: “Be grateful for everything, be receptive, and above all, be positive.” When practiced regularly, these three attitudes are life-changing.

– Be grateful for everything: Gratitude is one of the most important of all attitudes. It expands the heart and opens the door to life’s blessings. Make it a conscious practice to be grateful for everything that comes, including the things that seem difficult or negative. Paramhansa Yogananda said, “All conditions are neutral. It is how we react to them that makes them seem positive or negative.” Once we develop the habit of saying, “Thank you, God” for everything that happens, even negative situations can become great blessings.

–Be receptive: We become receptive to the flow of God’s grace when we think of Him as our friend. We once discussed with Swami Kriyananda how beautiful it was that God, through the Virgin Mary, has so often appeared to young children throughout the world. Kriyananda replied, “The sweetest relationship with God is that of a friend or just a simple playmate. That’s how I relate to God – as my playmate.” He said his favorite poem by Paramhansa Yogananda is “I am Here,” which ends with God saying to the devotee, “Hello, playmate, I am here.”

Kriyananda’s statement isn’t just a nice sentiment. When we think of God as distant, uncaring, and judgmental, we produce the conditions – the placebo effect – that keep us in delusion. Thinking of God as our playmate or friend draws Him closer. To help drive home the importance of a sense of familiarity with the Divine, Yogananda said we should pray to God not only as our Heavenly Father and Divine Mother, but also as our Friend and Beloved.

–Above all be positive: Say “yes” to life! Do everything you can—physically, mentally, and spiritually—to increase your stream of positive energy. Always try to focus your feelings in a positive direction by being a channel of love, kindness, and caring to others. Being a channel for love and friendship is one of the most beneficial things you can do for others, and for yourself. A positive outlook will draw solutions that you presently don’t even know exist.

Form a new habit
Develop the habit of asking God and Guru several times a day to guide your thoughts and actions so that they are always in alignment with the flow of their grace. It would be even better to ask in every situation what the right thing to do is. In a recent satsang, Swami Kriyananda suggested that we specifically ask, “Is this pleasing to You?”

A ship sails much faster when the wind is behind it. Having the grace of God and Guru behind whatever we do, will speed our progress toward God. Their guidance and help are tremendously important.

From a February 2, 2012 talk at Ananda Village and two books by Jyotish Novak: How to Meditate and 30 Day Essentials for Wellness (currently out of print)

The post The Placebo Effect in Daily Life appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

A. Outward change has been a constant in my life since I was a child. I was born in Los Angeles in 1946 at the end of WWII when thousands of servicemen were moving to Los Angeles. Since rental housing was scarce, my family had to move to wherever housing was available. We moved seven times before I was ten years old, and four more times when I was in high school.

Each time we moved, to me the move seemed like an adventure – I remember enjoying it. We were a close, loving family group of two grandparents, one uncle, and my parents. I was the only child, and I always had a sense of security and support.

Q. You moved to Ananda Village in 1972, a year or so after finishing college. How soon after moving to Ananda Village did the pattern of ongoing change begin?

A. At Ananda Village, there were many immediate changes I had to adjust to, including having 90 people to relate to every day! But the biggest change was in my own consciousness. At Ananda, I was able to live my spiritual ideals completely, a lifestyle which introduced into my life a new sense of joy and inner freedom.

In Swami Kriyananda I found a wonderful leader. From the beginning he emphasized that we needed to make the community our own. “If you see something that needs doing, do it!” was something he often said. He wanted us to grow in understanding through our own successes and mistakes. I found it thrilling to approach life in this new way, even though it was often very challenging. Because of Kriyananda’s encouragement and support, I soon felt capable of doing anything I put my mind to.

Q. How long did you live at Ananda Village?

A. I lived there for nine years, until the fall of 1981, when I was asked to move to the Ananda center in San Francisco, which had been established three years earlier.

Q. Did moving to the San Francisco center mark the beginning of a new period of frequent change?

A. Yes it did. From 1981 until 2004, I moved 12 times in 23 years, often returning to Ananda Village for a period of time between moves. During those years I helped direct seven Ananda centers and colonies in the United States and Italy – in San Francisco, Atherton, Seattle, Portland, Dallas, and Assisi. It was a period not only of frequent change, but also of great blessings.

Q. What was your first reaction to being asked to move to the San Francisco center?

A. I was happy and terrified at the same time. But I had felt ready for a change for some time. I thought this move would help me to expand my consciousness and to practice more dynamically what I had been learning for the past nine years.

At the same time, the new assignment was a big challenge. I had done only a little ministerial work prior to leaving Ananda Village; at the San Francisco center I was regularly giving Sunday services and teaching classes. I was one of three Ananda ministers who had overall responsibility not only for the leased 45-room mansion that served as an ashram, but also for a separately located teaching center.

Q. How did the move to the San Francisco center help you spiritually?

A. It helped me understand something Swami Kriyananda had emphasized in his talks at Ananda Village – that before God can work through us, we must first have the courage to step forward and put out energy. As I learned to put out energy in that way, I was able to feel the divine energy and power working through me in ways I hadn’t felt before.

Q. How important was a strong meditation practice to your ability to serve effectively?

A. It was absolutely essential. I meditated twice a day, in the mornings as part of our ashram group meditation and in the evenings on my own. Without the centeredness and spiritual perspective that I gained through meditation, I doubt that I could have done my job, or done it well. Most likely I would have felt the job to be a burden rather than a joy and a blessing.

Q. You mentioned that between 1981 until 2004, you moved a total of 12 times in 23 years. Were any of those moves especially challenging?

A. Yes, there were two: moving to Ananda’s center in Atherton, California near Palo Alto; and starting Ananda’s first center in Texas.

Q. What made your Atherton center experience so challenging?

A. When I took over as director of the Atherton center in November 1983, the center was in dire need of funds. Because I knew the center would survive only by Yogananda’s grace, I prayed that we receive the donations we needed. Shortly after that, we received a large enough donation to get us through that initial crisis.

The other challenge involved a small group of ashram residents who had no real interest in Ananda. This situation made it uncomfortable for me at times, but my role (and that of the two other ministers who had joined me) was to help deepen the spiritual attunement of those who wanted to be part of Ananda. Gradually, as the ashram’s spiritual focus became clearer and stronger, the uncommitted people moved on. Ananda Palo Alto, today one of our largest colonies, evolved out of the humble beginnings of this first center.

Q. What challenges did you encounter in starting an Ananda center in Texas?

A. In the early 1990s, there were Ananda meditation groups in three Texas cities — Austin, Houston, and Dallas. My husband, Pranaba, and I met with the members of these three groups in 1992 to discuss starting a center in one of the cities. Initially we settled on Austin, the home of the University of Texas. For personal reasons I had pushed for Austin, which was smaller than the other two cities, had lots of greenery, and to me was a much more inviting place to live. My attachment to that choice had clouded my judgment; starting a center in Austin turned out to be a mistake.

After six months in Austin we moved to Dallas, a much larger city with greater diversity of population. In Dallas not only was there much more interest in Ananda, but there was also a larger, supportive Ananda core group.

Q. Did the most challenging adjustments during this 23-year period of change usually pertain to where you were serving?

A. Moving from one center to another center wasn’t usually as big an adjustment as returning to Ananda Village for a period after serving as a center or colony leader. Each time I returned to the Village I had to learn to shift into a new mindset so that I could serve dynamically in my new assignment, whatever it might be.

The difficulty of this adjustment had to do with the ego, of course. Dissolving the ego is the most difficult challenge we face spiritually. I have had the great opportunity, in all my comings and goings from Ananda Village, to work on that issue over a long period of time.

In meditation and in everyday life I learned to meet the challenges of my changing roles by working on expanding my consciousness — on seeing myself as not defined by this one little body and personality. If I felt excluded from things I had been involved in as a leader, I would try to feel that I was part of those who were presently involved. If they were invited to something, so was I, by extension. Overall, I worked on developing the right attitudes, and I always tried to catch myself when I slipped into a more constrictive consciousness.

Q. How have the frequent changes in your areas of service affected your spiritual life?

A. They have helped me to become more expansive and non-attached. I now feel much less bound to any one place, position, or group of people. And I feel that I have friends in many places.

Q. Swami Kriyananda writes that many people fear change and that this fear is allied to the fear of death. Have you ever feared change?

A. Yes, a few times. But I try to move quickly from the fear itself to asking myself, “What can I do about it? How can I change myself to accommodate this new circumstance?”

Q. Have you ever feared death?

A. I haven’t feared death since I came onto the spiritual path – before that I don’t remember thinking much about death. Paramhansa Yogananda’s teachings on death have helped me understand the right way to approach this major event in my life, and how to help others put into perspective the normal emotions that accompany the loss of a loved one. *

Quite a few years ago I had an experience of thinking I might die. It came on very quickly and passed quickly as well. I was alone, and I mentally asked Yogananda, “Is this what you want?” I didn’t pray to live, but tried to relax into the moment. In case this was my time to die, I wanted to be prepared and thinking of my Guru.

I think that by becoming familiar with Yogananda’s teachings on death, and accepting that death can come at any time, one is less likely to be afraid when it does come.

Q. Have you ever counseled people who feared death or were grieving over the death of loved ones? If so, how were you able to help them?

A. Yes, I have. The passing of a loved one is a very emotional time for many people and I’ve always tried to share with people whatever aspect of Yogananda’s teachings I felt would bring them the most comfort.

During my time in Atherton, I was asked by the mother and sister of a young man who had died suddenly to give the funeral service. The mother and sister were then taking my meditation class, but I barely knew them. I arrived at the mortuary expecting a close family affair. Instead, there were over a hundred grieving people, friends and family members, who didn’t know how to relate to the young man’s sudden death. Many of them felt terrible that they hadn’t had a chance to say goodbye to him, or that their last encounters with him had not been harmonious.

I hadn’t done a funeral service quite like this one, and I prayed to Yogananda that I be able to respond to the family’s needs in that moment. The people attending the service seemed to find some comfort in what I said and, unexpectedly, the mother and sister asked me to do a graveside ceremony immediately following the service. There were flowers at the graveside, and after a very brief talk, I asked each person to take a flower and to offer it on the coffin as a symbol of their love for this friend, brother, and son. From what I heard afterwards, both services were greatly appreciated. I attribute the vibration and comfort that came through those two services to Yogananda.

Q. Since 2004 you have been Executive Director of the Janaka Foundation at Ananda Village, which requires that you be sensitive to peoples’ feelings about death. Is that correct?

A. Yes. My work with the Janaka Foundation is focused on “planned giving,” which involves encouraging people to make gifts to Ananda, gifts that will take effect when they die. These gifts require that people think about, and plan for, events that will occur beyond their own lifetimes.

Q. Have you found that it’s difficult for people to make arrangements that relate to their dying?

A. Not usually. The people I talk with are usually devotees who meditate and have a balanced understanding of death. For some people, planning for what will happen when they die makes them think more deeply about their current lives and loved ones.

Q. Was the transition from serving as an Ananda colony leader to serving as Executive Director of the Janaka Foundation challenging for you?

A. The transition had its challenging aspects but the challenges were similar to those I faced when I served at the Ananda center in Italy. In Italy I had to put out a great deal of energy to learn a new language and culture, and of course that took time. When I became head of the Janaka Foundation, I had to put out a great deal of energy to learn the language and culture of planned giving, and this also took time.

Since I knew very little about planned giving or how to approach it for Ananda, I attended a number of  informative seminars on this topic. Later I found a wonderful planned giving consultant (who is also a Lutheran minister) with whom I regularly consult.

Q. Have there been any ongoing challenges in your job as head of the Janaka Foundation?

A. Yes. The main challenge has been to raise the general awareness that Ananda is interested in receiving planned gifts, and is fully qualified to do so. People who give such gifts are concerned that their gifts go to an organization that has endured the test of time – as Ananda has done for the last 44 years.

Q. Your longest period of service as the leader of an Ananda center or colony was in Portland, Oregon, where you served for six years, until 2004. You’ve been director of the Janaka Foundation for almost nine years now. Are you contemplating any future changes?

A. Not really. I would like to continue serving wherever I am most needed.

Q. Looking back over your life – helping to start new Ananda centers and now serving as director of the Janaka Foundation – do you see yourself as a trailblazer?

A. All I can say is that I have been blessed to be able to serve Ananda in many ways, and even more blessed to be able to say “yes” when asked to do so.

Nayaswami Parvati, an Ananda Lightbearer, serves as Executive Director of the Janaka Foundation.  She and her husband, Pranaba, presently live at Ananda Village.

*To make Paramhansa Yogananda’s teachings on death more easily accessible, I have included a link on the Janaka Foundation website called “4th Ashram Living, Inspiration and Resources,” which has links to articles, websites and blogs that deal with death and other related topics. To learn more go to Janaka Foundation

The post Embracing Change: An Interview with Nayaswami Parvati appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

How forgiveness liberates us

I read a very touching article in a magazine which illustrates Kriyananda’s point. The article is about a woman whose daughter was murdered. Even after the man who committed the crime was sent to prison for life, the mother continued to seethe with anger. Finally she realized that her anger was killing her, and that the man who took the life of her child was taking her life as well. In the hope of finding some resolution, she decided to go to the prison and confront the murderer.

At first she found it difficult even to be in the same room with him, but feeling that she had no choice, she persevered. Gradually she began to see this man, not as a monster, but as a fellow human being who had also suffered much in his own life. The end of the story is that they grew close and she became like a mother to him.

The woman never condoned what this man did but she accepted it—not as good or beautiful, but as a reality that had to be faced. The murderer also experienced an expansion of consciousness. He had no comprehension of the suffering his action had caused. Only in getting to know the bereaved mother did he come to understand that his actions had consequences.

As he faced and accepted responsibility for what he had done, and truly repented, it was possible for the woman to forgive and open her heart to him in love and compassion. She provided for him an example of the all-forgiving love of God. The channel is blessed by that which flows through it: She, too, experienced that all-forgiving love.

******

All we ever experience is our own consciousness. If our inner life is filled with anger, resentment, grief, and disappointment, our life is miserable. Even if circumstances give us every reason to feel justified in our misery, the question is: Who suffers? Christ-like forgiveness is the high destiny we all must reach for the sake of our own happiness

When it’s hard to forgive yourself

When I was first starting on the spiritual path I became angry at a friend who I felt had mistreated me. Over the course of some months I found that my inner diatribe against him gradually focused on a few specific incidents. Finally I asked myself, “Why do I think only of these?”

After some reflection I saw that in all those situations, true principles were at stake. Even at the time, I knew something was very wrong, but I didn’t have the courage to speak up. My friend, however, had not been aware of those principles. He had done the best he could with the understanding he had. I, by contrast, had consciously violated dharma, or righteous action.

When I realized my error, I stopped being angry with my friend — and became angry with myself! It took some time longer before I could forgive myself, but finally I was able to see myself the way I saw him: I had done the best I could with the understanding I had. What more can we ask of ourselves or of each other? His error was in not understanding dharma. Mine was in lacking the courage to act on what I knew was right. I was not proud of my cowardice, but there was no reason to be ashamed of it either.

There is no shortcut to forgiveness. Perfect self-honesty, however, will lead us eventually to the point when we can purge from our hearts the need to make someone else responsible for our suffering. No matter what the facts of the situation, the truth is we are responsible for our own consciousness.

******

Is forgiveness really the issue?

Forgiveness is a complicated subject. Guilt can sometimes masquerade as forgiveness. A friend was describing to me a relationship she was caught in with an elderly relative, who was doing everything he could to take the joy out of her life. As she recounted what he had said, I interrupted to ask, “You just sat there and let him to talk to you like that?”

“Yes,” she said, “I did.”

“I would have walked out and not come back,” I said. “It is not good for him to speak like that. And it is an offense against the Divine within you to let yourself be treated that way.”

Let me add that if my friend had been unaffected, I would have responded differently. If she had been detached and could joyfully give love to an unhappy old man no matter how he treated her, then accepting his treatment might have been a spiritual service worth offering. But she had been deeply affected; all the joy had drained out of her.

To give people the impression that you are there to be abused, that whatever they do is fine, and that their actions have no consequences, is neither love nor forgiveness. Almost always it is guilt or fear trying to pass itself off as these more elevated qualities. It is not always easy to discriminate but it has to be done. Humility is not self-abnegation. It is self-honesty, seeing things as they are.

Years ago Swami Kriyananda received a letter from a woman saying that she was leaving her husband after seven years of marriage. “Whenever I try to meditate,” she wrote, “he turns the television on as loud as possible. When I speak of spiritual things, he makes fun of me.”

Privately, Swamiji said, “She put up with that for seven years? I wouldn’t have taken it for fifteen minutes!”

******

Should we forgive when there is no repentance?

I once received a letter from a woman whose partner of 15 years had constantly strayed, a result, he told her, of the inner pain he was experiencing from symptoms similar to bipolar disorder. He now told her he had healed and that he wanted their relationship to continue.

This woman asked two questions: 1) Can people really change? and 2)When one commits to love and to forgive everything, does it include inconstancy?

As for the question, “Can a person change?” Of course, everyone can change. We are all divine in our essence, equally children of God. But true healing requires that we take responsibility for our actions and includes, insofar as it is possible, making amends. One of the steps of the 12-step program, Alcoholics Anonymous, for example, is to find those you have hurt and do what you can to make amends. Even when it’s difficult, you have to try. Otherwise there is a big gap in your healing.

This woman wrote that her partner attributed his inconstancy to his emotional disorder. But to “explain it away” is not the same as taking responsibility.

There was man who lived at Ananda Village for a time who, after leaving, did his best to harm the community and many of his former friends by aggressively spreading false and malicious rumors about us. His lies caused great difficulty for many people.

Years later, after the dust had long since settled, I happened to meet him again. He came on with great friendliness and then began to speak to me about the importance of forgiveness and healing. His point was that I, as a long time member of Ananda, should be expansive enough in my consciousness to forgive him for the trouble he had caused.

My response was, “Have you changed? Do you repudiate the attitudes and actions of the past? Will you apologize to all those you hurt? Will you take back your lies?”

His answer was carefully crafted. “I’m sorry that some of you suffered.”

I responded, “That’s no answer! Are you sorry for the part you played in causing that suffering?” To that he made no response, which said all I needed to hear. He was not willing to acknowledge that he had acted improperly. Instead he was trying to shame me into believing I would be acting improperly if I didn’t welcome him back with open arms!

I bear him no ill will. But, as I explained to him in no uncertain terms, it would be irresponsible of me to welcome him back into my life and the life of Ananda if he showed no actual proof that he had changed. He was trying to take advantage of Ananda’s well-known generosity of heart.

“Be practical in your idealism,” Paramhansa Yogananda said.

The question is not, “Can a person change?” The question is, “Has he changed?” And if so, “What is the proof?” His assertion alone is not enough.

Returning now to the subject of your straying husband who attributed his inconstancy to illness:

Even though an apology is not in itself the same thing as reform, to apologize is an important first step to taking responsibility for one’s behavior. In the case of the person who had tried to harm Ananda, there had been no apology. There was no acceptance even that he had done anything wrong.  Has your husband apologized for his behavior?

If your husband has apologized and is genuinely trying to become a better person, then it is no lowering of standards to forgive him and welcome him back into your life. But you should also bear in mind, until there is adequate proof of its eradication, his potential for falling again into that same delusion.

Yes, love forgives all. To consider yourself a victim, to feel that the world, and the people in it, owe you a certain standard of behavior, is to doom yourself to constant suffering and disappointment.

Forgiveness, however, is not to run away from the truth, but to face it squarely and then see it from a higher perspective. We all make egregious mistakes. Divine Mother understands and forgives our transgressions. It behooves us to learn to see one another through Her eyes.

Nayaswami Asha and her husband, Nayaswami David, are Spiritual Directors of Ananda Palo Alto. For other discussions by Asha, go to Nayaswami Asha

The post The Power of Forgiveness appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

Again and again in the history of religion, true teachers and true teachings are subjected to persecution. The persecutor may claim to represent established authority, and may attempt to block the efforts of sincere aspirants who seek to practice the deepest aspects of their religion. At the same time, as if in divine response, we also see “soldiers of the light” stepping forward not only to fight the battle for religious freedom but also to speak the truth, to correct misunderstandings, to set the record straight.

Such a battle was Ananda’s 12-year lawsuit, a story to bring hope to every devotee. Ananda, in 1990, found itself on the receiving end of the first of a series of lawsuits whose purpose, in the words of the presiding judge, was “to put Ananda out of business.” Ananda’s attorney during that 12-year battle was Jon R. Parsons, a “soldier of light” who not only stepped forward to fight the battle on Ananda’s behalf, but whose superb memoir, A Fight for Religious Freedom: A Lawyer’s Personal Account of Copyright, Karma, and Dharmic Litigation, brings clarity and truth to a much misunderstood situation.

Much like a John Grisham legal thriller
The narrative itself is a thrillingly dramatic account of Ananda’s long battle for the right to serve the world mission of Paramhansa Yogananda, and to do so in the way Kriyananda and Ananda members have felt guided by the Master to do. With the sure hand of a born storyteller, Jon Parsons guides the reader through the legal complexities of the case.

We come to understand the grueling work involved in preparing for deposition or trial, the research, the deadlines only met through all-night sessions by Ananda’s legal team, and the actual experience of the trial. In its charged and colorful recounting of the legal maneuvering, shady dealings of some of the lawyers representing the plaintiff, the characters and foibles of judges and attorneys, of witnesses, the emotional rollercoaster threatening to uncenter everyone involved, Jon Parsons’ book could be favorably compared to a John Grisham legal thriller.

It is an exciting read for anyone, particularly anyone interested in the American system of justice. Jon’s presentation is fair and unbiased. There is no attempt to minimize the mistakes made and lessons learned on Ananda’s side any more than that of the SRF plaintiffs.

The deeper layers of the story
A Fight for Religious Freedom is all the more gripping for being a true story—the story of a small group of dedicated souls fighting for the right to serve their Guru and his mission, against seemingly impossible odds. The final resolution is nuanced, as real life always is. But the central concluding energy is one of spiritual victory —the victory of each soul to seek freedom according to his own lights, and of a community of souls to share a path to the same ultimate goal.

Also deeply inspiring and paralleling the story of the lawsuit is Jon Parsons’ own coming-of-age story, his personal odyssey of self-awakening through the testing landscape of the long court case. Jon’s point of view is at once that of a legal professional and of a spiritual innocent. He portrays himself as someone who, as a college student, had studied Indian religion, who was open-minded about India’s ancient teachings, but who had no previous contact with anyone living their teachings, such as Swami Kriyananda and other members of the Ananda community.

With wry humor Jon recounts his introduction to SRF’s leadership at the Fresno meeting whose ostensible purpose was a negotiated settlement. He describes his inner feeling of pleasurable anticipation at being in the presence of the SRF delegation, all advanced disciples with years of deep meditation. The meeting itself shocked him to his core. He found in these “advanced disciples” no wish for a harmonious settlement, but a greatly expanded list of demands, presented decorously and politely, but barely cloaking an iron will to absolute victory. “When Fresno failed, [SRF] let slip the dogs of war.”

The devastating first court hearing
The “dogs of war,” it turned out, had been held in readiness for some time. SRF armies were massed to strike. The first hearing was devastating. Instead of a participant in a discussion between fellow disciples of a great Master, Ananda suddenly found itself portrayed as a fraudulent business competitor to SRF. The judge granted SRF’s requested preliminary injunction against Ananda’s use of Yogananda’s name and of the term “Self-realization.”

Jon’s ensuing “tortured introspection”—“I had been entrusted with an almost sacred task, and had stumbled badly”—led him to offer Kriyananda his resignation. Humbly and candidly he admitted that he was seriously “outgunned”—a sole practitioner pitted against two giant firms. Kriyananda’s response? Unhesitatingly he asked Jon to continue as Ananda’s counsel. Jon he saw as “dharmic”—“a man of integrity.” The struggle itself Kriyananda saw not in legal or practical terms, but in terms of what God and Guru were doing through the struggle. To Jon Parsons, the righteous warrior, Kriyananda sent a team of Ananda stalwarts, whom Jon referred to as “brothers and sisters in arms.”

Parallels with the Mahabharata
Readers familiar with India’s great spiritual epic the Mahabharta will find in the lawsuit a compelling modern parallel. Jon himself describes the Mahabharata, which he studied as background research, as a “karmic soap opera of betrayal and skullduggery.”  The Pandavas seek to regain their throne, wrongly denied them by their cousins, the Kauravas. The Pandavas, forced into battle, choose to fight under the guidance of Krishna, God Himself; the Kauravas choose as their means to victory worldly wealth and military might. Seen on the level of the individual soul, the epic portrays the true devotee rejecting the lures of wealth and power and putting his trust wholly in the Lord.

In this same way, we see the battle lines drawn in this modern-day epic struggle—on one side, power, wealth, established authority; on the other, trust in God and Guru, and trust in the power of dharma (spiritual righteousness) to win through against any odds.

A campaign of defamation
The course of the lawsuit took everyone involved into some dark and sordid places. The battle against Ananda’s right to exist and to share Yogananda’s teachings, at times degenerated into a campaign of defamation against Kriyananda and the Ananda community. Paralleling the unfolding action of the lawsuit in Jon’s account are historical sidebars from the lives of Yogananda and those around him. Wherever we see a virulent attack on Kriyananda we find a historical parallel in Yogananda’s life. Kriyananda’s biography of Yogananda shows the Master as a great modern spiritual warrior fighting to manifest his God-given mission amidst lawsuits, betrayal, persecution—a story far from the manicured, sanitized image of Yogananda presented by SRF.

The lawsuit, it becomes increasingly clear, is an exercise in discipleship—the battles fought by the Master come again for the disciples to fight, that they, too, may pass through the testing fires that will hasten their way to awakening. The very sordidness of parts of the lawsuit becomes its greatest value—even its inherent blessing—as a path to freedom for the disciple who stays in tune to the end.

Purified and closer to the light
When we come to the Bertolucci lawsuit, the attack on Kriyananda’s character and right to serve Yogananda’s mission enters its lowest, most degraded level. Ananda, prevented from defending itself by a gag order, can only endure in silence and cling inwardly to truth and dharma. Kriyananda himself stoically responded to bitter and sarcastic questioning with calm truthfulness, and this at a time when his body was recovering from open heart surgery. The attacks were allowed free rein. Acting for SRF are characters that, in this reader’s opinion, Charles Dickens would have been proud to include in his roster of great villains. These men epitomized adharma, an array of qualities immortalized by the Kauravas in Mahabharata: the battle of light and dark on a sinister and sordid level.

In a historical sidebar, we read of Yogananda’s persecution in the popular press: “Swami Yogananda, East Indian love cult leader” had “his life threatened by a delegation of angry citizens” who burst into a class. The Master was subsequently ordered out of town by Miami sheriff, Leslie Quigg, a man arrested two months later for murdering black prisoners in his custody.

What at first seem unjust and vicious attacks aimed at Kriyananda by a possessive organization jealous of its authority, show themselves to be on examination in the light of Jon’s carefully selected historical parallels in the life of Yogananda, not essentially different from the challenges faced by every committed devotee on his way to freedom. The greatest masters, Jesus Christ and Paramhansa Yogananda among them, allowed into their lives persecution, infamy, betrayal, to show those who come after how to find spiritual joy, love, and liberation even in the midst of the darkest times. Those who maintained their loyalty and integrity through the fire of the SRF lawsuit emerged purified and closer to the light.

Through dharmic action comes victory
Jon’s own personal challenges he comes to see in the perspective of the Bhagavad Gita, the spiritual heart of Mahabharata: “The Gita speaks a lawyer’s creed: duty in the face of adversity, effort without attachment to the consequences. And propriety in all things….Through dharmic action comes victory.” The reader sees Jon, the dharmic warrior, himself entering the realm of those he is championing: Kriyananda and the Ananda community; Yogananda and his mission to the world.

Jon chose the image of “The Last Smile,” the photograph taken of Yogananda just before his mahasamadhi, and one of the photographs Ananda’s legal efforts made available to the world, as the final image he wished to leave in his reader’s mind—the beatific smile of blessing from the Master in whose name this great struggle was fought and won.

Nayaswami Prakash is a long-time member of Ananda. He currently serves at Ananda Village doing forestry and landscaping work. Before moving to Ananda Village in 1974, he taught English and Literature at North Carolina Central University in Durham, North Carolina.

Order: A Fight For Religious Freedom: A Lawyer’s Personal Account of Copyrights, Karma and Dharmic Litigation by Jon R. Parsons from Crystal Clarity Publishers

The post The Inside Story of a Noble Battle appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

He left a strange will indicating that each of his sons would have to search and dig for the treasure with a spade for one entire night, and each son would have to divide equally whatever he found with the other brothers. After ten nights, the entire garden would be dug up, and any left-over fortune would be given, half to the mother, and half to the public. The will stated that about twelve million dollars in gold coins were hidden in the royal gardens.

Of the ten brothers, the eldest was saintly and the eighth and ninth brothers were very wicked. The others were fairly good. The wicked eighth prince was very greedy and ambitious and wanted to dig for the treasure alone. On the first night, as he was digging under the surveillance of the other nine brothers, he suddenly struck a box of gold containing a million dollars.

This eighth wicked brother announced that he would distribute the money equally, at a little mound in the garden. But he had secretly hired men to dig a 10-foot wide and 20-foot deep moat around the mound. The moat was covered with thin sticks and loose earth, as also was the single bridge leading to the middle of the mound.

In the dim light of a waning moon, the wicked brother asked the other brothers to stand on the edge of the moat while he passed over the secret bridge to the middle of the mound. Then the wicked brother sang a hymn, giving thanks for the treasure which was soon to be divided into ten equal parts. Cunningly he said to his brothers, “Brothers, I want to hold a little competition in celebration of our found treasure. I want all of you to jump with all your might, and he who jumps the farthest will be awarded one hundred extra gold coins.”

The ninth wicked brother became suspicious of this request. Unnoticed, he slipped away from the other princes and hid behind a tree. At the given signal, the other eight princes jumped and crashed through the covering of loose earth and thin sticks into the moat, now filled with water. The eighth wicked brother laughed and hurled taunts at his drowning brothers, “Ah ha, why don’t you come out and take your share, you fools?” He walked round and round the moat, watching in merriment his drowning brothers.

The ninth brother, who had been waiting behind a tree, unsheathed his sword, and coming up stealthily behind the eighth wicked brother, slew him with one stroke. This ninth wicked brother then reluctantly rescued the other eight princes from the moat and, with his sword dripping blood, went to the Queen. He exclaimed, “Mother Queen, look here, I slew your eighth son who plotted to kill all of us.”

The mother rejoiced after she heard how her eight sons had been saved from drowning, but with sobs cried out, “Your Excellency, my ninth son, my heart is bursting with grief for you have killed your brother.”

To which the ninth son replied, “What do you mean, mother? Would you rather have seen your eighth wicked son alive and the rest killed?”

“No, no,” the mother replied, “but I wish you could have saved your eight brothers and your wicked brother too, for he was my son also, and being wicked needed my protecting love.”

The sons retired. Every night a million dollars were found. The ninth brother began to connive a plot so that he would be the sole owner of all the money which, according to his advice, was being stored in a secret chamber, to be distributed on the eleventh night.

On the eleventh night, the ninth wicked son, armed with a dagger and a pistol, entered the dimly-lighted chamber where the money was being stored. After the other eight brothers entered, he locked the door, unsheathed his dagger and shouted, “This is your end, for I am going to slay you one by one. I am going to own all the treasure, and I am going to become the king by dethroning the queen.”

Suddenly there was a hush, and with a firm voice the saintly eldest prince spoke. “Brother, it is wrong for you to kill us all. I dare to tell you that if you kill us your conscience will remind you during every minute of your existence that you are the greatest criminal that ever lived, and all because you wanted to have extra luxuries and to be king. I am not afraid of you.”

The eldest prince then shouted at his seven brothers, who were ready to jump upon the wicked brother. He said, “Let no one stir. Do not use physical force to punish this wicked brother of ours. Let him kill us with our permission, one by one, and with our blessing and love. We must continue to love him as our brother, for we know that he is acting under the intoxication of evil. But let us all say to him, ‘You are wrong! We dare to tell you that you are wrong, and that you will regret your deeds forever.’”

The ninth brother shouted, “It doesn’t matter what you say. If any of you advance, I will shoot you.”

But the eldest brother, unafraid, asked the others to stand still and sing, “We welcome you to kill us while we bless you with our love, now and hereafter.” While the other brothers remained still, the eldest brother, in spite of the warning, began to advance steadily toward the menacing gun, A shot rang through the silent chamber. The eldest prince was bleeding, yet he continued to advance, saying, “Brother, you may give me death, but I will give you love instead. Kill me first. Take my life and spare the others.”

Hearing this, the ninth brother threw away his gun and dagger and fell at the feet of the eldest prince. The other brothers, for a moment losing their self control, jumped on the wicked prince and began choking him, but the eldest brother, though wounded, rescued the wicked brother.

All nine princes returned to the Mother-Queen. The eldest prince spoke, “Mother-Queen, by my blood I have saved my seven brothers and also my naughty brother who is also thy son, and I have made him willingly cast away his weapons and his wickedness.”

The Mother-Queen cried out in joy, “My dear sons. That is the mode of action I love most. Whether you are good or whether you are murderers, you are my children. No matter what you do, you can’t take away my motherly love, for I love you all equally and will ever do so. I hope that henceforth you will all live in amity and never rejoice in hurting one another.

“Remember: whether you are wrong or right, I cannot take sides. You must fight out your own battles. When you fight, I do not rejoice with the victorious son, and my heart bleeds for the vanquished son. I wish you would not fight but would live in amity. All of you living together in amity is the only thing that truly pleases me.”

******

The above story offers the nations of the earth a great lesson. In World War I every nation declared that God was especially concerned with its success. But the Cosmic Mother never took sides, nor did She rejoice when the Allies were victorious over Germany. Rather, it broke the heart of the Cosmic Mother when one nation fought against another and rejoiced in doing so.

The Cosmic Mother God says, “Naughty or good, all of you are my children. I hope that all of you, as my children, will live in peace. Make an altar of a United League of National Hearts, wherein I shall come to dwell with My Light of Truth and Peace to endlessness.”

From: Praecepta Lessons, 1934

The post The Love of God and Nations appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

Ahimsa is a term that was popularized in our times by Mahatma Gandhi. By non-violent resistance he led India to political emancipation from Britain. But alas, he was not able to teach the Indian people the deeper implications of this teaching. Ahimsa is seen by most people even today as the last hope of the underdog.

Yet ahimsa, rightly understood, is the “ultimate weapon” of a strong man; it turns one’s enemy into a friend, thereby banishing the possibility of further conflict. With the perfection of ahimsa, even hardened criminals and ferocious animals become tame and harmless in our presence. Many were the instances in the life of my own Guru, Paramhansa Yogananda, when this principle was demonstrated.

Non-injury doesn’t only mean non-killing. You can injure others in many ways: by discouraging a person who is full of enthusiasm for a good thing, by treating people contemptuously, without respect, or even by being cold to them.

Everything is an expression of God
How do we practice non-injury, and why is it such an important principle for our spiritual growth?  We need to understand that everything in its deepest reality is our own self—that the life flowing in our veins is the same life which flows in the veins of all creatures. All of us are expressions of God, in the same way (to use a favorite illustration of my Guru’s) that the individual jets on a gas burner, though appearing separate from one another, are only manifestations of the unifying gas underneath.

If we’re trying to develop the realization that our deepest reality is expressed in everything, then we must live in such a way as constantly to affirm our oneness –– by  kindness towards all beings, by compassion, by universal love. We cannot pretend that certain things are less a part of that oneness than others. We must wish well toward everything. To injure anything is to go against that principle.

The principles of the yamas are stated in negative terms. Patanjali speaks of non-injury to others rather than of blessing them. The wish to bless people springs up automatically once you reach that level of realization where you see that all is one, that you are not separate from the world around you. When you see that everything is part of your inner essence, the thought then naturally arises of what you can do to be of help to others, without any desire to change or dominate them.

Can we practice ahimsa literally?
It’s very difficult to practice ahimsa literally. There are situations, the Bhagavad Gita declares, in which a lesser harm must be inflicted to forestall a greater harm. Thus more highly evolved species should be protected from less evolved species, even if the protection involves killing. At times it is necessary to fight –– for example, in a defensive war –– to protect the innocent from destruction by an aggressor.

Living in this world of relativity forces us, even if inadvertently, to perform some injurious acts. With every inhalation, hosts of germs are killed. Every outing in the car inadvertently causes the death of numerous insects. We walk out of doors and can hardly avoid stepping on a few ants.

The Jains in India put a huge emphasis on trying not to kill anything. They hold this view to such a degree that they wear masks over their mouths and boil their water so that they won’t kill the germs when they drink it. Of course, they’re killing the germs when they boil the water, so what’s the difference? It’s just not possible to live without causing some injury. If you don’t eat meat, then you’re killing vegetables, for they obviously have life, too.

The importance of intent
The important thing is the intent. What makes an act wrong is the wish to injure. The American Indians who depended upon hunting for their survival would mentally contact a herd of deer and say, “We need to eat. Would you offer one of your tribe?” Then one deer would separate itself from the herd as the offering, and they would kill that particular animal.

In the fascinating book, The Secret Life of Plants, the authors discuss research that scientists have done to see whether or not plants have emotional responses. They attached polygraphs (lie detectors) to plants and found that they do in fact have emotional responses. If a person has a wish to bless them, the plants are very happy. If somebody wishes to harm them, they become trembling or weak.

They experimented by having one person in the laboratory behave as the “heavy.” Every time he came into the room, the graph started showing agitation. When the person who had been caring for the plants telephoned, even from a great distance, the plants somehow picked up that vibration and started showing very harmonious wave patterns.

But the most interesting thing they found was that the plants responded not only to pain being inflicted on them, but also to the intention to inflict pain. If, for example, you burned a plant with a cigarette without conscious intent to harm, the plant wasn’t bothered very much. But if you had an intention to cause pain by touching a cigarette to a plant, the plant showed great agitation even before you touched it.

Ahimsa essentially applies to intention because in this relativistic world it’s not possible to live without doing some harm. But if you can overcome the wish to injure, if you can recognize that God is in everything, then you are embracing the true principle of ahimsa.

Send waves of blessing to all
Non-injury is necessary to achieve deeper states of consciousness in meditation. As long as there is any thought of separation between you and the rest of life, there will be tension. That’s why Jesus said that if you have anything against your brother, make peace with him before you go into the temple. He was speaking of the inner temple of communion with God.

When you meditate, begin by sending out waves of blessings to all. If there is anyone with whom you have had a difference, send him your love. Until you develop this attitude, you will never be able meditate deeply. Subconscious antagonism will keep you tensed physically, as well as egotistically aloof from the great stream of life into which meditation should help you merge.

With deeper levels of relaxation, you are able to release all attachments to the body, to the mind, and to the world. Ultimately you relax into samadhi, or cosmic consciousness, which Patanjali says is the final stage on the journey to superconscious union with the Divine.

Excerpted from a 1983 talk, The Art and Science of Raja Yoga, and Awaken to Superconsciousness, by Swami Kriyananda.

The post Turn Enemies into Friends appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

How does the enlightened soul view life?

1. We shall no longer think of things from a center of ego-consciousness. We shall no longer refer everything, or even anything, back to ourselves, unless the reference belongs to a completely impersonal view of reality.

To give an example: a good singer-saint may be aware that he has sung well, but he will never think, “It is I who have sung well.” He will think, rather, “God sang His beauty through me.” That is to say, he will be well aware – perhaps even more so than most people – of the beauty itself. But he will never think of himself as the producer of that beauty. He will understand that God alone, in everything, was and ever is the Doer.

2. For another thing, he will begin to view everything and everyone in terms of the divine consciousness residing at the center of all things. When I relate to other people from my own center to their centers, instead of from my ego to theirs, I find myself feeling toward them in a different way altogether. I understand them better, and I also find that I evoke a new reaction in them. Even strangers are more likely to look upon me as their own, and somehow even to know me as their friend.

3. Best of all, perhaps, when I ponder the vast drama that is life, it all now seems so utterly obvious! Of course what we all want is eternally the same: never money; not power; not the prideful strut of self-importance; not the humble respect and deference of others. What all of us want is, simply, Bliss. It was bliss alone we were seeking in all those lesser fulfillments.

