Anti-Semitism and violations of human rights
Being Jewish, I became aware of persecution at a young age. Anti-Semitism and violations of human rights were widespread in Russia until the late 1980s. While attending a teachers college in the 1960s I found a job as a junior editor on a journal published by the Communist Party. I was fired after a few months when it became known that I was Jewish. After completing my studies for a Master’s degree in Psychology at Moscow University in 1972, I found work as a psychologist at a research institute. Two years later I was fired due to opposition to having Jews on staff.

In the mid-1970s, there was a great need for psychologists in many areas, but each time I applied for a job I was turned down. During the sixteen years between 1972 and 1988, when my family received permission to emigrate to the United States, I was able to find work as a psychologist for a total of only four years.

A prayer for a spiritual teacher
In the first decades of Soviet power, the government destroyed churches and persecuted priests and other religious people. Many people had to hide their religious affiliations. Nonetheless, as a university student, I was already consciously seeking God. I felt strongly that a spiritual power existed. I tried to “talk” to God by asking for help or thanking Him for everything I had, and even for what I didn’t have. In those moments I sometimes experienced great love and joy and I felt that God really “heard” me.

At the same time, I saw around me a lot of injustice and people suffering from a lack of understanding and love. I had many questions:  If God is all-powerful, why did people have to suffer so much? Intuitively I felt I needed a spiritual teacher to answer my questions and to teach me how to experience God. I prayed that God help me find a spiritual teacher.

Teaching hatha yoga as a “health class”
In 1968, when I was 27 years old, I suffered from severe asthma was often confined to bed. My mother had learned about yoga from her hairdresser, who told her that yoga was good for one’s health. At my mother’s request, her hairdresser agreed to take me to her next yoga class.

From the very first class I felt that the path of yoga was mine, even though the teacher taught none of the spiritual aspects of yoga, only hatha yoga. Under the influence of these classes I changed my diet, fasted once a week, and gradually became a vegetarian. I became stronger physically and emotionally. A year later many of my health problems had disappeared.

The teacher, who had discovered yoga while traveling in India as a journalist, often gave us articles about yoga which he had translated. Reading this literature increased my desire to go deeper into the yoga science, especially the spiritual aspects.

My yoga teacher is arrested
However, in circulating information about yoga, the teacher took a great risk. Yoga was considered foreign propaganda because it taught that true freedom was spiritual, not political. Teaching yoga was strictly prohibited and yoga teachers were persecuted and often imprisoned. Even the word “yoga” could not be used. There were many articles in the press describing yoga as “dangerous” and depicting instances of people who had been “damaged” by yoga. Since many people were looking for non-traditional ways to improve their heath, the teacher’s solution was to describe his classes as “health classes.”

I had been attending these classes for about two years when three men in dark suits appeared one day and arrested our teacher. Everyone knew that someone from the class had betrayed him by reporting him to the KGB. Witnessing my teacher’s arrest filled me with fear. The students were too afraid to comment or even to look at one another. Later we learned that the teacher had been arrested for distributing the yoga literature he had translated.

I find my spiritual teacher
Two years later, I found a new hatha yoga group with a good teacher with whom I studied for the next five years. This teacher also taught only hatha yoga; I still yearned to study the deeper, spiritual aspects of yoga.

In 1979, while my husband and I attended a farewell party for one of our friends who had received permission to go to America, I met Joseph Berkovich, who would eventually become my spiritual teacher. I told him about my seven years of practicing hatha yoga, and he invited me to his yoga class. Officially Joseph taught only hatha yoga to a small group of students. After I’d studied with him for a while, I explained my interest in the spiritual aspects of yoga and asked him to guide me on the spiritual path.

In private sessions, Joseph began to guide me in the theory and practice of spiritual yoga and to deepen my understanding of the path of Self-realization. From Joseph I learned the Hong Sau and AUM techniques of meditation, and how to use affirmations, visualizations, and healing techniques. He helped me understand the subtle inner world of intuition and how to meditate on the different aspects of God.

Through Joseph I first learned of Paramhansa Yogananda, whom Joseph described as his “spiritual master.” In 1982 Joseph gave me Autobiography of Yogi to read. The book had been translated from English to Russian and typewritten. Books like these were still prohibited and Joseph asked me do not to show it to anyone.

One day Joseph showed me a magazine in English published at the Ananda community in America, in California. He had translated all the articles himself word by word. He said, “You cannot imagine how much joy fills my heart when I read articles in this magazine.” At that time it seemed an impossible dream that I might some day visit Ananda.

The beginning of a long and painful wait
In 1979, my family (my husband, myself, our two daughters, and my father) applied for permission to leave Russia. We were refused permission because my father was a scientist and hydro-geologist who had once worked in the field of diamond mining, which was considered secret work. We were told that because of my father’s knowledge, it would be dangerous to Russia for the rest of us to be allowed to leave the country.

Thus began our long and painful wait. During this period, our life was a mixture of uncertainty and fear of arrest, combined with the will and determination to overcome all difficulties. Because we had applied to leave Russia, my husband and I were now considered “passive dissidents,” and he and I, and my father, were immediately fired from our jobs. I had been working as a psychotherapist in a psychiatric hospital, my husband as a patent engineer, and my father as a professor of hydrogeology in a scientific research institute. From then on, we lived under the surveillance of the KGB.

Teaching yoga “under the table”
After losing our jobs, and at great risk, we had to work “under the table” simply to survive. My husband worked as a translator of technical literature from English to Russian and my father received a small retirement pension. Joseph suggested that I teach yoga in my home and, with his guidance, I put together a two-year yoga program. I selected students only on the recommendation of people I knew and trusted.

My intuition always helped me in choosing students. Once a young man came and told me he wanted to join a yoga group but I felt insincerity in his voice. When I asked how he had learned about me he said it was “irrelevant,” that he just wanted to know yoga. From the way he questioned me about yoga and what I taught, I felt he was a KGB agent. Eventually he left and never came back.

After three months, I was teaching five small yoga groups each week with 5-6 students in a group. I felt a deep fulfillment in being able to help people not only to improve their physical health, but also to achieve inner peace through meditation.