4. I see all life, now, as a dream. Such, indeed, is its fundamental “reality.” The entire cosmos is God’s dream. Nothing is real except in His consciousness. Living in that thought, even without the final realization of its truth, helps me to perceive with conviction that this is all I am, and all life itself is.

5. I see someone fulfilling some ambition and think, “That is how it will be, when I find God! It will be a release and relaxation from all striving – but it will be eternal. In God, fulfillment itself is final, complete, and eternal!”

6. I see two human lovers united joyfully at last, perhaps after numerous trials, and I think, “Yes, that is what will happen, in God: divine unity in the very perfection, for all eternity, of every desire for love!”

7. If I see people suffering, or weeping in the pain of bereavement or of some other disaster, or over some unexpected grief, I think, “How wonderful it will be for them at last, when they realize that all this was only a dream!” And I long to help them to see it as such, indeed – to show them not merely how to escape their present suffering – but how to escape every possibility of ever suffering again.

8. The more one learns to see things in an impersonal and divine way – and this has to be God’s view; the more one realizes that the greatest service one can render anyone is the knowledge of one’s own divine, inner Self, which through eternity, has been and ever shall be one’s sole reality.

9. Trying to see things with divine vision means contemplating the vastness of the universe and telling oneself, “At my own deepest center I am in touch with it all. I am that! Whatever happens in the most distant galaxy happens, in some way, also to me!”

10. It means to see life’s countless joys and sorrows, and to think, “How wonderful is this drama, that after all the suspense, uncertainty, and tragedy man endures, it will all end in a way so supremely and utterly satisfying! There is no other story even imaginably comparable to the one which God has written for every one of us!”

And so we should view birth, life, death, merry comings together and tearful partings, laughter of joy and sighs of sadness, and through all of them let our hearts soar upward in song, knowing that all of it has been for a supremely good end. There is a wonderful purpose to life! Everything we do, therefore, should be a song of unceasing gratitude and bliss.

From the essay, “Learn to See, Feel, and Think Differently,” in Religion in the New Age, Crystal Clarity Publishers.

The post The Glorious Future of Every Soul appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

Long my eyes were blinded by the tinsel-glitter of materiality. Seeing things always outwardly, I saw not the Spirit behind and within them. I saw the mustard-seed of matter, but spied not the oil of Spirit that it contained.

My third eye of wisdom is now opened. Oh, may it always be so! Let the gaze of my single eye of realization penetrate through every veil of matter to behold the infinite presence of Christ, everywhere.

Bless me, that my sacred, wise thoughts, following this star of knowledge, lead me to the Christ in everything.

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

The post Demand for the Opening of the Spiritual Eye appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

The soul’s return to its true kingdom
Diwali celebrates Rama and Sita’s return to Ayodhya after fourteen years of exile, Sita’s abduction by Ravana, the demon king, and Rama’s triumph over Ravana. By decree, the roads of the kingdom were strewn with “rows of lights” to welcome Rama and Sita home.

Diwali symbolizes the conquest of good over evil, the ascendance of light in the midst of darkness and, on a deeper level, the return of the soul to its true kingdom in God from its “exile” in the land of the senses. It is one of the half-dozen times during the year we do the Ananda “Festival of Light” because it is absolutely perfect for the occasion. This afternoon’s service was  sweet and powerful.

Performances of the Ramayana
Festivals (“melas”) are a regular feature of the Hindu calendar but autumn is their “high season.” Perhaps it’s because October marks the end of summer and the onset of cooler weather. Like Christmas in America, this is the season for exchanging gifts and shopping. Holiday dates vary from year to year according to the lunar calendar, but this year’s festivities began in early October with Navratri. As the name says, it lasts for nine nights and is a celebration of the Divine Mother. The celebration of Diwali begins on the tenth day.

Three of us went on the last night of Navratri to join hundreds of Indians from the neighborhood. The highlight of the evening was the Durga Puja. Three drummers established a loud, steady rhythm, accompanied by miscellaneous gongs, bells and clanging instruments. The audience kept rapt attention and surged forward to receive the light when the pujari offered it from his multiple lamps of camphor oil. I was much impressed by the concentration and inward focus of the pujari.

During the nine nights of Navratri, performances of the Ramayana are staged as a prelude to the coming of Diwali, which begins on the tenth day. At this time, large effigies of Ravana, the demon king, are erected and set afire, to symbolize the conquest of evil by good.

The story of Ravana
I have always liked the story of Ravana. Although evil in that lifetime, Ravana was supposed to be a reincarnation of a celestial doorkeeper named “Jaya.” Jaya and Vijaya guarded the doorway of Lord Vishnu in Vaikunta, his abode. Vishnu had instructed Jaya and Vijaya that he did not wish to be disturbed, but when they refused to let holy sages enter Vishnu’s abode, the sages cursed them.

Vishnu said that he could not revoke the curse but he would give Jaya and Vijaya a choice of being born as either great lovers of Vishnu for many incarnations or as great enemies of Vishnu for only a few. They chose the latter curse because they wanted to return as quickly as possible to Vishnu’s presence. Consequently, they took form as the evil King Ravana and his brother Kumbakarna and were killed (a great blessing) by Lord Rama, said to be an incarnation of Vishnu himself.

Nayaswami Jaya is a founding member of Ananda and a Kriyacharya. Together with his wife, Nayaswami Sadhana Devi, he lives in India where he serves as spiritual director of Ananda’s work in Pune.

To learn more about Ananda’s work in India click here

The post Glimpses of India: The Conquest of Good over Evil appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

1. to remember that whatever peace you bring must begin on that little piece of earth where you live.

2. to surround yourself, wherever you go, with an aura of peacefulness. Walk consciously in that light of peace.

3. to think peace when you look into people’s eyes.

4. to realize that peace, when you express it, has its source not in you—but in Infinity.

5. never trying to make peace at the cost of true and noble principles.

6. to light a candle of kindness in your heart when you feel a need to correct someone; then, as you speak, to hold it there unwaveringly.

7. forgiving any who have ever wronged you. Indeed, if you cannot offer peace to them, how will you offer it to others whose lives have never touched yours?

8. bearing in mind that the world is, simply, what it is. And is it so small a place, that you could change it radically? Live at peace with yourself, if you would bring peace even to one other human being.

9. recalling that the promise of peace came down to earth from heavenly regions. It is not the gift of governments.

10. to place a higher priority on holding peace in your heart than on doing all those little things that daily cry out for attention.

11. not waiting for the future to bring you peace, but living peacefully this moment, then extending that peacefulness from day to day into the future.

12. to pray daily for world peace—not as an end to strife and discord, merely, but as the dawn of Divine Love on earth.

From: The Secrets for Bringing Peace on Earth, by Swami Kriyananda, Crystal Clarity, Publishers (currently out of print).

The post The Secret of Bringing Peace on Earth appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

Point of Service

At a certain clothing store, the sales clerks always made it a point of honor to give their customers their unvarnished opinion. One day, as a man emerged from the fitting room, the clerk took one look at him and said. “No, no, those jeans are all wrong for you. I’ll get you another pair.”

As the clerk walked away, the customer mumbled to his friend, “I was trying on the shirt.”

Rude Parrot

A young man named Jon received a parrot for his birthday. Unfortunately, the parrot had a bad attitude and an even worse vocabulary. Every word out of the bird’s mouth was rude, obnoxious and laced with profanity.

Jon tried to change the bird’s attitude by consistently saying only polite words, playing soft music, reading scripture to the bird, and anything else he could think of to “clean up” the bird’s vocabulary, but nothing worked. It continued to spew profanities at a remarkable rate.

Finally Jon was fed up. He yelled at the parrot. The parrot yelled back. He shook the parrot and the parrot got even angrier and more rude. In desperation, Jon finally grabbed the bird and shut him in the freezer. For a few minutes the parrot squawked and kicked and screamed. Then, suddenly there was total quiet, not a peep was heard.

Fearing he had killed the foul-mouthed bird, Jon quickly opened the freezer door. The parrot calmly stepped out onto Jon’s outstretched arm and said, “I believe I may have offended you with my crude language, and I fully intend to do everything I can do to correct my rude and unforgivable behavior. It will never happen again.”

Jon was stunned at the change in the bird’s attitude. He was about to ask the parrot why he had made such a dramatic change in his behavior, but the bird continued…

“By the way, what did that turkey do to end up in the freezer?”

Police Emergency

This is the true story of Walter Smith of Jackson, Mississippi, who was going to bed one night when his wife told him that he’d left the light on in the shed. Walter opened the door to go turn off the light, but saw there were people in the shed in the process of stealing things.

He immediately phoned the police, who asked, “Is someone in your house?” Walter said no and explained the situation. Then the police explained that all patrols were busy, and that he should simply lock his door and an officer would be there when available.

Walter said, “Okay,” hung up, counted to 30, and phoned the police again.

“Hello, I just called you a few seconds ago because there were people in my shed. Well, you don’t have to worry about them now because I’ve just shot them all.”

Then he hung up. Within five minutes three squad cars, an Armed Response unit, and an ambulance showed up. Of course, the police caught the burglars red-handed.

One of the policemen said to Walter, “I thought you said that you’d shot them!”

Walter replied, “I thought you said there was nobody available!”

A Superb Dinner

After an elaborate dinner party, a man, bidding farewell to his hostess said:

“Thank you, Madame, for a superb dinner. It approached perfection. If the ice cream had been as cold as the soup; the celery as crisp as the asparagus; and the pie crust as crunchy as the mashed potatoes, it would have merited inclusion in the pages of history!”

Cat Heaven

A cat died and went to Heaven. St. Peter met him at the Pearly Gates and said, “You have been a good cat all these years. Anything you want is yours for the asking.”

The cat thought for a moment and said, “All my life I lived on a farm and had to sleep on hard, wooden floors, I would like a real fluffy pillow to sleep on.”

St. Peter said, “Say no more.” Instantly, the cat had a huge fluffy pillow.

A few days later, 12 mice simultaneously died in an accident and they all went up to Heaven together. St. Peter met them at the Pearly Gates with the exact same offer he made to the cat.

The mice said, “All of our lives we’ve had to run from cats, dogs, and even from people with brooms. If we could just have little roller-skates, we would never have to run again.” Instantly, all the mice had beautiful little roller-skates.

About a week later, St. Peter decided to check in on the cat. He found her sound asleep on her big fluffy pillow. He awakened her gently and asked, “Is everything okay? How have you been doing? Are you happy?”

“Oh yes,” the cat replied, “everything is just wonderful. I’ve never been so happy in my life! My pillow is always fluffy and those little “Meals-on-Wheels” that you have been sending over are delicious.”

Phrases of Wisdom

1. Age is a very high price to pay for maturity.

2. Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.

3. Blessed are they who can laugh at themselves for they shall never cease to be amused.

Comments at Your Funeral

Three friends died in a car accident and went to an orientation in heaven. They were all asked, “When you are in your casket and friends and family are mourning you, what would you like to hear them say about you?

The first man said, “I would like to hear them say that I was a great doctor of my time, and a great family man.”

The second man said, “I would like to hear that I was a wonderful husband and school teacher who made a huge difference in our children of tomorrow.”

The last man replied, “I would like to hear them say, ‘Look! He’s moving!’”

The Cell Phone

A group of young men are in the locker room when a cell phone rings. One of them picks it up.

Man: “Hello?”

Woman: “Hi, Honey. It’s me. Are you at the club?”

Man: “Yes.”

Woman: “Well, I have good news. The house we wanted is back on the market again. They’re asking 900,000.”

Man: “Well, let’s see. Go ahead and make an offer, but not less than 1.2 million so we’ll be sure to get it.”

Woman: “Okay, that sounds good. See you later. I love you!”

Man: “Bye. I love you, too.”

The man hangs up. Then turning to his buddies, he asks, “Does anyone know whose phone this is?”

Jury Duty

Judge: Is there any reason you cannot do jury duty in this case?

Juror: I can’t afford to be away from my job that long.

Judge: They can’t do without you at work?

Juror: Yes, but they don’t know it, yet.

The post Humor: A Smile a Day appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

1. Howard Hughes
2. The Red Baron
3. Charles A. Lindbergh
4. Jules Verne

As a Scottish missionary and medical doctor, this man devoted much of his life to exploring Africa.

1. David Livingstone
2. Ernest Shackleton
3. John Muir
4. Henry Morton Stanley

This woman is best known for her 45-year study of wild chimpanzees in Africa.

1. Jane Fonda
2. Dian Fossey
3. Margaret Mead
4. Jane Goodall

With five ships and 251 men, this explorer led the first sailing expedition to circumnavigate the globe.

1. Amerigo Vespucci
2. Ponce de Leon
3. Marco Polo
4. Ferdinand Magellan

The first person to set foot on the Moon.

1. John Glenn
2. Yuri Gargarin
3. Neil Armstrong
4. Chuck Yeager

The first woman to win a Nobel Prize, she became famous for her pioneering research on radioactivity.

1. Princess Diana
2. Marie Curie
3. Rachel Carson
4. Maria Montessori

Best-known for his discovery of America in 1492, the original purpose of Christopher Columbus’ voyage was to:

1. Open a trade route to the East Indies
2. Find the Northwest Passage
3. Establish a colony in Hawaii
4. Prove the earth was round

The first woman aviator to attempt to circumnavigate the globe.

1. Beryl Markam
2. Florence Nightingale
3. Sally Ride
4. Amelia Earhart

Famous for his Kon Tiki expedition, this explorer sailed across the Pacific Ocean from South America to Polynesia on a primitive log raft.

1. Leif Ericson
2. Thor Heyerdahl
3. Captain James Cook
4. Phileas Fogg

Click here to view answers >>

Answers to Quiz

The first person to complete a solo, non-stop flight across Atlantic Ocean.

1. Howard Hughes
2. The Red Baron
3. Charles A. Lindbergh
4. Jules Verne

Answer: 3

As a Scottish missionary and medical doctor, this man devoted much of his life to exploring Africa.

1. David Livingstone
2. Ernest Shackleton
3. John Muir
4. Henry Morton Stanley

Answer: 1

This woman is best known for her 45-year study of wild chimpanzees in Africa.

1. Jane Fonda
2. Dian Fossey
3. Margaret Mead
4. Jane Goodall

Answer: 4

With five ships and 251 men, this explorer led the first sailing expedition to circumnavigate the globe.

1. Amerigo Vespucci
2. Ponce de Leon
3. Marco Polo
4. Ferdinand Magellan

Answer: 4

The first person to set foot on the Moon.

1. John Glenn
2. Yuri Gargarin
3. Neil Armstrong
4. Chuck Yeager

Answer: 3

The first woman to win a Nobel Prize, she became famous for her pioneering research on radioactivity.

1. Princess Diana
2. Marie Curie
3. Rachel Carson
4. Maria Montessori

Answer: 2

Best-known for his discovery of America in 1492, the original purpose of Christopher Columbus’ voyage was to:

1. Open a trade route to the East Indies
2. Find the Northwest Passage
3. Establish a colony in Hawaii
4. Prove the earth was round

Answer: 1

The first woman aviator to attempt to circumnavigate the globe.

1. Beryl Markam
2. Florence Nightingale
3. Sally Ride
4. Amelia Earhart

Answer: 4

Famous for his Kon Tiki expedition, this explorer sailed across the Pacific Ocean from South America to Polynesia on a primitive log raft.

1. Leif Ericson
2. Thor Heyerdahl
3. Captain James Cook
4. Phileas Fogg

Answer: 2

The post One Minute Quiz: Famous Adventurers appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

******

Work should always be done as well as possible in gratitude for the free gift of life, and for our God-given power to be useful to our fellowman.

******

Contemplating the birth of Jesus, one feels both deep awe and deep gratitude at the thought of God’s compassion in descending to earth in human form for man’s salvation.

******

The virtue of gratitude is, above all, for ourselves: It is self-ennobling

******

Do not forget when you meet beauty of every kind, to speak your gratitude to the Father within for surrounding you with so much wonder and beauty and for opening your eyes that you might see and enjoy it.

******

Gratitude is the surest way of developing the magnetism that attracts spiritual abundance into our lives.

******

When we look at life with inward vision, and from a standpoint of our own and of others’ spiritual development, we find cause for gratitude where, first, we may have discerned only tragedy.

******

Always face your faults with gratitude, for only by facing them can you work on them and change them.

******

God’s love is infinite. Let us lift up our hearts in gratitude to Him who has sent His one light repeatedly into the world for the salvation of humanity

******

The secret of overcoming doubt is to concentrate on your reasons for gratitude to life, and not to focus on all those things which seem to you imperfect.

******

Find something each day for which to give thanks, and thus form the habit of gratitude for all the good gifts the Father has bestowed upon us.

******

It is not material things that should command our gratitude but life itself. We are the immortal offspring of Infinite Bliss. In bliss lies our true reason for eternal gratitude.

From the works of Paramhansa Yogananda and Swami Kriyananda.

The post Quotations: Gratitude appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

BOOKS

Prodigal Genius: The Life of Nikola Tesla
by John J. O’Neill

Written by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author John J. O’Neill, this biography details the life of Nikola Tesla, a pioneer in the field electrical engineering and a true visionary. The inventor of AC electrical current, Tesla’s dream was to provide the world with free sources of energy and technology.  Originally published in 1944, Prodigal Genius remains the seminal biography of a staunchly ethical man of science.

Where Angels Walk
by Jean Wester Anderson

This unforgettable book is a compilation of stories about God’s intervention in the lives of ordinary people through the help of His angels. Based on true accounts, these stories offer overwhelming evidence that heavenly beings are very much part of our daily lives. A New York Times bestseller for over a year.

Jill, the Reckless
by PG Wodehouse

The heroine of this romantic comedy is Jill Marnier, a young, impulsive, upper class English woman, who loses her fortune and her fiancé all on the same day. Finding herself on her own, Jill faces life with courage and determination in a series of adventures that take her from England to America where she finds work as a chorus girl and a man worthy of her affections. First published in 1920, this Wodehouse classic is filled with sparking humor and unforgettable characters.

What the Animals Tell Me
by Sonya Fitzpatrick

In this book, Sonya Fitzpatrick, one of the world’s most widely recognized and respected animal communicators, offers simple, practical advice on how to communicate with animals. Through her telepathic and healing gifts, Sonya has helped thousands of pet owners achieve a better understanding of their pets and to uncover the root causes of their pets’ most common problems. An excellent gift for animal lovers.

Wooden on Leadership: How to Create a Winning Organization
by John Wooden

This book takes you inside the mind of a coaching legend, John Wooden (1910-2010), who guided the UCLA Bruins to ten NCAA basketball championships in 12 years, including four perfect seasons and an 88-game winning streak. Step by step, Wooden explains how he pursued and accomplished his goals, offering valuable leadership lessons that can be applied in any field.

An Army of Angels: A Novel of Joan of Arc
by Pamela Marcantel

In this well-researched first novel, Pamela Marcantel, recounts the amazing life of Joan of Arc. In vivid detail, Marcantel describes how the courage and faith of this young peasant girl uplifted an entire nation and brought France to victory during the Middle Ages. Rich with historical facts, Marcantel brings to life the spirit and courage of this warrior saint.

The Cure: How a Father Raised $100 Million–and Bucked the Medical Establishment–in a Quest to Save His Children
by Geeta Anand

Based on a true story, The Cure, is the riveting account of John Crowley’s single-minded determination to save his two children from “Pompe disease,” a rare, life-threatening, genetic disorder for which there was neither treatment nor cure. In a valiant uphill struggle, Crowley succeeded in finding a revolutionary new treatment for the disease.  A truly inspiring story of one family’s indomitable spirit. (See below – “Extraordinary Measures” – for the movie adaptation of the book.)

Jonathan Livingston, Seagull
by Richard Bach

A fable in novella form, this uplifting book is an allegory on how to overcome limitations and find a higher purpose in life. First published in 1979, the book has sold over 10 million copies and was one of the top-selling books of the 20th century. (See below for the movie adaptation of this book.)

MOVIES

The Spirit of St. Louis, 1957
Based upon Charles Lindbergh’s 1953 Pulitzer Prize winning autobiography, this film depicts Lindbergh’s career as a pioneer aviator from his early days as a mail-run carrier to his historic 33-hour solo flight from New York to Paris. James Stewart gives a sterling performance as Lindbergh, his real-life hero. It was Lindbergh himself who inspired Stewart to become an aviator.

Available: DVD; Not Rated

Pete Seeger: The Power of Song, 2007  
A documentary tribute to Pete Seeger, pioneering folk singer and political activist who, more than anyone else, was responsible for the folk revival of the 1960s. Highlights include candid conversations with musicians Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Tom Paxton, Arlo Guthrie and other leading figures of the time, who comment on Seeger’s far-reaching musical influence.

Available: DVD; Rated PG

Friendly Persuasion, 1956
This movie tells the story of the Birdwell family, Quaker pacifists living in southern Indiana at the height of the American Civil War. Though opposed to violence and neutral on the war issue, the family’s faith and non-violent beliefs are severely tested when a Confederate army threatens their community with looting and burning. Based on the novel, The Friendly Persuasion, by Jessamyn West.

Available: DVD; Not Rated

The Santa Clause, 1994
In this comedy, Santa Claus falls off his roof on Christmas Eve night and is accidentally killed. Because of a legal technicality known as “the Santa clause,” Scott Calvin, a toy store executive and divorced father, inherits the jolly old elf’s job and magically becomes Santa Claus. There’s just one problem: how to keep his new job secret from his disbelieving family? A great family movie.

Available: DVD; Rated PG

Miss Potter, 2006
Combining animation with live-action, this movie recounts the story of Helen Beatrix Potter (1866 –1943), English author, illustrator, natural scientist and conservationist, best known for her children’s books such as The Tale of Peter Rabbit. Set in Victorian England, this delightful movie is suitable for people of all ages.

Available: DVD; Rated PG

Extraordinary Measures, 2010
A captivating movie adaptation of The Cure by Geeta Anand. (See book description above)

Available: DVD; Rated PG

Jonathan Livingston Seagull, 1973  
This film, inspired by Richard Bach’s best-selling novella, was nominated for two Academy Awards. (See book description above)

Available: DVD; Rated G

The post Book and Movie Recommendations appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

In The Land of Golden Sunshine, Lisa, a young girl, is asked to choose between two eternally contrasting worlds: one of material pursuits and the other of endless happiness and love—a spiritual “land of golden sunshine.” (41:40 minutes)

Download

The post A Christmas Gift from Clarity Magazine appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

The post What Is Love? – 3:40 appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

The post Well Done, Lord! – 3:02 appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

The post Many Hands Make a Miracle – 1:36 appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

The post If You’re Seeking Freedom – 2:57 appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

The post Truth Can Never Die – 3:24 appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

The post O, Master – 5:29 appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

It’s not easy. That highest and final test is the most challenging of them all. At that moment the ego recoils and says, “No, no—wait!” All those who have attained enlightenment have experienced it. Buddha told how, on the eve of his enlightenment, suddenly Satan appeared in tempting forms to try to draw him back into ego consciousness. Buddha, with one supreme effort, rapped on the ground and said, “Mara—Death—I have defeated you!” And Satan disappeared.

The doorway to the highest attainment
Ramakrishna, a great saint of the 19th century in India, was faced with the difficulty of giving up the lower self. His guru, Totapuri, wanted to give him the experience of samadhi, complete absorption of the self in the Infinite, but Ramakrishna was a devotee of God in the form of the Divine Mother, and every time he reached the doorway of samadhi, he would suddenly see the Divine Mother. And he would feel such love – the love of the devotee for God – that he couldn’t go through that doorway in to the impersonal consciousness of the Infinite.

Finally Totapuri took a piece of glass from the ground and rammed it into Ramakrishna’s forehead at the point between the eyebrows, crying, “Concentrate there!” Ramakrishna then mentally took a sword and, slicing Divine Mother in half, he realized the highest state of consciousness.

Rajarshi Janakananda, Paramhansa Yogananda’s chief disciple, was just at the point before he attained the highest enlightenment, when suddenly his meditations became filled with darkness. For years his meditations had been filled with the light and bliss of God contact, but suddenly it was all gone. He felt strongly tempted to give into doubts and disbelief, but he nonetheless kept trying, and continued to meditate.

After days of darkness, suddenly Rajarshi saw a little point of light. Gradually that point of light came closer and closer until it became Paramhansa Yogananda, then Sri Yukteswar, then Lahiri Mahasaya, then Babaji. And then, finally, Rajarshi merged into the Infinite.

Sabikalpa samadhi: a fulfillment and a temptation
Liberation from the ego does not come with the first glimpses of cosmic consciousness. Samadhi comes in two stages: sabikalpa and nirbikalpa. The first stage, sabikalpa samadhi, is conditional and temporary. In sabikalpa samadhi, the body is in a trance state and immobile, but the ego remains subconsciously present and returns in full force after one leaves his meditation. From this state it is still possible to fall spiritually, for one has not yet overcome ego-consciousness completely.

This first stage, then, constitutes not only a fulfillment but also a serious temptation. It is by no means unheard of for devotees to fall back into delusion after reaching this point. For upon returning to ego-awareness, the devotee can use the memory of the consciousness of infinity to reinforce the power of the ego. Backed by the memory of oneness with the whole universe, he can easily imagine himself to need no further help or guidance. “I’m as great as my guru!” he may tell himself. “I am omniscient and infallible. I am supreme!”

Paramhansa Yogananda once said to Rajarshi Janakananda, “Never forget where your power comes from.” With a sweet smile Rajarshi answered, “I won’t Master. It comes from you.” Yogananda once said to me, “Remember, you will not be safe until you have attained nirbikalpa samadhi.” He told me about various saints who had fallen after they had attained the lower samadhi.

The other, and positive, side of sabikalpa samadhi is that meditators normally return from it, not tempted to strengthen their egos, but eager to reject ego-consciousness altogether after the experience of the absolute bliss of cosmic consciousness. For most who attain this high level of soul-refinement, the temptation to return to their egos no longer exists. The only thing that “tempts” them is their memory of the paradise to which they have not yet been granted full admittance.

In the highest samadhi, nirbikalpa samadhi, there is no longer any danger of slipping spiritually. The ego no longer exists. At this point the soul is no longer aware of the ego in human terms, but knows it solely as a manifestation of the Infinite Reality. Every moment of one’s life, and every atom of one’s body, is permeated throughout with divine bliss.

“The liberating shock of omnipresence”
The real work on the spiritual path is to prepare the mind for this ultimate transformation. Were cosmic consciousness to come without prior preparation, the mind would be unable to contain it. It would receive a shock comparable to high-voltage electricity in the wiring of a house.

A science-fiction story appeared years ago about a planet that received its illumination from several suns. Together, the suns kept it constantly bathed in daylight. Once in every thousand years, however, these suns became so disposed that the inhabitants of the planet could briefly see the stars beyond the suns. Many people, overwhelmed by such a sudden and extraordinary event, went mad. Their reaction was not, perhaps, wholly believable, but spiritually speaking, the point of the story is both clear and valid.

Human consciousness, conditioned as it is by ordinary, worldly experience, is unable to accept what Yogananda called “the liberating shock of omnipresence.” It isn’t that omnipresence is devastating. The ego, however, must be conditioned by long and deep meditation to surrender itself into a greater self-awareness. Too sudden an expansion from its customary, though limited, perspective might only bewilder it with its sweeping panorama of things as they really are.

A young disciple of Paramhansa Yogananda’s once asked another, who was highly advanced, to give him a taste of divine ecstasy. The older one demurred, saying, “If I did so, your bliss, which you haven’t yet earned, would be temporary. Later on, you would be unable to bear your life any longer.”

When “efforts end in ease”
Truth seekers must understand that finding God is not like the supreme effort required, say, to climb Mount Everest, the accomplishment of which is more arduous at the end than at the beginning. Finding God is the simplest, most obvious, and most supremely natural thing to do in the world! At the end, one doesn’t find himself straining with desperate, heroic zeal to merge in Him. Rather, one relaxes, supremely, into perfect Bliss. Strain, tension, ardor, heroic zeal: these end forever for the soul. What is left is Satchidananda: ever-existing, ever-conscious, ever-new bliss.

What happens is that in your meditations you reach a point where you’ve gotten rid of all self-definitions. There’s nothing to cling to anymore. You’re not a woman or a man. You’re not American or Indian or French. You’re not rich or poor. You’re not young or old. You’re not beautiful or ugly. You’re none of these things.

Ramakrishna gave us a beautiful illustration with the onion. He said that spiritual progress is like peeling an onion. You get rid of peel after peel of self-definition until, what’s left? Nothing. The onion is made of these peels. And so you, in getting rid of all these self-definitions, finally reach the point where you can’t define yourself in any comfortable habitual way. You just are. And at first there’s a certain loneliness in that state of being. Then bursting in upon that comes satchidananda: ever-new, eternal bliss. This is the ultimate state.

So, in the beginning, the process of finding God is a matter of constant struggle until, as Yogananda put it, “efforts end in ease.” After a while it becomes natural; there’s no struggle involved. The truth is that you can get out in this lifetime if you work at it—especially, Yogananda said, with the practice of Kriya Yoga, which dissolves the seeds of karma that hold you back spiritually.

The magnetism of a true master
Gradually, as the devotee keeps trying, his higher nature takes over, and a power he thought impossible for him, manifests itself, giving him the strength necessary to make the effort to continue on to victory. Yogananda writes that the supreme state, nirbikalpa samadhi, comes in time “with a natural inevitability to the sincere devotee. His intense craving begins to pull at God with an irresistible force.”

However, only by mental attunement with the consciousness of an already-liberated guru can we make that leap across the yawning abyss which separates the ego from infinity. Most important of all is an attitude of deep loving receptivity toward one’s God-ordained guru.

The magnetism emanated by a true master lifts his disciples above their egos. What the guru does for us is primarily on a level of consciousness. He works from within, on our thoughts and feelings. Our job, above all, is to offer our hearts and minds up to him, that he may transform us. Gradually, his ego-less consciousness seeps into our ego-centered consciousness, and transforms us with new understanding of our own reality. Once ego-limitation has been demolished by selfless love, nothing remains to prevent self-awareness from expanding to infinity.

The storm of duality is finally stilled, and the self, no longer in rebellion against God, merges completely into the Infinite Self, becoming the Infinite. This, and this only, is the state of salvation, of final liberation from all the bondage of delusion.

From Keys to the Bhagavad Gita,  (currently out of print);  The Essence of the Bhagavad Gita, Explained by Paramhansa Yogananda, as Remembered by His Disciple, Swami Kriyananda, and other books and articles.

Related Reading: Awaken to Superconsciousness

The post The Journey to Enlightenment: The Final Challenge appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

Do you ask yourself at the end of each day whether you have progressed more than you did the day before? Self-analysis is the greatest method of progress. Keep a mental diary, and each day check your progress in developing the following qualities and attitudes, and refraining from those which retard your spiritual progress. This simple self-discipline will help you develop spiritually.

1. Self-Control
You must learn to control your speech and behavior, especially when you are mistreated. Don’t allow yourself to become a doormat, letting others trample on you, but never lose your unruffled calmness or attitude of forgiveness, especially when you are the target of criticism. Few people can control their outer behavior, and even fewer can control their inner balance during a bombardment of unkindness from others.

Always resist the impulse of acting under the influence of a spirit of revenge. It is easy to slap back with hurtful words when someone reviles you, but it takes great inner strength to refrain from doing so. Protect your inner peace and calmness by silently resisting all ill treatment.

2. Self-Expansion: kindness and forgiveness
The happiness people want in life is not found in egoic self-absorption, but by expanding the sense of self to embrace others. Kindness is the law of the spiritual world. Kindness springs from the inner self, and bestows the readiness to look upon everyone as a friend. At its essence, kindness consists of the simple acceptance of others in recognition that they are all, like you, striving for self-improvement. Become the friend of everyone, ever ready to help. Always try to include in your happiness the happiness of other needy ones.

To be spiritual is to be understanding and forgiving. Jesus had the power to destroy the world, but instead he said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” God allowed Jesus to go through suffering in order to show the world how He wants His saints to live. When you can forgive someone toward whom you’ve held a grudge, you will begin to understand what it means to be inwardly free.

Freely forgive and forget those who offend you. Forgiveness means, in the last analysis, giving a person a chance to reform. If apologies on your part will bring out your self-styled enemy’s good qualities, by all means apologize. It takes spiritual development to be able to apologize graciously and sincerely. Do not, however, encourage a wrong-doer by being too humble and apologetic.

3. Desire and anger: the two greatest barriers
Desire and anger are the two greatest barriers to wisdom. The frustration of desire produces anger. The very fact that desires can lead to anger should be a sufficient indication that the desires themselves are manifestations of bondage, not of freedom.

More than any other negative quality, anger thwarts your efforts to progress spiritually. Anger extinguishes the flame of peace, in the light of which alone you can behold the Divine. Inevitably, anger clouds your understanding, leading to false, self-justifying perceptions of reality.

If you have a tendency to become angry at slight provocation, find the affirmation which has the most meaning for you and repeat it to yourself until your subconscious mind is clear of any tendency to anger and harsh speech. Affirm divine calmness and peace, and send out only thoughts of love and good-will.

4. Meditation: your most important engagement
Meditation is the most effective way to spiritualize your consciousness. Never allow anything to discourage you from seeking God through the daily discipline of meditation — it is your most important engagement. Meditation centralizes all the energy in the brain, and destroys all the seeds of past bad habits. Through the practice of regular, right meditation, you can conquer all tendencies that retard your spiritual progress.

Always meditate with devotion. Never be satisfied until you see unmistakable signs of a divine response, and at the same time never allow yourself to become discouraged. The joy born of meditation is an indication that God has replied to your devotion, prayers, and mental whispers.

5. Forsake all attachments.
The way to spiritual progress lies in always making the effort to forsake sense attachments. Sense-attachment is unbecoming to the soul, inasmuch as it tries to satisfy your need for everlasting soul happiness with evanescent sense-pleasures. You are more than a civilized animal. Your rational faculties have a deeper purpose than keeping the body well fed and well clothed. The more you cater to the flesh, the more subject you become to other sense temptations.

Non-attachment to people, possessions and goals does not mean you should neglect your family or other material duties. It means you should perform such duties without desire for personal gain, but with the sole desire to please God and to serve His children. We limit our potential for self-expansion when we act with the purpose of being the main beneficiaries of our actions. You obviously need to maintain the body and have the basic necessities of life, but the higher needs of the soul must also be fulfilled.

Try to free yourself from all attachments. Non-attachment  enables you to live perpetually in a state of inner freedom and happiness. Attachments, on the other hand, keep you forever fearful; you live in a state of regret for the past or of anxiety for the future. Never allow your possessions to possess you, or the petty details of daily life to invade your heart with hordes of worry.

6. Devotion and mental whispers
Devotion is paramount. Without love you would lack the necessary urgency of desire to reach the divine goal. Love is the very essence of God. When consciously directed, it finds its way unerringly to its mark, and is the one thing God cannot resist. You may try many ways to find God, but He will elude you until you enter into, and pour forth, great love from your heart.

Those who love God are always thinking of Him. You are never so busy that you can’t whisper your devotion to God mentally. This is the surest way to keep Him in mind in the mad rush of daily life. In your own language of the heart, constantly, unceasingly, whisper to Him of your eternal love, and of your burning desire to know Him. The more you practice, the nearer He will be. By this constant practice everything eventually vanishes but God.

7. Live in the consciousness of goodness.
Always try to see the good in people. By focusing on the good in others, you not only help them see the good in themselves, you also begin to establish goodness in yourself. When you live in the consciousness of goodness, you accept all things without judgment, and look with kindness and sympathy on everyone, no matter how foolish.

Whenever you see wrong in others, and are distressed by it, remember, it’s also wrong in you. When you are right inwardly, all things are right, for you see everything as part of God.

Rid your heart of all resentment and never behave in a mean way. Remember always that positive attitudes uplift the mind, while negative attitudes take the mind slowly downhill into a private gloom. For just as positive, happy attitudes make one receptive to bliss, negative attitudes estrange one from it. In a negative state of mind, one loses sight of the the soul’s all-powerful ability to transcend every difficulty.

Spiritual progress isn’t only a matter of practicing the yoga techniques. Every time you think good thoughts, the kundalini begins to move upward. Every time you hold harsh thoughts, the kundalini automatically moves downward. Positive feelings direct the kundalini upward; negative feelings direct it downward.

8. Inner calmness
The most important condition for lasting happiness is the ability to remain inwardly calm, no matter what happens. One who is inwardly calm is able to see things as they are, and to accept with an unruffled mind whatever comes. I often say, “What comes of itself, let it come.” This is just as true for the bad things in life as for the good. Only inner calmness will give you a sense of correct proportion and inspire you to behave with unfailing good sense.

A calm person reflects restfulness in his eyes, keen intelligence in his face, and proper receptivity in his mind. He is a person of decisive and prompt action. He is not moved by impulses and desires. A restless person, on the other hand, is like a puppet that dances at the instigation of emotional desires and temptations. Remain ever calmly centered in the Self within, and always act from that center of calmness.

9. Live a balanced life.
Everyone seeking to progress spiritually should try to live a balanced life. It is important to perform carefully all duties connected with earning a living, staying healthy, and having a harmonious matrimonial and family life. Try not to let any one duty undermine another. Spiritual development should enable you to harmonize all such duties so that they all contribute to your lasting peace and happiness.

Remember also that you always need the inspiration of better company to keep yourself constantly improving. Your outward good company is of paramount importance, as it influences your will and reason which, by repetitions of thought and action, form good habits.

Resolve firmly to “try and try again.”
Spiritual progress is achieved above all by desiring it intensely. Know that you are growing spiritually when your entire consciousness, no matter what your faults, is turned to God.

All of us are part of God; we belong to Him, and He, to us. Eventually, we must all go back to Him. If you resolve firmly to “try and try again,” God Himself and His angels will come to your aid. Given sufficient time, and renewed courage on your part, you cannot fail to make steady, ongoing spiritual progress.

From Praecepta Lessons and books.

Related reading: How to be Happy All the Time by Paramhansa Yogananda.

The post Keys to Spiritual Progress: A Checklist appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

A. I was introduced to Yogananda’s vision of education during my first visit to Ananda Village in 1975. The school at Ananda Village had been in existence for about three years, and the teachers were using some of Yogananda’s ideas in their classrooms.

In 1984, I moved to Ananda Village and began teaching fifth and sixth grades. By then I had six years’ experience as a teacher in public schools. Having taught in public schools, I knew something was seriously wrong with the traditional approach to education but I didn’t know how to bring about a change.

Building on Yogananda’s vision
Q. You were living at Ananda Village in 1986 when Swami Kriyananda wrote Education for Life, the book which has become the cornerstone of the movement to spread Yogananda’s vision of education. When were you first exposed to the book?

A. I believe it was May of 1986, shortly after Swami Kriyananda finished the book. He invited a small group of us who were involved in Ananda’s school to spend a day and a half with him discussing the principles in the book. At the book launch the following day, Kriyananda made the astounding prediction that the Education for Life system would be bigger than Ananda. His statement had a tremendous impact on me – I felt as if time stood still!

After the publication of the book, the Ananda school staff met regularly as a study group to discuss the book in depth. As we experimented with applying the Education for Life (EFL) principles in our classrooms, our understanding grew.

Q. Swami Kriyananda writes that Education for Life builds on the groundwork laid by Paramhansa Yogananda at the school he started in India, along with the insights gained from meditating on Yogananda’s ideas and applying them in the Ananda School classrooms.

Does Kriyananda’s statement capture your understanding of the spiritual roots of the EFL system?

A. Yes. You can even think of the system more broadly as translating ancient Vedic principles for today’s classroom. The EFL system is a big step forward in bringing Dwapara Yuga, the new age of energy, into manifestation.

An energy-based framework
Q. How would you describe the importance of the book, Education for Life?

A. I think it is a very important book, and a seminal book. When you read the book the first time, you may not realize its power. A single sentence can have enormous implications. Education for Life gave me an entirely new perspective on how to work with children and, more broadly, on the overall goals of childhood education.

Q. Can you describe that new perspective?

A. One of Education for Life’s unique contributions to childhood education is the concept of working with students in terms of the level and quality of their energy – or what Kriyananda calls their “specific gravity.” By “specific gravity” he means whether a child’s energy is usually “light” or “heavy.” A child with “light’ energy is basically positive, expansive, and aware of others’ realities. A child with “heavy” energy is usually more negative, contractive, and self-centered.

I know of no other educational philosophy that gives an energy-based framework for understanding how to work with children. Frankly, I doubt that people could have understood specific gravity without the new energy-consciousness of this new age.

Specific gravity is a wonderful tool. It helps a teacher know how to guide each child to move forward in positive ways. It also helps children become more aware of how the level and quality of their energy influences their attitudes and behavior.

Q. Can you give an example of how a teacher might use specific gravity principles to help a child move forward in a more positive way?

A. Yes. If a child has low energy and is unwilling to participate in a school activity, a teacher unfamiliar with specific gravity might try to reason with the child. An EFL teacher, however, knows that the solution to heaviness is action, and will think of a way to get the child moving — perhaps with a brief game, an errand, or helping out in the classroom. Usually the child’s exertion of energy will carry over into a willingness to participate in the classroom activity.

Tools for a well-rounded human being
Q. You mentioned that Education for Life also changed your views on the overall goals of childhood education. Can you elaborate on that?

A. Yes. When I arrived at Ananda Village in 1984 I still thought the purpose of education was mainly to train the intellect. Education for Life’s concept of “tools of maturity” expanded my understanding.

Kriyananda explains that every human being relies on four basic “tools” in order to function effectively in this world: body, feeling, will, and intellect. A well-rounded human being is someone who has developed all four of these tools. An EFL teacher provides opportunities for the development of all four tools, not just the intellect.

Q. Children are obviously born with different inclinations and educational needs. Some are more physical; others are more mental or emotional. How do you address these differences when using the tools of maturity?

A. Every classroom presents this challenge. One of the principal ways we address the differences is to make sure that we have activities during the day that appeal to each of the four tools. Another way is to use a single lesson in ways that draw upon all four tools: body, feeling, will, and intellect.

For example, a second-grade math lesson would obviously engage the intellectual tool of maturity. If the teacher asks children to draw pictures of baby ducks to illustrate a math problem, that activity would interest children with a strong feeling tool. If the teacher challenges the children to see how many math problems they can finish in five minutes, the will tool is engaged. And if she asks for everyone to stand up and do as many jumping jacks as there are letters in their first name multiplied by two, the children with a strong body tool are happy!

Q. Does modern public education address these obvious differences among children?

A. Unfortunately, no. There is still mainly what I call a “cookie-cutter” approach – the thought that everyone needs to have the exact same skills and body of knowledge, and to pass the exact same standardized tests. This approach tends to highlight students’ weaknesses and often destroys curiosity.

Q. Education for Life has been described as “a non-sectarian system based on universal spiritual principles.” Can you explain what that means?

A. Our goal is not to train children for any particular spiritual path. Our goal is to help them recognize the values that are universal to human happiness – harmony with others, truthfulness, generosity, willingness – and to understand that they will be happier if they strive to live by these high ideals. We help children to recognize for themselves which actions make them feel happy and expansive (compassion and generosity) and which actions make them feel unhappy and diminished (selfishness and restlessness). Learning is based on students’ experience, rather than on abstract theory.

Students gain essential life skills
Q. Ideally, spiritual education should prepare children for the challenges they will face after they leave school. Can you sum up how EFL prepares children for dealing with the ups and downs, the successes and disappointments that are integral to life?

A. If I had to sum it up, I’d say it is by creating situations and tasks that give them opportunities to practice the life skills they need, and by helping them to reflect on, and learn from, their own experience. Two of the essential life skills are 1) being aware of the level and quality of their energy and 2) understanding how to increase, calm, or focus their energy.

Through classroom activities, students learn to recognize when their own energy gets low and how to raise it. Through service projects, they experience how giving to others brings not only higher energy but also happiness and fulfillment. And through music, guided meditations, and harmonious classroom environments they experience calmness and joy, and begin to understand the value of being quiet and inwardly centered.

Q. Have EFL graduates shown they can be successful in the world?

A. Yes, and in all areas: corporate business; entrepreneurship; the legal profession; the healing professions; education; computer technology; graphic design; and the arts (music, dance, theater.) There are graduates with PhDs in various fields, and graduates who are dedicating themselves to spiritual pursuits.

Q. How would you sum up the impact of Education for Life on your life?

A. It has given me an avenue for service that fully engages my heart, mind and soul. Having to tune into the energy flows in students has helped me understand how the ebb and flow of my own energy determines whether I live blindly and blame others when things go wrong, or try instead to view all life experiences as life lessons.

Using the tools of maturity has helped me realize more deeply that we all come into life with widely varying talents, orientations, and strengths. This understanding has helped me tune into my heart more, and I have more compassion for everyone, including myself. And I have so much more to learn.

A non-sectarian community of interest
Q. How soon after the publication of Education for Life did the Ananda school staff become involved in EFL outreach activities?

A. Almost immediately. The school staff continued the tradition, started by Nitai Deranja, the founding principal, of holding summer seminars for teachers. In 1987, we held the first summer seminar that focused on the EFL principles.

Q. At a certain point you moved to Portland, Oregon, where you became part of the Ananda Portland Church and founded an EFL school associated with the Ananda community. Is that correct?

A. Yes, I moved to Portland in 1996 to serve as a minister at the Ananda Church. Within two months, a couple of parents asked me to start a school. Along with Karen Busch, a teacher who had attended the Ananda Village EFL summer training program, we started our first EFL school in 1997.

Q. Is it correct that at a certain time you began to combine serving as director and teacher at the Portland school with EFL outreach activities?

A. Yes, that’s correct.

Q. How did this broadening of focus come about?

A. To advertise the Portland school and attract students from outside Ananda, I began writing articles in the local New Age magazine. Some of the articles were published in Tikkun, a national magazine started by Rabbi Michael Lerner, author of Spirit Matters and other books. One thing just led to another. A literary agent who read one of my articles contacted me and asked if she could represent me when I wrote a book. Soon after, I wrote, Calm and Compassionate Children: A Handbook, which was published in 2007.

Being the author of a book opened the door to many more outreach opportunities, which eventually resulted in introducing EFL principles to a large number of Christian organizations.

Q. How did you learn of these organizations?

A. I spoke as part of a panel in the 2008 “Seeds of Compassion” event in Seattle, Washington which featured the Dalai Lama. One of my co-panelists was a Presbyterian minister who arranged for me to meet the President of the Center for Progressive Christianity, a national network of more than 300 affiliated Christian congregations, groups and individuals.

The Center was looking for someone to help them develop a Sunday school curriculum for their organization. The lessons they wanted – on values such as kindness, inner peace, and positive attitudes – were right up our alley. So they hired me and another Ananda teacher, Lorna Knox, author of I Came from Joy, to create the curriculum. The curriculum is featured on their website under the name, “The Inner Wisdom Series.”

Responding to the growing demand
Q. I understand that training in EFL principles is increasingly in demand. How are you responding to this growing interest?

At the Ananda College of Living Wisdom (now based at Laurelwood, near Portland), we offer a college-level EFL teacher training program for undergraduates, and a one-year certificate program for teachers who want to learn the EFL system. This program includes internships at our Ananda EFL schools (known as “Living Wisdom Schools”). Nitai Deranja and I recently revamped and expanded the college curriculum.

A. We also offer online training, with live interactive classes. The training classes include links to videos of EFL training courses that were filmed at the Portland EFL school. The online course enables us to reach many more people, including those living in distant locations like Alaska or in other countries. The interest in EFL is especially high in Italy, Slovenia, and India.

Q. Are you planning any other future outreach?

A. Nitai is developing two support networks: Families for a New Tomorrow and Educators for Higher Consciousness. He and I will continue to speak at conferences, offer classes on EFL wherever there is interest, and develop curriculum packets for teachers. Nitai has scheduled a world tour from winter 2012 through early spring 2013.

Q. From your description, EFL seems already to have become an international movement?

A. Yes it has. There are six EFL schools in this country, new schools in Italy, India, and Slovenia, and many teachers with EFL training who have introduced aspects of EFL at their respective schools, both public and private.

The Education for Life system appeals to the increasing number of people who are seeking alternatives to traditional education. Nowadays, wherever I give a talk about Education for Life, people are very interested, and that interest is growing.

Usha Dermond currently serves as co-director of the Portland EFL (Living Wisdom) school, Director of the Education Department at the Ananda College at Laurelwood, and, together with Nitai Deranja, as a Co-Director of EFL Foundation. Information about EFL and EFL training options is available at www.edforlife.org

Related Reading: Education for Life by Swami Kriyananda, Crystal Clarity Publishers.

The post A Revolution in Education appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

The natural food for the mind is joy, and we’re always hungry until we find the ability to feast on that joy.

It is no use regretting that the mind is not stabilized. The mind is restless being starved of its natural food. Feed the mind, nourish it. Then it will calm down by itself. The food of the mind is perfect joy…. This perfect joy is inherent to our nature and the mind is aware of its taste.

All the great saints have said the same thing. Swami Shankaracharya defined God as satchidananda — ever-conscious, ever-existing, ever-new bliss. Bliss or joy is something we’re always seeking because bliss is our true nature.

When the bubble bursts
It takes a long time for a person to turn toward God. Paramhansa Yogananda explained that everyone in the world is motivated by exactly the same thing: the desire to be happy and to avoid pain. But as long as we identify happiness with the things of this world, the pursuit leads to disappointment. Swami Kriyananda has often said that the things of the world always break their promise.

Nonetheless, while we are still pursuing the object of our supposed happiness, we have hope, which leads us on. The bubble bursts when we achieve our goal, only to quickly discover that what we sought was not fulfilling. We think that fame is going to be the most wonderful thing, and that everybody will appreciate us. However, when we achieve that fame not only does it feel empty, but we’re imprisoned by it. We may even have to hide out in alleyways to avoid the paparazzi.

How do we learn the lesson? We learn it only gradually over thousands of lifetimes. We have to chase innumerable hopes before we reach the point where pursuing happiness through the things of the world takes on, as Paramhansa Yogananda put it, an “anguishing monotony.” Then we begin to hunger for something more permanent.

“The seeker rests in his own Self.”
For those wanting something more permanent, Patanjali, the most revered of the ancient proponents of yoga, offers the solution in his second aphorism: “Yoga chittas vritti nirodha,” yoga is the neutralization of the vortices of primordial feeling. The vortices of feeling are the patterns created by our attachments, our likes and dislikes, and our desires for the things of the world. As long as these vortices are active, even subconsciously, we’re caught in an endless loop of chasing desires, satisfying them temporarily, and then feeling hungry again.

Through meditation, and especially the practice of Kriya Yoga combined with deep devotion, we begin to neutralize those vrittis and free ourselves from the compulsion to seek happiness outwardly. If we neutralize them completely, we automatically find union with God. In this state, the seeker “rests in his own self” and feasts on perfect joy. Feasting on that joy is the goal of life.

Everyone, consciously or subconsciously, is seeking this state of total union. But until all the vrittis are calmed, it’s likely that we will turn again and again toward the familiarity of old habits and attachments.

Samadhi-affirming, not world-rejecting
During Kali Yuga, those who wanted to make spiritual progress took vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience in order to disengage from habitually seeking happiness through the things of this world. In this new age of energy, we need to move away from such a world-rejecting approach. The focus of renunciation is no longer on what we give up, on what we can or can’t do. The focus is on developing those attitudes which enable us to transcend the ego. Then we can feast on the joy of our own being.

Renunciation, in other words, is no longer world-rejecting, but “samadhi-affirming.” Our concentration is focused on achieving the joy of soul-freedom in God.

In the new renunciate order founded by Swami Kriyananda,* the various vows begin with essentially the same statement, “The purpose of life is to seek God.” Another way of saying this is that the purpose of life is to feast on joy and that renunciation is what leads us to that feast. Attachment to the world makes us think that we’re going find joy outwardly, but all we get are empty calories leaving us in constant hunger.

A new frame of reference
To become truly samadhi-affirming, we have to withdraw the mind from sense stimulation long enough to acquire a new frame of reference. This process is a bit like getting away from the bright lights of the city. If we live in the country, we can look up at the night sky and see a myriad of stars, but the bright lights in a city like Los Angeles obscure them. If all we knew was the view from Los Angeles, we could very easily end up believing there were very few stars in the sky. If we had no other frame of reference, why would we think differently?

Similarly, if we’re dedicated to a life that stimulates the senses, when we close our eyes we don’t see very much. But if we withdraw the life force from outer involvement and go deep in meditation, we begin to see not just a little bit of light but galaxy upon galaxy of light. Paramhansa Yogananda compared the light of samadhi to the light of thousands of suns, except, of course, that the inner light doesn’t burn our eyes.

Through the discipline of meditation and devotion, we gradually detach the life force and the senses from outward attachments and find the joy of our true self. The goal of renunciation is finding that feast of joy. Renunciation has very little to do with things we can’t do, except that we have to get away from the lights if we want to see the stars. We have to withdraw from sense stimulation, meditate, and go deep if we want to experience true bliss.

Struggle is necessary.
We heard a very interesting story some years ago. A family had some caterpillars that had woven chrysalises in a terrarium. The children were eagerly watching and waiting for the butterflies to emerge. The first butterfly chewed a little hole in the top of the chrysalis and then struggled and struggled until it finally squeezed out of that hole. After lying there exhausted, it gradually regained its strength. Its wings unfolded, and it became a beautiful butterfly.

When the next butterfly started to chew a little hole in the chrysalis, the family thought, “We don’t want the poor little thing to have to struggle so hard.” They cut a little hole in the top of the chrysalis, but as soon as the little butterfly emerged, it died. The family then realized that the struggle of getting through the little hole was what squeezed the fluids out of the butterfly’s wings and allowed it to survive.

There is always a sense of struggle as we squeeze out the old tendencies we think will provide fulfillment. Everybody wants perfect joy, but renunciation is not yet very attractive to most people in the world. In these early years of Dwapara Yuga, most people are still attracted to form and to seeking fulfillment outwardly. Consciously or subconsciously, we hold on to the thought, “Worldly consciousness isn’t evil. It isn’t so bad.” Unfortunately, we have to go through that struggle many times before we realize that the world will never give us the joy that we’re seeking.

Guidelines for feasting on joy
There are only a few principles of true renunciation. The first is that we see all of life as a search for God or Self-realization. The more we focus on that goal, the more we become attracted to Self-realization rather than to the glittery lights of the senses. The state of samadhi will allow us to finally achieve the bliss for which we hunger.

The second is to see non-attachment as a means of releasing us from old habits and giving us the freedom of thought to seek God. Non-attachment, in this context, applies ultimately to the ego. We need to transcend identification with the little self and the desire to be separate.

The third principle is selfless service. In a sense we should see even meditation as a means of service. One of Paramhansa Yogananda’s highest prayers is, “Lord give me Thyself that I may give Thee to all.” When we share whatever enlightenment we’ve attained with others, to help them evolve spiritually, we begin to see the unity beneath the diversity of outer forms. Then we feel kindness and respect for everyone.

As we live by these three principles, we begin to feast more and more deeply on the ever-new joy of our own being.

From a November 11, 2011 talk at Ananda Village.

Nayaswamis Jyotish and Devi are the Spiritual Directors of Ananda Worldwide. Other Clarity articles by Nayaswamis Jyotish and Devi are listed under “Jyotish and Devi Novak.”

Related reading: A Renunciate Order for the New Age, by Swami Kriyananda, Crystal Clarity Publishers.  To learn about the new Nayaswami Order click here 

The post Feast on Joy appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

The Melody of Love

The Holy Ghost, or AUM, is God’s conscious, loving presence in creation. AUM is the bridge that unites human and cosmic consciousness. AUM is the music of all atoms and the cosmic melody of love vibrating in the superconsciousness. When one communes with AUM, he enters into, and flows with, the stream of God’s love.

AUM is called the Comforter, because it gives supreme comfort to the soul. When one is absorbed in AUM, he feels a wonderful peace and harmony. No harm can come to one who is in the consciousness of AUM. How could harm come to one who is united with the Essence of the universe?

*******

Nothing Can Touch You

While backpacking in California’s Southern Sierra Nevada Mountains, three women from Ananda Village had a dramatic experience of the power of AUM. On the fourth day of their trip, a furious thunderstorm caught them at 10,000 feet. Loud cracks of lightning and massive explosions of thunder crashed around them. Torrential rain fell; then hail began to fall harder and harder. Desperate for shelter, they ran to a couple of small trees, which soon proved inadequate protection against the pounding hailstorm.

Seeing a large tree nearby, they bolted for its sheltering branches. Already wet, they struggled out of their packs and dug for their rain jackets. The temperature, meanwhile, had plummeted, and the hail began to fall even harder.

They knew they were in trouble. In their drenched condition, hypothermia was a real possibility. They badly needed shelter. Yet, standing under the highest tree around wasn’t wise—because tall trees are perfect lightning rods. They wondered aloud, “Do we risk hypothermia or lightning strikes?” Both options were dangerous.

Then one of the women began chanting to all-pervading AUM. The two other women quickly joined in. Suddenly, they felt as if a bubble of protection surrounded them. Their fear was gone—a feeling of awe and gratitude filled their hearts. For twenty minutes, they chanted and enjoyed the majestic show of lightning and hail. After the storm, everything was transformed into a white wonderland; they felt blessed beyond measure by the love and protection of AUM.

Being in AUM gives one absolute security. The whole world could go up in flames and it wouldn’t matter to you. Swami Rama Tirtha was a great devotee of AUM. He chanted AUM always—during lectures, conversations, and solitary walks in nature. Before he knew AUM, he said, every whiff of wind threw him off balance. But after constant practice and remembrance of AUM, he became completely free of annoyance, anxiety, and fear. He told his students, “If one man can do this, you can, too.”

Absolute Security and Assurance

Communing with AUM makes one fearless. One’s reality shifts from the ego, which can never be secure, to the Cosmic Vibration, which is the essence of all creation. Ego consciousness isolates us from the rest of life. Those who deeply merge with AUM, however, know and say, “I am the whole universe. What can possibly harm me?”

*******

The Power of Chanting AUM

During a severe kidney stone attack, Nayaswami Sadhana Devi experienced AUM’s transcendent power:

After three hours of intense pain, I realized its location was near the lower three chakras. As the stone made its way down through my body I began chanting AUM at the appropriate chakra. I chanted as loudly as I could and visualized light at the chakra. Each time I chanted, the pain decreased dramatically; each time I stopped, it returned in full force. I could feel AUM vibrating in the chakras, as though breaking up the stone. Finally, after a couple of hours of chanting, the pain stopped completely and never returned.

To feel AUM’s holy vibrations in your whole being, Paramhansa Yogananda recommends saying AUM mentally in each body part and chakra.

*******

Blessed Is the Man that Heareth Me

As I was having dinner with a Unitarian minister, after giving a meditation class at his church, he looked at me intently and shared the following experience: “I was going through a very challenging time in my life. Every night I prayed deeply that harmony would prevail, but the situation remained inharmonious and divisive. One night, I suddenly heard the most marvelous sound. It was like a great, rushing wind. I can never forget it. In that moment I felt great reassurance, and I absolutely knew that everything would work out for the best—and it did.” He looked at me and said, “What was that sound?”

I was thrilled by the blessing he had received. I told him, “You heard the Holy Ghost—what Jesus called ‘the Comforter.’” The AUM vibration had brought into this minister’s life the very comfort and healing Jesus described in the Bible.

*******

The Supreme Vibration

Everything is energy in condensed form: plants, rocks, stars, and our bodies vibrate at different frequencies. “Because nature is an objectification of AUM… man can obtain control over all natural manifestations through the use of certain mantras or chants.” (Paramhansa Yogananda)

On August 28, 2004 members of Ananda Village witnessed a dramatic demonstration of AUM’s sovereignty over natural phenomena. Late August in California is the height of the fire season, with grasses browned by the summer heat.

At 11:30 a.m. a fire started on the steep slope below Ananda’s guest retreat, The Expanding Light. The fire’s location made it especially ominous. Forest fires travel much faster uphill than downhill, because the fire preheats its uphill fuel with the rising smoke and heat.

The blaze spread quickly and raced upward, threatening to destroy The Expanding Light and the Ananda Community. Nine air tankers and helicopters soon appeared and began dropping water and fire retardant. Forty fire engines and 400 firefighters arrived shortly afterwards to try to contain the growing inferno.

As low flying bombers released red streams of fire retardant into the thick, smoky air, the retreat look more and more like a war zone. Many community residents and guests were covered with fire retardant.

Everything that could be done on the physical level was being done. Government agencies had responded quickly and capably to the fire. Ananda residents were putting out spot fires, thus freeing the professional firefighters to work on the front lines of the blaze. Fire crews were doing a magnificent job protecting the retreat buildings and slowing the fire’s advance.

Despite the concentration of many fire fighting resources gathered to fight the blaze, the fire chief had the uneasy feeling that this fire was “going to be one of those that go totally out of control and burn thousands of acres and hundreds of homes.” His concern seemed validated when the inferno began moving uphill toward a nearby cluster of twenty Ananda homes. With strong winds pushing the fire upslope, the blaze seemed more and more likely to reach the cluster. Residents of the threatened homes were already packing and evacuating.

At the Ananda Community market and visitor center, located a safe quarter mile from the fire, retreat guests and community residents had gathered. Seeing that people were frightened—and feeling that Ananda was under physic attack by a dark force that had manifested as the fire—Nayaswami Devi organized a prayer circle. The circle started with twenty people, and grew to fifty.

Those gathered blessed the fire fighters, the homes and buildings of our neighbors and of Ananda; the fire itself; and the trees and wildlife living on the land. After each prayer they chanted AUM three times, to energize their petition by the truth of Cosmic AUM. The Cosmic Vibration is beyond duality. The swings of cause and effect (karma) are stilled and nullified by AUM’s pristine vibration. “At first,” Devi said, “the darkness seemed stronger than our prayers. But after two hours of praying and chanting AUM, the darkness felt diminished.”

When the fire chief arrived back at the market area, he was quite pleased. The fire was contained. To the Ananda residents, he said, “You were very lucky. I have never seen winds reverse themselves so dramatically. The fire was heading toward the housing cluster when it suddenly stopped—because the wind suddenly changed direction. I don’t know what you people did. But it worked.”

*******

While in solitary confinement in Communist Romania for his Christian faith, pastor Richard Wurmbrand heard in the silence a sound “more beautiful than the most beautiful music. A sound,” he said, “that you never tire of.” Holy AUM came to him unsought. In time, the Cosmic Sound will come to you, too, and you’ll receive wondrous realizations and bliss from the Blessed Comforter.

*******

Nothing Can Touch You

When you feel worried or anxious, call on Holy AUM. Pray believing in its sovereignty over matter. “Problems… that arise when we deal with inert matter will be transformed… once we become conscious that we are dealing with a living reality behind [matter].” (Swami Kriyananda) AUM is the living reality behind every joy and challenge in your life. Remember always Yogananda’s promise: “When you are in the consciousness of AUM, nothing can touch you.”

As Doctor Lewis, Yogananda’s first Kriya Yoga disciple in America, was sailing outside Boston Harbor, a sudden storm blew up, with great violence. Thinking he might drown, he focused his consciousness at the Christ Center in the forehead and saw the great light of the Spiritual Eye. [The inner light is a primary manifestation of the Cosmic Vibration.] Instantly, he felt a sense of peace and security envelop him and he knew he would survive: nothing could harm him; he was safely in the consciousness of AUM.

“When I got home,” Doctor Lewis said, “the phone rang. Master was on the other end of the line. He said to me, ‘You came near getting wet, Doctor, didn’t you?’”

*******

The Winds of Grace

The winds of grace are always blowing. A man from Massachusetts told me that as an infant he heard the sound of AUM continuously. When adults around him became worried or inharmonious, he wanted to comfort them: “Don’t worry. Everything is okay because AUM is here.” But he hadn’t yet learned to speak and so wasn’t able to share with them the comforting power of AUM.

*******

How the Guru Frees Us

Paramhansa Yogananda said of his disciple, Sister Gyanamata—“She has lived in my vibrations for a long time.” Whenever he sent her a special inner blessing, she would feel it instantly. While living in Seattle, she had several serious physical ailments. When Gyanamata’s condition worsened, she wrote a letter to Yogananda, who was then lecturing in New York City, asking for his prayers. On the day she thought the letter had arrived, she heard AUM’s tremendous roar and felt her body shaking. Her guru had received her letter and sent Cosmic AUM to heal her.

Bathing in AUM’s sacred vibrations is the true baptism. The technique for listening to AUM is usually given as an initiation because of the importance of the guru’s magnetism. The guru is beyond vibratory creation and guides his disciples—through Cosmic Vibration—to the deepest states of enlightenment.

*******

Go Within

AUM is devoid of duality. It’s the only sound not made by striking another object and so is called the “unstruck” sound. AUM’s thrilling sounds cannot be heard by physical ears, but only by the intuitive power of the soul. Below, a devotee describes AUM’s pristine quality after hearing it emanate from his heart center:

“I heard the sound of church bells and it was utterly beautiful and crystal clear. It had a sense of lightness and clarity unlike anything I have ever experienced. If you can imagine the heaviness of ordinary sound produced by the air it must pass through, this was completely unlike that. It was the essence of sound before it meets air—as if the sound was conveyed on light through space with no grossness whatsoever.”

*******

Another friend of mine had an enthralling experience, also unsought, with AUM. He had come to our Ananda Center on the Peninsula for the first time. That evening, throughout the class, he heard beautiful harp music. He assumed someone in the building was an extremely accomplished musician. But, inexplicably, he continued to hear the melody as he drove home and throughout his week at work.

When he came to class the following week, he said, “I love music, and I have never heard anything so beautiful as that harp music. What is this?”

I said, “You are hearing the sound of AUM manifesting through the third chakra. The sound of the third chakra is like that of a harp. It is because of this lovely sound that people envision angels playing harps in heaven.”

*******

Listening with Devotion

Except for unmoving Spirit, AUM is the subtlest of all realities and can only be perceived by a pure and attentive heart. One should practice his meditation techniques with a sense of privilege. As you mentally chant and listen to AUM, do so with deep feeling for and awareness of its omnipotence and omnipresence.

The following words by Swami Kriyananda express the profound and encouraging truth on how one really advances spiritually:

You may think, “I can never love God the way the great saints love Him. I’ll never have their fervor or joy.” But you will find that as you keep reaching for God, He will uplift you. He will give you the power to find Him. You can’t generate that power yourself. But your love can draw that power to you.

*******

What If I Don’t Hear AUM?

People sometimes become discouraged when they don’t hear AUM clearly. It’s helpful to remember that hearing AUM purely and constantly signifies a deep state of meditation, which, if it is sustained, leads to samadhi. Listening reverently to whatever sounds you hear is the key to deepening your experience of AUM. A friend described once during meditation, hearing a very soft sound in the background. He assumed it was just a sound made by his physical body. As he focused on it, however, it became the thrilling sound of AUM.

God’s grace, through Cosmic Vibration, has created you. To declare, I don’t hear AUM so it must not be for me, is to say, “I am separate from the rest of creation.” This separateness simply isn’t possible. “AUM is a sound with which all can commune, and into which also, in time, all can merge.” (Swami Kriyananda) The day will come when you’ll know that AUM is—and always has been—your greatest Friend.

*******

Live in the Consciousness of AUM

“You are not a physical body, but a blissful manifestation of AUM.” (Swami Kriyananda) Live in the consciousness of AUM. One who constantly sings AUM during his activities, and with his whole being, makes his life a continuous song of joy.

Nayaswami Bharat is a Lightbearer and longtime Ananda member. He works in the Sangha Office at Ananda Village as Meditation Support Coordinator. He is also the author of the Sharing Nature Book Series and the founder-president of Sharing Nature Worldwide.

Related Reading: The Hindu Way of Awakening, by Swami Kriyananda, Crystal Clarity Publishers.

The post AUM: Stories of Protection appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

With the advent of brain imaging techniques in the 1980s, science has become increasingly aware of the changeability of the brain. Nowadays, whenever scientists think they have identified the outer limit of the brain’s changeability, they soon discover that they have significantly underestimated the brain’s potential for change.

Brain changes manifest in two weeks
Studies have found that when people first decide to take up a new behavior, such as learning a new language or attempting to get along with a difficult person, the brain starts changing before they take any actual steps toward achieving their new goals. With the setting of the goal, the brain begins to mobilize and change.

For most people, the first two weeks of learning a new behavior are usually the most challenging. But at about the two-week mark, the process gets easier. If you were trying to learn a new basketball shot, you find that you’re getting considerably better. If you were trying to learn to control a tendency toward anger, you often begin to see real progress.

What happens after two weeks is that the brain changes brought about by the new activity begin to manifest in a person’s outward behavior, and are detectable with brain imaging. If we were to look at brain scans after six months, we would see a certain degree of permanency in the changes.

Brain changes soon become permanent
During my first year in medical school, I had an experience of how quickly brain changes can become permanent. I took up skiing for the first time, and I skied a number of times during that first winter. By the end of the season I had made some progress. When I began skiing the following year, I expected to start out at a level far below what I had achieved the previous year. I was shocked to discover that I was skiing as well as, or better than, I had the previous winter. Each year I skied, I had this same experience.

I was perplexed about the permanency of my improvement until I found the answer: neuro-plasticity – the technical term for brain changeability. During my first three months of skiing, my brain got the message that I wanted to be a better skier, and it began changing in ways to make that possible. If I had skied for six months instead of three, there would have been even more brain changes. Even so, there was enough permanency after three months that I didn’t lose any skiing ability between seasons. In fact, I was usually skiing a little better at the start of the new season than at the end of the last one.

We can apply these principles to any area of human endeavor. Let’s say, for example, that you decide to make an effort to get along with a difficult person at work and come up with excellent strategies for working effectively with this person, even if he or she remains difficult. By making the effort for six months, not only will you become very good at working with this person, but certain areas of your brain will have changed as a result of that effort. And you will carry into the future this new ability of being able to work harmoniously with difficult people.

How does your brain change? Essentially there are three separate processes that allow your brain to change so robustly.

1) We constantly make new brain cells
Whenever you take up a new activity, the area of your brain concerned with that activity begins to create new brain cells (neurons), to allow you to carry out that activity.

Let’s say you decide to start learning a new language. After two weeks, the left temporal lobe of your brain, where the speech center is located, will have increased in size. After six months it will have increased even more. And as you continue to learn the new language, that area of the brain continues to increase.

Back in the late 1970s, scientists believed that people didn’t make new brain cells after about age 23. We now know that people in their 70s make new brain cells!

2) Brain cells can change functions
Forty years ago neuroscientists thought that each individual brain cell was committed to a single activity – that if a brain cell was concerned with vision, for example, it performed only that one activity during its entire existence. More recently scientists have learned that brain cells are able to change functions as needed and are surprisingly flexible in what they do.

Whenever a new activity causes an increase in the growth of new brain cells, there appears to be an additional process known as “recruitment,” in which nearby cells get called in to help out with the new activity. These nearby cells change their function and augment the growing mass of new brain tissue associated with the new activity. Recruitment appears to occur whenever we begin to learn something new.

3) Increase in interconnections between brain cells
Probably the most important factor in the growth of brain cells is the tremendous increase in the interconnections between brain cells in the newly activated area of the brain. Let’s say, for example, that about one percent of your brain is committed to learning languages – that would be about a billion brain cells. When you learn a new language, each one of those billion brain cells would experience about a 50% increase in its interconnections with other brain cells. After six months, this increased inter-connectivity could be seen with brain scans.

You can change at any age
For a long time brain scientists assumed that age inevitably brought a decline in a person’s cognitive function, and in his or her ability to change or to learn new things. Two recent studies have exploded these myths.

One study, over a three-year period, tracked a large group of 65-70 year old people who lived in a retirement community in Florida, to see how much they declined in cognitive functioning. The study used cognitive testing at the beginning and end of that period to assess the following: 1) participants’ memory, 2) ability to learn new things, and 3) ability to carry out all the common activities of daily life.

Much to the surprise of nearly everyone, the study found that in three years, 85-90% of the people in the study experienced no significant decline in cognitive functioning or in the other areas assessed by the study. What was also interesting was that almost all of those who experienced a decline in cognitive function and other activities (about 10-15% of the group) were suffering from a disease or other problem that was causing brain degeneration: Parkinson’s disease, Multiple Sclerosis, hardening of the arteries in their brain, or on-going alcohol damage to their brain.

This study proved to be a major turning point in understanding that people in their 60s and 70s can have positive expectations about their future cognitive functioning. The message of this study is that if you do things you enjoy, and stay active in ways that challenge you to use your mind, not only will you maintain your current level of brain function, but you can still learn and improve in new areas.

In fact, for a long time it was assumed that to learn and speak a foreign language with the fluency of a native speaker, you had to learn it before age 15. However, recent studies of people ranging in age from the teens to the 60s have established that there is little difference in how quickly or how well people learn a new language based on age. In this study, all participants, regardless of age, learned the new language at about the same rate and showed the same potential for fluency.

The brain reinforces positive and negative thoughts
Our brain is designed to help us change, and that’s why we can change so easily. Our brain tries to cooperate with whatever new direction we take. The problem, however, is that people often surround themselves with a lot of distracting mental diversions, or their mental diet is focused on things that are negative. Every time someone has a negative thought, the brain reinforces it.

Many years ago, when I first became a physician, I worried a lot about making diagnostic mistakes or doing something wrong that could hurt a patient. One of my close friends said, “You know, Peter, it’s almost like you have a worry slot.” I said, “A worry slot?” She said, “Yeah. If you’re not worried about this particular thing, you find something else to worry about.”

After thinking about it I realized she was right: I had trained my brain to worry. And if I didn’t have anything to worry about, I could always find something to fill the void. I’m happy to say I no longer do that, and that it’s possible to change a habit like this by conscious effort.

In my medical practice I always feel I’m in a very fortunate position. I help patients medically with treatment or advice, but I also always try to give them love, compassion, and hope. And I’ve seen what a tremendous effect this daily practice of serving others has had on me. When people say, “You really have such a hard job as a doctor,” I always answer, “No, I’m the lucky one!”

In my job people’s lives get changed every day, and I, in turn, get changed by helping them. This practice has certainly changed my heart, and I’m certain it has also changed my brain.

Excerpted from a February 2012 talk at Ananda Village.

Peter Van Houten, a Lightbearer and resident of Ananda Village, is the founder and CEO of Sierra Family Medical Clinic near Ananda Village. He is also co-author of Yoga Therapy for Insomnia and Yoga Therapy for Headache Relief, Crystal Clarity Publishers.

The post How Your Brain Cooperates with Personal Change appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

Memorizing anything has always been very difficult for me. When I was growing up, my anxiety about memorization played out in a recurring dream about having a part in a play and being afraid I wouldn’t be able to learn my lines. At the end of the dream, when I showed up for the play, I didn’t know my lines.

Even so, I eagerly embraced this new opportunity for deepening my attunement. Yogananda encouraged his disciples and followers to stay connected to him after his passing by reading selections in Whispers from Eternity. He writes, “When you are no longer able to talk to me, read my Whispers from Eternity. Eternally through that I will talk to you.” Since my attempt to memorize “God, God, God” was in keeping with Yogananda’s advice, I felt confident that he would support my efforts.

Steps toward memorizing the poem
As a first step, I created an easy-to-read copy of the complete poem — an “at-a-glance” visual aid. Next I wrote out each of the ten stanzas on separate flash cards. My plan was to memorize the poem, one stanza at a time, no matter how long it took. I was determined not to have any time limit for the project.

During the first week of trying to memorize the poem, I read my “at-a-glance” copy of the poem at least once a day. Wherever I went, I carried with me the flash card with the stanza I was then memorizing. Throughout the day, I practiced repeating the words without looking at my copy of the poem. I taped a laminated copy of the complete poem on my bathroom mirror. Often, I would stand in front of the poem and read it aloud or recite it while taking a shower.

Each morning in meditation, after several rounds of deep breathing and a brief practice of the Hong Sau meditation technique, I would silently repeat the stanzas I’d already memorized, and then recite what I could remember of the new stanza. Since the poem describes a flow of daily activities, visualization became an important aid in memorizing each stanza. If I was having difficulty remembering all the stanzas, visualizing the daily activities described by the poem would help bring the forgotten stanza to mind.

The poem has also been set to music and is often sung at Ananda services. I learned to play the musical version of the poem on the harmonium and sometimes listened to recordings of it sung by Swami Kriyananda and another Ananda member. I also listened to a recording of Yogananda reciting the poem. Because Yogananda substituted the words, “God, Christ, Guru,” for “God, God, God,” I also mainly used “God, Christ, Guru” when memorizing the poem.

What joy this project brought me. All in all, it took me about a week to memorize each stanza. It took several months before I could accurately repeat the poem without asking myself which verse came next. From that time forward, the process of reciting the poem brought with it a deeper awareness of God and Guru.

Setting a daily precedent
Once I was able to recite the poem fluently, my heart became much more engaged in the process. I was able to feel the meaning of each word and stanza as I recited it. I could feel myself rising from “the depths of slumber” and ascending “the spiral staircase of wakefulness.” I could feel myself becoming more awake, and then calling to “God, Christ, Guru.” As both heart and mind became more engaged in the meaning of the poem, it became easier to set the precedent of calling upon God and Guru at regular intervals throughout the day.

The poem addresses nearly every daily circumstance that occurs in a normal human life. Rather than rising each morning and moving in the direction of thoughtless habits, I can now move in the direction of “God, Christ, Guru.” When I “break my fast of nightly separation” from God, I can do this thinking “God, Christ, Guru.” Instead of getting caught up in mental planning, I can focus “the spotlight of my mind” on “God, Christ, Guru.”

Does my life at times feel out of control or topsy turvy? Yogananda gives the answer in the stanza that reads, “When boisterous storms and trials shriek and worries howl at me, I will drown their clamor, loudly chanting: God, Christ, Guru.” Reciting this stanza helps to reassure me that my little world will soon right itself again. All I have to do is to call upon “God, Christ, Guru!” Because I repeat the poem so often, it has frequently enabled me to find solutions to new challenges.

Overcoming anxiety and fear
I am prone to anxiety, which often gets expressed as restlessness and difficulty quieting my thoughts. Growing up, I responded to a challenging and unbalanced home life by trying to fill every moment with activity and distraction. I was often in restless motion, unfocused, and anxious. Calming my mind and embracing a state of peace and quiet have been huge challenges for me. Even with the yogic techniques, I’m not always able to quiet my thoughts.

Now, when I call “God, Christ, Guru,” I feel an inner response from the Guru that brings a sense of calmness and quiet. When I can concentrate fully on the poem, not only with my mind but also with my heart, I am able to rest in the security of the Guru’s presence. Knowing that I can always tune into Yogananda’s presence when I recite the poem dynamically has made me more accepting of a state of peace and quiet, and more trusting in the divine presence.

Since I was young I have had a deep yearning for God. Though raised in the Christian faith, when I found Yogananda, I felt Jesus handed me into his care. The yearning I’ve felt for God and Guru can be so intense at times that I’ve sometimes had difficulty bringing it under control and focusing it. Reciting this poem calms and settles that intensity of feeling. I can put words to the deep yearning of my heart; doing so calms my mind and enables me to speak to Him silently through the words of the poem.

The constant repetition of God’s name has sometimes resulted in a profound sense of joy and security. At such times, any decisions I need to make become unimportant. All that matters is being uplifted into His presence.

The most important benefit
Reciting the poem at the start of every meditation has given me another way to focus my mind and open my heart. The poem has also become a great tool for regaining focus if, during meditation, my mind begins to wander. Just as my meditations have deepened from focused repetition of the poem, so also has my ability to gain insights into any dilemma or problem I might be facing. During my times of quiet, when I am attuned to the Guru’s presence, I sometimes hear his silent words giving me guidance and direction.

The most important overall benefit of reciting the poem, however, is an ever-deepening attunement with Yogananda. When I focus on the words of the poem, I am also focusing on Yogananda, who wrote this poem as an expression of his own deep devotion. I can feel him as I recite the poem, especially his determination that “through life’s storms” he “will drown their noises” and always remain focused on God. Yogananda has spiritualized these words and imbued them with a palpable sense of his own deep commitment to God.