Attempts to entrap and intimidate her
Persecution of yoga teachers continued until the late 1980s, and information about the “bad tricks” of the KGB spread fast among dissidents and those of us who had been refused permission to emigrate. We were advised not to allow a policeman to enter our apartments. To arrest someone a policeman usually came with one or two “helpers.” One of my close friends had recently been arrested for teaching yoga and sent to prison in Siberia for two years.

One evening when I was holding a class in my apartment, the doorbell rang. When I opened the door I saw a policeman with another man, but I did not let them in. The policeman asked whether I was working. Barely controlling my fear, I told him that under the Soviet constitution, as the mother of a small child, I had the right to stay at home. Nonetheless, he insisted that I was obliged to find work and gave me one month to find a job, saying he would return and check.

We applied five more times for permission to leave Russia but were refused each time until 1988 when French president Francois Mitterrand visited Russia and met with Mikhail Gorbachev, who was then head of Russia. Mitterrand presented Gorbachev with a list of 100 Jewish dissidents and “refuseniks” who wanted to leave Russia. Our names were on the list. Senator Edward Kennedy and other activists were also fighting for our right to leave Russia. Finally, at the end of 1988, after nearly 10 years of waiting, we received permission to leave Russia . We will be ever grateful to all the people who helped us.

An impossible dream fulfilled
Upon arriving in America, we became affiliated with an Ananda meditation group on the North Shore of Boston and later with the Ananda Rhode Island Center. Fulfilling an “impossible” dream, in the mid-1990s my daughter and I visited Ananda Village, where I received discipleship initiation and, a few years later, initiation into Kriya Yoga.

Excerpted from the forthcoming book, Threads of Fate.

Anna Shapiro has been living in America since 1988. She worked as a psychologist and psychotherapist for 10 years at the Jewish Family Service North of Boston, and also taught yoga for 22 years. Currently she is retired but continues teaching yoga to the elderly. Her book, Threads of Fate, was published in Russian and is not being prepared for publication in English. She lives in Beverly, MA with he husband Mark. She has one daughter and enjoys spending time with her two grandchildren.

The beginning of a tailspin
To illustrate, let me tell you of my experience. In 1997 my 90-year-old mother died. My husband and I were then serving as ministers in the Ananda Church in Palo Alto. During the last three years of my mother’s life, she lived in a nearby nursing home, surrounded by people in their 80s and 90s. I spent a lot of time with my mother during those years, visiting two or three times a week. Paramhansa Yogananda writes that “environment is stronger than willpower.” Being in that nursing home environment so much, I began to feel about 80 years old myself.

Shortly after my mother’s passing, my husband and I moved to Seattle to serve at the Seattle Ananda Center. Six months after our move, I turned 65. Coming on top of the move, and at a time when I was already feeling older than my years, this birthday sent me into a tailspin. The thought of being old enough for Social Security payments and Medicare — things I had been dealing with for my mother for many years — meant I had grown old and hadn’t even noticed.  It was a shock!

Soon my body started falling apart. I developed arthritic pains in my hands and feet, as my mother had. My knees and my back started aching. A wisdom tooth extraction resulted in a gland infection in my jaw and I developed “dry mouth” syndrome. Suddenly I understood why my mother always had a piece of hard candy in her pocket. According to doctors, “dry mouth” is often a symptom of aging.

I finally get the message
But these ailments were merely the little indications that time had taken its toll. The big learning experience came as a result of my teaching yoga postures at the Seattle Center. Somehow I managed to aggravate an old injury in my left shoulder and I developed what’s known as a “frozen shoulder.” I could barely move my shoulder without pain. Amidst many prayers and affirmations, I searched for several months before I finally found a physical therapist who could actually help me, an “older” lady who worked me very hard. It took many months of therapy but I overcame the “frozen shoulder” completely, and I learned that if you are willing to put out the effort, you can heal almost anything.

My successful experience with physical therapy was a turning point in changing my outlook on getting “old.”  Several years and a few more physical symptoms later, I finally got the message:  I don’t have to consider myself OLD.

I was in the final stages of learning this lesson when, in 2001, my husband and I moved to the Ananda Sacramento Center. Later, when in need of a boost, I decided to go to India with Gyandevi Fuller to trek in the Himalayas. That trip not only launched me on a track of deeper meditations and longer seclusions, it also showed me that the human body is capable of doing almost anything it sets out to do.

I had a similar experience a few years later when my husband and I went to Peru with students from the Ananda College. As an “aging” lady, I didn’t know if I would be able to keep up with a group of young people climbing mountains. But I discovered I could keep up very well and also fully enjoy the experience.

“It was so good for my mind”
Even so, there were still a few lingering misconceptions I needed to get rid of. Several years before, I had noticed I was becoming more forgetful. It was becoming harder and harder to remember what I’d done even a few moments before. Here again was perhaps another sign that I was “getting old.”

Then my husband and I went on a diet and we started counting calories. Counting calories throughout the day was a lot of work, with or without a calculator, but it was so good for my mind! My mind became much sharper and much less forgetful. My calorie-counting experience suggests that it doesn’t matter very much how we exercise the mind so long as we do so.  Paramhansa Yogananda recommends two other ways to keep the mind exercised: 1) reading good books with full attention and 2) making the mental effort to assimilate what we’ve read.

Don’t lose “half the battle”
Now that I am 79, healthy and well, I’m amazed at the resiliency of my body. Looking back, I can see where the downhill slide started – in the mind!  I had embraced the thought-form so prevalent during the years I was growing up: that the retirement phase of life is the beginning of the end, and that it was “all downhill” from there.

Paramhansa Yogananda poses the question: “why do some elderly people remain youthful while others do not?” He explains: “Aging starts primarily in the mind. When the thought enters your mind that you are getting old and you permit it to take hold, you have lost half the battle.”

According to Yogananda, the second half of life is a time when we should be “in fuller possession of our faculties and talents, zestful for new worlds to conquer, and eager to pass on whatever wisdom we have gleaned.” The 19th century poet, Robert Browning, said it well:

Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which
The first was made.

The wonderful potential of aging
As we move into the last decades of life, it is crucial that we look at the wonderful potential they hold for us. A positive attitude and a willingness to do our very best in all circumstances can transform our lives, regardless of calendar years. This is one of the main lessons I learned from my treks through the mountains of India and Peru.