Thus this poem is a guidepost, a starting place for the aspiring saint on how to live every moment and day in attunement with God and Guru. At some point along the pathway of incarnations, Yogananda became Self-realized. Through his grace, and our will power and determination, we too can become Self-realized. My new confidence in my own divine potential is the most important benefit of reciting this poem every day for the past two years.

Surana is a Brahmacharini and lives and serves at Ananda Village. Among her other responsibilities, she enjoys teaching meditation and yoga postures to beginners. She has previously lived and served at two other Ananda communities.

God, God, God
by Paramhansa Yogananda

From the depths of slumber,
As I ascend the spiral stairways of wakefulness,
I will whisper:
God! God! God!

Thou art the food, and when I break my fast
Of nightly separation from Thee,
I will taste Thee, and mentally say:
God! God! God!

No matter where I go, the spotlight of my mind
Will ever keep turning on Thee;
And in the battle din of activity, my silent war-cry will be:
God! God! God!

When boisterous storms of trials shriek,
And when worries howl at me,
I will drown their noises, loudly chanting:
God! God! God!

When my mind weaves dreams
With threads of memories,
Then on that magic cloth will I emboss:
God! God! God!

Every night, in time of deepest sleep,
My peace dreams and calls, Joy! Joy! Joy!
And my joy comes singing evermore:
God! God! God!

In waking, eating, working, dreaming, sleeping,
Serving, meditating, chanting, divinely loving,
My soul will constantly hum, unheard by any:
God! God! God!

The post A Guidepost for the Aspiring Saint appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

Hermit Hari was spiritual, devoted, and firm in his determination. Long he had searched for God but he had received only glimpses of Him in meditation. Next to God, the object he coveted and searched for was the wishing tree.

Although Hari had failed in his efforts to commune with God at will, nevertheless he had acquired great occult powers due to his austerity, self-discipline, and occasional contacts with God. His determined search had resulted in the accumulation of considerable good karma. Hari now believed, that through the magnetic power of his stored up good karma and the latent divine power within him, he was going to be rewarded by finding a wishing tree.

Hermit Hari’s desire found fulfillment when he accidentally came across a great bushy tree in the course of his travels in the snow-walled valleys of the Himalayas, a virgin land which very few people were able to travel. Hari’s intuition enabled him to recognize at first sight that the large bushy tree was a wishing tree. Inspired by untold delight, he raced toward the tree and stood under it. He wanted to test the occult powers of this famous wishing tree.

Hermit Hari said to himself, “If this is a wishing tree, then I desire the instant materialization of a mighty castle.” No sooner had he expressed the wish than the great castle suddenly materialized beside the tree, spreading out over a vast area as if it had always been there.

Encouraged by his first success with the wishing tree, Hari made another wish: “I would like to be attended by bright-eyed damsels and fairies serving me food on golden plates.” This also came to pass. Encouraged still further by the instantaneous fulfillment of so many of his long-unfulfilled desires, Hermit Hari then wished for a mighty army to protect him and lo, there appeared a mighty army guarding the great castle.

After dinner, Hermit Hari retired to a secluded room on the ground floor of the castle. This room was rather dark and dreary. As Hermit Hari lay there looking toward the open window which overlooked the forest, he sent forth another strong thought: “I am protected here by an army of soldiers but the window in my room is open and without bars. If a tiger comes in and gets me, that will be the finish of me.”

Just then, while Hermit Hari still held on to his attitude of fear, a big tiger bolted through the open window of the castle and carried off the fear-frozen Hermit Hari. It was too late for him to realize that he was under the influence of a wishing tree which would grant both his good and bad wishes, irrespective of the motives behind the wishes. The business of a wishing tree is to grant wishes, according to the strength of the thought, whether positive or negative, and this wishing tree was true to form.

My great master, Swami Sri Yukteswar, often used the foregoing story to illustrate that we are all living in this world beneath our all-desire-fulfilling wishing tree of will power. Our will, being a reflection of the Almighty Divine Will, has in it the seeds of almighty power.

Most people rejoice if, as the result of a continuous use of will power in an unknown past life, they suddenly succeed in this life. But if most people suddenly reap evil consequences, they forget that they created such consequences by the continued misuse of their own almighty will power in an unknown past. When standing beneath the almighty wishing tree of your will power, always be careful to wish for good things and not to concentrate upon fears, failures, or diseases. The consequences of your negative wishes might suddenly loom out of the unseen and cause you unending troubles.

Remember, you were born beneath the boughs of the wishing tree of high achievements. You must not think evil thoughts because such thoughts will bring you nothing but harm. Since you are living under the invisible wishing tree of the divine will, always use your will power to learn of God and attain Self-realization. In this way you will forever quench the thirst of any unspiritual desires.

From the Praecepta Lessons.

The post The Wishing Tree appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

I spent that night quite comfortably in an open field. The next morning I washed in a crystal-clear brook, and breakfasted adequately on a few berries.

I then set off down the road again. I had proceeded some distance when a very expensive-looking car stopped beside me. Again came the question: “Would you like a ride?” It was a well-dressed man this time, efficient looking and speaking somewhat loudly.

“Thank you,” I replied, and got in the front.

“What’s your name?” the man asked.

“I’m trying to forget it,” I answered. “You may just call me Friend.”

“In trouble, eh? I wonder if I could help you? I’m a lawyer. Name’s Williams.”

“A lawyer, are you? What kind of law do you practice?”

“All kinds. In these economic times, it’s better not to specialize.”

“Well, let me begin by saying, No, I’m not in any trouble. I’m not on the lam, and I don’t need a lawyer. I’m on a spiritual quest for understanding, and I want to put self-definitions behind me.”

“I, on the other hand, deal in definitions of all kinds, including self-definitions. I must consider questions like, ‘Are you guilty or not guilty? Can you afford to pay me? Where were you at eight o’clock on the night of the eighteenth of September?’ I have to pin people down, and get them to tell as many specifics about themselves as possible. We couldn’t be in more diverse professions, if you’d call what you do that!”

“That difference may give us a chance to understand even ourselves—our ‘professions,’ as you say—in new ways,” was my comment.

“Intriguing answer,” he said. “Tell me, have you ever been to court?”

“Only on the tennis court. I lost, but I’m trying to forget that, too!”

“Well, believe it or not as you will, but most Americans are unbelievably litigious. They’ll sue you if you so much as step onto their property; spill coffee on their clothes; or call them unpleasant names—even if they deserve to be called much worse!

“You seem to be thriving, financially.”

“Well, I can’t complain. But there’s plenty of competition. No country on earth has anything like the number of lawyers we have in America.”

“Tell me something. I’ve often wondered: Is your concern more with the truth? or is it with winning?”

“Well, I’m hired to win, am I not?”

“So, then, if you happen to know a truth that would be prejudicial to your client’s case, do you hide it?”

“Well, naturally! I let my opponent find it, if he sniffs the possibility and decides to ferret it out.”

“Do you color the truth in a client’s favor? For instance, if he or she is obviously guilty, do you try to make him seem innocent?”

“Well, that’s my job. Actual guilt or innocence is for the judge to decide.”

“And do you try to make an opposing client look bad, even if you know he’s not bad at all?”

“Well, that too is my job.”

“I see. So you’re willing to bend the truth, when necessary?”

“Well, I don’t think of it that way, but of course I must tip things in my client’s favor when I can.”

“Look, we’ve been discussing your self-definition as a lawyer. But what about you as a man? Doesn’t this tendency to bend the truth affect you in your personal life as well?”

“I don’t believe so.”

“No? Would you never lie to your wife?”

“Well, sometimes what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her. If I put money on a horse, for instance, and it loses, why should I tell her about it?”

“And what if you came home late because you visited friends she doesn’t like, would you tell her you’d had to stay late at the office?”

“Well, a little white lie like that wouldn’t hurt her. Otherwise, well, I can imagine the storm!”

“What if you met an old girl friend. Would you hide that fact from your wife?”

“Just a minute! You’re questioning me like a lawyer, yourself!”

“But I’m trying to ascertain, for your sake, the depth of your commitment to the truth. It seems to me it’s a bit shallow.”

“What do you mean, for my sake?”

“Well, when we are truthful, we have support from reality itself—from the universe, if you will. And with that support, everything will always come out for the best. But without it, things cannot but fall apart, sooner or later. People cease to trust us. People cheat us, as we’ve cheated them. Things we counted on let us down at crucial moments. We lose friends, and find ourselves with none to support us but those for whom we ourselves have no respect. Nothing works when we don’t tell the truth. And when we are truthful, everything we do in life flourishes.”

“That sounds like a pleasant fairy tale.

“But imagine a lawyer who is strictly truthful with his clients; who won’t accept a case if he doesn’t believe in it; who tries honestly to see both sides, and offers his services on the strength of his knowledge of the law, but who doesn’t try to find ways of bending the law in his client’s favor. Such a man will gain a reputation for complete integrity. In time, judges themselves will be biased in favor of any case he represents. Such a lawyer, surely, will be more successful, even if it takes him time to become so.”

“Well, I know of no lawyers like that, so I can’t comment. As far as I’m concerned, the truth is relative. A lawyer might as well be realistic. Anyway, how can one ever be sure in his own mind whether the case he accepts is valid or not? We lawyers leave it to the courts to decide that issue. As I said, truth is for the judges to decide. As for us, meanwhile, we are like hired guns.”

“Sort of intellectual goons, in other words?”

“Well, I wouldn’t put it that strongly.”

“Still, integrity is less important to you than winning. Forgive me. I do seem to be in a very different profession from yours. My own is a quest for self-understanding. I have to say that if I were threatened even with bankruptcy, I would never sacrifice my self-respect. That is how strongly I believe that lasting success of any kind depends on right action. Were I to tell lies, someday I’d reach the point where I didn’t even know what was or was not right action.”

“Does it matter all that much, so long as you win?”

“To me it does. I firmly believe that even the willingness to indulge in a wrong act occasionally will lead, in the end, to either failure or a complete loss of self-worth. I’d say that the worst failure of all was the loss of my own integrity. Money in the bank is trivial by comparison.”

“Well, I’d call you an extremist. Everyone I know in my profession behaves as I do.”

“And are any of you happy?”

“What’s that got to do with it? But yes, I guess I could say I’m happy.”

“What you mean is, you’re not miserable, and your income keeps you afloat enough not to want to commit suicide.”

“Well, that’s a novel way of putting it! But I guess what I really mean is, no, I’m not completely happy yet, but I’m on the road to happiness.”

“Which is always receding from your grasp! I do know what you mean. You’re too numb really to think about it, for now. The underlying motive behind everything most people do is the urge for happiness. And you’re always short by just inches of finding it.”

“Are you saying my first criterion, in every decision I make, should be whether an act will lead me to increased happiness?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

“So if a client comes to me because he wants to sue for divorce, I should ask myself, ‘Will it make me happy to take this case?’”

“No, you should ask yourself, ‘Will divorce be the best thing for my client? Would he and his wife be happier if they could find some way to reconcile their differences?’ You might then try to bring about that reconciliation.”

“And lose a potential client! I must say, that doesn’t sound very practical! Surely the decision as to whether they get divorced is their own.”

“But you’d be much happier in yourself if you could bring about a reconciliation between them. Moreover, you might find that you’d opened up a new career for yourself—as a mediator. And you would find yourself drawing more and more of the right sort of clients. The best publicity a lawyer can have is by word of mouth.”

“I can see some truth in what you’re saying,” conceded Mr. Williams a little reluctantly. “Still, to survive in this practical world, I think everyone has to cut corners occasionally.”

“I’ve been speaking in a sort of ‘push-me-pull-you’ manner that you might find easier to understand: If I do so-and-so to you, you’ll do the same to me. But the matter really goes much deeper. For example, if you always abide strictly by the truth, you’ll find yourself able, in time, to come up with new solutions to problems. You’ll find new and better ways of achieving your goals. You’ll understand obscure difficulties effortlessly, which, for you, won’t even seem as difficult as they once did.”

“Really! Now, that thought sounds worth pursuing.”

“Not only that,” I said. “You’ll find that you can make what you want happen in ways that, to other people, may seem miraculous. The reason for your success will be that you’ll find yourself in tune with the universe. If you want to master a subject, you’ll find yourself able to do so without effort. If you find yourself wishing something would happen, incredibly—it happens! If you wish to understand things, amazingly again, you’ll suddenly find that you do understand them. And all this will be easy to achieve, simply because you put yourself in tune with what is, instead of trying to manifest what isn’t.”

“You mean, if I play the stock market, I’ll win?” Mr. Williams suddenly seemed a little more hopeful that what I was saying might be true.

“Well, yes—you’ll win, up to a point. But greed will soon disturb your attunement with the truth. Truthfulness means much more than adhering to the facts. It means attunement with a higher reality. By selfishness, you will separate yourself from broader realities of which you are a part.”

“You mean—oh, this is a little hard to swallow! How can I be a part of everything? I’m me, Roger Williams. I’m not some sort of mist!”

“Roger Williams is really only a wave on the great ocean of reality.”

“A wave, eh? And you’re another one? How come we’re so different?”

“Our shapes are different, but the one ocean beneath us is our underlying reality. The more we recognize it, and don’t try to separate ourselves from it by trying to tower over other waves, the greater our own peace. Metaphors, however, are never adequate. What I’m saying also is, by attunement with the ocean of wisdom we ourselves become wise. And by trying to be important in ourselves we separate ourselves to a greater or lesser extent from recognition of the abiding reality of that ocean. Thereby, we lose in the end not only our clarity, but our happiness.”

“Well, I have to say you’re presenting me with an altogether new picture of reality. Maybe I’ll give thought to trying what you’ve said.”

“But I should caution you: If you follow what I say, you won’t find things always working out as you wanted. You’ll only find them working out for your best, and for your true happiness. If you try to do something that isn’t in tune with higher reality, the universe will work against you.”

“Well,” he remarked with a gesture of comic hopelessness, “it seems there’s a catch to everything!”

“It isn’t really a catch, though. It’s true that adherence to truth may actually bring you suffering—for example, the pain of loss. But that’s because strict truthfulness is an upward flow toward perfection. Anything in your nature that clings narrowly to your ego must be purged. You’ll reach the point where the process is not even painful any longer. You’ll accept it unflinchingly—and even with joy.”

“And you’ve tested these principles? You’ve found they actually work.”

“I have. And they do. But,” and here I paused, “please forgive me! I’ve been working these things out for myself. What I’ve been saying is far beyond anything I’d ask of you. Mr. Williams, if you will simply try to align your actions with truth, I know you’ll find the happiness that’s been eluding you so far.”

“I like what you’ve been saying,” he remarked with an expression of gratitude. “I’m going to give it serious thought. Wow! My wife won’t recognize me!”

I smiled.

Excerpted from the forthcoming novel, A Pilgrimage to Guadalupe, Crystal Clarity Publishers.

The post Should You Ever Cut Corners with the Truth? appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

Dear _________:

What other people call you is of secondary importance. The really important thing is what you call yourself.

Please just consider what it really means to teach. To most people, teaching means telling others who don’t know, things they ought to know. It implies a sense of obligation for the right conduct of other people’s affairs. It implies also a sense of superiority to anyone that one teaches.

Now, when a carpenter makes a table on commission he may do so in the spirit of, “High time Mrs. Brown had something decent in her house for a change. All that junk she keeps! No taste, that’s her problem.” But if he works in this spirit there will be no joy in his work, no joy in doing something beautiful for Mrs. Brown, no real sense of service—no joy even in making a good table, since it is a person with no taste who has shown a preference for his work! How obviously better it would be for him to make the table as a humble offering of such talents as he possesses, for the enjoyment of Mrs. Brown if she chooses to keep it. And how foolish of him to think that her life must be commandeered by a mere piece of carpentry!

That is what teaching should mean—not telling people what they should do or know, but offering the fruits of one’s own living in the humble hope that what one says will in some way prove useful, and that it will find a place somewhere in their lives. People don’t owe it to a teacher to take his advice. Rather, they do him a favor if they find his advice acceptable, for in so doing they give greater meaning also to his life.

In India, when people touch my feet (a traditional gesture of respect for a teacher), and sometimes in this country when people follow the Indian custom, I feel they are blessing me, not I them.

In this way teaching others becomes a joyous sharing with them, a reciprocal act in which one receives at least as much as one gives, and feels privileged for the chance to be of useful service to others, rather than somehow demeaned by the necessity of talking to fools.

A wise carpenter doesn’t consider carpentry more important than masonry or plumbing. A wise teacher, similarly, doesn’t consider teaching more important than any of those three. He is only grateful that he has something useful to offer his fellow man—in return for the privilege of belonging to this elite group of animals, the human race.

See God, not yourself, as the Doer. Then concentrate on the needs of those who ask your advice, not on your own need to give it! Don’t seek people to advise, but if they come to you of their own accord, don’t send them away. This world is so full of blindness and suffering. Though you may not yet have found wisdom yourself, the very fact that you have found some answers makes it worthwhile to share your discoveries, if only because your friends will otherwise feel that you have betrayed their trusting expectations.

If a starving person comes to your door, will you send him away hungry and empty-handed?

In divine friendship

Swami Kriyananda

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

Related reading: In Divine Friendship by Swami Kriyananda, Crystal Clarity Publishers.

The post Letters of Encouragement: How to Share Truth appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

O Divine Mother, flying over the gardens of my fancy, denying myself the honey of lesser pleasures, I have found at last the ambrosia buried in Thy lotus-heart.

I have been Thy busy bee. I have soared through the fields of many incarnations, breathing the airs of countless experiences. I will roam now no more: Thy fragrance has quenched at last the perfume-thirst of my soul.

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

The post The Bee of My Mind Loves to Drink from Thy Blue Lotus Feet appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

by Swami Kriyananda

In the tradition of children’s fantasy adventure fiction The Time Tunnel begins with the factual reality of Kriyananda boyhood home in Teleajen, Romania, and specifically at Timis, the site of family vacations in the remote Carpathian Mountains of Transylvania. The time is June 1935. Donny (the author) is nine years old; his brother Bobby is seven-and-a-half.

With nothing to do, and time on their hands, the boys go deep into the forest above the inn where the family is staying, and they come upon a ruin – a fairly recent ruin – of a laboratory that seems to have been destroyed in an explosion. At the back of the laboratory is a hole in the wall that leads into a tunnel.

A spiritual adventure story
The boys, who have all along regarded their exploration of the ruin as an adventure, decide to enter the tunnel. Inside the tunnel they hear a hum, like the sound of an ocean liner’s engines. As they move forward, the tunnel shrinks, and they shrink with it. Finally, a great zero forms, becomes a sphere of light and surrounds them as a luminescent bubble. They seem no longer to have bodies but still to be themselves, only now much more intensely aware.

At this point the boys meet Hansel, the man who will guide them in their journey. Hansel and his father were the scientists working in the secret laboratory. From Hansel the boys learn how to dissolve and re-create the light sphere, which now contains them and will be the vehicle of their time travel. Their adventure takes them on a journey that well illustrates the book’s central principle: that time proceeds not in a straight line, but “in a circle around a center in the eternal now.”

The course of their adventures first satisfies Donny and Bobby’s normal boyish curiosity about dinosaurs and also about Dracula, whose legend is so much associated with Transylvania. Even these early experiences contain important life lessons—lessons that can be understood, like all true teachings, on multiple levels, according to the degree of awareness of the boys, and of the thoughtful reader as well. For The Time Tunnel is a spiritual adventure story – a story of the soul in its quest for truth. Each episode points to a moral.

The courage to undertake the adventure
The boys learn, and grow deeper in spiritual understanding as the story continues. Each brings valuable character traits to the journey—Bobby has a deep-rooted sense of fairness and justice, a belief in the essentially equal value of all beings; Donny brings with him a profoundly questioning nature—he will be satisfied with nothing less than the truth. Both have the courage to undertake the adventure and to persevere in it.

Again and again in the writings and talks of Swami Kriyananda we find emphasized the tremendous importance for the aspirant of an attitude of spiritual adventurousness, the courage and the willingness to go beyond one’s comfort zone, to expand one’s awareness, to leave behind the familiar, known reality of ego-consciousness, to enter into the great adventure of spiritual awakening.

The essential goodness of the boys’ characters, together with their shared attitude of spiritual adventurousness, provide the initial momentum for their journey. That momentum carries them to the point at which the power of the tunnel itself—which may perhaps be likened to the pull of divine grace, calling the devotee home—takes over and draws the boys into the presence of their spiritual teacher, the guide who, himself experienced in time travel, will walk with them on their journey.

“Ponder how you might improve yourself.”
The three time travelers go first into dark periods of human history, but each one become a vehicle for deeper understanding. The horrors of Vlad the Impaler (the historical source for the Dracula legend) leads the boys to the realization that cruelty does not lead to happiness but to a suffering even greater for the perpetrator than for the victim. Always Hansel brings the lessons home to the boys’ actual experience of life. The cruelty and tyranny of these historical figures, the boys are able to see, are only the extreme distortions of such normal tendencies as Bobby’s self-assertiveness. Hansel, as teacher, urges the boys to study history in order to “ponder how you might improve yourself.”

From the dark ages, the three travel to Egypt, to The Great Pyramid, built not by slave labor but by sound vibration, and from Egypt to Atlantis, technologically advanced yet heartless, without respect for Nature or humanity, obsessed with power and control, and eventually to Normandy of William The Conqueror. Here the boys and Hansel intercede in the life of an impoverished mother of three—and in so doing learn important lessons about the power of a strong, positive magnetism to attract beneficial change, and about the power of love to break through even the limitations of time and destiny.

From William’s Normandy, Hansel takes the boys to meet the ancient Greek philosopher Diogenes. Hansel’s purpose is to introduce the boys to a philosophy that will help them cope with the suffering ahead for mankind in their own time zone (the twentieth century and beyond). From ancient Greece, the travelers go far into the future to meet a man of true wisdom, Satyan, who introduces them to life in an age of universally high consciousness, an age of harmony with Nature, of freedom from the great evils of the more material ages—hunger, disease, war.

The last adventure
The final journey takes Hansel and the boys back in time to the year 3053 AD to a place known as Eutopia—“a place of beauty and harmony”—a cooperative spiritual community, one of thousands that dot the earth, each a place of kindness, upliftment, peace. It is this destination that expresses Kriyananda hope for mankind’s way forward in the years ahead.

In Eutopia the boys part ways with Hansel—to take up again their lives in time. Hansel remains in Eutopia to help the schools, and the community’s children, as he has helped Donny and Bobby, see the truth for themselves, and so make life choices that will move them in the direction of their one true goal—divine bliss.

As we follow the boys’ adventure, we see their understanding deepen, and our own as well—for always imbedded in the narrative is the author’s unspoken wish for the reader, that he too find the courage, the spiritual adventurousness, to travel inwardly from time to timelessness, and so to true freedom. The reader is left at the end with the question, “Will you [the reader] go there?” Will you learn to go beyond time and space, beyond ego, into true freedom and bliss?

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

To order The Time Tunnel go to Crystal Clarity Publishers

The post Book Review: An Attitude of Spiritual Adventurousness appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

A border crossing between India and Pakistan
National Highway 1 (NH1) crosses the border between Pakistan and India at Wagah, an old village that was bisected by the border created in 1947, and lies between Amritsar India, and Lahore, Pakistan. I found it surprising that the Wagah crossing is now the only road crossing along the entire border from India into Pakistan with the exception of a small post in Kashmir.

Obviously, the Wagah crossing is important for that reason alone, but it has also taken on a symbolic significance in the years since Partition. It is where India and Pakistan officially interact each day. As the years have passed, the rituals surrounding the daily closing of the gates have grown into a ceremonial occasion of unusual proportions, attended by thousands from both sides.

Concrete “bleachers” packed with spectators
Arriving in Wagah, you park about a half mile from the border and walk the last stretch, passing through security checks as you go. There was already a long line when we got there but it was moving quickly. Once through the last check, we made our way to the VIP section and found our seats along the highway.

I was surprised at what I saw. On both sides of the border were permanent, concrete “bleachers” packed with spectators. There must have been five thousand on the Indian side and another three thousand on the Pakistani side. Flags fluttered in the breeze: the green crescent and star on white for Pakistan and the familiar saffron, green and white tricolor of India. A.R. Rahman’s anthem from Slumdog Millionaire blared from the loudspeakers as hawkers made their way through the crowds selling tourist guides.

Down on the roadway, there were groups of school kids running back and forth to the gate with big Indian flags, handing them off like batons to the next kid waiting in line. I imagined similar scenes on the Pakistani side.

About an hour before the gates closed at sunset, a guy came out of the Border Patrol office, grabbed a microphone and began leading the crowd in cheers. “Bharata Mata Ki!” and back from the crowd would come “Jai!” Louder and louder. “Hindustan!” and the crowd would reply “Zindabad!” Pretty soon, you could hear from the other side of the fence, “Pakistan! Zindabad!” “Pakistan! Zindabad!” It was like dueling crowds at a big football game. The patrolman waved his arms to encourage the crowd, exhorting it further, directing the cheers toward the Pakistanis. Back and forth it went, everyone having a great time. Flags waving, the crowd yelling, music blaring, the red sun setting slowly.

A choreographed routine
Finally, a squad of Border Patrolmen marched out of their barracks and took position at the roadside. They looked magnificent, dressed in khaki, polished boots with leggings, and each sporting an impressive red headdress that reminded me of a rooster’s comb.

On signal, two smartly uniformed lady guards started the ceremony by quickly marching along the roadway to the gate where they took up position, left and right. They were followed by the male guards, aggressively goose-stepping in pairs to the cheers of the crowd until they reached the gate where they were met by their counterparts from the Pakistani side, dressed in black. Each guard was exactly of the same physique, well conditioned and about six feet tall with a mustache. They had all been chosen to match.

Once at the gate, the guards marched back and forth in sync with the Pakistanis. They had their routine down and had obviously choreographed the whole thing with the fellows on the other side of the border. After about fifteen minutes of back and forth marching at the gate, the bugles blew and the flags were lowered and furled, exactly at the same pace for each country. The gates then closed, the patrol marched back to their barracks, and the show ended. Everyone left happy as they made their way to the chaos of the parking lots.

“They really are brothers and sisters”
Indians love ceremonies and really do them well. They have a knack for them and know how to have fun. No American soldier could ever dress like those border guys and keep a straight face, but it looked just right on them.

Once again, I noted the patriotism of ordinary Indians. I would guess the Pakistanis are the same, and as I was leaving, a thought struck me forcefully, “These really are the same people on both sides of the gate! A line and a fence have come between them but underneath all the politics and discord, they really are brothers and sisters.” Dynasties and empires with their borders have come and gone here for thousands of years. Sooner or later, this one too will be gone and the people will be reunited again.

Nayaswami Jaya is a founding member of Ananda and a Kriyacharya. Together with his wife, Nayaswami Sadhana Devi, he lives in India where he serves as spiritual director of Ananda’s work in Pune.

To learn more about Ananda’s work in India click here

The post Glimpses of India: Ceremony at the Wagah Gates – A Unity of Spirit appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

• I will concentrate on the teachings and will be loyal to the faithful daily practice of the techniques.
• I will have a little temple of my own in my own room wherever I am (a closet or even a corner screened off).
• I will consider myself the minister of my temple, to correct myself and teach the audience (consisting of my diverse un-trained thoughts and feelings) so that I may be an ideal example and thereby be of real service to my fellow beings.
• I will endeavor to live by the following Moral and Spiritual Rules:

I will not judge others—only myself.

I shall strictly refuse to hear or read unkind discussions of others.

I will try to be efficient in everything—neither passively depending on God nor egotistically claiming the credit for myself when I have accomplished anything.

I will act and make myself successful through my own efforts and the power of God in me.

Nayaswamis Jyotish and Devi are the Spiritual Directors of Ananda Worldwide. Other Clarity articles by Nayaswamis Jyotish and Devi are listed under “Jyotish and Devi Novak.”

The post Paramhansa Yogananda’s Spiritual Pledge for Students appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

No Frills Airline

1. You can’t board the plane unless you have the exact change.

2. Before you take off, the stewardess tells you to fasten your Velcro.

3. The Captain asks all the passengers to chip in a little for gas.

4. When they pull the steps away, the plane starts rocking.

5. The Captain yells at the ground crew to get the cows off the runway.

6. You ask the Captain how often their planes crash and he says, “Just once.”

7. No movie. Don’t need one. Your life keeps flashing before your eyes.

Cat for Sale

An art collector was walking through town when he noticed a stray cat lapping milk from an old, antique saucer in the doorway of a store. Casually he walked into the store and offered to buy the cat for two dollars.

The store owner replied, “I’m sorry, but the cat isn’t for sale.”

The collector said, “Please, I need a cat around the house to catch mice. I’ll pay you twenty dollars for that cat.”

“OK!” said the store owner, “in that case, I’ll sell you the cat.”

The collector then asked, “Could you also throw in that old saucer? It’ll save me from having to buy a dish.”

“Sorry,” the store owner replied, “that’s my lucky saucer. So far this week I’ve sold sixty-eight cats.”

The Garden Plot

An old man who had been living alone in the country for many years wanted to plant his tomato garden, but he had become too old to dig the soil. His only son, Vincent, who used to help him, was in prison. So the old man decided to write him a letter to see if he had any ideas as to what he might do.

A few days later he received an urgent note from his son which said:

“Dear Dad,

Don’t dig up that garden. That’s where I buried the bodies.

Love, Vinnie.”

At 4:00 AM the next morning, FBI agents and local police arrived and dug up the entire garden without finding any bodies. They apologized to the old man and left. The next day the old man received another letter from his son.

“Dear Dad,

Go ahead and plant the tomatoes now. That was the best I could do under the circumstances.

Love you, Vinnie.”

The Job Interview

At the end of the job interview, the head of human resources asked the newly graduated engineer: “What type of starting salary are you looking for?”

The engineer, deciding to go for it, said, “Well, Sir, I was thinking of around $125,000, depending on the benefits package.”

“OK,” said the HR director, “How about five weeks’ vacation, 14 paid holidays, full medical and dental, and a Porsche for your company car? That sounds good doesn’t it?”

The engineer gasps and said, “Wow! You must be kidding.”

“Yeah,” he replied, “But you started it.”

Free Advice

A doctor and a lawyer met at a party. Their conversation was constantly interrupted by people asking the doctor for medical advice.

Finally, the doctor turned to the lawyer and asked, “How do you stop people from asking you for legal advice when you’re out of the office?”

“Oh, I give them advice,” replied the lawyer, “but then I send them a bill in the morning.”

For the remainder of the evening the doctor meticulously wrote down the names and addresses of everyone who asked him for advice.

The next morning he received a bill from the lawyer.

The Castle Tour

On a tour of an English medieval castle, a young American woman was becoming more and more nervous and fearful of seeing a ghost.

The tour guide, trying to reassure her said, “Don’t worry, in all the time I’ve been here, I’ve never seen a ghost.”

“How long is that,” she asked.

“About 400 years.”

A Day Off

Beth woke up one morning and decided to spend the day in bed rather than go to school.

Her mother, a bit surprised, inquired sympathetically, “Beth, are you not feeling well?”

“Mom, I feel fine. It’s just that I don’t want to go to school today.”

“Why not,” she asked

“Well, the kids make fun of me, the teachers hate me and, besides, I have too much work to do.”

“But, dear, that’s no reason not to go to school.”

“Can you give me one good reason why I should go to school?”

“Yes, you’re the principal.”

The Burglar Alarm

When a neighbor’s home was burglarized, Mrs. Smith decided that she needed to be more safety-conscious. But she didn’t feel that the front-door lock was adequate to stop someone really intent on breaking in.

So she hung a sign outside the door that read:

“Nancy, don’t come in! There’s a large snake loose somewhere inside the house. Mom.”

SPCA

A woman walked into an animal shelter to have her cat and six kittens spayed and neutered.

Before picking up the kittens, the attendant asked, “Is the mother cat friendly?”

“Oh, yes!” said the woman. “That’s how this happened in the first place.”

Foreign Exchange

A month after a student from Scotland enrolled in a leading Ivy League college, his mother called to ask how he was doing.

“Oh,” he replied, “America is a wonderful country. But the students here are so noisy. One of them bangs the wall endlessly, while another shouts all night.”

“How do you put up with it?” she inquired.

“Well, I just ignore them and play my bagpipes.”

The post Humor: A Smile a Day appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

1. St. John of the Cross
2. Sister Gyanamata
3. Woodrow Wilson
4. Bernadette of Lourdes

“A sad saint is a sad saint indeed!”

1. St. Francis de Sales
2. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
3. Saint Teresa Lisieux
4. Winston Churchill

“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”

1. St. Anthony of the desert
2. St. Paul the Apostle
3. Swami Vivekananda
4. Abraham Lincoln

“You have made us for Yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.”

1. Sir Isaac Newton
2. St. Anthony of Padua
3. Hildegard of Bingen
4. St. Augustine

“If you only knew how much God loves you, you would die of joy!”

1. Meher Baba
2. St. Jean Vianney
3. Lahiri Mahasaya
4. Sir Thomas More

“When this ‘I’ shall die, then I will know who am ‘I’.”

1. Paramhansa Yogananda
2. Emily Dickinson
3. Sri Aurobindo
4. Ramana Maharshi

“We must become the change we want to see in the world.”

1. Satya Sai Baba
2. Martin Luther King
3. Alexander the Great
4. Mahatma Gandhi

“Lord, grant me the strength to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

1. Thomas a Kempis
2. Padre Pio
3. St. Francis of Assisi
4. Benjamin Franklin

Click here to view answers >>

Answers to Quiz

“Change no circumstance in my life. Change me.”

1. St. John of the Cross
2. Sister Gyanamata
3. Woodrow Wilson
4. Bernadette of Lourdes

Answer: 2

“A sad saint is a sad saint indeed!”

1. St. Francis de Sales
2. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
3. Saint Teresa Lisieux
4. Winston Churchill

Answer: 1

“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”

1. St. Anthony of the desert
2. St. Paul the Apostle
3. Swami Vivekananda
4. Abraham Lincoln

Answer: 2

“You have made us for Yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.”

1. Sir Isaac Newton
2. St. Anthony of Padua
3. Hildegard of Bingen
4. St. Augustine

Answer: 4

“If you only knew how much God loves you, you would die of joy!”

1. Meher Baba
2. St. Jean Vianney
3. Lahiri Mahasaya
4. Sir Thomas More

Answer: 2

“When this ‘I’ shall die, then I will know who am ‘I’.”

1. Paramhansa Yogananda
2. Emily Dickinson
3. Sri Aurobindo
4. Ramana Maharshi

Answer: 1

“We must become the change we want to see in the world.”

1. Satya Sai Baba
2. Martin Luther King
3. Alexander the Great
4. Mahatma Gandhi

Answer: 4

“Lord, grant me the strength to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

1. Thomas a Kempis
2. Padre Pio
3. St. Francis of Assisi
4. Benjamin Franklin

Answer: 3

The post One Minute Quiz: Sayings of the Saints appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

******

Willingness must be cultivated deliberately. Don’t wait for favorable circumstances to awaken willingness in you. Train yourself in the attitude of saying yes to life!

******

Prayer and meditation are the best ways to make the mind receptive, as well as an attitude of willingness. Embrace whatever duty life places on your shoulders.

******

The secret of inner peace is practicing willingness, even though your mental habits may urge you to say, “No!”

******

Willingness to seek the underlying reality behind appearances is essential for those who would know God.

******

The sincere aspirant must try always to keep his consciousness flowing toward greater awareness in God. The mere willingness to enter the divine stream is often all one needs.

******

Spiritual realism — the willingness, for example, to face uncompromisingly the full truth about oneself— softens the heart and fills it eventually with kindness toward all.

******

The willingness to adjust to realities broader than your own is a sign of maturity. How you react to disappointment determines whether you are developing contractive attitudes of bitterness and cynicism or expanding towards acceptance and wisdom.

******

Be willing in everything you do. Willingness begets energy. As Yogananda used to say, “The greater the will, the greater the flow of energy.”

******

We live surrounded by an ocean of cosmic energy, and draw on it to a greater or lesser degree, depending on our will power, or willingness, and on the clarity of our awareness.

******

Bad habits cannot be destroyed by mere willingness to eradicate them. One must act according to that willingness; not only once or twice, but repeatedly and continuously.

******

Doing certain things at certain times creates the willingness to perform those actions. The body assimilates food better when breakfast, lunch, and dinner are served regularly. To go to church regularly on Sundays develops the habit of thinking of religion or of God at least once a week.

All quotations are from the writings of Paramhansa Yogananda and Swami Kriyananda.

Related Reading: Secrets of Inner Peace, by Swami Kriyananda, Crystal Clarity Publishers.

The post Quotations: Willingness appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

BOOKS

Thirteen Things that Don’t Make Sense
by Michael Brooks

In this fascinating book the author explores thirteen stubborn mysteries that have stumped top scientists for decades and, in some cases, for centuries. He explores such questions as: why scientists cannot account for the 90 percent of the universe known as dark matter; whether we may have already been contacted by alien life but don’t know it, yet; and why we are routinely deceived by the placebo effect.

Brooks argues persuasively that the things we don’t yet understand may be the key to what we are about to discover.

The Phantom Tollbooth
by Norton Juster

The Phantom Tollbooth, first published in 1961, is an ingenious fantasy that centers around Milo, a bored, lonely ten-year-old who lives in a San Francisco apartment block all by himself, and one day unexpectedly finds a mysterious, magical toy tollbooth sitting in his room. The tollbooth transports Milo to a land called the Kingdom of Wisdom. There he acquires two faithful companions and sets forth on a quest to rescue the princesses Rhyme and Reason from dire captivity, and sees many peculiar sights along the way.

Full of puns and unexpected adventures, the book will appeal to anyone with an appreciation for language, irony, or Alice in Wonderland-style adventure. Suitable for children ages 8 and up.

The World’s Religions
by Huston Smith

The World’s Religions is a revised and updated edition of The Religions of Man, by Huston Smith, the foremost authority and teacher of world religions.

With an emphasis on the inner dimension of these religions, the book explores the teachings of the world’s predominant faiths, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and the native traditions of Australia, Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. Smith convincingly shows the unique appeal and gifts of each of these traditions.

The recipient of twelve honorary degrees, Smith’s other books include his bestselling Why Religion Matters, and his autobiography, Tales of Wonder.

Whatever the Odds: The Incredible Story Behind DLF
by K.P. Singh with Ramesh Menon and Raman Swamy

This book tells the fascinating story of self-made Indian billionaire, K.P. Singh, who grew up in a small village in the rural backwaters of Uttar Pradesh and went on to become the entrepreneur who transformed the small town of Gurgaon into an international business hub and pacesetter for the urban development for the rest of the country.

K.P. Singh is chairman of DLF Ltd, and a trustee and member of the governing boards of several educational and philanthropic institutions. In 2010 he was awarded the Padma Bhushan by the president of India, in recognition of his high order of distinguished service to the nation of India.

The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century
by Thomas Friedman

In this best-selling book, award-winning New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman provides a timely and illuminating update on globalization, its successes and discontents. With his unique ability to translate complex foreign policy and economic issues, Friedman explains how the flattening of the world happened at beginning of the twenty-first century; what it means to countries, companies, communities, and individuals — and how governments and societies can adapt.

Left to Tell – Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust
by Immaculee Ilibagiza

Left to Tell is the miraculous story of how Immaculee Ilibagiza survived the 1994 Rwanda genocide that engulfed her idyllic world. Immaculee’s family was brutally murdered during a three-month killing spree that claimed the lives of nearly a million Rwandans. For 91 days, Immaculee and seven other women huddled silently together in the cramped bathroom of a local pastor while hundreds of machete-wielding killers hunted for them.

During those hours of terror, Immaculee discovered the power of prayer and forged a profound and lasting relationship with God. She emerged from her bathroom hideout having discovered the meaning of truly unconditional love and was able seek out and forgive her family’s killers.

The story of this remarkable young woman’s triumphant journey through the darkness of genocide will inspire anyone whose life has been touched by fear, suffering, and loss.

Supernature: Natural History of the Supernatural
by Lyall Watson

In his most popular book, Supernature, Lyall Watson challenges scientific orthodoxy by thinking outside the box of conventional science. He identifies a host of happenings, “between nature and the supernatural,” which he describes as Supernature. These include phenomena such as the scientific facts behind astrology; the mysterious properties of Egypt’s pyramids; ESP, psychokinesis, telepathy, “eyeless sight”; how the mind can physically influence the body; and much, much more.

A South African botanist, zoologist, biologist, anthropologist, ethnologist, and author of many new age books, Lyall Watson described himself as a “scientific nomad” who believed conventional science was simply inadequate to explain much of human experience. He passed away in 2008.

Charlotte’s Web
by E.B. White

First published in 1952, Charlotte’s Web has become one of the most beloved children’s books of all time, enjoyed by adults as well as children. It is the story of a little farm girl named Fern who loved a pig named Wilbur and Wilbur’s friendship with a barn spider named Charlotte. Wilbur is desolate when he discovers that he is destined for the smokehouse until, Charlotte, with the help of Templeton, the rat who never did anything for anybody unless there was something in it for him, decides to help Wilbur and save him from being Christmas dinner.

In year 2000, Publishers Weekly listed the book as the best-selling children’s paperback of all time. (See below for the movie based on this book).

MOVIES

Gandhi, 1982
The winner of eight Academy Awards, this awe-inspiring movie is based on the life of Mahatma Gandhi, the diminutive lawyer who led the nonviolent resistance movement against British colonial rule in India during the first half of the 20th century, paving the way for Indian independence. Gandhi has since become an international symbol of nonviolence and understanding. With sensitivity and insight, the film brilliantly underscores the difference one person can make.

Available: DVD; Rated PG

Lost Horizon, 1937
In this Frank Capra classic, based on the 1933 James Hilton novel, plane-crash survivors are led through the Himalayas to Shangri-La, a village without hate or crime where no one ages. One of the survivors, Robert Conway (Ronald Colman) is chosen to succeed Shangri-La’s High Lama, but his brother convinces him to leave on an ill-fated trek. Conway ends up in England with amnesia, but later regains his memory and embarks on a journey to find his lost Shangri-La.

Swami Kriyananda has said that seeing “Lost Horizon” helped to inspire his interest in starting a cooperative community.

Available: DVD; Not Rated

Like Stars on Earth, 2007
This charming Indian movie tells the story of 8-year-old, Ishaan Awasthi, a chronic day dreamer, who is thought to be lazy and a troublemaker. His parents, frustrated that Ishaan keeps getting into trouble, send him away to a boarding school in hopes that he’ll become more disciplined. Ishaan’s life changes completely when an unconventional new art teacher decides to try and help his imaginative young student discover his true identity.

Originally in Hindi, this movie is beautifully dubbed in English for American audiences. A Disney release in the United States.

Available: DVD; Rated PG

The Young Victoria, 2009
This 2009 British-American film dramatizes the turbulent early years of Queen Victoria’s rule, and her enduring romance with her husband, Prince Albert. Dominated by her possessive mother, a young Victoria comes of age, a queen and no one’s puppet as she navigates the many court intrigues of those who want to control her for their own ends. The film was nominated for three Academy Awards, winning the 2010 Academy Award for Best Costume Design.

Available: DVD; Rated PG

E.T. –The Extra-Terrestrial, 1982
Steven Spielberg’s 1982 movie tells the heartwarming story of 10-year-old Elliot and a stranded alien he names E.T. They soon learn to communicate, and develop a special relationship in which E.T learns about life on earth and Elliot learns about the true meaning of friendship. E.T. wants to go home, but if Elliot helps him, he’ll lose a friend. Released by Universal Pictures, E.T. ranks as the greatest science fiction film ever made.

Available: DVD; Rated PG

Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story, 2009
This made-for-cable-movie is the inspiring story of Dr. Ben Carson, a leader in the field of medicine, whose innovative ideas have helped save many lives. Growing up in a single parent home, he overcame poverty, racial prejudice and, with the help of his mother, learned to have faith in himself.

Today Dr. Carson is a full professor of neurosurgery, oncology, plastic surgery, and pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and has directed pediatric neurosurgery at the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center for over a quarter of a century. In May, 2008, he became the first recipient of a professorship dedicated in his name.

Available: DVD; Not Rated

Rembrandt, 1936
Charles Laughton delivers a memorable performance as famed artist Rembrandt Van Rijn and brilliantly captures the essence of this passionate 17th-century genius. Beginning with Rembrandt at the height of his powers in 1642, the film is a powerful exploration of his creativity and self-determination. Rembrandt is portrayed as an indomitable spirit who triumphs over adversity and mediocrity to leave behind a legacy of artistic achievement.

Available: DVD; Not Rated

Charlotte’s Web, 2006
This 2006 feature film is based on E. B. White’s beloved children’s book of the same name. (See book description above)

Available: DVD; Rated G

The post Book and Movie Recommendations appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

Selected from the CD album, Relax: Meditations for Flute and Cello. Available from Clarity Sound & Light. To order click here

The post Where He Dwells – 2:41 appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

Selected from the CD album, Relax: Meditations for Flute and Cello. Available from Clarity Sound & Light. To order click here

The post Krishna’s Flute – 4:19 appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

Selected from the CD album, Relax: Meditations for Flute and Cello. Available from Clarity Sound & Light. To order click here

The post Inner Peace – 4:54 appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

Selected from the CD album, Relax: Meditations for Flute and Cello. Available from Clarity Sound & Light. To order click here

The post Amrita – 2:56 appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

Selected from the CD album, Relax: Meditations for Flute and Cello. Available from Clarity Sound & Light. To order click here

The post Dark Eyes – 4:14 appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

Selected from the CD album, Relax: Meditations for Flute and Cello. Available from Clarity Sound & Light. To order click here

The post Fairies Lullaby – 2:22 appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

But we need to understand that health is a total process and primarily a reflection of our strength inwardly. Illness and other health troubles come from not being in touch with our deepest reality. Our true nature is healthy. It can’t be otherwise because we are children of God.

Spiritual ignorance, therefore, is the greatest disease of all. From spiritual ignorance all other mistakes follow. When you are ignorant of the fact that you are a child of God and not just the body and personality, when you are ignorant of your wrong attitudes, it is possible again and again to make mistakes that create bad karma and illness. Therefore the most important thing of all is curing this ignorance.

A healing through will power
I once knew a woman who had been hired as a cook at Mount Washington. She was a big, strapping woman and strong enough to carry things it would normally take two or three people to carry. I was very surprised when she told me she’d had polio and was told she would never walk again.

She responded to her illness by telling herself, “I am not going to be a cripple for the rest of my life!” When people weren’t looking, she would tumble out of bed and kind of crawl across the floor and huddle against the wall. Using all of her will power, she would then try to push herself up to a standing position, leaning against the wall for support. She did this repeatedly and with great determination.

She didn’t know anything about drawing energy from the cosmic source, but she just kept trying. She kept sending out the thought that she wanted her legs to move, which was, in fact, sending energy to her body. Little by little, her body started to respond. And after a while, the miracle occurred. She overcame the paralysis completely.

This woman healed herself without knowledge of spiritual laws. How much easier it is to use will power to heal yourself when you know that energy can make you well, and that a strong affirmation of wellness can draw energy from the cosmic source and heal your illness.

An ocean of cosmic energy
The body’s ability to heal or resist disease depends primarily on being able to draw energy into the body from the cosmic source. We live surrounded by an ocean of cosmic energy, and we draw on it to a greater or lesser extent all the time, depending on our will power or willingness, and on the clarity of our awareness. There are a number of saints and yogis who have lived for many years without eating, yet somehow they manage to carry on and, in fact, they put everyone else to shame with their high level of energy. They are sustained by that cosmic source.

The energy we bring into the body from the cosmic source is intelligent. It can transform the chemistry of the body. It can become whatever chemicals we need in order to heal because all of these chemicals are manifestations of cosmic energy. The body itself is not a physical object. It is a holding pattern of energy and this pattern can be changed. When we change the holding pattern, we suddenly find new and different chemicals rushing in to take the place that’s been created for them.

It is by changing the holding pattern that amazing miracles and instantaneous healings have occurred: people dying of cancer who suddenly became well; people who bathed in the waters at Lourdes who suddenly grew new organs. The woman crippled by polio, by her will power and determination, changed the holding pattern and healed her legs.

How to offset the karma of illness
How do we become ill? Illness enters the body through the agency of our karma. Our karma creates weaknesses in the aura, and through those weaknesses illness can enter. There isn’t anything we can do about the existence of that karma. We can’t banish it. But we can we can offset karmic law by spiritual means, by devotion and being more in tune with God.

There was a young boy at the Self-Realization Fellowship Hermitage in Encinitas who had an accident which resulted in his cutting off a finger. Paramhansa Yogananda said he had seen a black cloud in the boy’s astral body shortly before this accident. Yogananda said that if the boy hadn’t been at the hermitage, the accident would have been far worse.

Something very similar happened to Daya Mata shortly after I came onto the spiritual path. She was rushed to the hospital with an illness which the doctor diagnosed incorrectly. Karmically she was supposed to die but by Yogananda’s blessings, she lived. Explaining the situation, Yogananda said, “That’s the way karma works. The doctor diagnosed it wrongly because it was her karma to go.”

Attunement with the Divine gives you a very strong aura. It’s as though you were wearing armor. Any bad karma that comes either can’t get through or is greatly lessened.

Illness and spiritual growth
There are certain instances when it is not appropriate to offset the karma of illness. An example involved a very saintly 19-year-old girl in India who had healing powers. She had healed many people but she steadfastly refused to heal her father, who was very ill.

Finally her family, and especially her mother, pressured her so much that she had no choice but to pray for him. However, she wrote her mother a note saying, “You will see what will happen.” She prayed for her father and he became well. Not very long afterwards, he began living a dissolute life.

A dissolute life in the past had created the karma for her father to be ill. His illness was a means of creating a break with his past and changing the mental tendency to lead a dissolute life. For that change to occur, however, the illness needed to reach deep enough levels of his mind to rid him of those old tendencies. When his illness was removed prematurely, all of those old tendencies surfaced.

Illness and physical problems are often an important part of spiritual growth. They are the means by which the soul propels us away from error and toward God.

Love: your greatest protection
Paramhansa Yogananda had a great deal of respect for Christian Scientists but he said that good health requires more than mental affirmation. Our mental attitudes, our dynamism and optimism, are very important. But the most important thing of all is our attunement with the Divine. Swami Sri Yukteswar said that the unfolding of the heart’s natural love fills the body with such harmonious energy that it banishes all disease. To develop the natural love of the heart is the most important thing that we can do for our health.

Saint Francis had so much love that he could eat the scraps in people’s garbage pails, yet he was untouched. His deep attunement to God and Christ protected him. The best thing is to have a balance – to eat properly, to exercise regularly – while always keeping in mind that the greatest need is for loving God, for loving people, and for having this kind of harmonious energy.

Anything that makes us more giving towards other people, more sharing, less defensive and less competitive with them, helps very much in the development of devotion. On the other hand, attitudes of aggression, defensiveness, worry, fear, and self-condemnation constrict the heart and are harmful to the body.

God has no favorites
Divine love not only fills the body with harmonious energy and dissolves impurities, it puts us in tune with the great universal flow. When we are in tune with that flow, we have the power of the universe supporting us, giving us strength. Try to rely more on God. You have to do your part but God has no favorites. Anytime you put yourself in His hands and just flow with His great symphony of life, everything seems to work out for the best.

A lovely instance of this occurred when I visited India some years ago. I had written to friends that I was coming to Calcutta. When I didn’t hear from them I naturally wondered if they had received my letter and would be at the airport to meet me. And yet, I thought, “Well I’ve done my part. God will take care of the rest.”

When I arrived at the Calcutta airport, my friends weren’t there, but I didn’t worry about it. I just stood there thinking, “Well, Master, what do you have in mind?” Hardly ten seconds later a man came up to me and asked my name. He said he had been seen a photograph of me a few weeks earlier. It turned out he was in Calcutta to visit a dear friend of mine, someone I had hoped to see while in India but whose address I could not find—and he took me to see this friend. I later got together with the friends who were not at the airport to meet me.

So don’t think you have to do everything. Do your best in a common sense way but, above all, try to be in tune with Him and the universal flow will constantly sustain you. The right things will happen for your physical, mental, and spiritual health. The right guidance will come at the right time. The right kinds of foods will be there when you need them. Everything will be there if you cling to God with faith and devotion.

You have come from Infinity
This body is just a small part of that which you really are. For a while you are living in this body, but the truth is that you have come from Infinity and are living only temporarily in this little physical form.

You will not be anything but hopelessly diseased until you realize the truth of your own nature, the reality of your oneness with God. Ignorance of your oneness with God is the supreme disease of which all others are merely outward and limited manifestations. Banish that ignorance and know who and what you really are.

From a 1981 talk at Ananda Village.

Related reading: The Art & Science of Raja Yoga by Swami Kriyananda

The post Spiritual Ignorance: The Cause of All Disease appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

A direct route to success
A friend told me that my success in the spiritual realm would not help me succeed in business. I replied, “Within two weeks I will make five thousand dollars for you through business investments.” He replied doubtfully, “I am from Missouri. You will have to show me.”

I did not rush about looking for ways to invest money. I sat in meditation and used my powers of concentration to disengage my mind from all distractions, and focused my attention on the inner divine source. Everything is recorded in the divine source – every change in the physical body, in the planetary system, and in business. When I touched that source, I prayed fervently for guidance. Right away I was shown lots of houses.

I went out and bought the Sunday papers and looked at the real estate advertisements. I selected a few houses that looked like good investments and advised my friend to buy them. He said, “The market for real estate seems pretty shaky right now.” “Never mind, doubting Thomas,” I replied. “Don’t spoil success by your doubts.”

In two weeks there was a real estate boom. The prices of houses rose very high. My friend sold the houses and reaped a clear profit of five thousand dollars. I had shown him what the concentrated power of the mind can do when we apply it with faith in God. The power of concentration, when guided by the Divine, does not lead you blindly through the jungle of wrong investments. You go straight to success.

Always start from within
All people of success have had great concentration. They would dive deeply into their problems and come up with the pearls of right solutions. You can apply concentrated mind power to all fields of activity and knowledge. The key is to start from within, not from without.

All knowledge comes from the inner source. By starting from within, I learned to play musical instruments. I thought, “Well, the first musician had no one to teach him. If he could learn, then I can also learn to play a musical instrument.”

By starting from within, you can acquire the experience of many years within a short time. The first step is to increase the receptivity of your intuition. Calmness, concentration, and condensation of experiences by intuitional perception will make you master of all knowledge.

The power of receptivity
When I met Luther Burbank, he showed me a walnut tree and said, “I took off more than one hundred years from its usual period of growth. I grew that tree in twelve years.” And I could see the tree bearing walnuts!

If the walnut tree can be made to grow in twelve years, instead of one hundred years or more, there is a chance for human beings also. How is a human being within the limited span of his existence going to be able to acquire all the knowledge he needs to accomplish his goals?

The power and largeness of your inner receptivity determine how much, and how quickly, you can grasp knowledge.  By awakening the brain cells through meditative practices, you can increase your receptivity. The receptivity of the brain cells can become so great that you can quickly grasp whatever knowledge you need. The person of great receptivity quickly sees everything. In a single lifetime, you will be able to absorb within yourself  everything you need to know.

How to make brain cells more receptive
This body changes every twelve years, and the mind changes correspondingly. If it takes twelve years of growth and development to manifest certain thoughts, how are you going to make the brain receptive to all wisdom? You cannot absorb all wisdom unless your brain evolves accordingly.

The masters of India have taught a method of revolving certain kinds of vital currents around the spinal column and brain that develops their receptivity.** When, by the power  of concentration, all spinal and brain cells are focused on the cosmic source, they become highly magnetized. By twelve practices of this method you gain the result of one year’s ordinary evolution of the brain. In a year, you gain the result of many years of evolution.

Practices like these have enabled many saints to gain spiritual knowledge quickly, far beyond that of theoretical theologians. These saints can perceive in a second the equivalent of years of ordinary experience. Revolving this current around the spinal column and brain is what develops that receptivity. Jesus Christ did not go to college, but not one of the scientists in the world knows nature’s laws as he did.

Scientists would accomplish much more if they concentrated on increasing the receptivity of their brain cells, instead of depending only on books and other outward sources. When the divine magnetism touches the brain cells, each individual cell becomes a vibrant brain. You then have a myriad of awakened brains ready to grasp all knowledge. With billions of awakened brain cells, you will be able to apprehend all things.

Whenever you want to know something, meditate and go within. When the mind is calm and receptive, ask the Divine to direct you to right action, and act according to the inner direction you receive. With the power of awakened brain cells you will quickly perceive everything. Success in all things will come to pass in a short time.

Why brilliant people sometimes fail
Why is it that many brilliant people with great powers of concentration do not succeed, or achieve only meager success?  Success depends not only upon your power of concentration, receptivity, and mental efficiency in this life, but also upon your failures and successes in past lives, which are carried over into the present as subconscious tendencies and traits.

These subconscious tendencies explain why many people fail despite their conscientious efforts. Even the most successful financier may sometimes experience reverses in his fortunes due to the sudden manifestation of subconscious failure tendencies.

Henry Ford, for example, nearly lost his entire fortune during WWII. He had acquired great wealth in life because he had been prosperous in former lives. But his subconscious mind was filled with failure tendencies due to the failures of past lives. During the war, when conditions were unfavorable to certain lines of business, his failure seeds sprouted and almost caused his financial ruin. If he had permitted himself to become discouraged he would have lost everything.

By a superhuman effort of will, he fought off his brutal business competitors, who were bent on destroying the organization he had built up during many years of hard work. His success consciousness of the past was reinforced by his initiative in this life, his trained business judgment, his knack for choosing the right workers, his perseverance, and his daring.

The will: your most effective weapon
The example of Henry Ford shows that financial success depends both on a person’s earning ability in past lives and on his determined exercise of will power in this life. The key to victory over karma is will power, exercised in conscious attunement with the Divine through meditation.

Whatever we have done in past lives, or in this life, can be undone. If a particular karma is strong, it can at least be modified. If you refuse to be discouraged or apprehensive, and do your part and rely upon God to do His, you will stimulate the dormant success consciousness of past lives.  The power of a strong will, guided by divine wisdom, is unlimited. Increasing your power of receptivity through meditative practices will help you overcome the karma more quickly.

Visualization and affirmation are not enough
Some people think that by visualizing a Rolls Royce or mentally picturing Henry Ford, they can acquire a Rolls Royce or become like Henry Ford. This viewpoint ignores the karmic law of cause and effect which governs the destinies of every person. No matter how clearly or powerfully all the people in the world visualized Henry Ford, not all of them would become like him.

Visualizations or affirmations of success can encourage and strengthen your conscious mind, but the conscious mind alone can not achieve success if it is hindered by karmic law. Only by contacting God in meditation, and tapping into His unlimited power, can a person overcome a strong poverty tendency from the past.

Success and divine abundance follow the law of service and generosity. Those who seek prosperity only for themselves are either bound to be poor for some time, or to suffer from mental inharmony. But those who think of others and work for group prosperity find that cosmic forces support and guide them in their efforts to achieve success. The law of magnetism works in their favor.

Accelerate your spiritual progress
Through the power of concentration and increased receptivity, you can use your attention to do quickly a thing which ordinarily would take a long time. Not only can you achieve business success more quickly, you can also quicken your evolution in all areas of life, including your own inner life.

Learn to use your awakened brains cells and intuitional perception not only to apprehend all knowledge but also to accelerate your spiritual progress.

From articles written in the late 1930s.

To learn about Kriya Yoga, see Autobiography of Yogi, Chapter 26, The Science of Kriya Yoga, Crystal Clarity Publishers.

Related reading: How to Be a Success The Wisdom of Paramhansa Yogananda, Volume 4, Crystal Clarity Publishers.

The post The Airplane Route to Success and Prosperity appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

******

According to Sri Yukteswar, it is far easier for us to understand the present and previous ages of Kali Yuga and Dwapara Yuga than it is for us to understand Treta Yuga — if we can understand it at all. Paramhansa Yogananda said that both Kali Yuga and Dwapara Yuga have a common theme of materialism: in Kali Yuga materialism is most pronounced, but in Dwapara Yuga, too, mankind’s values are fairly materialistic. The motivations, awareness, and capabilities of those living in Treta Yuga will take a quantum leap beyond our current, more materialistic understanding.

In Dwapara Yuga, because mankind is able to comprehend that energy underlies all matter, he becomes able to manipulate and control matter. In Treta Yuga, mankind will be able to comprehend that thought underlies all energy, that everything is made up of ideas or thoughts. In Treta Yuga, people will first gain greater awareness of their thoughts, and then, gradually, will develop the ability to control and direct their thoughts at will.

In an attempt to give ascending Treta Yuga more shape and texture, we will explore several possible trends reflecting the natural expression of the awareness and capabilities of Treta Yuga man.

A Truly Civil Society

According to Sri Yukteswar, one specific mental ability most Treta Yuga men and women will share is the ability to be aware of one another’s thoughts. In a society in which everyone has at least some ability to perceive the thoughts of others, we would expect to find a level of awareness of, and sensitivity to others unparalleled in our age. Awareness of and sensitivity to others would naturally lead to a more civil society.

We expect that people in ascending Treta Yuga will be much more aware of what everyone else is “really like.” Today, it is easy to be fooled by people. We’ve all met someone who is charming and, seemingly, kind and thoughtful, only to have later encounters that reveal that the person has a mean streak, is prone to lie, or has other undesirable characteristics. Had his thoughts been more “visible” to us, we would probably have detected all the aspects of his personality immediately.

Similarly, if negative character traits were an unattractively visible part of what a person “looked like” to others — if their thought “pollution” clung to them like a rash — people would probably make every effort to “clean up their act.”  In our age, negative character traits such as meanness of spirit, unkindness, self-centeredness, avarice, and greed are difficult to spot right away.

Imagine a world in which everyone could perceive the character traits of those around them. Being untruthful would become more and more difficult. Saying one thing but meaning another, or making promises with no intention of keeping them, would be more clearly revealed to those whose perception is sensitive.

Beauty would no longer be only “skin deep.” People would be thought beautiful because of the beauty of their thoughts, motives, and convictions. Men or women harboring selfish thoughts and negative emotions would be thought unattractive, even if they are physically beautiful, because the average person in Treta Yuga will be more able to see them as they truly are.

Equally signifi¬cant will be the ability to see the impact one’s own thoughts and words have on other people. Today, the results of speaking an unkind word, acting in an insensitive way, or harboring negative thoughts toward another person often go unnoticed by the person responsible for them. In Treta Yuga, people will be able to “see” the subtle impacts of their thoughts, words, and deeds on others, as clearly as today we see the impact of our physical actions.

Truthfulness, sincerity, and sensitivity to the needs of others will have high value in such a society. As a result, a civil society, which many of us long for today, is likely finally and naturally to come into being. People who contribute positively and cooperatively to the betterment of society would be praised and admired. Those who have negative qualities, who exhibit characteristics that today are hidden behind various masks and justifications, would be encouraged to change their ways.

Leaders and Government

It would, therefore, be less and less likely, as Treta Yuga unfolded, to have leaders with hidden motives or signifi¬cant character flaws. Today we are essentially guessing about the true character of our leaders; in Treta Yuga we could know their true character. As a result, it would be more and more likely that only men and women of true worth would end up in positions of leadership. Cooperation for the overall benefi¬t of society would become the accepted goal of government.

Men or women who are drawn to leadership because of the desire for power, wealth, or because of other selfi¬sh interests would, by their own thoughts, be revealed for what they were, and would not be entrusted with the public’s business.

Society would probably fi¬nd it impossible to ignore exploitation, injustice, and inhumane behavior. Today’s self-interested and twisted political logic, which allows people to starve, live in crushing poverty and dismal circumstances, would simply evaporate. The sensitive awareness of others, common to all people in Treta Yuga, would not allow such suffering. Treta Yuga man could no more ignore the suffering of other people than he could ignore pain in his own body.

Democracy, certainly democracy as we know it today, will likely have ended by ascending Treta Yuga. Democracy today is in many ways a reaction to the often grievous failures of the hereditary and dictatorial rulers of Kali Yuga. Democracy for the most part prevents the excesses and wrongs committed by dictators interested only in personal power. As Friedrich Nietzsche is quoted as saying, “Democratic institutions form a system of quarantine for tyrannical desires.”

But democracy does have its faults. As Winston Churchill is quoted, “No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.”

By ascending Treta Yuga, most people will probably have left behind their previously justifi¬able fear of despots and dictators, and will realize that the best government, one that effectively improves the lives of its citizens, will be one run by wise and enlightened men and women with both the material and spiritual welfare of others uppermost in their hearts and minds. And as Treta Yuga citizens will be able to directly perceive the qualities of others, they will not fear that the wrong people will be given such power by mistake.

Daily Life

By Treta Yuga, we would expect the world population to have leveled off or continued to decline. The current population decline in prosperous nations, a decline attributable to the value attached to the quality of life, will, if anything, accelerate in Treta Yuga. Treta Yuga people will have the higher awareness and the knowledge to allow them to live nearly perfect lives. We could liken them to the Swiss of today — prosperous, settled, desirous of peace, orderly and civil, surrounded by beauty.

Beauty of form, and harmony in relation to nature, will most likely shape Treta Yuga architecture, since their expanded awareness will make them keenly aware of such subtleties. With Treta Yuga’s much smaller population, one may also expect people to settle into the best “real estate” available — beautiful, healthful, and bountiful. Treta Yuga man may well spend a considerable amount of time outdoors in close touch with nature.

Individuals will be guided to develop along the natural lines of their innate qualities. In the far more aware and enlightened society of Treta Yuga, we would not likely find the exploitative or unjust stratifi¬cation of today’s society. The hereditary class systems we still fi¬nd all over the world typically have nothing to do with merit, ability, or awareness. In Treta Yuga, mankind’s actual awareness of the thoughts and consciousness of other people will make it more likely that people will be allowed to develop according to who they are, not merely because of the family into which they were born.

Treta Yuga man will appreciate the value and benefi¬ts of serving others. Today there are many millions who are drawn to professions that allow them to be of service to others — teachers, nurses, policemen, fi¬remen, soldiers, social workers — because they derive personal satisfaction from being of service to other people. Our Dwapara Yuga society, however, does not in general value such service nearly as much as it values accumulating wealth. People in the service professions are notoriously underpaid; they are often referred to as the “unsung” heroes of our society.

In Treta Yuga this balance may well be reversed. Those choosing a life of service may be more valued than those choosing to accumulate wealth or power merely for self-interested ends. Treta Yuga people will probably be acutely aware of the satisfaction that comes with placing the welfare of others ahead of their own. Today, the benefits of a life lived in service to others tends to be honored primarily by lip service; in Treta Yuga those benefits will be truly understood.

Although our description of Treta Yuga may sound like the Garden of Eden, still Treta Yuga man will not be perfect. Treta Yuga man will be striving for perfection, rather than simply seeking outward pleasure, as most people are today.

Conflict and War

Despite Treta Yuga man’s advanced state, it is likely that there will still be conflict and war. Treta Yuga man will still be motivated by some degree of self-interest—enlightened self-interest surely, but nonetheless each individual will still be seeking personal ful¬fillment.

Additionally, as in every yuga, there will be those whose consciousness is more in tune with lower yugas. Even though the majority of mankind will be in tune with Treta Yuga, there will still be some part of the population that remains centered in the more self-interested consciousness of Dwapara Yuga.

The combination of Treta Yuga man’s remaining self-interest, however enlightened, with the residual Dwapara Yuga awareness of some portion of the population does suggest that conflict will be likely. Not all Treta Yuga citizens will embrace their higher potentials and strive to rise above sel¬fish interests. Some may seek, instead, to see how powerful they can become. They may still seek expansion, growth, and power, but with their egos as the focus, and with their personal ambitions as their goals.

War today is often waged indiscriminately. Civilian populations are frequently the victims of war. Mankind’s enlightened self-interest, which will likely develop even before the end of Dwapara Yuga, may well eliminate much of this behavior — after all, what is gained by either side if much of the world is destroyed in the process of waging a war.

By Treta Yuga, we expect that war would be waged among warriors only. No longer relying on technological weapons, but on mentally directed power, combat would likely be fought warrior to warrior. Warriors of the future may use concentration and attunement to higher levels of thought to directly control forces — forces they might be able to unleash with great accuracy. Strength of mind, rather than might of arms, would become the mark of the accomplished warrior. Battles involving such warriors may well unfold entirely differently from what we know of war today.

War may fi¬nally be waged in the idealized manner envisioned in the tales of the Knights of the Round Table and the Age of Chivalry.

The Pursuit of Happiness

The awareness of thought, with its greater subtlety and re¬finement, will bestow on Treta Yuga man greater potential for experiencing happiness than we now enjoy in Dwapara Yuga, but it will still be up to each individual to achieve that happiness.

According to Sri Yukteswar, Treta Yuga man’s natural attunement to thought will bring with it extraordinary awareness and abilities. Those living in Treta Yuga will eventually learn that their greatest happiness lies not simply in self-mastery, as an end in itself, but in using their self-mastery to attune themselves to expansive flows of thought.

Attunement to positive and selfless thoughts expands our awareness beyond the ego, and is accompanied by agreeable feelings of joy and well-being. Attunement to negative and self-centered thoughts contracts our awareness within the ego, and is accompanied by diminished feeling and unhappiness.

The arc of Treta Yuga development, therefore, will be one of increasing attunement to thoughts that lead to greater happiness. Mankind will learn that, fundamentally, joy, security, and love are experienced by intuitive attunement to expansive and uplifting flows of thought.

Further, perceiving that the flows of thought lie outside themselves, the people of Treta Yuga will come to appreciate that their ultimate happiness lies beyond the confi¬nes of their egos and limited minds. This awareness will form the essence of their spiritual experience.

The Religion of Treta Yuga

Currently mankind is moving away from narrow or anthropomorphic conceptions of God. Just as the coming of democracy was an antidote to the grievous failures of the rulers of Kali Yuga, a conception of God as impersonal, universal, and infi¬nite is an antidote to the rigid, sectarian, and anthropomorphic conceptions of God in Kali Yuga.

Certainly by Treta Yuga, if not before, we expect mankind once again to embrace the possibility of a conscious and personal relationship with the Divine, a Divine that is at the same time universal and in¬finite. Treta Yuga man will come to understand that spiritual advancement can be achieved through intuitive attunement to specific, conscious expressions of the infi¬nite divine consciousness.

People living in Treta Yuga, because of their heightened awareness of the thoughts and feelings of others, will naturally gravitate to teachers who demonstrate the spiritual understanding they wish to develop in themselves. Treta Yuga citizens will seek to learn from enlightened sages, living exemplars of the truths they seek to master.

By the end of the 3600-year arc of ascending Treta Yuga, people should be well on their way to the realization that there is no reality separate from the Divine. Not only will they realize that their highest fulfi¬llment lies in service and attunement to the Divine, but they will begin to comprehend that they are divine in their very essence.

This then will be the religion of Treta Yuga.

Excerpted from The Yugas: Keys to Understanding Man’s Hidden Past, Emerging Present, and Future Enlightenment, Crystal Clarity Publishers.

Author and lecturer, Joseph Selbie, studied ancient Western cultures at the University of Colorado and ancient Eastern cultures at UC Berkeley. He has had a keen interest in ancient history since grade school. He has taught and lectured on the principles of Eastern philosophy for over thirty years.

He lives with his wife at Ananda Village, a spiritual community in Northern California. Joseph, also known as Puru, is a founding member of Ananda Sangha and has served in many leadership and teaching roles. Joseph is also the founder and CEO of Tristream, a web development, marketing and application design firm.

Co-author, David Steinmetz. David’s background includes forty years of scientific work, including astronomy at the University of Arizona and optics at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center. Currently, he teaches about the yugas, ancient world cultures, astronomy, and physics at the Ananda College of Living Wisdom. He has been writing and lecturing on the topic of the yugas for more than a decade. David is a teacher at the Ananda College of Living Wisdom and was instrumental in developing a curriculum based on key aspects of the yuga cycle. He lives with his wife at Ananda Village, a spiritual community in Northern California.

The post How Would Your Life Be Different in 5012 A.D.? appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

Fortunately, time is on our side. As we move more fully into Dwapara Yuga, the age of energy, we can see the first glimmers of a global shift from competition to cooperation. As devotees, we fortunately don’t have to wait for the world to change. By cooperation and concern for others, we can find the happiness we are seeking right now.

A new consciousness of unity
A hallmark of the dark age of Kali Yuga was that life seemed to be little more than a brutal struggle for survival. This perception continued into the Industrial Revolution, coming as it did toward the end of Kali Yuga. Commerce was driven by the thought that success came through ruthless competition; Darwin’s doctrine of the “survival of the fittest” gave a “scientific” rationale to this competitive worldview.

But this old paradigm is slowly breaking down. With the advent of Dwapara Yuga, people are beginning to realize that all life is connected and that survival of the fittest is a misconception. Higher knowledge reveals that this world is nothing more than God’s dream. How can God be trying to “out-compete” Himself? How can God survive by being “fitter” than God? Even to think in those terms boggles the mind.

As devotees, our role is to become agents of change toward greater global cooperation, especially at work, where competition is still highly rewarded. A first step in this direction is to become more aware of the largely unnoticed connections that already exist.

A vast web of connections and cooperation
Imagine that you are in a supermarket buying a box of cereal. That simple product represents the cooperative efforts of millions of people –– farmers, truckers, builders, plant workers, shippers, business people, and government employees. A vast unseen web of connections underlies virtually every product you use.

Within our own bodies we find also an intricate network of cooperative activity. There are billions of physical cells in the body –– forming the blood, liver, heart, muscle, bone, and brain –– all working to maintain life. Our bodies are also made up of least ten times as many “foreign” bacteria cells as body cells. Our very lives depend upon the connections and cooperation between these billions of different cells.

Recently I (Nayaswami Jyotish) worked in the Permaculture Garden at Ananda Village. I found the experience enormously enlightening primarily because the garden is based on a conscious plan that enables different species to cooperate and help each other.

There are hundreds of plants in the garden. Some dig deep into the soil for minerals, thereby producing nutrient-rich leaves, which the gardeners harvest and use to help fertilize other plants. A few flowering species are there to attract bees, which both pollinate and provide honey. Some plants have multiple purposes: to provide nutrients for the soil, shade for other plants, to produce fruits or berries, and even medicines for their human “caretakers.”

What we see in a permaculture garden is a beautiful example of the web of connections and cooperation that links different species together. Enhancing our awareness of the underlying unity of everything will help us bring more cooperation into our lives. From a practical standpoint, there are a number of ways we can do this.

Learn to see God through others
The deepest sense of connection comes from learning to see God or Guru not only in everything, but through everything. There’s a very touching story of a young disciple of Satya Sai Baba that beautifully illustrates this consciousness.

One weekend the boy went home from the ashram to visit his family. When he returned, Satya Sai Baba asked him, “Did you see your family?” The boy answered, “Oh Baba, all I saw was you.” Satya Sai Baba said, “Well, didn’t you see your mother and your father?” The boy replied, “Oh Baba, all I saw was you.” Satya Sai Baba then asked, “What about your brothers and sisters? Didn’t you play with them?” Again the boy said, “Oh Baba, all I saw was you.”

Persisting, the guru asked, “Well, didn’t you see any of the friends whose company you enjoy?” The boy answered, “Oh, Baba don’t tease me anymore. All I saw was you.”

If we see God or our Guru in the faces of others, we will naturally feel a deep sense of connectedness with everyone. Even to hold a fraction of that consciousness radically changes the nature of our relationships. We should consciously try to see God acting through other people. When we can maintain the consciousness that God is everywhere, life becomes very sweet.

Create a magnetic upward flow of energy
Another important principle is to create a positive flow of energy up the spine to the spiritual eye. This upward flow of energy through the chakras creates a magnetic field that connects us with others. A downward flow, on the other hand, increases our separation and disunity.

If we find ourselves slipping into a negative or complaining attitude, we should work first on controlling the flow of energy rather than on trying to convince the mind to be more positive. When the energy is flowing in a downward direction, our thoughts will automatically follow the direction of energy and give us perfectly good reasons to be negative and critical of others. First feel the energy in the heart and make it positive. A little moment of appreciation works wonders! Then direct the heart’s feeling upward to the spiritual eye. We will find that our thoughts turn positive as soon as the life-force begins to flow upward.

This upward direction of energy will also make us magnetic. People are attracted or repelled primarily depending on the magnetism we generate. Positive magnetism will attract positive people. People with negativity, with a “carping spirit,” will attract people who want to hear negative things.

Swami Kriyananda recently discussed how the colors of the aura reflect the energy people are radiating. Some people radiate beautiful pure colors. Others radiate colors that are dark and muddy. But everybody is always radiating colors. An upward direction of energy will purify the colors and expand the aura.

Become channels of divine friendship
Once you can produce a positive flow, consciously let it stream out to those around you. Become a wellspring of kindness and support. One of our main guidelines at Ananda is that “People are more important than things.” When we make the welfare of people our main priority, we generate the positive magnetism that causes the right things to happen, and in the best possible way.

When Ananda bought East-West Bookshop in Menlo Park, California, the first managers had no experience selling books and questioned their ability to run the store. Swami Kriyananda told them they could gain the necessary knowledge in time, but that the most important thing was to treat their customers as friends, and to serve them and love them in God. Because of that attitude of divine friendship, East-West Bookshop continues to flourish today.

In the 1970s, Swami Kriyananda named the first monastic order at Ananda Village, “Friends of God.” By that name he meant not only being friends with God, but also being God’s channels of friendship to everyone in the world. He meant that we should see even total strangers as friends. If we can learn to use friendship as our primary way of relating to all people, friend and stranger alike, we will become harbingers of Dwapara Yuga and help the world move toward a more unified view of life.

A beautiful, harmonious flow
The deep sense of connectedness to God and other people that we gain in meditation is a large part of what produces an attitude of unity. It’s very important to carry that uplifted peace and harmony into our work and service. Yogananda said that meditation should be active service and that service should be active meditation.

If we can approach our work with a deep inward consciousness, our outer and inner life will begin to meld together into a beautiful, harmonious flow. The particular area of our work is not nearly so important as the quality of consciousness with which we work. Make it fun, joyful, cooperative, and holy.

From an October 20, 2011 talk at Ananda Village.

Related reading: 30-Day Essentials for Career by Jyotish Novak

Nayaswamis Jyotish and Devi are the Spiritual Directors of Ananda Worldwide. Other Clarity articles by Nayaswamis Jyotish and Devi are listed under “Jyotish and Devi Novak.”

The post How to Bring Joy into Work appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

A long dry period
Before I found the spiritual path my life could be described as “a long dry period.” I never understood why people were so enthusiastic about growing up, going to college, marrying, raising children, and being successful when everything ended in death and forgetfulness. It made no sense to me. Only those few individuals who had an important history-making mission seemed never to die, but lived on in history.

Since I found myself living in a world I found incomprehensible, I tried to make the best of it. I went to a junior college, got a job, and then moved to California. With a college classmate and her sister, I drove cross country from the East Coast and finally ended up in San Francisco. It was 1957. I was 23 years old.

I loved the city of San Francisco and eventually obtained a stable, well-paid position as the accountant/bookkeeper for an architectural firm. I was still looking for true, lasting happiness. For a while, since there didn’t seem to be any alternative, I thought I would find happiness through outward experiences. But I eventually saw that I wasn’t finding any answers. Life still made no sense to me, and as far as I could tell, people were going no where.

Finally I find a lifeline
One night I became so discouraged that I swallowed far too many aspirins. In the midst of sickness and numbness, I called to God to help me. This was the first time in my life I had ever called to God. I was shocked to realize that I even believed there was such a Being. But God answered my prayer. Soon after, I went with a friend to a lecture in San Francisco given by Swami Kriyananda, who introduced me to Paramhansa Yogananda’s teachings, which gave me answers that made sense. Finally, I had a lifeline.

At the time I didn’t understand that when we start on the spiritual path we don’t change overnight. We don’t suddenly become joyful, even-minded, and all-forgiving. We take all of our unresolved karma – emotions, conflicts, and blocks – with us. I now had spiritual teachings and a guru to guide me, for which I was grateful beyond words, but I had no idea how many major challenges lay ahead.