People in their 50s and 60s may sometimes complain “I must be getting old!” but the growing number of people who are intensely active in their later years shows that we can be mentally and physically “in shape” at any age. Swami Kriyananda and many others at Ananda are living examples of this philosophy.

Now in his eighties, Kriyananda maintains the same busy schedule of travel, speaking, writing, and counseling that he did forty years ago. By his example, Kriyananda has shown that age and physical limitations are irrelevant; no matter what our age or circumstancesm we can still live serviceful lives that benefit others. I can also think of at least two dozen people in the various Ananda communities who, in their 70s and 80s, are still playing vital, active roles.

“What is going on here?”
In 1700, when the world moved into Dwapara Yuga, we entered an age of ascending consciousness. Swami Kriyananda writes that one of the indications of an ascending Yuga is a general increase in longevity. The average life expectancy in 1900 was 50. During the 2400 years of Dwapara Yuga, the average life expectancy will increase to 200.

This general increase in longevity is already becoming evident, worldwide. We see evidence of it in news articles on people getting their college degree at 85 or 90; when we hear of people continuing their careers into their 80s; or when we read about a retired lithographer who, at 87, has taken up the art of trapeze flying. Even people who are unaware of the Yuga concept start to think: “What is going on here?”

Slowing the aging process
Great yogis in India have lived to advanced ages, irrespective of the Yuga. Swami Kriyananda speaks of having met yogis in India more than 140 years old, including one Dariababa, a 144-year-old yogi with black hair and a strong body, who knew Lahiri Mahasaya. Kriyananda says, “Many, many yogis have lived in their bodies for a long time because they are in tune with the divine energy and have absolute control over their minds and bodies.”

The example of these yogis underscores the importance of devotion and spiritual practices in slowing the aging process and increasing longevity. A very important benefit of the retirement years is that many of us have more time to be alone with God and to deepen our commitment to the spiritual search. I have found Yogananda’s Energization Exercises and meditation techniques to be powerful aids in this process.

The mind: a powerful ally
Looking back, I realize that my life has never been so rich and full as it is today. When I changed how I viewed the aging process and learned to forget myself by focusing on serving others more joyfully, all the aches and pains disappeared. Eating more healthfully and “listening” more carefully to my body’s needs also proved important. I am now able to take regular seclusions and devote myself more fully to my spiritual life. Through it all, my mind has become an ally and an invaluable tool for unearthing the “gold” in the “golden years.”

Nayaswami Janakidevi, now in her eightieth year, has become newly inspired by life and wishes to share this inspiration with others through workshops and inspirational writing.  As a teacher and minister, she has been pursuing God through Ananda for over thirty years, side by side with her husband, Nayaswami Byasa. She lives at Ananda Village.

The prayer is quite simple: If you are having challenges with another person, visualize that person in light and for one minute pray: “Lord, fill him or her with peace and harmony, peace and harmony.” Then visualize yourself in light and pray for 15 seconds: “Lord, fill me with peace and harmony, peace and harmony.”

The prayer also came with these additional words: “Do this 5 times a day — 3 or 4 times might work, but 5 times practically never fails.”

I know of at least a dozen positive responses to the use of the prayer since I began sharing it with others over the past year. Here are several of these “miracles.”

Suspicions of dishonesty

I first met “Sarah” during a meditation program I was teaching at The Expanding Light Guest Retreat at Ananda Village. Sarah is a woman of high energy and great determination. She came to the United States from a foreign country and created a wonderful medical practice for herself here. Determined to make meditation a daily part of her life, she succeeded in doing so with ever-increasing focus. We spoke about her meditation practice the next few times I saw her.

Recently I saw Sarah again, but this time she was very troubled. She had just moved her medical practice into a new office. She had negotiated all aspects of the rental with a real estate broker, who had told her she didn’t need to pay rent for the month she was painting and redecorating her office. Sarah later learned that the landlord knew nothing about this “deal.”

As a result, the landlord thought she was cheating him. Refusing to accept her story about the “deal” with the broker, he was very rude to her and demanded that she send him a check immediately.

The next time I saw Sarah was during a retreat at The Expanding Light. She had just sent the check to the landlord. She was still very upset about his attitude and behavior toward her, and also by recent reports from other tenants that the landlord “hated” her. Sarah usually gets along well with people and is accustomed to harmony in her life.

At my suggestion, Sarah started using the peace and harmony prayer with great energy during her retreat and continued using it every day on her return home. Here’s what she said in an email to me two weeks later:

“As you advised, I used the “peace and harmony prayer” every day for two weeks during my meditation practice at least twice a day. I received a letter from my landlord this morning and everything seems fine now. He figured out that all the problems we had were based on the real estate agent’s miscommunication. He even offered to refund some of the money I’d sent him…. I was shocked to discover that the real estate agent had forged my initials on the lease.”

*******

A job retained and a relationship healed

Another woman, “Sue,” had two fascinating experiences with the prayer. Sue is in charge of a small staff in a larger company. She first started using the peace and harmony prayer to defuse tension with certain work associates, including one of the managers. Later it became known that there would be big changes in the company, but no one knew what they were.

Shortly afterwards, the manager for whom Sue was praying announced that the company was laying off a large group of employees. Sue and her small staff were the only ones in the division not included in this directive. From Sue’s understanding of how the company functions, the only reason she can imagine for the exception in her case was the “peace and harmony prayer.”

*******

Sue also has three adult sons. Her youngest son had become engaged to a lovely woman. Sue liked the young woman and felt that she and her son would do well together in marriage, but a controversy developed between the two which threatened to destroy the relationship.

Sue decided to use the “peace and harmony prayer” in a slightly different way – to help her son and his fiancée resolve their differences. She used the prayer as Yogananda recommended, praying five times a day that the couple be filled with peace and harmony and that she herself be filled with peace and harmony. She did this over a period of four months.

Sue noticed two things. Each time she spoke to her son, he reported that things were going a little better between him and his fiancée. He seemed more willing to admit his own part in the friction between them. After four months of prayers, the problems weren’t completely resolved but the relationship was definitely on the road to healing as Sue continued to use the prayer.

But the other result is also lovely. Sue noticed that she was also changing. She was beginning to feel a growing sense of healthy detachment from her son. As she continued with the prayer, it became clearer and clearer that her son’s life was in God’s hands; she was merely God’s instrument, helping as she was able. Sue feels blessed by this growing sense of inner freedom.