After meeting Swami Kriyananda in 1967, I visited the small Ananda community as often as possible, while continuing to live and work in San Francisco. In 1970, I quit my job and moved to the Ananda Meditation Retreat, where the Ananda community first started.

Later I became part of the monastery at Ananda Village, which grew in time to close to a 100 people. The main value of the monastery was in giving many of us the opportunity to deepen our attunement to the spiritual path before we were drawn into other aspects of life — marriage, child-raising, or very demanding jobs.

I was already in charge of Ananda’s finances when Swami Kriyananda asked that I also oversee the women’s monastery. Being in charge of the finances put me in touch with nearly every aspect of the community. I conferred regularly with Swami Kriyananda and, for a year or so, served informally as overall community manager.

Completely at loose ends
In the early 1980s my life changed completely. The monastery fell apart – nearly all the monks and nuns got married. Since I remained single, I no longer had much contact with the people I’d been close to in the monastery. Increasingly, householders or married couples began leading the community. Around this same time, two people with accounting training and experience that far exceeded mine moved to the community, and it was only natural that they would take over my job.

Without a real job, and struggling to understand what work I was supposed to do, I was completely at loose ends. My self-esteem took a nose-dive. Looking back, I can see that everything that happened was divinely orchestrated to give me the challenges I needed to grow spiritually. God had a plan for me, complete with many new, and different, experiences.

Since there was no longer any work for me at Ananda Village, I was asked to go to Italy to help with the Ananda retreat just getting underway near Lake Como in northern Italy. I was there for nine months. During the colder months there wasn’t much to do. When not working as a cook’s assistant, I knitted sweaters, scarves and gloves.

Upon returning from Italy, I was asked to become co-director of the new Ananda center in Portland, Oregon. My time in Portland was a mixed experience. My first year included teaching, working as a waitress in the Ananda restaurant, and looking for a location at which to start a church. We did find a good location and the Ananda Portland church soon got underway. After a year, however, there was a change in co-directors and, once again, I found myself having my role cut back. My role was now limited to teaching, which was never my strength; I did not do well as a teacher.

Confused about why my life had taken this new turn, and feeling somewhat depressed, I returned to Ananda Village after two years in Portland. Since no other work was available, I took a job as a medical assistant at the nearby clinic, founded by an Ananda Village resident and physician. I was also strongly encouraged to seek professional counseling. Going into counseling and working in a job I would never have chosen for myself were big tests for me. But Ananda was my whole life and I wanted to cooperate, so I decided to give both a try.

Pulling out of my slump
In counseling I realized that I had always wanted to serve — to serve people and God, and that it really didn’t matter whether my outward service was “important.” I realized that it had actually mattered to me that my service be “important.” I could now see that my deepest desire was to go beyond ego, not to get trapped in my emotions and wrong attitudes.

The other important realization was that unless I wanted to sink into bitterness and despair, I needed to love. I chose love over anger, frustration, and depression. Truly, it was the only choice possible. Since I felt no love in my heart, I prayed to my Guru, Paramhansa Yogananda, and asked him to love people through me. I hoped thereby to learn how to love. Having these goals, which were clearly God’s gifts to me, began to pull me out of my slump.

I had experienced a big breakthrough in consciousness, but it wasn’t the end of the process. Many lessons followed, some of them very painful. Changing oneself is a long-term process, but with each step I was becoming happier, the journey was getting easier, and I found it easier to meet the tests with the right attitude.

Making the commitment to serve God and Guru through the work I was doing at the clinic — work that was not overtly spiritual — helped me understand that even a leaf, as it says in the Bhagavad Gita, is pleasing to God if offered with love and devotion. In  times of upliftment and joy, I realized how important it was to make the commitment to meditate and do Kriya Yoga every day. Kriya helps to burn up the karma that draws us away from God.

Looking at the world with love
Looking at the world with love, I began to see situations differently. People no longer hated me! (They never did, but I’d thought so). I could now see why people acted the way they did, and this understanding opened my heart even more. Asking Yogananda to love people through me eventually became such a joyful experience that I was able to love those who were negative, unbalanced, or using the spiritual path for selfish ends. Perhaps most difficult of all, I even began to see and love the Divine within me.

I learned not to let anything — no judgments or negativity on my part, and no one else’s negative attitudes toward me — pull me down. I now understood that people who disliked or misjudged me had their own karma to work out. Their thoughts and actions were not my concern.

As I understood relationships more deeply, I became more joyful in my interactions with people. Joy was creeping into my being, opening doors to expansive new experiences, and helping me understand the spiritual teachings more deeply. During those years I shed a lot of old karma. And I learned not to let anything interfere with my dedication to finding God in this lifetime.

Becoming a different person
I have come to see that to take up the spiritual path in earnest is to shed everything we think of as ourselves, all our desires and plans. When we give up our plans and surrender to God’s plan for us, we find true happiness. In that state of consciousness, hatreds and judgment can’t exist, human love doesn’t exist — only God’s love and what He wants of us. God’s plan for all of us is that we learn to love Him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. As we do that, we become the person He intended us to be.

Nayaswami Seva, a founding member of Ananda, serves as a Lightbearer at Ananda Village. Since 1995, she had been an integral part of the staff of Crystal Clarity Publishers at Ananda Village.

The post Learning to Love appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

PVH: Yes, and we consider it a very important part of our practice.

Q: Some observers are saying that there is an “epidemic” of depression and that depression may soon be one of leading causes of disability worldwide. Recent studies seem to support this prediction. We know, for example, that depression affects 30% of the population in high income countries like the United States, France, and the Netherlands.

Have you seen evidence of an epidemic of depression at your clinic?

PVH: I’ve been in medical practice for 30 years and I believe the epidemic has existed for a long time. What has changed is the dramatic improvement in the ability and willingness of physicians to diagnose and treat depression. In the past, many physicians tended to ignore signs of depression in their patients because they didn’t know how to treat it.

About a decade ago, our clinic did depression screening on every adult patient for several months. The results were startling. Nearly 30% of our patients screened positive for depression. This was a much higher number than we expected. We were shocked to realize how many depressed patients we had overlooked either because they did not complain about depression or because we did not relate their symptoms to an underlying depression.

Another factor in the epidemic is the change in peoples’ attitudes toward depression. Thirty years ago most people saw depression as a stigma. Patients might even argue with me if I suggested that diagnosis. Nowadays, patients will sometimes ask to be evaluated for depression.

Treatment of depression before the 1960s
Q: Before the 1960s and the discovery of antidepressants, what was the main treatment for depression?

PVH: For mild to moderate depression, the main treatment was traditional psychotherapy. This form of treatment was only moderately effective because it focused mainly on helping patients understand old behavioral patterns, but not on helping them change current negative patterns.

Electroshock therapy, rarely used nowadays, was the main treatment for severe refractory depression. Its effectiveness was limited and short-lived, lasting often no more than six months. The treatment sometimes resulted in harmful side-effects, including the permanent loss of long-term memory.

The different types of depression
Q: You mentioned two types of depression, mild to moderate depression and severe depression. Are these the main categories of depression from a medical standpoint?

 PVH: Essentially, yes. But severe depression can be a single short-lived episode, or a more longstanding and recurrent disorder.  I think it’s helpful to view depression as a continuum, with moderate depression being a midway point between mild and severe depression.

At our clinic, we see mainly patients with mild to moderate depression, people who are still relatively functional and able to work and take care of their families. A person with severe depression is more disabled and has difficulty with such basics as personal grooming, work attendance, and social conventions. About one in six of our patients have severe depression.

Our clinic also treats people with schizophrenia, anxiety disorder, bipolar disorder, and post-traumatic stress syndrome, but depression is by far our most common diagnosis for behavioral health patients.

The main symptoms of depression
Q: What are the main symptoms of depression?

PVH: Anxiety and sleep disturbances are very common in people with depression. In fact, it is more common for people to complain of anxiety or sleep problems than to say, “I’m depressed.” Other common symptoms include fatigue, appetite changes (either lack of appetite or excessive eating), poor concentration, memory problems, and a lack of enthusiasm for life.

People whose depression alternates with edginess, irritability, or mania may have a bipolar disorder, which has a totally different treatment from standard depression.

Q: I understand that depression, especially in its more severe forms, causes changes in the functioning of the brain. Can you explain what the changes are?

PVH: The brain scan of a person who is severely depressed essentially shows inactive prefrontal lobes and an overactive limbic system. The prefrontal lobes are the region of the brain that allows us to concentrate, feel enthusiasm, learn new things, get along well with others, and live without anxiety. The limbic system is the primitive part of our brain. When overactive, the limbic system causes feelings of anxiety, panic, and abnormal body rhythms such as poor sleep or abnormal appetite.

When we look at that same person’s brain scan a year after the depression has lifted, we find normally functioning prefrontal lobes and a quieter limbic system. The normalizing of the prefrontal lobes automatically suppresses many of the negative emotional expressions of the limbic system.

The effectiveness of antidepressant medication
Q: There have been a number of scientific studies questioning the effectiveness of antidepressants as a treatment for depression. Essentially there are two main criticisms:  One, that antidepressants used alone produce full benefits in only 30-40% of patients, and two, that the effectiveness of antidepressants is short-lived, and patients end up having to take multiple antidepressants. Based on your experience, is there any basis for these concerns?

PVH: Unfortunately there is. Prescribing antidepressant drugs is too often a quick and easy substitute for developing a comprehensive treatment plan. Antidepressants are best used in combination with the type of supportive behavioral therapy that’s been shown to reduce symptoms of depression and prevent recurrences. At our clinic we try to prepare an individualized program for each patient based on the patient’s level of symptoms and disability.

Q:  How does your clinic determine whether or not to use antidepressants?

PVH: The decision to use antidepressants is usually dictated by the severity of a person’s symptoms and how long they’ve had them. Mild symptoms can often be treated without medication. For example, a person with mild depression may only be having minor sleep problems and occasional fatigue. Simple lifestyle changes like getting more exercise, eating a better diet, and drinking less coffee will often eliminate these symptoms.

A person with moderate depression may experience sleep problems, work problems, and difficulties with relationships but still have a certain level of successful functioning in each of those areas. We will use antidepressants to treat people with moderate depression depending on the severity of their symptoms and how long they’ve been present. The more severe and longstanding the symptoms the more likely we are to use antidepressants early in the treatment.

When someone who is severely depressed finally seeks help, he or she is highly symptomatic: often afraid to leave the house, not attending to proper grooming, using alcohol or cannabis to curb anxiety, and unable to work.

When a person’s life is impaired to this extent, we take stronger action, using medication in part to reduce the risk of suicide. Suicide is always a risk with depression but especially when the depression is severe and accompanied by anxiety. Typically we would start both antidepressant treatment and behavioral therapy during the patient’s first visit.

Cognitive behavioral therapy
Q: What type of supportive behavioral health therapy do you use at your clinic?

PVH: We use cognitive behavioral therapy, which works much better for most of our patients than traditional psychotherapy.

In cognitive behavioral therapy there is an emphasis on affirmation, positive attitude, healthy living, good friendships and simple forms of meditation. After about five visits, each 15-25 minutes, with the behavioral therapist, our patients are usually ready to do their behavioral techniques on their own. But they always have the option of returning for “tune-ups” if they are having difficulties.

Patients who are consistent in using the behavioral techniques can successfully phase out of using antidepressants in one to two years and can stay off them indefinitely.

Q: In your last answer were you referring to both moderately and severely depressed patients?

PVH: Yes, but patients with moderate depression are more likely to be able to come off antidepressants in a shorter amount of time. Those with more severe symptoms may need ongoing medication and sometimes multiple medications to maintain good mental health.

Q: What kind of behavioral techniques do you include in your patients’ treatment plans?

PVH: Since people with depression often tend to ruminate over negative events, our behavioral health practitioners train them to watch their thought patterns and to replace negative thoughts with positive thoughts, and to use affirmations tailored to their specific needs.

We routinely give our patients assignments to engage in positive activities such as serving others, practicing optimism, performing acts of kindness, and counting their blessings. We may start with simple recommendations such as showing a positive interest in others by calling at least one friend or family member daily. The studies show that these kinds of activities are effective in reducing symptoms of depression in people with mild or moderate cases. Our experience at our clinic supports the findings of the studies.

We also involve patients in developing a plan to improve their future. The plan involves setting goals and checking in with their therapist at least once a week to assess their progress. One study shows that having positive expectations about the future can even reduce symptoms of severe depression. From brain imaging studies we know that the simple act of setting goals can help activate the prefrontal lobes of the brain.

Meditation: a powerful tool
We also recommend regular meditation. Since meditation strongly activates the prefrontal lobes, it  is a powerful tool in the treatment of depression and other behavioral health disorders. Our behavioral therapists teach roughly 80% of our patients with depression some form of meditation as part of their therapy.

Q: I assume that antidepressants, as well as the behavioral techniques you use, also activate the prefrontal lobes?

PVH: Yes. Antidepressants are a chemical means of restoring normal prefrontal lobe functioning. Studies show, however, that modeling positive behavior is one of the best ways to stimulate helpful new activity in the brain.

Q: How widespread is the use of cognitive behavioral therapy in the treatment of depression?

PVH: Today depression is mainly treated in medical clinics such as ours by practitioners using antidepressants as well as cognitive behavioral therapy. The most cutting edge medical clinics all have behavioral health therapists as part of the clinic staff. We’ve had behavioral health therapists working at our clinic for almost a decade.

Our clinic uses an integrated behavioral health model which allows patients to see a therapist and start therapy the same day they receive a diagnosis of depression from a medical practitioner. Other clinics are also beginning to use this model.

Severe depression and cognitive behavioral therapy
Q: In your experience, is cognitive behavioral therapy alone, without the addition of antidepressants, effective for people suffering from severe depression?

PVH: No. Cognitive behavioral therapy usually is not effective because severely depressed people usually lack the motivation to get better or are simply not able to work on changing their thought patterns to any meaningful degree.

Q: What treatment does your clinic provide for patients who are severely depressed?

PVH: We now have a host of highly effective well-tolerated medications we can give for six months to one year to help patients through episodes of severe depression.

Q: What if a person has tried multiple medications and behavioral therapy and is still significantly depressed?

PVH: In that instance we either reevaluate our diagnosis or get a second opinion from a psychiatrist. The recent availability of tele-medicine has allowed us to make frequent use of on-site two-way psychiatric consultations with the patient present.

We refer the roughly 10% of our patients with severe depression whom we aren’t able to help to specialty behavioral healthcare, which involves treatment by a psychiatrist and ongoing traditional psychotherapy, and may last many months.

A new energy-based depression treatment
Q: What new directions or research do you see as the most promising for treating depression, especially severe or recurrent depression, in a primary care setting?

PVH: The most promising new treatment is known as Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS), a type of therapy that sends short bursts of highly focused magnetic energy pulses to the left prefrontal cortex of the brain. These energy pulses stimulate the areas of the brain linked to depression.

TMS is a 40-minute out-patient procedure that’s administered daily for 4-6 weeks, with minimal side effects. Patients remain awake and alert, and are able to return to their normal activities immediately after the procedure. I think TMS therapy will be used increasingly in the future for severely depressed people who don’t respond to any other form of treatment.

Q: TMS sounds very promising and reflects the energy-consciousness of Dwapara Yuga. Could it also be used for people with moderate depression?

PVH: To date all the studies on TMS have involved people with severe depression. At this time, we don’t know enough about the treatment to recommend it for patients with milder symptoms, particularly patients who have not first tried antidepressants or behavioral therapy. The TMS equipment is also very expensive; until the costs go down, TMS would not be affordable by most clinics like ours. Currently TMS therapy is available primarily in large research hospitals that can afford the equipment.

Depression diagnosis: a trial and error procedure
The ideal for a clinic such as ours would be to offer functional MRI-type brain scans together with TMS. Having appropriate scanning equipment would enable us to make more precise diagnoses and to refine the diagnoses of patients who are not responding to treatment.

Although our clinic uses a detailed questionnaire to screen patients for depression, depression diagnosis remains a largely trial and error procedure based on the patient’s symptoms and observable behavior. There are no blood tests or inexpensive, readily available brain scans to help us make a diagnosis.

Q: Is there any chance the costs of TMS and brain scanning equipment will go down?

PVH: Yes. I’ve seen the costs of other new medical technology drop over time. Our clinic’s first telemedicine equipment cost $70,000 ten years ago. Today you can get the same technology for $9-10,000. The trend with new medical technology is toward making it smaller, more efficient, and less expensive.

Q: Even if TMS becomes more widely available, wouldn’t there still be a need for behavioral therapy to teach patients the behaviors and attitudes that prevent the recurrence of depression?

PVH: Yes. TMS might eliminate the need for antidepressants, but there would still be a need for cognitive behavioral therapy. We’ve found that nearly everyone with depression benefits from learning to meditate and from having someone available to coach them in the behaviors that lead to improved mental health.

Peter Van Houten, a Lightbearer and resident of Ananda Village, is the founder and CEO of Sierra Family Medical Clinic near Ananda Village. He is also co-author of Yoga Therapy for Insomnia and Yoga Therapy for Headache Relief  Crystal Clarity Publishers.

The post Is There an Epidemic of Depression? appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

Years ago, I nearly drowned while swimming in the Mediterranean Sea. I went out in a small boat with a group of friends when the sea was rough. Apprehensive from the start, the farther out we went, the more frightened I became. Since I was the only one who wanted to turn around and go back, my only option was to swim back alone.

I was a very good swimmer, but I had no previous experience swimming in rough waters. Once in the water, the waves pounded me continuously. As each big wave hit from behind, I swallowed huge amounts of water. Panicking, I began swimming faster and faster, not realizing that I was exhausting myself in the process. Closer to the shore the waves became even bigger, and I didn’t think I had the strength to make it back. Although at one point I almost lost consciousness, somehow, a few minutes later, I found myself lying on the wet sand.

Since then, I have avoided swimming in the ocean and have limited my swimming to pools. Unlike the ocean, pools have boundaries, no waves, and a bottom one can see.

A new opportunity
Recently, my husband, Gyandev, and I led two separate one-week spiritual retreats in Hawaii in a secluded area close to the ocean. The daily schedule left plenty of time for swimming, snorkeling, and scuba diving. The first week’s group consisted of people who loved the ocean; many were experienced snorkelers. After watching them for a while and seeing how easy snorkeling seemed to be, I decided to go in.

Entering the water was not easy. The waves were not high but the ocean bottom dropped off abruptly. Suddenly finding myself in the turbulent deeper water and assailed by a strong current that seemed to pull me into it, the memory of my near-drowning experience surfaced. I panicked and swam back to the beach.

Since it was obvious to me that I was facing a deep fear of drowning, I decided to tackle the fear slowly, with respect. I wouldn’t again just plunge into the water. I would deal with the fear step by step.

I become an observer
The next day I sat on the beach and watched how others in the group dealt with the turbulence and high waves. I noticed that the waves farther out in the ocean were much lower and calmer than the waves at the shore. I realized also that the ocean bottom was covered with the same small black pebbles as was the beach, and that these pebbles had prevented me from seeing where the ocean began to drop off. Not being able to see the ocean bottom had made entering the water much more frightening.

Every morning the group meditated on the beach facing the ocean. During my meditations, I offered my fears to God and Guru, and sought their guidance and strength. I prayed for the courage to meet this situation according to God’s will. I also tried to feel the ocean as my friend, and visualized myself as a wave joyfully merging with the ocean. Throughout my spiritual journey, I have used the image of the ocean as a symbol of God, and the wave as a symbol of the individual soul, myself.

The pebbles on the ocean floor
As the days passed, the members of the group shared their daily snorkeling experiences, marveling especially over the beautiful fish at the coral reef, a five-minute swim from the shore. I did very little swimming during this time. When I did go in it was always near the shore. I spent most of my time observing the waves and those who were snorkeling.

At the end of the first week, I was the only one who hadn’t seen the coral reef or the beautiful fish. All I’d seen were the black pebbles on the ocean floor near the beach.

In talking to God about my situation, I told Him, “I don’t care whether or not I see fish. I am not attached to seeing fish. I love You and my goal is to change and conquer my little self, not to conquer the ocean.” I surrendered the issue to God, at the same time hoping He would tell me I didn’t need to conquer my fear. God listened to me silently.

A whole new world revealed
Most of those in the second retreat group were experienced snorkelers and excellent swimmers. A few days after their arrival, I mustered the courage to go into the ocean again. This time I wore a life vest along with the snorkel mask. Lalaan, a friend with whom I work, and a fearless and experienced ocean swimmer, offered to guide me. I trusted her. Holding on to her life vest as we swam together, we went much farther out than I had gone by myself. Suddenly, I saw the coral reef and the fish—hundreds of beautiful fish! A whole new world was revealed.

The life vest made it easy to stay afloat. Swimming took much less effort. Because I was less afraid, I experienced less tension and resistance and I was not as tired when I returned to the beach. Nonetheless, it had taken nearly all of my will power to stay centered and trusting.

The next day I was looking forward to going in. Again, Lalaan was by my side. This time we went out even farther and, because I was more relaxed, I actually enjoyed it. Later that day, Lalaan offered to take me out in a kayak; how thankful I was that I agreed to go! The ocean was calm and beautiful. I experienced less fear, more relaxation, and for the first time at the beach – joy.

All alone in the ocean
The ocean became very rough and for two days no one went in. Finally, the day before the retreat ended, the ocean was calm and, wearing the snorkeling mask and life vest, I went in again. To keep warm, I also wore a wet suit, borrowed from the woman who’d offered to go snorkeling with me. I’d had a very deep meditation that morning and, for the first time, I felt calm and centered as I entered the ocean.

The two of us swam to the reef and saw the beautiful fish. Feeling safe enough to explore the ocean, I continued to swim farther away from the shore. I enjoyed being in the water and the feeling of being gently swayed by the waves. As I swam, I prayed to God and Guru and thanked them for this wonderful opportunity. I felt relaxed, calm, and joyful.

At one point, I lifted my head and saw that my friend was heading back to shore. I was alone in the ocean, quite a distance from the shore. I continued snorkeling, and at one point, went farther out in the ocean. The water was so deep that I couldn’t see the bottom.

All of a sudden, I felt the power and depth of the ocean, and expanded into its vastness. In complete surrender to that power, I allowed the waves to carry me. Everything was so quiet – I could only hear the sound of my breathing. No longer was I separate from the ocean, a wave gently tossed on its surface. I had become the ocean. The feeling was blissful and with it came a sense of deep humility and reverence. I had been given an experience of oneness with God in the form of the ocean.

I stayed out in the deeper waters for quite a while. Then, slowly, moving in cooperation with the ocean, I began swimming back to the shore. The waves and I were moving together.

Closer to the shore, the waves were higher, and were rising and crashing. I didn’t resist, but allowed the waves to take me toward the shore – and then back out again into the ocean. Surrendering to the waves, I went back and forth like this many times. Suddenly a big wave came and pushed me gently onto the shore. Sitting on the warm black pebbles, I took off the mask and relaxed in joy and gratitude for this experience.

I became bigger
I learned from my experience in Hawaii that one can overcome fear by using common sense, skill, patience, and faith in God—and that all four are needed. In my near-drowning experience in the Mediterranean, these qualities were lacking. I did not assess the risk I was taking when I decided to swim back to the shore in rough waters. Not then being a devotee, I lacked a calm sustaining faith in God’s guidance and grace. In the moment of crisis, I relied completely on my own will power, which ultimately failed me.

The recent snorkeling experience was very different. I was able to transcend my fear by facing it. Each day I tried to tune into God and to let Him guide me in how to overcome my fear. As I became calm and centered through prayer and meditation, God was able to lead me step by step to the moment when I was able to surrender to the flow of the ocean.

Surrendering to the ocean took a lot of will power and energy, but it took less energy to surrender than to resist. Resisting the ocean left me feeling drained and defeated. By surrendering to the greater flow, I experienced joy and deep contentment. And, in the process, I became bigger.

Link to photos of Hawaii Retreat

Nayaswami Diksha serves as a Lightbearer at Ananda Village and a teacher at The Expanding Light Retreat, where she directs the Ananda Meditation Teacher Training Program.  She and her husband, Nayaswami Gyandev, also lead retreats in India and around the US.  

The post Lessons in Humility and Courage appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

He carried the idols in two big trunks, suspended from his shoulders on a pole. Every day somebody would say, “You had better worship this god and idol or read this or that holy book.” Heavier and heavier the trunks grew. The man considered buying a third trunk but realized it was not possible for him to carry all three trunks.

One day he sat by the side of a pond and began to weep. “Heavenly Father, tell me which book to read and which idol to worship. As soon as I worship one god, I think the others are getting angry.”

It so happened that a saint passed by and, seeing the crying man said, “Son, why are you weeping? The man said, “Saint, I don’t know which book to read, and look at these hundreds of idols: I don’t know which one to please.”

The saint said, “Close your eyes and pick up any book and follow that one book through life. Drop the idols on a rock and break them one by one. Worship the one that does not break.” So the man picked up one book. Most of the idols were made of earth, and all broke except one which was made of solid stone.

Then the saint suddenly came back and said, “I forgot to tell you something. Now that you have found your god, go back home. But if you find a more powerful god than this one, worship him. Always worship the more powerful god.”

So the man went home and put the stone idol on a little altar, every day worshipping it and offering fruits. Every day he discovered that the fruit was gone. He thought, “The saint certainly led me to the right god. Since god has eaten the fruits, he must be a living god.”

One day, overcome by curiosity, the man decided he would watch how a god eats. While praying he opened his eyes a little and saw a big mouse come and eat the fruit. The man said, “Look at that stone idol. It cannot eat the fruit, but the mouse can. Then the mouse is a more powerful god.”

The man then caught the mouse by the tail and tied it on the altar. His wife said, “You have gone crazy.” The man replied, “No, I have not gone crazy. I am following the saint’s instructions to worship the more powerful god.” He threw the stone away and began to worship the mouse.

One day he was meditating when suddenly he heard a great noise and, opening his eyes, he saw a cat eating the mouse. He thought, “How interesting. The cat is more powerful than the mouse. So I must worship the cat.” He got hold of the cat and put it on the altar.

The cat became fat from being given bowls of milk each day, and from not having to chase and catch mice. Day by day the man’s meditation grew deeper and the cat got fatter. Every morning the man would always drink a bowl of milk. By now, the cat was not satisfied with drinking only her bowls of milk. One day she drank the man’s bowl of milk and then returned to the altar.

When the wife saw that her husband’s milk was gone, she looked at the innocent-looking cat sitting on the altar and went and got the broom. Her husband’s meditation was broken by the noise of the broom-stick falling on the cat. As the man watched his wife pounding the cat, he thought, “How interesting. My wife is more powerful than the cat, so she is a better god than the cat.”

He then demanded that his wife sit on the altar. So his wife sat on the altar and every day the man meditated on her. Of course the wife continued to cook food for her husband, and every day he would eat his meal after he finished worshipping his wife.

One day the man found a piece of charcoal in the rice. The man shouted at his wife, “Why did you put charcoal in the rice?” To which the wife promptly replied, “Master, I did not deliberately put charcoal in the rice. Master, forgive me, I am thy servant.”

Then her husband said, “Ah, how interesting. Since you are my servant and like to serve me, then I am more powerful than you are — and I am the most powerful god. God is in me. I have found Him within myself.”

******

Moral: It is impossible in this life to read all the Vedas and Bibles, and to follow all the various systems. To become God-like, you must search within just as the devotee in the above story did. You won’t find Him anywhere unless you find Him within. Finding Him within, you will find Him without.

From a 1938 article.

The post The Story of an Ignorant Devotee appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

You do not attain peace merely by escaping responsibility. You attain it by discharging your responsibilities and winning on the battlefield of life, and by winning in the true sense. Success in life doesn’t necessarily mean winning in an outward way or even doing a good job. It means learning an important life lesson.

A step toward infinite freedom
Years ago I was invited by the Peace Corps to teach a group of young men who were going to India, and I accepted the job for two reasons. It paid very well, which helped me get Ananda started. The other reason was that I felt I could help these young men appreciate India in the deepest sense.

But they weren’t interested in what I had to say. They didn’t want to learn about Indian philosophy; they wanted to learn about five-year plans, village rehabilitation, and those kinds of things. I tried everything I could think of to arouse their interest but finally I had to admit to myself that I had failed.

Suddenly, in accepting that failure, I felt great victory because I realized that the failure didn’t really matter. I’d always been nonattached to the fruits of my actions, but this experience helped to drive that thought more deeply into my consciousness: I had done my best; the results were purely in God’s hands. And I realized that true success is different from what we normally consider success.

True success means taking a step toward infinite freedom because we’ve learned an important life lesson that we no longer need to repeat. Only that kind of success gives true peace. We can relax about these lessons once we have learned them. As long as there’s any fear — fear of the test, fear of being drawn into the karma, fear of failure, or even fear of success, then there is still karma to be worked out.

There is book by Joan Grant which makes a similar point. She tells us in the book that she remembered a past incarnation in which she had been in a bullfight on Crete. She later realized she’d been born into that life only to develop the courage to be able to face that bull. Whether she was killed or not didn’t matter. Her victory was in being able muster the courage to face that bull in a life or death struggle. Finding that level of courage was her success.

The pull of unwillingness
Most people are pulled in two directions. While they’re doing something, they’re wishing they weren’t doing it. For your spiritual growth, don’t try to reduce stress by avoiding what you’ve been given to do. Troubles and difficulties are your opportunity for growth.

I used to wish that I could be a hermit. I used to wish I didn’t have to teach. I constantly was wishing that I didn’t have to think about money and practical things. Despite my reluctance, I did what I had to do. That was important, but it would have been better still if I’d been able to say, “Oh, joy, let me do it!”  It was only after I learned to accept what I had to do as my dharma, that I was able to put out the level of energy and creativity that enabled God’s grace to flow. Until then it was a standoff between the two sides of my nature.

We need to think, “As long as I’ve got to do this, let me enjoy doing it and learn that the true enjoyment is doing it for God.”  When we give what we’re doing to God, we find that there is a great joy and even great relaxation in the process.

Learn to act from within outward
One of the most important ways to be relaxed is not to care what other people think about what you should, or should not, be doing. When I was young my father took the family to Capri. We took a tour bus up to Villa Tiberius, where the Emperor Tiberius had his villa, and the view from there was stupendous.  However, after about five minutes, the tour guide and the bus conductor said, “All right, let’s go.” But my father hadn’t finished enjoying the view, and he wasn’t going to let the conductor rush him.

Everybody else was in the bus. The bus driver was honking and the tour guide was saying, “Come on, come on.”  My father just quietly stood there and enjoyed the view, and when he was finished, he got on the bus. There was no need to rush. If we’d come to enjoy the view, why not do what we came for?

The teachings of yoga say we should be centered in ourselves. My father was not a yogi but he was non-attached and very centered. If you can reach that level of being centered in yourself, and of acting from within outward, then you will have that degree of poise and relaxation to turn left or right as the circumstances dictate.

Yogis often use a cat to illustrate the kind of relaxation that is needed. When you pick up a cat that’s relaxing, it’s completely limp, absolutely relaxed.  But if you threaten it in any way, instantly it’s on its feet. So we need to be completely relaxed, centered in ourselves but ready at a moment’s notice to go one way or another.

Work on developing an attitude of non-attachment to the fruits of your actions. A person who knows he is doing his best isn’t going to waste energy thinking about the results. People with that attitude will have the degree of relaxation needed to work without tension or fear, and even if they fail, they are able to rise again.

“I am ever the same”
Fear is one of the main things that prevent people from having the kind of centeredness and relaxation that leads to true success: fear of failure, fear of unforeseen obstacles, fear of death.

It’s very helpful to visualize the fear actually being fulfilled, to visualize the worst possible results of whatever you’re doing, because the anticipation is almost always greater than the realization. Once you’ve accept a certain possibility, you can then put all of your energy into the constructive action necessary for success.

To overcome fear, try also to remember that you are not the body. Sometimes in the expiation of bad karma the body is subjected to terrible tortures. People do terrible things to one another. Then there are the prophecies of horrible things that might happen globally, of continents being submerged. And we don’t know what our fate is.

But it will help you if in your mind you can say, “I’m not this body. I don’t need it.  I’m not affected by the changes that take place in this body.” When you go to bed at night, give everything, including your body, back to God. Learn to say, as Anandamoyi Ma did, “Whatever happens to this body, I am ever the same.”

Perfect love casts out fear
In the Bible we read that perfect love casts out fear. When you love God deeply enough there is nothing to fear because you know He’s always with you.

We find that level of courage in saints. They don’t have fear. They don’t even think of themselves as doing something courageous. All they know is that they’ve placed themselves completely in God’s hands. Their courage is based on the kind of total faith and total self-offering that says, “Nothing matters. It’s all God.”

It’s important to work toward attaining that level of courage. If in the process you sometimes feel anxiety about something, don’t pull back. Just call on God to support you in whatever you have to do. The time will come when you will be victorious over that fear.

Remember also that our thoughts send out a kind of magnetism that draws to us whatever is expressive of that thought.  Fear, in other words, attracts the very thing that we’re afraid of. People who undergo a disaster of a certain kind in some way have put out a call for that disaster. It’s usually a subconscious call but it’s nonetheless in the aura.

If you have fear, it behooves you to overcome the fear, if only because that fear may attract to you the very thing you’re afraid of. You can overcome fear by strong positive thoughts. That positive attitude will strengthen your aura and protect you. You can also meditate and harmonize the vibrations in the heart, and then consciously send out those vibrations in all directions. This practice also strengthens the aura and protects you. Live in the thought of being surrounded by an aura of God’s light.

Conditions are neutral
Paramhansa Yogananda said, “Conditions are always neutral.” They seem good or bad according to the positive or negative attitude of the mind. We can make the best of even the worst circumstances. We have to be practical, but the most important thing is to have faith in God and to live in the thought that God is with you always. Faith in God will give you the level of relaxation you need to fight the battles of life most effectively.

Excerpted from the talk, How to Overcome Stress and Fear.

Related reading: Ananda Yoga for Higher Awareness by Swami Kriyananda

The post How to Banish Tension and Fear appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

You should understand what the guru really is, for it is definitely a law of the spiritual path that to find God—indeed, to get very far at all on the spiritual path—one needs a guru. A true guru is not a man, merely, but an egoless channel for the Divine. His human body and personality are the most superficial things about him. To see him as he really is is to see a blazing light shining through the narrow “window” of his humanity.

You say you are offended by the thought of devotion to a guru, but devotion to the guru as a man is not really what is asked of the devotee. (Though if one is thirsty, I should think a cup of water would not be scorned with the excuse that one is looking for a lake.) Our own guru, Paramhansa Yogananda, himself said that it is God alone who is the true guru, acting through the agency of souls that are awake in Him.

To seek God, on the other hand, without at least wanting Him would be self-contradictory. To want Him is to feel devotion to Him. To feel devotion to Him is to love Him in all His manifestations, ignorant as well as wise. Inevitably, then, the true devotee feels special love for those great souls who manifest Him most purely.

What one should look to is God’s impersonal presence manifested in the guru, and not merely to the guru himself as a human being. Yogananda himself taught us this kind of devotion, and always discouraged too personal an affection for him.

Do you need a guru? No, you don’t need a guru, if you don’t want God. But if you really want God and you want to work on finding Him, then you do need a guru.

May God and our Gurus bless you.

In divine friendship,

Swami Kriyananda

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

Related reading: In Divine Friendship: Letters of Counsel and Reflection by
Swami Kriyananda

The Essence of Self-Realization  The Wisdom of Paramhansa Yogananda,
Recorded, compiled & edited by his disciple Swami Kriyananda

The post Letters of Encouragement: Does Everyone Need a Guru? appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

They have come to Thy door.

Wilt Thou turn them away empty-handed?

Those whose hearts are breaking with sadness and despair: dry their scalding teardrops with Thy invisible hand.

Those who are lost in delusion—to whom shall they turn, but to Thee?

Lift Thine unseen veil of silence and appear in Thy overwhelming, divine compassion.

Before the coming of the dawn of Thy presence, all their dark troubles will take wing.

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

Now available!! Whispers from Eternity Audiobook, edited and read by his disciple Swami Kriyananda

The post Whispers From Eternity: Receive the Orphans and the Stricken appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

In June 1962, Swami Kriyananda read an article written by the head of MIT’s philosophy department. The professor, claiming to give an overview of the fundamental trends of present day thought, stated  that thoughtful people everywhere were concluding from the discoveries of modern, materialistic science “that life is meaningless, and that the universe is wholly irrational and without purpose.”

Kriyananda took the depressing conclusions of this article as a spiritual challenge. His response, taking ten years of study, was Out of the Labyrinth, a book he felt “inspired to write specifically in fulfillment of my Guru’s command to me that I share his teachings through the written word. It was the first book I wrote with a real sense of mission, in the specific hope that it would change how people thought.”

Yogananda’s teachings: life has meaning
Schooled in the teachings of his Guru, Paramhansa Yogananda, Kriyananda did not see a rationale for a philosophy of meaninglessness in the findings of modern science. He found no fault in the facts discovered by scientists, but rather in the limited, materially-based interpretation of these facts.

The same facts could equally well be interpreted expansively, in line with the ancient spiritual wisdom of India, especially as propounded by Paramhansa Yogananda: “It was clear to me that my Guru’s explanation of the yoga and Vedanta teachings provided the strongest reason for seeing meaning everywhere.  Armed with this vision, and realizing the depth of general misunderstanding on the subject, I decided that I had a spiritual duty to show the way out of these woods, through which so many people wandered in bewilderment.”

In the Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur, Theseus, who was sent into the labyrinth to do battle with the Minotaur, finds his way out again by following Ariadne’s thread—a ball of yarn which he unwound to mark his passage in. Kriyananda has used this Greek myth as a metaphor for the guidance of the guru, or of inner intuitive wisdom. For me, as for so many others during their years of intellectual and moral searching, there was no Ariadne’s thread leading to true understanding and to moral and spiritual clarity.

A calm center of clarity and awareness
I think that every thoughtful reader of Out of the Labyrinth will find memories awakening of his own struggles to grasp the meaning of life. Dr. Jay Casbon, PhD and Dean of the Graduate School, Lewis and Clark College, comments that had Out of the Labyrinth been available during his teaching career, he would have made it required reading. Dr. Casbon’s students, like those of every recent generation, struggled with the very problems addressed by Out of the Labyrinth, what Kriyananda calls “the loss of focus on the familiar ethical and spiritual guidelines: truth, honor, and justice.”

As a student, standing at the threshold of adult life one was (and still is) inundated with doctrines that call all the simple, traditional values into question. With no strong center of clarity and spiritual awareness, the student’s mind moves from philosophy to philosophy, with no real way to perceive the underlying truth. Out of the Labyrinth provides a calm center from which to see, study, and evaluate the hodgepodge of ideas that characterize much of higher education.

Thrillingly hopeful conclusions
What is particularly impressive in Kriyananda’s approach is that he treats the main currents of modern thought—however much he may ultimately disagree with them—with respect. His discussion of these currents of thought ultimately ends in thrillingly hopeful conclusions. To cite one example: his study of the law of relativity shows conclusively that relativity’s movement away from absolute values does not mean that values don’t exist.

In his inspiring conclusion, Kriyananda describes the meaning of life as “continuous development of the heart’s feelings toward joyous, ever-conscious experience: perpetual self-transcendence, unending self-expansion—until, in the words of Paramhansa Yogananda, “you achieve endlessness.”

Out of the Labyrinth, For Those Who Want to Believe, But Can’t by Swami Kriyananda (J. Donald Walters) Crystal Clarity Publishers.

The post Book Review: For Those Who Want to Believe and Can’t appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

Punjab: the home of the Sikhs
When India was partitioned in 1947, the Punjab province was split into East and West Punjab. East Punjab became part of India while West Punjab became part of Pakistan. Hundreds of thousands of Punjabis fled from the Pakistan side and resettled in Delhi.

I’ve found Punjabis to be good natured and generous, and their food delicious. Physically, they can be robust, and because they have been called upon through the ages to defend India against invaders from the West, they have a martial spirit. When you combine all of these qualities with personal self-discipline, honesty and religious commitment, you have the Sikhs.