*******

Boiling anger vanished

About six months ago “Mary,” a friend from the Midwest, called for counseling. I had met Mary during a meditation program also, and she is an exceptionally upbeat, energetic, likeable person. When we spoke she was deeply upset by something happening at her school. Mary works with “at risk” children and had discovered some innovative computer technology that inspired their creativity and interest in learning.

Betty, the school media specialist, seeing Mary’s success with this new equipment, convinced the principal to buy the same equipment for the school’s new media center, to be used by all students. Since Mary had a full teaching load, she assumed Betty would take responsibility for getting the new media center started once she learned how to use the equipment. But each of the many times Mary offered to train her, Betty was too busy.

As the new school equipment sat idle, Mary began to overhear Betty telling others that Mary was the only person who could get the media center started, but that she was refusing to help. Mary began to feel frustrated and annoyed. From then on the situation deteriorated. Betty remained critical of Mary even after Mary had trained certain students in how to use the equipment. Compounding the problem, Mary was now being frequently interrupted in her work with her “at risk” students to fix media center problems.

Now quite angry, Mary began obsessing about Betty. Her face became frozen with tension. Angry thoughts about Betty began to keep her awake at night. Each time she saw Betty her body tightened, and she refused to speak to her. Mary found her anger toward Betty bleeding into her interactions with others.

All of this was uncharacteristic of Mary as I know her, but her devotion to her own students, combined with her desire for fairness, was pushing her over the edge.

By the time Mary and I talked, I had heard quite a few success stories about the “peace and harmony prayer,” so Mary willingly embraced the prayer and began practicing it with intensity.

The first thing Mary noticed was that after only a few days of saying the prayer, her body and face began to relax and her angry thoughts decreased. A few days later, she began smiling again and was able to speak pleasantries to Betty when she passed her at work. She noticed that Betty too was smiling more and being kinder to the students.

The school where Mary works has a spiritual focus. After a week or two of saying the peace and harmony prayer, Mary and Betty attended the before-school prayer group. Mary was able to pray for Betty’s family, and Betty prayed for Mary’s family. All animosity between them had vanished. The “peace and harmony” prayer had healed them both. Mary was so inspired by this process that she has made the peace and harmony prayer a regular part of her life.

When the prayer didn’t work

I have had lovely success using this prayer in my own life. Sometimes even a few repetitions of the prayer takes me out of a little mental whirlpool of inharmony. But I’d also like to share a time it didn’t work for me and why.

A good friend of mine, whom I’ll call “Kelly,” once hurled an insult at me with great energy and anger, accusing me of having a fault that I consider negative. My first thought was, “Wow, Kelly really doesn’t like me!” My next thought was, “And suddenly, I don’t like Kelly so well either!” But the anger was uncharacteristic of my friend, so it wasn’t something I could just ignore.

I began to use the peace and harmony prayer, but I somehow knew the prayer wasn’t going to work in this situation. The next morning, still “energized” from the previous day’s insult, I approached my morning meditation with special energy, determined to connect with the superconscious mind, the source of transformation and solutions. As I focused deeply on Yogananda’s meditation techniques, out of “nowhere” the clear thought came to me, “Kelly is right! I do need to work on that quality.” The moment I realized Kelly was right, every shred of negative feeling toward my friend vanished!

So, sometimes if the prayer isn’t working, there may be something within ourselves that needs work. In this situation God had something else for me to learn. Rather than remove the unpleasant disharmony, He wanted me to get to work on a quality that would help my personal transformation.

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I deeply encourage you to use the peace and harmony prayer in any area of your life where there is disharmony. If the situation is long-standing, you may find that a greater investment of energy is needed, and that your commitment to lifting your consciousness out of negative thought patterns needs to be regular and ongoing.

But the “peace and harmony” prayer is extremely potent. Its simplicity and clear focus direct the mind toward attunement with God and give us a practical way to draw God’s grace in important aspects of our life.

I also believe there’s a special blessing in the prayer. Try it! If you have any notable results I’d love to hear about them.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

From an April 2011 talk in Los Angeles, California.

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

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

Karma in the spiritual realm is the equivalent to Newton’s law of action and reaction in physics: for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. If we put out positive, loving energy, we receive positive, loving energy in return. If we put out negative energy in the form of judgmental attitudes or dishonesty, that same type of energy comes back to us.

What makes karma “bad” or “good?”
Swami Kriyananda describes good karma as anything that brings us closer to God and bad karma as anything that takes us farther away from Him. Is winning the lottery good karma? Not if we spend that money on ourselves and increase our sense of ego. Is having everything we’ve worked for crumble before our eyes bad karma? Not necessarily. Many people have become saints by responding to adversity with great will power and courage.

The power of a particular karma is determined by the energy and will power that went into creating it. These same two factors can also change our karma. For instance, if in the past you tried to hurt people by unkind acts, you can neutralize that karma by devoting equal energy to helping and uplifting others. The more energy and will power you put into changing that karma, the sooner it will dissipate, and the sooner the good karma you’re now creating will start to bear fruit. If you don’t know what you might have done to create a difficult karma, use your imagination as to what likely caused it.

A step by step approach to changing your karma
A dear friend at Ananda Village, who passed away early this year, exemplified perfectly how we should respond to karma. Three weeks before her passing she learned that she had inoperable brain cancer and little time left to live. Within five days of the onset of the first major symptoms, her body stopped obeying her brain. Her husband had to wheel her in a wheelchair into the hospital for brain scans.

She could feel how upset he was over what she was going through, and she said something to comfort him which we should emblazon in our minds: “Detach yourself, control the reactive process, and live the teachings.” Her succinct statement sums up exactly how we should meet karmic tests if we want to undo karmic patterns. Many of us now have this advice posted on our desks at work.

“It’s not my fault”
When we’re facing a difficult karma, the first thing we need to do is to detach ourselves. One of the most important ways of detaching ourselves is to accept karmic tests as coming from God. How do we know that our karmic tests come from God? Everything comes from God. If we don’t accept that, then we are pushing away the lesson we need to learn.

Secondly, we need to control the tendency to blame others. When something bad happens, how often our first reaction is to blame other people. We have layers of protective devices around the ego, but one of the biggest is: “It’s not my fault.” Suppose you were obeying the traffic laws, and someone ran a red light and collided with your car. If you blame that person, you’ve done absolutely nothing to change your karma. But if you detach yourself and think: “There’s something for me to learn from this experience,” you bring a positive reaction to it.  Your positive reaction will help expiate the karma.

So the first step in detaching ourselves is: Don’t blame people or circumstances. Nor does it particularly help to blame yourself. Just accept what’s happening as coming from God for your own spiritual freedom.

“What comes of itself let it come”
Detachment also means accepting whatever comes and being grateful for it. It means not wishing that certain things happen or not happen; not wishing you could have this thing or that. Yogananda beautifully described acceptance when he said, “What comes of itself, let it come.” Accept not only what comes, but also what doesn’t come.

Though often difficult, expressing gratitude for our karma is an important aspect of changing it.  Paramhansa Yogananda explained that Jesus Christ was referring to how we can change our karma when he said, “And to him that smites you on the one cheek offer also the other; and him that takes away your cloak forbid not to take your coat also.” (Luke 6:39.) When seemingly bad karma comes, accept it with gratitude and say: “Thank you — I welcome it!” Welcoming bad karma is not easy, but as we learn to control the reactive process we begin to understand that all karmic tests are truly for our benefit.

Controlling the reactive process means catching yourself when you first start to have a negative reaction. If you can catch yourself at that moment it is easier to neutralize the karma.

Becoming free of karmic patterns
When we respond to karma in the right way, we pass the test and don’t have to repeat it. Otherwise we get to retake the test, sometimes over a period of lifetimes. It’s important to become aware of your karmic patterns, the things that happen repeatedly. Karmic patterns are very complex. We don’t always know why a certain karma comes but if the karma is repeating in your life, that’s a sign you should spend time working on that particular karma.

A wonderful artist friend of ours told us a story about how she changed a negative karmic pattern. One day she called her financial advisor, who was also a friend, and asked a question. He reacted angrily, saying: “Why are you calling me at work? Can’t you understand I’ve got business to do?  I don’t have time for this now.” And he slammed the phone down.

Our friend was very fiery and tended to be reactive. She immediately picked up the phone and called him back, but the line was busy. After calling back several times and getting a busy signal, she became engrossed in her work. Several hours later she remembered the call.  However, by this time she had calmed down and had begun to think, “I wonder why he reacted like that? That’s not like him.” She called him and asked, “Is something wrong? That was such a strange reaction from you this morning.” He started crying and said, “I’m having a very difficult time at home and at work,” and they went on to have a deep and loving conversation.

For our friend, the way out of a repeating negative pattern was to respond, not with anger or aggression, but with patience, understanding, and kindness. In so doing, she neutralized the reactive process and also created good karma.

So: “Detach yourself, control the reactive process, and live the teachings.” The teachings point us to the attitudes and practices that get us out of these karmic patterns. Bringing that simple formula to mind when we have a spiritual test will help free us from much suffering.

A subtler form of bad karma
Generally speaking, if we respond to adversity with the right attitude, then what initially looked like bad karma becomes something positive spiritually. But there’s a subtler form of bad karma that comes from identifying with the body and the material world. This type of karma can make us restless, impede our efforts to meditate, or prevent us from going deeper into the spiritual life. Often it limits our faith in our own spiritual potential.

To overcome karma of this type we need to work on removing the subconscious blocks and inner conflicts concerning what we really want in life, and who we really are in our deepest nature. Remember always that overcoming any kind of karma depends on how much will power and positive energy we direct toward the process of self-transformation. We can eliminate all subconscious blocks by focusing our energy strongly in positive new directions.

Kriya Yoga and the grace of God and Guru
The most powerful antidote for our past bad karma is the practice of Kriya Yoga, which works directly on the vrittis in the spine, where our karma resides. Paramhansa Yogananda said, “Seeds of past karma cannot germinate when roasted in the fire of wisdom.” Through the deep practice of Kriya, we burn up, or “roast,” the seeds of our past karma.

The teachings of India say that the law of karma rules supreme, but higher than the law of karma is the grace of God and Guru. There are many stories in the Autobiography of a Yogi and the Indian scriptures that tell of how the guru “takes on” the karma of his disciples. The guru’s purpose is not only to give us his consciousness, but also to protect us. If it’s our karma to lose an arm, we may only get a little scratch. If it’s our karma to receive a fatal blow, it will be deflected.

The grace of God and Guru is our ultimate karmic protection. The more we attune ourselves to their will, the more that grace surrounds us. Our job is to respond to karma with the right attitude and effort, but it is the grace of God and Guru that ultimately frees us from all karma.

From February 2011 talks 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.”

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

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

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

*******

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

From the Praecepta Lessons.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

From articles and books.

A wonderful flow of sharing
We were blessed with a wonderful learning experience in the truth that “nothing is ours” the year we lived at Ananda’s Italian center, which at the time was near Lake Como. It was the early 1980s. Ananda had only recently opened this new center. We were there to support the new work, and we worked in close association with the current leaders, a husband and wife team.

What I (Devi) learned right away in living at the center was that nothing was really ours in fact! We had our own little room, and our own closet and dresser—or so we thought. That thought didn’t last long. The female director, who was also a good friend, would come bursting in on us any time, night or day, no matter what we were doing. She would say, “What can I wear today?” and start going through the closet and taking things out of the drawers.

At first I was a little taken aback, until I realized that she was also completely giving of what was “hers.” Just as she had burst in on us, she would also come rushing in to give away everything she had. For many years afterwards, nearly every article of clothing I received compliments on had come from her.

There was such a wonderful flow in that sharing. We found that nothing was ours, nothing was theirs, nothing was anyone’s. It was just a flow. Because of this flow, we would receive huge boxes of clothes from people from all over Europe. Beautiful things would come from Germany, England, and Italy, and we would pass them around and share them. We began to realize that because we didn’t think, “this is mine” or “this is theirs,” we had more clothes than we knew what to do with.

There is a flow of God’s abundance that passes through us in true sharing. The identity and power that we draw to ourselves is so much greater than the identity of just “us.”  The more we learned the lesson that nothing was “ours,” the freer we felt.