The Sikh religion (Sikh means “disciple”) was founded by Guru Nanak Dev in the last half of the fifteenth century in that part of the Punjab now controlled by Pakistan. In those days, much of northern India was governed by Muslim rulers while the majority of the population was Hindu. From an early age, Guru Nanak displayed an inclination toward mysticism and he is said to have achieved enlightenment at the age of thirty after a deep samadhi of many days. Upon coming back to normal consciousness, his first words were, “There is neither Hindu nor Muslim, so whose path shall I follow? I shall follow God’s path.”

Thus the Sikh religion was born. Guru Nanak proceeded to expound his revelation and traveled widely, drawing followers to his non-sectarian teachings of ceaseless devotion to God, honesty and service.

Sikhism in its present form is based upon the teachings of the first ten gurus of the faith, beginning with Guru Nanak and ending with Guru Gobind Singh in the early 18th century. Before his death, Gobind Singh proclaimed the Sri Guru Granth Sahib, the holy writings of the first ten Gurus, to be the eleventh and final Guru of the Sikh religion. That scripture is worshipped and brought out in procession each day at the Golden Temple in Amritsar, a place of pilgrimage for all devout Sikhs.

An uplifting place of pilgrimage
I traveled to Amritsar with a small group of pilgrims in early October. Amritsar is a major city not far from the Pakistani border. In the middle of town stands the Golden Temple complex encircling a wonderful pool of water, in the middle of which sits the Golden Temple itself, a beautiful marble structure sheathed in gold.

Pilgrims come by the thousands to circumambulate the pool and take darshan of the Guru Granth Sahib housed in the temple. There, Sikh elders read from the scripture throughout the day, interspersing their recitation with prayers and bhajans, all broadcast non-stop through loudspeakers. I found it both mesmerizing and uplifting.

When visiting the temple, you leave your shoes outside at special stalls and cover your head with a scarf or bandana before entering. These head coverings are freely available if you don’t have your own. Once inside the grounds, you see the Golden Temple sitting serenely on the water, as if floating.

I joined the steady procession of pilgrims circumambulating the pool and eventually made my way to a queue of devotees waiting on the causeway that leads across the water to the temple. All was orderly and steady. Inside the temple, reading from the scriptures and recitation of prayers proceeded while the ushers tried their best to keep the pilgrims flowing through. Upon exiting the inner sanctum, I found a niche by a side door where I sat with other pilgrims while listening to the sounds wash over me.

Food is served throughout the day at no cost and I found a pavilion where one can nap if tired. Taking a dip in the pool is permitted and I saw a number of people meditating and reciting prayers. I sat for meditation next to a fellow doing a regimen of pranayam.

The grounds are never closed
Stationed along the pool at regular intervals are khalsa guards. Their dress is a wonderful deep blue, knee length tunic with a bright yellow sash and turban. All sport thick black beards and carry a dignified, authoritative bearing that says, “Behave yourself!”

Thousands of pilgrims come to the Golden Temple each and every day with palpable devotion. The grounds are never closed and even in the wee hours of the morning, you will find a crowd.

At one point I noticed a group of teenagers following me, all the while exchanging conspiratorial whispers with one to another. Gathering their courage, they surrounded me and breathlessly asked, “Where are you from? Why are you here? Do you like it?” They were a group of schoolboys wanting to practice their English and curious about this stranger who so appreciated their traditions. They were very sweet and upon parting, we shook hands all around.

Nayaswami Jaya is a founding member of Ananda and a Kriyacharya. Together with his wife, Nayaswami Sadhana Devi, he lives in India where he serves as spiritual director of Ananda’s work in Pune.

To learn more about Ananda’s work in India click here

The post Glimpses of India: The Golden Temple of Amritsar appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

2. The essential attitude for correct meditation is one of listening. The mind must be kept receptive.

3. Meditation is the opposite of imposing your will on the world.

4. To meditate, will power is necessary, but the will should be used to deepen your enjoyment of relaxation

5. Without relaxation—of mind as well as of body—you won’t be able to concentrate deeply. And you won’t ever become truly receptive

6. The more deeply conscious and receptive you become, the deeper and more satisfying your meditations.

7. The more you can hold your concentration at the point between the eyebrows, the sooner superconscious experiences will come to you.

8. Gaze deeply into, and behind, the darkness you behold at the point between the eyebrows when your eyes are closed.

9. Listen!—not with the ear only, but with your entire being. Feel yourself in sympathetic resonance with the vibrations of inner silence.

10. Visualize your heart’s feelings rising upward in devotion toward the spiritual eye, the point between the eyebrows—the gateway to Infinity.

From: Meditation for Starters by Swami Kriyananda (Includes CD with instruction, visualization, and music) Crystal Clarity Publishers.

The post Spiritual Checklist: Tips for Meditation appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

How Old Are You?

A woman walked up to a little old man rocking in a chair on his porch.

“I couldn’t help noticing how happy you look,” she said. “What’s your secret for a long happy life?”

“I smoke three packs of cigarettes a day,” he said. “I also drink a case of whiskey a week, eat fatty foods, and never exercise.”

“That’s amazing,” the woman said. “How old are you?’

“Twenty-six,” he said.

Paying Up

One day a woman at a local café suddenly called out, “My daughter is choking! She swallowed a nickel! Please, anyone, help!”

Immediately a man at a nearby table rushed over. He wrapped his arms around the girl and squeezed. Out popped the nickel.

“Thank you!” the mother cried. “Tell me, are you a doctor?”

“No ma’am,” the man replied. “I work for the IRS.”

Crazy Work Excuses

Some people concoct crazy stories so they can skip work. Here are a few, collected by hiring managers:

• Employee said a chicken attacked his mom.

• Employee had a hair transplant that went bad.

• Employee had to mow the lawn to avoid a lawsuit from the homeowners’ association.

• Employee’s finger was stuck in a bowling ball.

• Employee fell asleep at his desk while at work and hit his head, causing a neck injury.

New Hearing Aid

Seems an elderly gentleman had serious hearing problems for a number of years.

He went to the doctor and the doctor was able to have him fitted for a set of hearing aids that allowed the gentleman to hear 100%.

The elderly gentleman went back in a month to the doctor and the doctor said, “Your hearing is perfect. Your family must be really pleased that you can hear again.”

To which the gentleman said, “Oh, I haven’t told my family yet. I just sit around and listen to the conversations. I’ve changed my will three times!”

Delayed Wedding

A police officer in a small town stopped a motorist who was speeding down Main Street. “But officer,” the man began, “I can explain.”

“Just be quiet,” snapped the officer. “I’m going to let you cool your heels in jail until the chief gets back.”

“But, officer, I just wanted to say….”

“I said keep quiet! You’re going to jail!”

A few hours later the officer looked in on his prisoner and said, “Son, lucky for you the police chief is at his daughter’s wedding. He’ll be in a good mood when he gets back.”

“Don’t count on it,” the fellow replied, “I’m the groom.”

A Day in the Life of Tech Support

1. A customer was asked to send a copy of her defective diskettes. A few days later a letter arrived from the customer along with Xeroxed copies of the floppies.

2. A customer called to say he couldn’t get his computer to fax anything. After 40 minutes of trouble-shooting, the technician discovered the man was trying to fax a piece of paper by holding it in front of the monitor screen and hitting the “send” key.

3. A customer called to complain that his keyboard no longer worked. He had cleaned it by filling up his tub with soap and water and soaking the keyboard for a day, then removing all the keys and washing them individually.

4. A customer called to say she couldn’t get her new computer to turn on. After ensuring that the computer was plugged in, the technician asked her what happened when she pushed the power button. Her response, “I pushed and pushed on this foot pedal and nothing happens.” The “foot pedal” was the computer’s mouse.

5. A customer called to say her brand-new computer wouldn’t work. She said she unpacked the unit, plugged it in, and sat there for 20 minutes waiting for something to happen. When asked what happened when she pressed the power switch, she asked “What power switch?”

 I Give Up

Police in Pasadena, California spent two hours attempting to subdue a gunman who had barricaded himself inside his home. After firing ten tear gas canisters, officers discovered that the man was standing beside them, shouting please to come out and give himself up.

 Reservations

A man stepped up to the airline counter and the ticket agent asked him, “Sir, do you have reservations?” He replied, “Reservations? Of course I have reservations, but I’m flying anyway.”

Instructions for Giving Your Cat a Pill

1. Pick cat up and cradle it in the crook of your left arm as if holding a baby. Position right forefinger and thumb on either side of cat’s mouth and gently apply pressure to cheeks while holding pill in right hand. As cat opens mouth, pop pill into mouth. Allow cat to close mouth and swallow.

2. Retrieve pill from floor and cat from behind sofa. Cradle cat in left arm and repeat process.

3. Retrieve cat from bedroom, and throw soggy pill away. Take new pill from foil wrap, cradle cat in left arm holding rear paws tightly with left hand. Force jaws open and push pill to back of mouth with right forefinger. Hold mouth shut for a count of 10.

4. Retrieve pill from goldfish bowl and cat from top of wardrobe. Call spouse from garden.

5. Kneel on floor with cat wedged firmly between knees, holding front and rear paws. Ignore low growls emitted by cat. Get spouse to hold cat’s head firmly with one hand while forcing wooden ruler into mouth. Drop pill down ruler and rub cat’s throat vigorously.

6. Retrieve cat from curtain rail, get another pill from foil wrap. Make note to buy new ruler and repair curtains. Carefully sweep shattered figurines from hearth and set to one side for gluing later.

7. Wrap cat in large towel and get spouse to lie on cat with its head just visible from below spouse’s armpit. Put pill in end of drinking straw, force cat’s mouth open with pencil and blow down drinking straw.

8. Check label to make sure pill not harmful to humans, drink glass of water to take taste away. Apply band-aid to spouse’s forearm and remove blood from carpet with cold water and soap.

9. Retrieve cat from neighbor’s shed. Get another pill. Place cat in cupboard and close door onto neck to leave head showing. Force mouth open with dessert spoon. Flick pill down throat with elastic band.

10. Fetch screwdriver from garage and put cupboard door back on hinges. Apply cold compress to cheek and check records for date of last tetanus shot. Throw T-shirt away and fetch new one from bedroom.

11. Ring fire brigade to retrieve cat from tree across the street. Apologize to neighbor who crashed into fence while swerving to avoid cat. Take last pill from foil wrap.

12. Tie cat’s front paws to rear paws with garden twine and bind tightly to leg of dining table. Find heavy duty pruning gloves from shed. Force cat’s mouth open with small spanner.  Push pill into mouth followed by large piece of fillet steak. Hold head vertically and pour 1/2 pint of water down throat to wash pill down.

13. Get spouse to drive you to emergency room; sit quietly while doctor stitches fingers and forearm and removes pill remnants from right eye. Stop by furniture shop on way home to order new table.

14. Arrange for vet to make a house call.

The post Humor: A Smile a Day appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

Who invented and flew the first heavier-than-air gas powered aircraft?

1.    Charles Goodyear
2.    Charles Lindbergh
3.    The Wright Brothers
4.    Robert Fulton

Who invented the first commercially viable telegraph system?

1.    Samuel FB Morse
2.    Alexander Graham Bell
3.    Thomas Edison
4.    Abraham Lincoln

Who invented the first alternating-current generator and electrical power motor?

1.    Henry Ford
2.    Nikola Tesla
3.    Archimedes
4.    Michael Faraday

Who invented the crescograph to measure the nerve sensitivity of plants?

1.    Luther Burbank
2.    David Attenborough
3.    George Washington Carver
4.    Jagadeesh Chandra Bose

Who invented the first machine to successfully record the human voice?

1.    Guglielmo Marconi
2.    Thomas Edison
3.    Albert Einstein
4.    George Westinghouse

Who invented the first U.S. patented sewing machine?

1.    Benjamin Franklin
2.    John Deere
3.    Isaac Singer
4.    Elias Howe

Who invented the first camera to use a transparent roll film?

1.    Edwin Herbert Land
2.    Louis Daguerre
3.    George Eastman
4.    Max Planck

Click here to view answers >>

Answers to Quiz

Who invented and flew the first heavier-than-air gas powered aircraft?

1.    Charles Goodyear
2.    Charles Lindbergh
3.    The Wright Brothers
4.    Robert Fulton

Answer: 3

Who invented the first commercially viable telegraph system?

1.    Samuel FB Morse
2.    Alexander Graham Bell
3.    Thomas Edison
4.    Abraham Lincoln

Answer: 1

Who invented the first alternating-current generator and electrical power motor?

1.    Henry Ford
2.    Nikola Tesla
3.    Archimedes
4.    Michael Faraday

Answer: 2

Who invented the crescograph to measure the nerve sensitivity of plants?

1.    Luther Burbank
2.    David Attenborough
3.    George Washington Carver
4.    Jagadeesh Chandra Bose

Answer: 4

Who invented the first machine to successfully record the human voice?

1.    Guglielmo Marconi
2.    Thomas Edison
3.    Albert Einstein
4.    George Westinghouse

Answer: 2

Who invented the first U.S. patented sewing machine?

1.    Benjamin Franklin
2.    John Deere
3.    Isaac Singer
4.    Elias Howe

Answer: 4

Who invented the first camera to use a transparent roll film?

1.    Edwin Herbert Land
2.    Louis Daguerre
3.    George Eastman
4.    Max Planck

Answer: 3

The post One Minute Quiz: New Age Inventors appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

Concentration is the power by which you can free your attention from objects of distraction and place it upon one thing at a time.

*****

Concentration is the gateway to power. The root cause of failure is lack of concentration.

*****

Those who concentrate on the fruits of their actions are led continuously from one desire to another until they become completely entangled in earthly desires.

*****

Thousands of people make wrong investments every day because their minds are distorted by greed, which clouds their powers of concentration.

*****

If you can keep your mind focused deeply enough and long enough at the point between the eyebrows, you will get the right answer to any problem.

*****

To acquire mental magnetism, you must do everything with deep concentration. People who have reached the top of their profession or business have great magnetic power.

*****

Habits can be changed in a day. They are nothing but concentration of the mind. Simply concentrate another way, and you’ll completely overcome the habit.

*****

When you can concentrate upon any object and see it with either open or closed eyes, you will have developed your ability to concentrate.

*****

Just as all human beings have eyes, so does everyone have a spiritual eye within the forehead. It awaits only your discovery by deep concentration within.

*****

The more deeply you concentrate your attention at the point between the eyebrows, the more you will find your ego dissolving into superconsciousness.

*****

Concentration and meditation destroy mental diseases and corrosive bad habits that are lodged in the brain.

*****

If your concentration becomes supremely strong and you are one with God, you are able to see all the great saints materialized in flesh, and you can touch them with your hands. This is the ultimate state of concentration.

From lessons, articles, and books by Paramhansa Yogananda.

The post Quotations: Concentration appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

BOOKS

Global Soul
by Pico Iyer

Global Soul is an intriguing book of essays about the rising tide of cultural displacement and the impact of globalization on the human condition. To the author, the concept of “global soul” is flexible. It could mean someone like an international consultant, who carries five different plane tickets at all times, or it could represent the citizen who combines a multicultural past with an equally colorful present.

Using his own multicultural upbringing (Indian, American, British) as a point of departure, Iyer sets out on a quest to find out what remains constant in this changing world of globalization. Publishers’ Weekly says: “Iyer brings a fine spiritual current to his writing, and his descriptive talents are unsurpassed.”

Life After Life: The Investigation of a Phenomenon–Survival of Bodily Death
by Dr. Raymond Moody M.D.

A pioneering work in the field of psychiatry, Life After Life, written by psychiatrist, Raymond Moody, investigates more than one hundred case studies of people who experienced “clinical death” and were subsequently revived. First published in 1975, this classic exploration of life after death became an international bestseller and has paved the way for many other studies on near death experiences.

Saved by the Light
by Dannion Brinkley

Saved By the Light is Dannion Brinkley’s profoundly moving account of his two near death experiences and the spiritual transformation that he underwent afterward. Dr. Raymond Moody calls Brinkley’s book “the most complete near death experience ever recorded.” Dannion Brinkley currently lives in South Carolina, where his life is devoted to hospice work and research into alternative medical therapies.

The Great Lion of God
by Taylor Caldwell

The Great Lion of God is a fascinating biographical novel about the life of St. Paul and the early Christians during and after the time of Jesus. A richly textured work that combines the author’s literary skills with in-depth research, The Great Lion of God  reveals the amazing story of Paul, persecutor of the Christians turned Apostle, and the powerful impact he had on his times and long after.

Spontaneous Happiness
by Andrew Weil, MD

Everyone wants to be happy. But what does that really mean? Increasingly, scientific evidence shows us that true happiness and well-being come only from within.

In his new book, Spontaneous Happiness, Andrew Weil shares the latest research and offers an array of scientifically proven strategies for attaining optimum emotional health. Whether you are struggling with depression or simply want to feel happier, Dr. Weil’s revolutionary approach will shift the paradigm of your emotional health and help you achieve greater contentment in your life.

Unbroken
by Laura Hillenbrand

Unbroken is a biography of World War II hero Louis Zamperini, a former Olympic track star who survived more than two and a half years of internment in several of Japan’s most brutal POW camps. A story of survival, resilience, and redemption, you’ll cheer for the man who refused to be broken and somehow maintained his selfhood and humanity despite the humiliation and degradations that he suffered.

William the Conqueror: The Norman Impact upon England
by David C. Douglas

In this very detailed and well researched book, historian David C. Douglas examines the life and times of William the Conqueror from his early childhood as the bastard son of Duke Robert of Normandy, to the zenith of his career as the most powerful and successful ruler in all of Western Europe. A book for the general reader as well as the scholar, you will come away with an understanding of how William’s intelligence, courage, and military and political leadership enabled him to become the foremost leader of his time and to forge a legacy that endures down to the present day. A classic in any genre!

My Family and Other Animals
by Gerald Durrell

My Family and Other Animals is an autobiographical work by naturalist Gerald Durrell, in which he depicts his childhood and his larger-than-life expatriate family on the Greek island of Corfu. Originally intended as a discussion of the natural history of the Greek island, the book ended up as a delightful account of his family’s experiences, which Durrell describes as “rather like living in one of the more flamboyant and slapstick comic operas.” An absolute great read!

All Creatures Great and Small
by James Herriot

For over 25 years—since All Creatures Great and Small was first published—readers have delighted to the storytelling genius of James Herriot, the Yorkshire veterinarian whose stories brim with the wonder of life. Herriot’s stories of his first years as a country vet are heartwarming and often hilarious. They depict the wonderful relationship between man and animal and the humor, compassion, and love of a kindly doctor who is always available to help. A classic multimillion copy bestseller!

Code of the Woosters
by PG Wodehouse

The Code of the Woosters, another Wodehouse masterpiece first published in 1938, is the third full-length novel to feature two of Wodehouse’s best-known characters, the likeable and clueless Bertie Wooster and Jeeves his effortlessly superior valet and protector, who rescues Bertie time and again from the consequences of his repeated follies. This time the action takes place at Totleigh Towers where Bertie keeps getting embroiled in one impossible situation after another, all under the jaundiced eye of Sir Watkyn Bassett and his menacing associate, Roderic Spode. Without question Code of the Woosters will both entertain you and brighten your day.

*******

MOVIES

Around the World in 80 Days, 1956
This Oscar-nominated movie, an adaptation of Jules Verne’s 1873 novel, recounts the adventures of Englishman Phileas Fogg who makes a seemingly impossible wager that he can circumnavigate the globe and arrive back in England within 80 days. The whirlwind journey takes him and his faithful valet on adventures to India, Hong Kong and the United States. Throughout the voyage, they are followed by a detective, Mr. Fix, who is convinced that Fogg is responsible for a recent theft at the Bank of England.

Available: DVD; Rated G

America’s National Parks, 2000
Visit all 55 American National Parks and see why each is treasured as an irreplaceable part of our national legacy. Stunning photography brings the wilderness and beauty of these unspoiled places to life, including footage of areas seldom seen by most visitors. The narration reveals the fascinating history and delicate future of the Grand Canyon, the Petrified Forest, Glacier Bay, Crater Lake, Capitol Reef, Mount Rainier, Yosemite, and other parks.

Available: DVD (2 discs); Not Rated

Saint Dnyaneshwar, 1940
Hindi/Marathi (subtitles)

This 1940 movie recounts the life of Sant Dnyaneshwar (1275–1296), a 13th century Hindu saint, poet, philosopher and yogi, who was also known as Gyandev.

There is a reference to this movie at the beginning of The New Path, by Swami Kriyananda. Paramhansa Yogananda and a group of disciples had just seen this same movie, which Kriyananda describes as depicting the life of Gyandev, “a great saint of medieval India.”

Available: you tube; Not Rated

Inside Job, 2010
This sobering, Oscar-winning documentary gives us a detailed and comprehensive account of the pervasive and deep-rooted corruption that led to the global economic meltdown of 2008. Along with interviews of key financial insiders, politicos, journalists and academics, the film shows, in five parts, how changes in policy and banking practices helped create the financial crisis.

Narrated by Matt Damon, the film was screened at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival and won the 2010 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. In a number of talks, Swami Kriyananda has recommended this film.

Available: DVD; Rated PG-13

March of the Penguins, 2004
This Oscar-winning documentary depicts a year in the life of a flock of Emperor penguins who live in Antarctica, one of the most pitiless and cruel climates on the planet. In autumn, all penguins of breeding age (five years and older) leave the ocean, their normal habitat, and trek inland to their ancestral breeding grounds. After a ritual courtship, they pair off into monogamous couples and mate. Over the ensuing months, both parents must make arduous journeys between the ocean and the breeding grounds for the chick to survive.

The film won the 2005 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.

Available: DVD; Rated G

Mirror, Mirror, 2012
Mirror Mirror, a 2012 comedy fantasy based on the fairy tale “Snow White,” stars Julia Roberts as the evil queen who seizes control of the kingdom after her husband, the beloved king, vanishes. The queen keeps her stepdaughter, Snow White, hidden away in the palace. When the princess attracts the attention of a wealthy visiting prince, the jealous queen banishes her to a nearby forest. Taken in by a band of kindly but rebellious dwarfs, Snow White blossoms into a brave young woman determined to save her country from the queen.

Available: DVD; Rated PG

Nanny McPhee, 2005
The recently widowed Mr. Brown (Colin Firth) and his domineering aunt (Angela Lansbury) can’t seem to control his seven exceedingly ill-behaved children. The children have managed to drive away 17 previous nannies. But with the arrival of Nanny McPhee, a mysterious woman with magical powers, the children begin to see that their vile behavior now leads to some swift and startling consequences. A movie for the entire family.

Available: DVD; Rated PG

Nanny McPhee Returns, 2010
In this sequel to the 2005 fantasy comedy, Nanny McPhee arrives at the Green family farm, and uses her special blend of magic to discipline the Green children and to help the frazzled Mrs. Green run the farm while her husband’s off fighting in World War II. A  movie for the entire family.

Available: DVD; Rated PG

Ratatouille, 2007
Growing up beneath a five-star Parisian restaurant, Remy, a rat with a taste for fine food, dreams of becoming a great French chef against his family’s wishes. Despite the apparent dangers of being an unlikely and unwanted visitor in the kitchen of a fine French restaurant, Remy’s passion for cooking soon sets into motion a series of hilarious misadventures that turn the culinary world of Paris upside down.

A Pixar film, Ratatouille won an Academy Award for the best animated feature. A movie for the entire family.

Available: DVD; Rated G

The post Book and Movie Recommendations appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

The post Springtime in Romania – 2:16 appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

The post Have You Seen Sorrento – 4:36 appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

The post Memories of That Isle – 2:55 appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

The post Dublin Town – 3:06 appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

The post Who Is Silvia – 2:28 appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

The post Mother of Us All – 2:15 appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

Yogananda came to America’s shores with a message of divine promise and hope. His role was to set the highest example for others and to burn off the impeding karma in America that militated against an inwardly, more spiritually, directed energy in man. It was a heroic life he lived this time, and a life destined to have a major impact on civilization itself.

An impact on the entire Western world
I used to wonder why Yogananda had spoken to us repeatedly of his incarnation as William the Conqueror of England. After all, there must have been other and less controversial lives that he lived. Over the years, I’ve come to understand that Yogananda made sure we never forgot that incarnation, because his present lifetime, too, was destined to have a similar impact on the world.

Several historians have written that William the Conqueror’s influence on history has been very great—much greater, indeed, than most people realize. Indeed, his legacy has had an impact on the history of the entire Western world.

Yogananda’s legacy will have a much greater impact because the world has, in a sense, shrunk in size. To circle the globe today requires less time and effort than it did in those days merely to travel from one country to another. He spoke to us repeatedly about his incarnation as William the Conqueror because he wanted us to realize the history-making importance of his own present incarnation, so that we might set our own sights accordingly.

The need to inspire positive expectations
In this country, Yogananda found it was necessary to “lure” people to the spiritual search. Yogananda had said to his guru, “You are the goldsmith, who deals with pure gold. I am the jeweler, who must add alloys to shape his jewelry beautifully.”

The “alloy” that Yogananda introduced in America was one of cheerful, positive expectations—hope, in other words, and faith in the possibilities of a new approach to fulfillment, in an endeavor that would often, in fact, require much more effort than peoples’ first expectations.

Since the typical American is hardly famous for his patience, Yogananda, in order to reach him, presented his teachings as being at least “sure-fire” in their effectiveness. And he was perfectly right. Meditation and yoga practice increase one’s happiness and peace of mind within a matter of days. I have observed many visitors to the Ananda retreat, for example, and have seen them in a single weekend derive benefits that are really striking.

The higher purpose of the spiritual path is, however, infinitely higher than mere peace of mind or happiness. But in America, where the most people ever hoped to achieve was to get to heaven after they died, and to live there, in self-limitation, for all eternity, there was a need to awaken them to an understanding that the soul’s true destiny is final and complete union with God. They needed to be inspired to take the first serious steps toward that union, by the practice of yoga meditation.

And as Yogananda said, those who seek God sincerely find out very soon that, in the search, they are finding all that they ever truly wanted.

Sincere seekers and suffering humanity
In 1935 Paramhansa Yogananda was telepathically summoned back to India by his guru, Swami Sri Yukteswar. While he was in India, Yogananda visited the ashram of Ramana Maharshi, a great saint in southern India.

Most saints are not concerned with the needs of humanity as a whole. Their concern is with getting out of the cosmic dream. But my guru, as an avatar, had both a qualitative and a quantitative work to do. The role of avatars is also to raise humanity, as a whole, to a higher level of consciousness. Yogananda’s mission was both to sincere seekers and to suffering humanity. His teachings were destined to offer people everywhere a major incentive to improve their lot by pointing them in the direction of ever-greater spirituality.

No doubt to satisfy his curiosity as to Ramana Maharshi’s attitude, Yogananda asked the saint what he thought of mass upliftment. “There can be no good accomplished except through personal enlightenment,” was the reply. Yogananda’s kind and gracious nature prevented him from pursuing this subject to its logical conclusion, and he allowed Ramana Maharshi to have the last word.

Later, however, Ramana’s brother, who was no saint and very ego-centered, tried to get Yogananda into an argument on the point—no doubt to persuade him of the uselessness of the work he was doing in promulgating truth by lectures, books, and the like. Ramana Maharshi, seeing his brother from inside the satsang room, called to him quietly, “Come away.” He knew Yogananda’s stature.

A return to a sense of high destiny
The Master’s return visit to his motherland, though it was only for a year, had a significant impact on raising the level of Indians’ faith in the high spiritual destiny of their own country. That faith had been brutally shaken by the three-hundred-year reign of the English. When the Muslims had invaded India, they conquered by the sword, mercilessly killing any who resisted their religion. Still, India had remained proudly upright.

When the English came, however, they sneered at these “brown heathens,” whom they considered utterly beneath them. This demoralizing blow undermined Indians’ faith in themselves.

Mahatma Gandhi was the primary force which returned India to its own sense of high destiny. To a lesser but still-important degree, Paramhansa Yogananda’s visit played a role also in this national upliftment of consciousness. His India visit also became for him, in a true sense, a sort of fulcrum in his mission on earth. For these reasons, it was a very important period in his life.

A gradual shift toward “qualitative” good
When Yogananda returned to the West in 1936, there was a subtle shift in his way of reaching people. It was as though his outward service, which had been ordained by God, was now directed more inwardly. The first part of the Master’s mission was dedicated primarily to performing “quantitative” good, through public lectures and outward activities of many kinds.

The last part of his life saw a gradual shift toward more “qualitative” good. Sincere disciples began coming to him, and the true and deeper aspect of his mission began to flower: his training of direct and devoted disciples who would carry on his work, and who would display before the world the universal importance of his teachings.

In his earlier years, he had presented himself in such a way as to give people the impression that what he had accomplished, they could accomplish easily. He belittled himself, in order to make it easier for others to identify with him. During his last years, however, he challenged his disciples to meet him on his own actual, exalted level in infinity.

New teachings for a new age:
Paramhansa Yogananda will, I believe, become known throughout the world as the guru of this Dwapara Yuga, or Age of Energy. His teachings highlight the importance of energy-consciousness, the unity of true religions, and expansive, God-affirming attitudes:

Magnetism
Yogananda devoted much of his teaching to explaining the importance of the concept of magnetism. For success in every field of endeavor, he said, including the spiritual, far more is needed than steadfast effort. Success depends at last on the power of the magnetism one develops. The right, magnetic attitude can accomplish more than brow-furrowing hard work.

In future, the importance of magnetism will be taught in every school. People will consider it an obvious fact that knowledge itself is far less important to success than a person’s magnetism to attract whatever he wants. Students in future will be taught that the very facts one needs can be attracted by right, magnetic expectation. Intuition (which is itself magnetic) can guide one to the right conclusions far more unerringly than the piecemeal efforts of intellect

True Christianity and true Hinduism:
The teachings of Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita are, point for point, the same as those of Jesus. The only difference is that where Krishna’s emphasis is on achieving freedom through desireless action, Jesus emphasized, rather, the need for devotion. His people had become too much preoccupied with understanding, in all of its ramifications, the Law of Moses.

A new type of renunciation
In true renunciation the point is not so much to focus on what one is giving up as on the freedom that comes when one doesn’t depend on anything outward. A year after my arrival Yogananda placed me in charge of the monks, a task I carried out mostly through my attunement with him.

My efforts evolved over the years into a new expression of the monastic spirit: less world-rejecting, and more God-affirming; less ego-suppressing and more ego-expanding in sympathy for all. Our new renunciate order for the new age is, I believe, in complete accord with his wishes.*

A “church of all religions”
Yogananda said that the future religion of the world will be Self-realization. Self-realization is both a universal principle and the underlying religion of the whole universe. It was to this universal principle that Yogananda referred when he called his Hollywood church “a church of all religions.”

At that time, few people could understand that truth. Few, even today, have any clear idea what this phrase means. Yogananda never invited ministers from other churches to speak at his Hollywood church, for they would have come without an understanding of what they could contribute, apart from their own dogmas.

A world-transforming legacy
Like William the Conqueror’s, Paramhansa Yogananda’s legacy is destined in many respects to be world-transforming. What is his legacy? What were the specific gifts he brought to mankind? Let me list those I know.

1. He encouraged people to come together in communities. This he did, repeatedly and sometimes fervently, almost from the very beginning of his mission. I myself have built eight such communities so far, in which all together about a thousand people live.

The Master also spoke a great deal about the world’s future: about a worldwide economic depression, “much worse than the one in the thirties.” He spoke of wars of massive destruction. The image I have formed in my mind is of cities everywhere vanishing from the face of the earth, and of little, intentional communities springing up everywhere. People who live their beliefs and ideals together would constitute a force that, gradually, would uplift the world.

2. Schools everywhere are causing anxiety among parents, who feel their children are being overburdened with knowledge. A serious problem is that children are taught, whether explicitly or implicitly, that life has no meaning. In fact, modern education is basically atheistic. In consequence, there are many adolescent suicides.

In America, the ground was not yet fertile for initiating Yogananda’s educational ideas. My guru said to me, “Our way works better for the present: mature adults, eager to come to us for training, instead of boys with varied karma going off, after graduation, in countless different directions, and most of them to a worldly life.” I have been able, however, to create his type of schools on three continents, and their impact promises to be enormous, at a time when people everywhere are losing faith in modern educational methods.

3. Paramhansa Yogananda’s writings embrace a wide array of important topics, and are bound to become greatly influential.

• His book, The Science of Religion, makes the simple but all-clarifying statement that everyone on earth is seeking only two things in life: to avoid pain, and to find happiness. This simple truth will, in time, become the basis for a new system of ethics; a new definition of success; and a new approach to social upliftment. I myself rewrote this book, and because I wasn’t allowed to give it the same title, called it: God Is for Everyone.
• Another book the Master wrote was Scientific Healing Affirmations. In this book he taught people how to use their mental power to cure any number of physical ailments. More and more, already, people are coming to understand the healing power of the mind. Affirmations help to focus that healing power, and to increase its effectiveness enormously.
• He wrote Whispers from Eternity, which shows the right and best attitudes for approaching God.
• He wrote commentaries on the actions and teachings of Jesus Christ. I believe these commentaries are destined, in time, to eliminate the innumerable sects of Christianity, and to convince everyone that the essential message of Jesus lies far beyond any organization, far beyond any system of mere beliefs, in the inner communion of the soul with God.
• He also wrote what was, in some ways, his most important scriptural commentary, on the Bhagavad Gita, which outlined for everybody an entirely new and transforming way of life.

4. I believe his life will also change society in far-reaching ways:

• It will make businesses in general aware that success is most surely theirs who put service ahead of gain.
• Home life everywhere has been suffering, as new life directions divide couples that once would have walked in the same direction, together. Yogananda brought so much clarity to the very purpose of life that these forks in life’s road will become less and less frequent.
• Governments, usually, are whirlpools of power-seeking. Government in future will become smaller, as politicians come to see their role as being, primarily, one of service.
• Prisons will become places not of punishment, but of supportive correction.
• Armies will focus more on defense than on aggression.
• Policemen will become conditioned to expect cooperation from people, rather than opposition, for the people themselves will understand better that, since the true goal of life is happiness, one can find more of what he really wants by sharing with others than by taking from them. People with strongly negative karma will continue to express negativity, but overall, basic social attitudes will change, and will bring greater harmony to mankind everywhere.

Such, finally, is the legacy of Paramhansa Yogananda. The world will become a better place, because he lived. His aura of love will prove—so I fervently believe—to have cast its spell over the whole world, and in time to have made our whole planet a better place in which to live.

Excerpted from Paramhansa Yogananda, A Biography, with personal reflections and reminiscences, by Swami Kriyananda, Crystal Clarity Publishers

*To learn more about the new renunciate order started by Swami Kriyananda, click here

The post How Paramhansa Yogananda Changed the World appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

We may hear someone say, “Oh, I met a friend who is so magnetic; he inspired me and expanded my consciousness.” This is the kind of magnetic power that we all want – attracting, uplifting and expanding. This type of magnetic power is a quality of Spirit. It expands the consciousness but does not stupefy it, as does hypnosis or animal magnetism.

Magnetic power comes from within
Our magnetism is determined by our habitual attitudes and actions. To become magnetic to others, you must make yourself attractive from within. Sattwic actions, including meditative activities, are those that help you realize the pure image of the Self within. Someone with a sattwic personality is sincere, kind, accepting, and possessed of great self-control – qualities that are highly magnetic and produce a good effect on oneself and others. Positive behavior, control of speech, and kind words are qualities which clothe the soul in spiritual magnetism.

Ego-inspired attitudes and actions obstruct the free flow of one’s energy and are demagnetizing. The mental habit of criticizing others, regardless of whether the criticism is gentle or severe, has a darkening effect on the consciousness and drags a person down into greater delusion. When you occupy your mind with an unholy interest in the failings of others, you also rouse and stimulate your own pre-natal bad habits.

Try not to give in to moods. The darkness of moods will invariably be reflected in your facial expressions. The best cure for a bad mood is to try to do something that will raise your energy level and put you in a good mood. Always stay away from people in ugly moods, to prevent them from spreading to you their epidemic of inharmony.

“Learn to behave”
I can never thank my guru enough for constantly saying to me, “Learn to behave.” Like many people, I thought I was a winged angel and that nobody could say anything to improve me. However, as wisdom grew, I found that I could see myself better in the mirrors of calm minds, especially in my Master’s unprejudiced mind, than in the little mirror of my own hazy understanding. And I discovered there was a difference between how I assumed others viewed me and how they actually viewed me.

It is easy to see the faults of others but very difficult to see your own faults and to conduct yourself properly. If you can find your own faults without developing an inferiority complex, and can keep busy correcting yourself, then you will be using your time much more profitably than wishing others to be better. Your good example will do more to change others than your words or wishful thinking.

Like attracts like. Whatever you want others to be, first be that yourself, then you will find others responding in like manner to you. If you want to be loved, start loving others who need your love. If you expect others to be honest with you, then start being honest yourself. If you want others to sympathize with you, start showing sympathy to those around you. If you want to be respected, you must learn to be respectful to everyone, both young and old. If you want a display of peace from others, you must be peaceful yourself.

The glow of sincerity
Sincerity is a quality of all highly magnetic souls. All the great ones – Jesus, Buddha, Babaji – possess this quality. Many people, to gain fame or outward success in the world, sacrifice their sincerity and self-respect, but they never derive real satisfaction from the achievement of their longed-for goals. Man’s nature is many-sided and demands all-around development, which includes being sincere and truthful at all times.

Be sincere with all and above all, be sincere with yourself. Watch your thoughts to be sure they are right. When your thoughts are right, sincere and helpful words, and good deeds, will naturally follow. Carry the vibration of sincerity with you wherever you go. People will feel this vibration. Sincere, sweet words are nectar to thirsty souls.They contribute to the happiness of people in the home, in social outings, in churches, and in business offices.

Above all, never forget to smile, not the mask-like smile without truth and sincerity behind it, but the sincere, radiant smile that comes from a light, joyful heart, which belongs only to the “good” and cannot be worn by the wicked. Learn to emanate sincere smiles and to wear the glow of sincerity on your face.

Consideration for others
Consideration for others is a wonderful quality and gives you the greatest attractiveness. Practice it! Consideration for others means being aware of them, listening to them, and being attentive to their needs. Try to develop an intuitive awareness of the needs of others.

Let your supreme goal be to make others happy in order to gain happiness for yourself. Take a genuine interest in the problems of others. Every time you meet a receptive human being, make him feel your interest in his physical, mental, and spiritual welfare. Never neglect to do whatever you can for yourself in the forms of others. Live by the principle, “Each for all and all for each.” In getting for yourself, you must get for others too.

Remember that whatever you do attracts those same actions to yourself. If you set the example of selfishness, people will practice selfishness on you, but whatever you freely give to others with love, yields an ever-increasing harvest of happiness. Find happiness in helping whoever crosses your path.

Once a certain well-known teacher in India was invited to participate in a religious congress in Chicago. He and fifteen of his followers were coming through Los Angeles on their way to Chicago. I invited him to Mount Washington, where we prepared a great banquet for them. At the last moment, there came a telegram from him in Hawaii. He had felt the inspiration, suddenly, to return to India. No master would have behaved in such a way!

People would do well to understand that the masters do not behave erratically, even though they are guided by the flow of inspiration. In dealing with this world, they honor its ways. And they are ever true to their word. Moreover, if they are obliged to mix socially with others, they are considerate of people’s feelings.

Self-control and peace-loving behavior
Exercise extreme vigilance in maintaining your self-control at all times.You must be able to put on at will the apparel of your best disposition whenever you come across people with combative mentalities. Above all, be so peaceful that nobody can get your goat.

It is human weakness to get angry and scold, but it shows divine strength to be able to hold the reins over the wild steeds of your temper and speech. No matter what the provocation may be, behave yourself and by calm silence or genuinely kind words, show that your kindness is more powerful than the other person’s ugliness.

Civility, heartfelt courtesy, and continuous good will are the panacea for all bad behavior. You can teach your quick-tempered friends and dear ones to mend their faults through the example of your own magnetic, peace-loving behavior a million times better than by harsh words. If you remain even-minded by holding a calm disposition and, at the same time, are both forgiving and firm in your own principles, then you will inspire the wrong-doers to reform themselves.