The best Easter we ever had
As time went on, God asked us to give up more and more, which produced in us a kind of a tug of war. We would ask: “Lord, are You really going to ask us for this and this?” And, of course, He did.

Many guests were coming for Easter in 1983, and we realized that we even had to give up our rooms for the guests, because there simply weren’t enough rooms for everyone. Some of our staff went to live in the little outbuildings and small sheds.

We found a room in the sub-sub-basement of the ashram house, our main building; through our room ran all the pipes for the building. The room had no windows or heat. One little light bulb hung from the ceiling. Everything was rather damp, and there was a thick layer of mildew on the walls. The moisture permeated our blankets when we slept.

As we were preparing the room, we kept thinking: “Divine Mother, You’re really not going to have us stay here, are You? When Easter weekend arrives, we’ll really get to stay in our own room, right?”

The weekend came, very cold and very rainy, and with all the guests who had said they were coming. So we did spend all of Easter in what we fondly called “Gyanamata Grotto,” after Sister Gyanamata, Paramhansa Yogananda’s foremost woman disciple, who had a wonderful spirit of renunciation.  Each morning our pajamas would be wet from the moisture condensing off the walls. But we realized that it was the best Easter we had ever had, because nothing was ours. Everything we had, we shared; and in that sharing we found great joy and freedom. We had the absolute certainty that God would take care of us and provide all we needed.

“I’m giving it to God”
We don’t have to worry about getting that extra $50 in the paycheck. We don’t have to worry about anything. It’s just the pull of the world that makes it all seem important and we become frightened.

Swami Kriyananda tells the story of the time, while traveling, he met a man who gave him a hard-luck story and asked for money. He didn’t know if the man’s story was genuine, but he gave the man most of the money he had in his wallet. As Kriyananda gave him the money, the man said, “I’ll be sure you get it back, because I don’t want you to lose faith in human nature.” Kriyananda replied, “I have faith in God. I’m not giving this to you; I’m giving it to God.”

When we share, we are affirming our faith in God, and that we are a part of everyone. This is how we all need to live. Everything we do, we should do for Him. When we live that way, we find that whatever we give comes back to us a thousand-fold.

“Nothing is mine”
In the Art and Science of Raja Yoga, ** Swami Kriyananda discusses the yamas and the niyamas, the do’s and don’ts of the spiritual path. He says that the yama “non-greed” means not to be attached to what is rightfully one’s own, and to be able to share everything you have without a sense of limitation. And interestingly enough, the power that comes with perfection of non-greed is the ability to remember one’s past lives.

What’s the connection there? When we attain “non-greed” or perfect non-attachment, we overcome any identification with our own body and can then remember our past lives — our identifications with other bodies, places, and events.

When we no longer think, “This body is who I am. This house is mine,” but start to ask, “Who am I?” What is mine?” we begin to awaken to our true reality—the soul, which in its essence is infinite and eternal. How many little dramas have we lived? How many times have we said, “This is my house; this is my wife or husband, or my children?” How many times have we died and woken up without a body and without a house, without any of those attachments?

We go through it again and again until finally one day it starts sinking in: that no matter how tightly we clutch what God has provided, we will lose it. It all has to go. Even the bodies we cherish and pamper, they go one way or another—painfully or easily, but they go.

And we begin to realize that in giving, we break through the delusion that makes us identify with our bodies and possessions. We begin to say, “God, nothing is mine. I’m just playing a little role now, but I want to wake up to my infinite, eternal reality in Thee. I know that giving freely of what I have will help me achieve this awareness.”

What we give comes back blessed
There is a beautiful poem by Tagore, which we’ll paraphrase here: God comes in the form of a prince to a beggar. The prince approaches the beggar and says, “What can you give me?” The beggar is shocked, of course, thinking that the prince should give him some alms. In his shock, the beggar gives the prince only one little grain of rice. Later, when he opens his sack in the evening, the beggar finds that just one little grain of rice has turned to gold.

That which you give away comes back to you in a more blessed form. This is especially true of love and friendship. Whenever you see someone in need, share with him, share even if you think you have nothing to give, even if you think you have no wisdom, or peace, or joy, or love. You have more than you know.

Mother Teresa of Calcutta was walking the streets of London one day and saw a very lonely, sad-looking man sitting there. She walked up to him and took his hands without comment. He said, “Your hands are so warm.” “My hands are always warm,” was her reply. Of course they were. They were warm from a lifetime of giving the vibrant energy of divine love to others. The man said, “It’s been so long since I’ve felt the warmth of a human hand.”

Being able to give the warmth of a human hand doesn’t need years of spiritual study to learn. All it takes is the understanding that we were born on this earth to give—not to see what we can acquire for ourselves, but to be a channel to give to others whatever God has given us.

Based on an article that appeared in Clarity Magazine, January 30, 1989.

Nayaswamis Jyotish and Devi are the Spiritual Directors of Ananda Worldwide. An earlier version of this article appeared in Clarity Magazine in the 1980s.

Other Clarity articles by Nayaswamis Jyotish and  Devi are listed under “Jyotish and Devi Novak.”

*The yamas and the niyamas are the ten “do’s” and “don’ts” of the spiritual path, as described by Patanjali in his comprehensive Yoga Sutras. Patanjali also describes the particular spiritual strength or power that comes as a result of perfecting each of the yamas and niyamas.

* *Crystal Clarity Publishers.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

From articles and books.

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

How do we reach the point when we too can transcend all suffering —physical, mental or emotional? What are the causes of our pain, and what are some effective ways of dealing with it?

Much of the suffering we experience derives from two sources: 1) the force of delusion, and 2) our own bad karma, the effects of our past wrong actions.

Separate yourself mentally
The force of delusion is what makes us identify with our physical bodies rather than with our souls. We are misled into believing that we are our bodies, which are incredibly vulnerable. When Shakespeare in Hamlet speaks of “The thousand natural shocks the flesh is heir to,” he is in no way overstating the case.

Although our bodies are susceptible to physical pain, there are things we can do to transcend it. A first step is to learn to live in our bodies without thinking of them as ourselves. For example, when you are feeling tired, don’t think to yourself, “I’m tired.” Rather think, “This body is tired.” Similarly, if you’re not feeling well, don’t announce it to others; simply acknowledge to yourself that your body needs some care, but that you are fine. In other words, try to separate yourself mentally from physical discomfort.

If a specific part of your body is injured, there are techniques you can use to reduce the pain. One is to try to sit very quietly, calm the mind, and then mentally send light and energy to that part. Do this repeatedly with a focused mind, and you will find healing energy flowing to that body part.

We had a friend who badly sprained his ankle while snow hiking alone on a glacier in Canada. He knew he had two choices: to die of exposure on the glacier, or to try to overcome the pain of the ankle so that he could walk out. For one solid hour he visualized energy and light flowing to his painfully swollen ankle, and at the end of this time he was able to walk the several miles back to civilization.

Our natural state of soul joy
A second technique to separate yourself from both mental and physical pain is to concentrate the mind strongly at the point between the eyebrows, the center of soul-awareness. By concentrating there, we can change our consciousness from an awareness of suffering to an awareness of our natural state of soul joy.

Swami Kriyananda often tells the story of the time, as a young disciple, he suddenly found himself plunged into a dark mood. Trying to reason himself out of the mood did not work. Finally, in desperation, he concentrated with all his will power at the point between the eyebrows. After only five minutes, his depression lifted, and what had before seemed a cruel and indifferent world now seemed a place of wonderful possibilities. Through this simple technique, he transmuted his personal suffering into an expanded vision of reality.

“Don’t expect the world to be fair”
So much of our suffering comes from self-preoccupation and false expectations. Worrying about our problems or feeling sorry for ourselves only increases our pain. A friend of ours recently told his teenage son, who was complaining about the unfairness of life, “Don’t expect the world to be fair. If it appears to be fair, that’s just an accident.”

A rather strong statement, but one that will surely help the boy avoid future suffering. When we expect others to conform to our expectations of what is right or fair, we inevitably set ourselves up for disappointment. Always try to live more in the thought of your eternal soul nature. If someone wrongs you, try to forget it. When appropriate, also pray for that person.

Once a group of us were going on a skiing trip with Swami Kriyananda to Lake Tahoe. As we drove up into the higher mountains, a snowstorm suddenly descended; before we could stop to put on chains, we hit an icy patch and headed straight for the side of a Greyhound Bus parked alongside the road. No one was hurt, but our car was demolished.

As we got out of the car to survey the damage, we saw that the Greyhound Bus was headed for our destination. Leaving word with the police and the tow truck of our whereabouts, we grabbed our bags and boarded the bus. The other passengers were commiserating with us, but Kriyananda replied joyfully to them, “You know, in a week I’d feel just fine about all of this. Why waste a whole week dwelling on our misfortunes?” We went on to have a delightful skiing trip.

Dissolve the bonds of bad karma
The other major cause of our suffering is our own bad karma. When seemingly undeserved suffering comes into our lives, it is because at some time in the past we have, through our own actions, set into motion the events that have brought our painful circumstances. We cannot undo past mistakes—but we can deal with present misfortune in a way that will expiate our wrong actions with a minimum of suffering, and without incurring more bad karma.

First we must accept responsibility for everything that comes to us. If we put the blame on others, we will never understand the attitudes and tendencies that caused us to err in the first place. Try to have the attitude, “I have created this bad karma, and I can destroy it.” Steel your mind to deal unflinchingly with whatever comes. No matter what happens, always feel that you have the ability to rise above it. If you give up, or get discouraged, then the bonds of karma will triumph over you. If, however, you determinedly resolve to keep trying until you have succeeded, then even if you fail temporarily, you will ultimately win the battle of life.

Our own bad karma allows the entry of darkness and suffering into our lives, but with our will and determination we can overcome its power. One of our favorite statements by Paramhansa Yogananda is, “Life is a struggle for joy all along the way. May I fight to win the battle on the very spot where I now am.”

Karmic testing and a deep depression
Some years ago, I (Nayaswami Devi) went through a period of karmic testing that led me into a deep depression. Every morning when I woke up, I was discouraged to find that my mental state was worse than the day before. This pattern went on for weeks, until finally one morning I awoke with the thought, “I think I’m breaking into new territory here. I can’t remember ever feeling this bad.” I knew it was time to do something about it, before the depression really took control of me.

I found a beautiful card with the simple word “JOY” on it, and taped this on my window. Throughout the day, I kept looking at that card and affirming “JOY” with relentless determination. Whenever my thoughts turned back toward the darkness, I drove them forward toward the light.

This battle went on for days, but slowly I felt myself moving forward out of the depression. Then something really wonderful began happening. The momentum of positive affirmation that I’d built up to lift me out of the depression began carrying me towards greater and greater upliftment. I no longer was merely affirming “JOY,” I was experiencing it as a powerful living force within me. A period of deep and fulfilling joy, more intense than the suffering that preceded it, continued for several weeks.

Such is the law of karma. I had accepted that for reasons unknown to me, I had drawn this period of suffering. But by determining not to be overcome by it, and by putting out intense positive thoughts, I was able to draw to myself the happiness that had been so painfully eluding me.

Sometimes we need to escape
We can’t be warriors all of the time. Sometimes in the midst of trials, all we can do is to escape through sleep. This is fair, too, but try to see such periods as part of an overall strategy. Think to yourself, “All right, I’m going to escape into the subconscious realm for awhile, but only to renew my energy and determination to take up the battle again.”

Finally, the worst effect of our bad karma is to make us forget that we are all children of God. But when we regularly meditate and practice the presence of God, delusion and karma no longer have a hold on us. Faith and devotion to God enable us to overcome suffering because they lift us to the level of the eternal. As St. Theresa of Avila so beautifully said, “Let nothing disturb thee, nothing afright thee. All things are passing, but God never changes.”

Nayaswamis Jyotish and Devi are the Spiritual Directors of Ananda Worldwide. An earlier version of this article appeared in Clarity Magazine in the 1980s.

Other Clarity articles by Nayaswamis Jyotish and Devi are listed under “Jyotish and Devi Novak.”

Andrew had always been a radical thinker and distrustful of the “establishment, ” but if he considered you a friend, his love and loyalty were absolute. Brian and Andrew had been friends since the early 1970s. They shared many interests: vintage German cars; Japanese art, swords, and armor; and high-end “hi fi” equipment. Andrew had a modest collection of each in his small home on the California coast.