Dissolve all inharmonious vibrations
Divine magnetism is the power of all powers. By meditating regularly, you become increasingly charged with the pure magnetism of God. Think of God so constantly that He is with you wherever you go. When you meditate and live in the consciousness that you are God’s child, you gradually dissolve all inharmonious emotions and vibrations.

Always keep in tune with the Divine Magnetic Power. When your prayer bursts from your heart and God gives up His vow of silence and speaks to you — you will have gained divine magnetism.

From lessons and articles.

Related reading: How to be Happy All the Time, by Paramhansa Yogananda, Crystal Clarity Publishers. To order click here

The post Qualities of a Magnetic Personality appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

For years now, you’ve also had a strong spiritual life that includes the regular practice of meditation. Looking back on your life, can you identify any single event that helped shape who and what you’ve become today?

CK: I would say it all started with my exposure to the writings of John Lilly when I was a student at the University of Michigan in the 1970s. When I entered college I thought I’d become a mathematician. I had almost completed a math major when I read about the research Lilly was doing on dolphin communication. Reading about dolphins and listening to recordings of humpbacked whales, I became obsessed with whales and dolphins and switched my major from math to zoology.

John Lilly’s writings also introduced me to the idea that our beliefs can often shape the material reality we experience.  Previously, I had become more or less a complete materialist – thinking that eventually physics would give us all of the answers. But Lilly’s concept was fascinating to me, and became a kind of springboard into exploring the spiritual realm.

Q: Given your interest in zoology and dolphin communication, why did you decide to become a computer scientist?

CK: A few years after college, I was about to head to California to offer my services to John Lilly, who was then building a computer interface for human/dolphin communication. But I realized I might need to have some computer skills, so I enrolled as a graduate student in the computer science department at Michigan State University. There I met Dr. John Eulenberg, a pioneer in the field of augmentative and alternative communication, and I became very interested in this new field.

Q: What is augmentative communication?

CK: Augmentative communication is the field of providing technology for people whose disabilities prevent them from using any of the more or less standard channels of communication. Some individuals are unable to speak intelligibly, type on a standard keyboard, or even use sign language – they have no way to express their thoughts or feelings. Augmentative communication provides such people with new technology that enables them to generate language, written and spoken.

Q: Was Michigan State a leader in this field?

CK: Yes, but at that time – the late 1970s – the field was very small. The computer industry was just blossoming and the idea that there were now tools that could really make a difference for people with disabilities was a very new concept. I just happened to be in the right place to be able to study under John Eulenberg, who was exploring and developing ways for people with disabilities to communicate by using the computer.

Q: What, if anything, did you do as a graduate student to develop new ways of helping people?

CK: At that time, all of the communications systems for people with disabilities required that they fit into an existing model. Essentially the message to them was, “OK here’s the system. Learn to live with it.”

I wanted to turn that around and say, “OK, what’s natural for you? What can you do with your body to generate a signal that the computer can respond to? Can you hit a switch? Can you control your head movements?  For a person with cerebral palsy, for example, simply moving an arm to hit a specific key on a computer keyboard can be a major effort.

So I conceptualized a system in which we would attach electrodes to an individual that would detect the person’s nerve activity if a muscle moved – even if the person only barely started to try to move. The idea was to give people much greater control and to allow the individual to say, “OK, I want to use this particular movement as a signal.”

I was trying to put the focus back on the individual, and on what a person could actually do, instead of saying, “Here’s how you have to adapt to the system. Take it or leave it.”

Q: It sounds like you were trying to empower the individual. Is that true?

CK: Yes.

Q: Was Dr. Eulenberg supportive of what you were doing?

CK: Yes, he was.

Q: When did you create your first invention in this field, something that resulted in a patent?

CK: It was during my first job after I completed my doctoral studies. I took a job in Ohio where I designed and built what became known as the Liberator, a special purpose communication device for people who couldn’t speak. Pressing certain keys would activate either letters or “icons” that would bring up words and phrases, and the Liberator would speak the text that was generated.

While designing the Liberator, I came up with an invention that reduced the number of keys one had to push to activate the system, so that it would automatically switch between generating letters and icons. This made it a little easier for a disabled person to use the device.

Q: Was creating that invention an important moment in realizing what you could do with your life?

CK: Yes, and I became very excited about that aspect of it. Computer programming sounds like a very rote field but, in fact, it offers a lot of opportunities for creativity. When I’m writing a computer program, I may know from the start what I want it to do, and how people are going to use it, but then, as I go along, I find creative new ways to accomplish those goals. Sometimes I might end up creating a whole new way to interact with the technology — and that’s where the invention aspect comes into the picture.

Q: From what I’ve read about your inventions, all of them seem to have the common thread of making it significantly easier for people to communicate. Is that correct?

CK: Yes.

Q: Did the Liberator prove useful to people who couldn’t speak and needed augmentative communication?

CK: Yes. The Liberator did a lot of things that no other system had done before, and it was quite a step forward for non-speaking people at that time. But special purpose devices like the Liberator are very expensive to produce. By the time they’re produced, their technology is often out of date. I’ve always believed that a better approach for many people with disabilities would be to find ways to enable them to use mass market computer technology.

Q: Is it correct to say that you were able to put that belief into practice when you came up with the two inventions that have attracted major national attention: T9 and Swype?

CK: Yes – at least that was the original intent. Both inventions were initially conceived of as serving people with disabilities but in both instances, I could see that this new technology would also be useful to the cell phone mass market.

Q: Both T9 and Swype have had a very big impact on the cell phone industry and on cell phone use. Can you explain briefly what these two inventions accomplish?

CK: T9 was the technology that made it possible for cell phone users to type much more quickly and easily on a typical cell phone keypad with only 12 keys. T9 was not solely my invention. Two friends and I invented it during the mid-1990s.

The Swype technology came along in 2002. This was well before cell phones with touch-screens began to emerge. There were only a few specialized devices that had small touch-screens. But I believed that eventually people would want their phones to have touch-screens; when the iPhone finally came out, this vision came true. However, people found that it was much harder to tap out a message on a touch-screen keyboard than on a real keyboard. It took more time and typos were very common.

Swype solves these problems by allowing a person to spell words by gliding a finger across the keyboard — tracing a path through the letters of a word rather than tapping out each letter. The Swype software automatically inserts spaces between words and corrects spelling and other mistakes.

Overall, Swype is a much faster and more efficient way of inputting text on a cell phone. And most people just find it fun to use.

Q: I understand that in both cases you were able to sell these inventions – along with their patents – to large corporations?

CK: Yes. In 1999, AOL acquired Tegic Communications, the startup company we formed to market T9. Nuance Communications acquired Swype – the name we used for both the technology itself and the startup company that developed it – in 2011. Coincidentally, Nuance had previously acquired Tegic from AOL in 2007, so this was a kind of a homecoming for me.

Q: From what I’ve heard, the acquisition process involving large corporations can be very uncertain and stressful. Did being on the spiritual path when you were trying to find a corporate buyer for Swype make the process less stressful?

CK: The negotiations around the sale of a start up company can be very intense. Starting Tegic and developing T9 took us to the brink of bankruptcy quite early in the process, so yes, it was rather stressful.

But there was much more at stake with Swype than with T9. Eight years of effort had gone into developing Swype. We had succeeded in making a great product and had obtained valid patents. But because we were on a playing field with huge corporations looking for multi-million dollar profits, and with so many different factors at work, it was entirely possible that those eight years of work could have been pretty much for naught. Even in the final stages of the process, it was not at all clear what the outcome would be.

It was only because of the non-attachment and peace of mind that the spiritual path and practice of meditation have brought me, that I could look the possibility of failure squarely in the face and say, “OK, Master. If this is all a spiritual test and everything we’ve worked for goes nowhere, then that’s the lesson I need to learn.”

Really accepting that possibility in my heart took away so much stress. I’m not saying I was perfectly non-attached, but the process would have been much more stressful without the understanding and the faith to accept that possibility. And I was so grateful for that understanding and faith.

Q: After selling both inventions, were you able to fulfill your original intention of making the new technology available to people with disabilities?

CK: Yes. After the sale, I am once again working with Mark Illing, one of the software engineers who was involved in the development of T9 and who worked with me through many years to create Swype. We are now finally working together to try to create new applications of the T9 technology to assist people with disabilities.

Q: Will you be able to do the same with the Swype technology?

CK: Yes. In the acquisition of Swype, Nuance permanently retained close to half of the Swype staff, myself included. During the negotiations with Nuance, I was able to say, “I want to spend some time taking these technologies back to the disabilities realm. They’ve had a huge impact on the cell phone mass market but they were designed to help people with disabilities and I want to continue with that work as a significant part of what I do.”

Nuance graciously accepted those terms and, in terms of budget allocations, is supporting the disabilities work in a very significant way.

Q: Your commitment to helping people with disabilities suggests that dharma or “right action” is very important to you. In fact, your mentor, John Eulenberg, was quoted as saying that you “believe in doing good.” *

Do you see your commitment to helping people with disabilities as a form of dharma? Have you ever thought of it in these terms?

CK: I think a commitment to dharma is part of my nature, probably something I brought over from the past. There are times when in a specific situation it’s not always clear what is the dharmic thing to do, and trying to see the dharmic way has not always been easy.

Over time I have come to know that the best thing I can do is to try to become quiet, to meditate, and try to hear what Master is whispering. But yes, even if I didn’t think of my work as dharma at first (it just seemed like the best thing I could be doing with my time), I can now see it as a form of dharma.

Q: It seems that your commitment to dharma goes beyond helping people with disabilities and is a guiding principle in your life. One of your Swype associates describes you as having “incredible business ethics.”* Apparently he trusted you enough to agree to become CEO of Swype without a contract. Can you explain how that happened?

CK: As Swype grew, we needed someone to run the company and handle the marketing and sales to cell phone manufacturers, and it’s a tough job. I brought in Mike McSherry, who became Swype’s CEO. It was an intuitive decision. Though he’d never been a CEO, he felt like a kindred spirit and something told me, “Get this guy!” From the beginning there was such a level of trust between us that we simply shook hands and said, “OK, let’s do this together and we’ll be fair about how we handle this.”

There was no written contract and we didn’t even specify verbally, “OK, you’ll get this percentage of the company or such and such a salary.” Mike worked for several months before we could even understand the best way to define his relationship to the company.

Q: Everything seems to have worked out?

CK: Everything has worked out very well.

Q: You mentioned that your decision to hire Mike McSherry was “an intuitive decision.” What role has intuition played in your invention process?

CK: A big one! Whenever I experience problems or obstacles in my work, my practice is to focus very hard on resolving them. But it’s usually when I’m not focusing on the problem that, all of a sudden, boom! There’s the solution.

One example took place when we were first developing the Swype software. The devices we were using to run the software did not have much computational power – the software could have easily swamped them. I had to find a solution. For a few days I just didn’t know what to do. Then, while I was looking at a certain geometrical shape, the solution came in a flash.

Q: When you encountered these kinds of problems or obstacles, did you ever pray for solutions?

CK: Yes, I definitely appealed to God and Guru. Often when I’m stumped, I try to open up to the Divine to show me what I’m missing. Sometimes answers come in the middle of meditation.

Q: You mentioned that it took eight years to develop Swype. Was that because you encountered numerous problems or obstacles along the way?

CK: Yes, partly that and partly that I just had to keep refining and improving the system until it would “just work” for someone the first time he tried to use it. That’s not always easy to do.

One of Swype’s main features is that it’s “forgiving”— it corrects mistakes. But it took years to identify and correct potential mistakes. Often I’d be using the system and I’d try to enter a word and Swype wouldn’t get it right. I’d try to capture that case and use it to trace through thousands of lines of code to try to figure out where Swype went wrong and how to fix it. Delving into all of those individual cases took not only the most intense focus and concentration but also a lot of time.

Q: Looking ahead to the future. After you develop the disabilities version of Swype, what will you do next?

CK: Swype is currently 97% accurate in correcting mistakes. I’d like Swype to become 100% accurate. The technology that Nuance has available will help resolve the remaining ambiguities.

After that’s done, I’ll move on to something else.

******

Cliff Kushler is currently VP of Technology Innovation at Nuance Communications.  In 1987, upon his return from earning a Ph.D. at the University of Tokyo, he joined Prentke Romich Co. to serve as Director of Research in the design and development of Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) devices, which provide comprehensive communication support for individuals with motor impairments that prevent them from speaking intelligibly, using a standard keyboard effectively, or using sign language.  This work led in 1995 to the co-invention, with his partners Martin King and Dale Grover, of the T9 text input technology in 1995 which was ultimately licensed on over 5 billion phones.

Following the acquisition of Tegic by America Online in 1999, Cliff left near the end of 2000 to pursue his own interests.  In 2002, he partnered with Randy Marsden and, again building on work to facilitate computer access for individuals with severe motor impairments, began the development of the patented “Swype” continuous path-tracing text input technology now broadly licensed on Android and other smart-phone platforms.  Cliff Kushler served as the CTO of Swype Inc. up until it was acquired by Nuance Communications in 2011. He has been awarded 33 US patents, as well as numerous corresponding internationally filed patents.

Cliff Kushler currently lives with his wife and son near Ananda Village and serves as a minister and light-bearer at Ananda Village.  

* See: “The Man Who Invented the Keyboard Twice,” by Mark Milian, CNN Tech, January 5, 2011.

The post From Dolphins to Swype: An Inventor’s Journey appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

Praying to God helps us to open our consciousness to the flow of God’s grace. By praying, we make a conscious connection with God that otherwise wouldn’t be there, and thereby attune ourselves more fully to Him.

God’s grace is like the sunlight
Thirty five years ago or so, Swami Kriyananda and a few others of us from Ananda Village went to India where we were able to spend time with the great saint Ananda Moyi Ma. We had brought with us a number of malas and other treasured items that people wanted Ma to bless. When we presented these things to her, she said, “Why do you ask this body to bless these things? God’s grace is like the sunlight: it’s always shining down. Don’t you see that?”

We said, “Yes, we know Ma, but, please, could you bless them anyway?” And she very kindly did so. She was teasing us a bit but the point she was making was very important. God’s grace is always shining down; it is always with us. But we don’t often connect with it consciously.

Ananda Moyi Ma’s use of the image of sunlight was very appropriate. When the sunlight comes into a room through the windows, we can read without electric lights. But if we want to experience more of that sunlight, we have to make a conscious decision to go outdoors and expose ourselves to the sun.

In the same way, if we want our perception of God to be more than a dim reflection, we have to expose ourselves to His grace and draw upon it consciously. Prayer helps us focus our spiritual intentions through a request to God. By praying we draw more of God’s grace than we otherwise would.

What we should not pray for
When we pray, there is the question of what we should pray for. There are some things not to pray for. For one, if we are undergoing a challenging test, we should not pray that the test be taken away. Is God even likely to answer that kind of prayer? Is He likely to say, “All right, I’ll just remove the test so that you don’t have to learn to be kind; you don’t have to learn to be unattached?” Of course not.

Secondly, we should never pray that our tests be easier, yet we do it so often. We ask that our tests be made easier, so that we don’t have to give up our attachments, so that we don’t have to offer up all the delusions that are holding us back spiritually.

One of the main attitudes that keeps us bound to ego is the thought that our physical possessions, our talents, our ideas and other gifts are our own — that they don’t truly come from God. And it’s because of that delusion that we need to offer up everything to God repeatedly, until we finally realize that everything is God’s alone, that we have nothing outside of what He has given us, and that the sole purpose of our lives is to learn to become perfect channels for His will.

Why two highest prayers?
Paramhansa Yogananda gave us two prayers, both of which he said are the highest prayers one can pray. One might ask: why two prayers? Wouldn’t it be easier to have only one prayer?  But Yogananda said his path was a combination of meditation and service. The first prayer, “Father give me Thyself so I may give Thee to all,” is a prayer for deep meditation. To counter any tendency in the person praying to seek that grace egoically, the prayer ends with: “so I may give Thee to all.”

The second prayer is for proper activity or service: “I will reason, I will will, I will act but guide Thou my reason, will and activity to the right path in everything.”  The message of that prayer is: “Guide me so that I always act and think in attunement with You.” A devotee should always pray for deeper attunement – to want only what God wants for him – and nothing else.

Similarly, in praying for others, usually it’s better not to pray for a specific result – God knows their needs better than we do. Pray instead that God’s will and blessings flow through that person. When we pray deeply in that way, God will answer the prayer.

There must be a personal relationship
Swami Kriyananda has said that the most important line of the beautiful Lord’s Prayer is at the very beginning: Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. And within this line, the most words important are: “Our Father.”

What Kriyananda is showing us through this illustration is that in prayer, there must be a personal relationship. When we pray, we must feel that we are God’s children, not insignificant beggars. We must feel that He wants the best for us and knows what that is better than we do.

The remaining words in the first line of the Lord’s Prayer –“hallowed be Thy name” – are also very  important. These words honor God. It’s very important to honor God, not because God needs to be honored, but because we need to experience our relationship with God in an uplifted way. God’s real name is AUM, the vibration by which He manifests creation. By recognizing and honoring that vibration, and making a conscious connection with it, we become open to His grace.

Paramhansa Yogananda once said to Dr. Lewis, “Doctor, you’re not praying correctly. You are praying to God; you should pray in God.” God is our own Self, but as long as we have an ego it’s easier to pray to God as if He were other than ourselves. As we go deeper in our spiritual life and begin to break down the hypnosis of separation from God, we can begin to pray from a sense of unity with God. Dr. Lewis was ready to pray from a sense of unity, which is a deeper form of prayer. However, until we overcome the delusion of separation, it’s more natural to pray as if God were outside ourselves.

A simple way to remember
We’d like to offer a summation and a simple way of remembering the basic aspects of prayer. For each of the five fingers we will give one of the five aspects of prayer, each of which is very important.

1. Familiarity
The first finger is familiarity. The Lord’s Prayer starts with “Our Father.” We start virtually all our public Ananda prayers with “Heavenly Father, Divine Mother, Friend, Beloved God.” Always pray to God as your own parent, your deepest friend, your own beloved. Make familiarity the beginning of your prayer.

2. Faith
The second finger is faith. We have to pray believing that God will answer our prayers, assuming they are righteous requests. Pray believing in the goodness of God, and in His eager willingness to fulfill our true needs, including our need for proper sustenance and right livelihood. Jesus expressed it beautifully in the Lord’s Prayer: “Give us this day our daily bread.” God will sustain us in every aspect of life, but to draw His grace, we need faith.

3. Frequency
The third finger is frequency. We can’t just pray once in the morning and assume it’s good enough for all day. At Ananda Village we pray before every meeting, and before meals.

Use every excuse to make a connection with God, either in formal prayer or in silent informal prayer. Feel that God is your companion and that you are sharing your life with Him. If you have a little heartache, share that with Him. If you are having trouble with someone, share that with Him. If you have a desire for something, tell Him about it. Don’t hold anything back. These kinds of “prayers” are going on in your mind anyway, so use them to make a connection with God by involving Him in them.

4. Fervor
The fourth finger stands for fervor. Hearing a recording of Paramhansa Yogananda praying dispels any delusion that saints are always soft and sweet. His voice thunders with power. Yogananda emphasized that prayers should be prayer-demands, with the emphasis on demands, and that’s what we hear when he prays. Wimpy prayers do not take us very far: “Oh God I guess I want to be good today, help me out – okay?”

Try to make your prayers powerful. Pray with real fervor. The stronger the energy, the more magnetic your prayer, and the stronger the response will be.

5. Follow the will of God
Finally, the last finger, the thumb, stands for following the will of God in everything. The deepest prayer of our hearts should be to know and follow God’s will in every thought, word, and deed. Our true fulfillment lies in attuning ourselves to the will of God for nothing else will really make us happy.

From an October 30, 2011 Sunday Service at Ananda Village.

Nayaswamis Jyotish and Devi are the Spiritual Directors of Ananda Worldwide. Other Clarity articles by Nayaswamis Jyotish and Devi are listed under “Jyotish and Devi Novak.

Related reading:  Whispers from Eternity by Paramhansa Yogananda, edited by his disciple Swami Kriyananda. See especially Yogananda’s introduction on how to use the prayer-poems in the book.

The post The Five Aspects of Effective Prayer appeared first on Clarity Magazine.

Nayaswami Maitreyi, a disciple of Paramhansa Yogananda, received the inner guidance to attempt to practice the presence of God moment by moment. Describing her approach, she writes: “Yogananda urged us to talk to God every second, in activity and in silence, with the unceasing desire of our hearts.” Also inspiring her in this effort were two other books: Practicing the Presence of God, by Brother Lawrence (1634-1691), and Letters by a Modern Mystic, by Frank Laubach (1884-1970.

When God, whom Maitreyi refers to as “The Presence,” and whom she considers her higher Self, began to speak to her, she recorded His words. God instilled in Maitreyi an overwhelming desire to share His messages, which were not only for her but for all who aspire to know Him in this lifetime. Presented here are edited excerpts from a longer, more complete journal.

******

3rd April, 2011, Isle of Man, UK

Beloved, tears flow as You repeatedly show me how much You love me.

Last year, when we made the decision to sell our house and move to India, I offered up the entire matter to You. I knew without a doubt that You would look after us if we had intuited Your will correctly.

This deed you have done was in response, not to a prayer, but to a mere thought regarding the move to India. I thought, “When this house sells, it would be nice to sell privately without incurring expensive agent fees, and to someone who will give the asking price and let us stay living in the house after it is sold, rent free!”  A nice idea, I thought, but a fanciful one. I was wrong!

The advertisement had not even been made public when our buyer presented himself, privately. No fee incurred. His timing was impeccable. He is paying exactly what we needed, and he is happy to allow us to stay on in the house rent free for the three months until we are ready to leave the UK! And perhaps the most bewildering thing of all is that other than seeing a few photographs, our buyer – a work colleague – has not yet even visited the property.

I am so grateful. I cannot convey in words my feelings. I know without doubt that all paths are open regarding making India our earthly home.

Frank Laubach writes in his prayer diary that he learned by experience the truth that he needed only to keep close to You every minute, and You will do the rest.  I am beginning to find this out for myself.

Thank You, dear Beloved. Hold my attention always in Thee, for then I can do no wrong. What can I do to repay for Your grace other than to love You?  I have nothing else to give.

Amen

The Presence:

My child, when I see my own selflessly giving and asking nothing in return I bestow my pleasure.

7th April, 2011, Isle of Man, UK
Day 1 – Japa quest

Beloved, it would seem you are having a little joke with me. The other day I told you how I was struggling with my practice of japa. Yesterday a devotee wrote to me and asked for my help in keeping Your Presence. She was inspired to begin a forty-one day vigil of chanting Your name, beginning at dawn this morning. Before I knew it, I wrote back to offer my support by doing it with her!

My word is my bond, so here I am, since dawn this morning, chanting, “God, Christ, Guru.”  I must say, since I began You have been blissfully present the whole time, and I am faring far better than I thought I was capable. It proves to me how much harder I will strive to support another, than to support myself.

It is so important to be constantly giving. I can see, in this instance, how my supporting someone else will benefit me, even though the support was not offered with selfish motive. But there is even more to it than that. It is the promise that drives me, regardless of the recipient party. Not wishing to go against my word, I am strengthening my resolve.

Almost two years ago I promised myself to chant a full mala round of the Gayatri mantra every day.  I am still practicing it daily. A promise made to myself, or any other, is really a promise made to You.

May I feel You ever present in my heart, my Beloved, to spur me on through test and trial.

AUM, Amen

26th April, 2011, Isle of Man, UK
Day 20 - Japa quest

Beloved, it is dawning on me just how important it is to continuously be singing Your name in my heart.  Somehow it is steering me to the point of entering “the Silence” in my meditations. From my one previous experience of the breathless state, I recognize the signs of the senses beginning to lose their grip on the body.

Good Friday, I suggested that my deepened meditations and Kriyas may be coincidental to the japa vigil I am doing. Today I am of the mind that there can be no coincidence. The change in depth of my sadhana is too great and too sudden to be associated with anything else, as japa is the only addition to my practice of late.

I am finding that I am holding You in my awareness far longer than a second a minute. It is actually very difficult to hold You for only one second.  I am holding You for minutes and sometimes hours at a time. When I do, I feel truly alive in Your energy.

Beloved. I have spent my dismal past walking in the greys of ignorance. Let me now shine with Your Glory forever and forever, AUM, Amen.

2nd May, 2011, Isle of Man, UK
Day 26 – Japa quest

Beloved, I often bring to mind a saying of Master’s, “To those who think me near, I will be near.” * I have made this practice a reality in my life. I think of You, of Master, of my own dear Satguru, Sri Yukteswar. One thought and there you are, all three truly One. It is such a joy and comfort to know that You are with me always, and that in my forgetful moments, You do not go away. You are still watching and waiting patiently for my return.

The last two days Your presence has increased in intensity. I pray it will never cease to increase. Saying Your name, and feeling Your presence in each possible moment, is affecting my meditation and practice of Kriya. I am finding that the preliminary exercises to raise my conscious state are no longer necessary — I am there in a trice. In fact, of late, I have been in such a state of absorption in You, that I have found it difficult to even commence Kriya.

I still forgot You for great stretches of time at the hospital yesterday, but as soon as I interacted with anyone, I found I was automatically looking for You in their eyes.

Oh Beloved, grace me with the courage to endure the might of AUM, and never to waiver as I am drawn forth into the roar of Your embrace.

SAT, TAT, AUM

13th May, 2011, Isle of Man, UK
Day 37 - Japa quest

Beloved, I was disgusted with myself as I walked out of the Intensive Care unit after my shift last evening. Yes, I remembered my quest at times, and yes, I was extremely busy, but that should not excuse forgetfulness. When God! Christ! Guru! sang in my heart, all was well and good. But when I forgot… I am ashamed to say that I became embroiled in a little gossip.  Light though it was, I did detect a certain meanness of heart – as Swami Sri Yukteswar would put it.

I gave myself “a good telling off” on my short journey home. I envisaged the unfortunate recipient of my meanness in Your light, and sent peace and harmony in my poor effort to make amends.

The Presence

My child, you have only to turn on the light to eliminate the darkness in a trice.  It is truly as simple a process as that.  You have conditioned your mind to expect a difficult path, to expect obstacles in your way, and also that it is usual to forget my presence!  Well, none of these things trouble you in my presence wherein you are not capable of gossip or meannesses of the heart. Change your attitude and you change everything.  Expect, rather, that it is usual to think on me always until your true nature fully reveals itself, of itself.  Do you not remember, of late, how everything on your path runs smoothly when you involve me in all you think, say, and do?

How hard is it really to form a habit of being continuously in my Presence?  As easy as it was to form one of denial!

SAT, TAT, AUM

17th May, 2011, Isle of Man, UK
Day 41 – Japa quest

Beloved, today is the end of my japa quest. “Have I been successful?” I ask myself.  Meditation is deeper, Kriya more blissful and I am well on my way to transcending body consciousness. In that sense, yes, a great success.  Was I successful in holding my attention in Your Holy Self for one second of every minute?  No!  I was pretty poor at that. However I did find that my attention was in You far more so than if I had not undertaken this extremely worthwhile exercise.

I have made the decision not to end this noble quest. I am going to continue in the hope that at the end of ten years, I too, as did Brother Lawrence, can glance back and say, “The first ten years were the worst, but it becomes easier after that!”

Amen

SAT, TAT, AUM

13th July, 2011, Isle of Man, UK
Beloved, I battle to keep my attention on these keys as You grace me with strong waves of ecstasy.  My first thought is gratitude and to simply allow myself to be, drinking the ambrosia of this sweet and heady wine, but my second is to give, because I have learned I must share you with all, so here am I before my computer in this gracious state.  I can only ask that You permeate some of the joy You are giving me now, through the words on this page, to infuse all who read them and are receptive to this grace.  May they be blessed eternally in ever-new Joy. Amen

The power in this grace is immense and almost intolerable. What would you have me do with it?

The Presence

Feed the hungry who would consume my body. Slake the thirst of those who would drink of my blood.

Your body is Your church, Your spiritual family, You in omnipresence!  Your blood is everlasting life, the Essence that flows eternally once Your body is consumed within, through the might of AUM.

So guide You me, Beloved, to Your will. Help me to reach these needy souls, but first must I eat of Your flesh, and drink from Your veins.

AUM, AUM, AUM

Yesterday I asked my Self what I could do to concentrate more effectively, minute by minute in You.  Your answer came, “Be as though Your very life depends on it.”

16th July, 2011, Isle of Man, UK
Beloved, my heart is heavy.  My endeavours to date seem so paltry compared to the effort of the saints that I am constantly driven ever harder. Friends of the world would tell me I am doing fine and far better than most, yet I would only hear the words of Satan.  There is no room for complacency. I must be hard on myself.  I long, but there is little joy in my longing.

I am heartened beyond measure when You come upon me in any given moment; and when the rumble of AUM dispels all ills. But when I cannot hold You, the heaviness returns. You have promised this great thing, so why, in my longing, do I not feel more joyous that I will be liberated in Your good time? I used to smile at this prospect. Now I cry for You.

Yet I am not sad in my joylessness. How can I be sad when I know the ache of my yearning is growing by the day? How can I be sad when the tears I shed are for You?

The Presence

If you would have me you must put me before all else.  You must long with every fiber of your being until you ache. For a time joy will elude you of necessity, for it is this yearning, this call from the heart that draws me to you.  Each tear shed in my name is felt in my heart. I am your shepherd, as you are my lamb.  I will gather you in my arms and carry you the rest of the way home when I can see that you have given all and there is nowhere else to go.

Tears flow as I write. Not tears of sadness, nor tears of joy, but tears of hope. The communion I experienced after writing the last paragraph is just too sacred for description, but You showed that Your love for me is great and that You are indeed in me as I write this missive.

Ah, my Own, let me share You with all in each moment, to let others know how much they are loved, and where to cast their gaze. Work through me that I may give Your love away.  Not just to those who love me, for there is no saintly feat in this, but to those that do not show me kindness, to those who would rob me, to those who would scorn and persecute me, to those who would be angry, and to those who would delight in ignoring me.

Although I can now genuinely empathize and offer compassion for such deluded souls, I am yet too weak to love these people wholly, with all my heart. But You can, through me, show them how to glorify each moment and to love from the heart.

Help me, Beloved, for the sake of all, to remember how to love… for there is nothing else!

AUM, AUM, Amen

19th September, 2011, Pune, India
Beloved, today You have seen my husband and me land on Indian soil. Heart- rending tears at leaving my beloved family behind were plentiful. As London fell away beneath the heavy wings of the Boeing 777, through misty eyes I cried inwardly, “But I must prove to You I love you more.” Despite my loved ones being housed safely in my heart, I cried halfway to India in remembrance of my little grandson’s guileless smile every time his eyes met mine, of the mixture of love and sadness in my beautiful daughter’s eyes, and the urgency in my dear son’s gripping embrace…but I must show You I love You more.

So this wrench of heart is what it feels like to sacrifice what is most precious to me. I know it is Your will that I should come to India. I paraphrase Saint Teresa of Avila when she said Your gifts are given according to the courage and the love we give You, and that our love is the measure of the cross we bear. My cross, for now at least, is the memory of my dear family in the last two days before our departure. But I know I will see them once a year, all being well, and that I will become stronger in my resolve to give all for the sake of Your love.

I stayed close to You throughout the flight, You, my only comfort; You, through the firmness of my husband’s hand clasped in mine, and warmth of his smiling eyes. I am wary of what lies ahead, but not afraid. I have You!

AUM, AUM, Amen

September, 2011, Pune, India
Beloved, I have not written in a week. You have not given me a chance to draw breath. I always assumed I would have less spare time in this pioneering environment than I am used to enjoying, and I can testify that I was not wrong in my assumption.

You are not sending me flowers or honey! I need to surmount all. I have come through unscathed thus far only because I have given you all my worries. When I hand them straight over, You have shown me, or guided me to solutions to any perceived problem. When I forget to do that, I suffer.

The Presence

My child, I ask much of you now and in the time to come. I have guided you to this place. You must be fearless, tireless, and determined to see my work done. You will learn to forget who you thought you were. You will remember what it is to know your true Self.

AUM, AUM, Amen

11th November 2011, Pune, India
Beloved, is having such a rare astrological date as this, the day before I take nayaswami vows, auspicious?  This week you have given me three visions. The first was a small tawny colored dog sitting alone on the edge of a ravine overlooking, what appeared to be, the Arizona wilderness. The second was a wall-mounted tap which was spouting clear, sparkling water. The third was the feet and ankles of a man, and the lower edge of his white robe.

Intuition tells me that the little dog alone in the wilderness represents the spiritual path as a solitary one. I am alone as I take a vow giving myself as wholly to You as my present consciousness allows. Intuition also tells me that the wilderness, which symbolizes “the Silence” — the place and condition we strive for in meditation — can only be achieved entirely alone.  No one else may enter with me, no thought invade the sanctity of this place. Having such a narrow entrance, the space inside stretches to Eternity.

The tap with running water speaks to me of the waters of Life flowing through my spine from the Infinite. The clarity and purity of the water represents pureness of heart and baring of the soul.

The third vision represents me placing myself at my Guru’s feet. As Your instrument, he is to replace my world, my consciousness, with his. My only goal is to attain Your constant presence by living, as You will, for all.

AUM, AUM, Amen

27th November, 2011, Pune, India
Beloved, in meditation You are transporting me deeper and deeper into Your realm. The more I give You of myself, the more, it would seem, that You give me of Your heart.

Willingly, nay eagerly, do I surrender this fickle self unto You. It leaves the sweetest feeling of release, of security in the knowing that You are taking safe charge of my material, mental, and spiritual welfare. But how do I surrender utterly?

So quickly do You send rapture when I first begin Kriya, or even just close my eyes in any given moment, but it is not enough to keep me with You constantly. My mind still distracts me, but You quickly bring me back to Your sweet presence. I can now accept that this is how things are at this stage in my development.

I have gone past the stage of feeling guilty and wretched at the thought of having momentarily, or worse, for hours, forgotten who I am and to Whom I should be directing my gaze. Bother Lawrence came to the same conclusion, that feeling wretched actually serves no lasting purpose; that great peace comes in acceptance of any situation for what it is in the moment, and not by putting myself outside the moment by the desire that the situation be different.

The tests You send me are tough — tougher than any I have ever known, but because You are with me, I am coping, and growing!  Oh, that everyone knew how life’s difficult and unpleasant trials become bearable if only we would place You first, before all else; that if we surrender our will to Yours, moment by moment, or even a second in each moment, we will change beyond recognition.

AUM, Peace, Amen

5th January, 2012, Pune, India
I was kept awake the other night by a dilemma. I felt the need to follow a certain action that I was uncomfortable with. The thought would not leave me and plagued my slumber. I got out of bed and prayed for guidance then meditated on it. It was something that I did not relish doing and I wanted to be sure, without doubt, that it was Your will.

Saint Theresa of Avila wrote that choosing Your will is very hard to do. For not only must we choose Your will, but we must be pleased with doing it, even if it may be in every way the opposite of that we would choose for ourselves. And how, one might ask, can we do Your will if it goes against our own natures?  We must love You with a love so pure that to please You surpasses all desire of our own.

Open our hearts, O Sweet Lord, that we may be so filled with Your radiance, Your love, Your sweetness, that there is room for nothing else but love for You, and You through all.

AUM, Peace, Amen

15th January, 2012, Pune, India
Beloved, the grace You are bestowing on me at this time is great; some too precious to put into words. Tough as life has been here I am finding Your bliss difficult to hide from those around me.

I find You do not want me to chant. I am drawn into AUM samadhi in an instant of the first line of a chant, unable to articulate a sound; unable to do outward prayer. You come upon me in any moment with tidal waves of rapturous bliss, in which everything else falls away to insignificance, leaving me alone in Your loving embrace.

Meditation is swiftly taking me to that place just outside Your door, or rather, the door that lets You in! Easier and easier does it becomes to hold Your presence for long periods, yet my lapses, alas, are equally long.

Beloved, I pray, more than anything, for the yearning of my heart for You to continue to grow from where it was last night. Grace us all with this longing, for until we long for You above all else, there can be no consolation found in this world.

AUM

Yet all the bliss You send me, Beloved, it is of no use unless I am equally grounded; that I thoroughly know myself and my faults. You could whisk me off to the highest sphere, but as long as I am bound to the karmic wheel I could not stay with You. I must know myself inside out and analyze how much of it I am holding on to, defying You to take it. From my center I must calmly monitor every thought and every deed, until the day I can truly say, “Maitreyi is gone!  Here is an empty vessel, my Lord, fill it as You will and use it for the good of mankind.”

Amen

7th February, 2012, Pune, India
Beloved, in meditation the other day the ashram dog who had placed itself on guard outside the temple, of a sudden began howling to the moon.  Others around me were disturbed by this, but I thought to myself, “Ah, my Beloved, if only we all howled for You like that.  You would be so sick of our wailing that You would come to us very quickly!”

When I introspect, I see that I am holding You in my heart and mind for longer periods of time. But although I forget You, it is not long before I return to the comfort of Your presence. It is so obvious to me, after much practice, that holding You for only one second in each minute is well-nigh impossible. It is only possible to hold You for much longer than one second!  Is that not a wonderful discovery?

I was contemplating an aspect of myself I was sure I had overcome, but discovered I had not. I do not wish to disclose what this fault is to any other but You, my Beloved, who tests us to see if we really are freed from whatever was binding us. You have tested me in such a way many times since moving here to India. Some tests I have passed, but some have shown I still have much yet to perfect. But my encouragement now stems from the good habit I see forming of consistently reverting back to You, consulting You on all levels as my dearest friend, lover, mentor, and protector.

17th February, 2012, Pune, India
Beloved, now You give me little time to read spiritual teachings, my favorite pastime, and even less so to write about how I take them to my heart. Yet in this time I am seeing the greatest growth. You are ever more present within me. I am listening for, and hearing, people speak in the language of the soul. No matter the words that someone utters, I feel what is in their hearts. From their vibration I can discern the level of response I must give. I see You in their eyes.

Your grace holds me in Your loving presence, as you see me striving and failing on my own. Your compassion to one who is so weak is an example to us all of Your love as unconditional. You recognize those who love you and reward them, yet You never cease to love those who do not. I take this wisdom to my heart as my guiding star.

O, my good Lord, my Beloved, continue to bless me as Your channel. Use me as You see fit to help those in need of You.

AUM, TAT, SAT

1st March, 2012, Pune, India
Beloved, we have come to a place together, where it is very difficult to leave Your presence.  How difficult it was, at the beginning of this journal, to hold You for very long. I have just returned from a short pilgrimage trip to Rishikesh, the home of the rishis. The most amazing blessings You sent me during my stay.

The five-hour train journey from Haridwar back to Delhi was a delight. Sitting, as I did in meditation as others dined around me, I dived deep, slowly muting, from consciousness, the veritable din of metal spoons rhythmically chinking against the many bowls of soup, being consumed by my fellow passengers. Soon I was intoxicated in Your presence. You have made Yourself so delightfully delicious to me that I do not want to withdraw from You. It is easier to will myself into Your presence than it is to will myself out of it, once in. Yet as wonderful a blessing this trip was to me, I could not live just taking from You like that, and I know you would not let me.  The blessings would soon cease if I did not share them with your children everywhere.

Thy will be done!

Amen

******

*As quoted in The New Path, by Swami Kriyananda, Crystal Clarity Publishers

Nayaswami Maitreyi became an Ananda member in 2008. Since that time she has given her life to the goal of Self-realization, and Paramhansa Yogananda’s mission. Service, for Maitreyi, comes in many guises, but serving devotees through writing is a major part of her life. Leaving behind family in UK, she relocated to serve at Ananda Pune, India with her husband, Michael, September 2011, and soon after took the Nayaswami vow.

**To read Nayaswami Maitreyi’s Spring 2011 Clarity Magazine article click here

**The Game with Minutes

At first, practice for no more than an hour. Begin the experiment by recording each time you think of God. Aim for one second in each minute.  It is amazing how difficult this is. Mark on a piece of paper each time you think of Him and see your score at the end of the hour. This experiment may be practiced anywhere, but until you begin to form a habit, a quiet environment is best. After forming the habit of thinking of God, let go of the paper exercise and gradually increase the time you think of Him each day, taking the practice into all aspects of daily living.

The post From the British Isles to India: Continuing the Game of Minutes* appeared first on Clarity Magazine.