Andrew made his living repairing and rebuilding German motor vehicles, including motorcycles. Twenty or so years earlier, while test-driving a motorcycle he’d repaired, he hit an obstruction in the road. After three weeks in a coma, he regained consciousness and found himself in a hospital bed, imprisoned in a body cast, in great pain with a broken back, and sporting a turban of bandages.

A karmic avalanche
Andrew survived the accident, but that quarter mile test drive began a karmic avalanche that intensified through the ensuing years. His life was now filled with physical pain, surgeries, seizures, and the constantly changing side effects from a plethora of medications  — both physician-recommended and self-prescribed. Most recently, he’d added prednisone for his newly diagnosed emphysema.

Due to his injuries and pain, Andrew could work only on average a few hours a day, and had been forced to accept public assistance. His overall medical condition was extremely complex but when doctor after doctor couldn’t “fix” his numerous problems, he became distrustful. Still, up to the night we went unannounced to his house, it was hard to tell whether he had developed a sort of paranoia or whether he was simply angry about what life had dealt him. Andrew was constantly on the edge financially, but he owned his house. So as long as he could make the payments, he had the security of knowing that he would have a place to live.

A bizarre and frightening scene
We arrived at his house in the early evening. When our continuous knocking on the door drew no response, Brian slowly turned the knob and pushed the door open. Andrew was sitting at his desk, which he’d pushed up against the windows so that it overlooked the front yard and street. A bizarre and frightening scene began to unfold.

Sitting on the edge of his chair behind the desk, Andrew was intensely focused on some invisible menace. On the desktop lay an unsheathed two-foot long Japanese sword. These swords, with their extremely sharp handmade blades, are legendary for their deadliness. Andrew’s hand, which rested next to the sword, was clutching a handgun.

With a quick glance we noted another handgun stuffed into his boot, and another, smaller sword tucked into his belt. Andrew was surveying the world out the window . . . waiting for the police to arrive. He “knew” they intended to take him away from the only security he had, his house. We later learned that Andrew was suffering from “prednisone psychosis,” brought on by the new medication, and it played on his greatest fears.

Ready to fight it out
A sincere truth-seeker, Andrew was familiar with meditation and had explored the Buddhist path. Nonetheless, in his current state of medication-induced psychosis, he was armed and ready to fight it out with anyone who dared cross the threshold. Brian told me to wait on the porch, so I sat out there with Andrew’s large German Shepherd dog.

Andrew rose and paced, patrolling the various windows. He came back to the chair and sat just inside the front door. Brian lowered himself gently onto one knee very close to him. He said, “Andrew?”

Andrew looked at Brian blankly, then with some recognition, but he quickly turned back to looking out the window, with his handgun pointed in readiness. Brian put his hand gently on top of the hand holding the gun, hoping to keep it pointing harmlessly away from him as he tried to make contact with a rational portion of Andrew’s mind. He spoke to him calmly, asking what was happening.

Andrew explained that “they” were coming to take his house away. He’d been up for nearly three days without sleep. As if on cue, he abruptly rose and strode back to the kitchen. He thrust his hand into his coffee grinder, grabbed a fistful of coffee grounds, palmed them into his mouth, and returned to his post. He didn’t want to fall asleep and lose control of the situation.

Brian asked if he’d eaten anything. “No,” said Andrew, “not for a couple of days.” Brian asked that I go to the grocery to get some food to cook for him. I was terrified. Andrew’s lucidity seemed to ebb and flow. In an instant Brian could be misconstrued as the enemy — and killed.

“Master, you HAVE to be there!”
I was shaking, my heart racing, as I left the house and got in our van. Though I had been praying on the porch, I had been too panic-stricken to pray with real intensity. Now, as I drove to the local grocery store, I pounded on the steering wheel and shouted out loud to my guru, Paramhansa Yogananda, “Master, you HAVE to be there! You have to protect Brian. You MUST be in that room with them. Don’t let any harm come to Brian or Andrew. You must clear Andrew’s mind! You have to stop this! MASTER, YOU HAVE TO BE THERE!”

I shouted my prayers to Master again and again, all the way to the local grocery store. My prayers held my fear at bay, but just barely — the fear that Brian could be dead when I returned. While making the purchases, I continued my prayer demands mentally. Driving back to the house, I again shouted out loud, demanding that Master be there with Brian and Andrew, and that he surround them in God’s protection.

When I arrived, the dog was still on the porch, and obviously distressed. I approached the door quietly. Listening at the door, at first I didn’t hear anything. Then I heard what sounded like it might be the television. I knocked and waited, then turned the knob and slowly opened the door. I saw a gun lying on the desktop, and the television was on.

“I feel like I’ve been meditating”
Cautiously, I surveyed the scene. On every flat surface there was a different weapon – a knife, a sword, a gun, another sword, all randomly placed. Brian sat on the couch looking watchful but relatively relaxed. Andrew sat in his favorite recliner looking very peaceful.

I entered the room holding my small bag of groceries and tentatively asked, “How is everyone?” Andrew said his familiar, “Hiya,” and asked what was in the bag. I walked toward the kitchen, forced a smile, and tried to sound cheerful when I said, “I brought dinner.” Inside I was still shaking, partly from fear and partly from the strong energies that surged through me. Andrew said, “It’s nice to see you guys.” I told him he looked well. Softly he said, “I feel like I’ve been meditating.”

It was apparent that he was in a very uplifted state. Brian and I made sure that he ate, and we ate a few bites with him. We put the weapons in a cupboard in the back room, and visited for another hour or so.

Everything began to change
As we were driving home, Brian began to describe what had happened after I left for the store. He described it as “extraordinary!” There was a moment when everything began to change.

It was as though Andrew’s craziness began to drain out of him. Without saying a word, his face and eyes softened and a benign expression replaced the “soldier guarding his home turf” look. He seemed to be “in between” experiences – not paranoid, but not quite himself, either. He set the gun down, got up out of his chair, and walked across the living room, slowing disarming himself. He pulled the sword out of his belt, a knife and gun out of the top of his boots, another gun out of his pocket, setting them down in different places, but seemingly not really aware of what he was doing.

When Andrew sat down again he seemed to notice Brian for the first time. They turned on the TV and were just sitting there as though nothing had happened. It was apparent that Andrew had no awareness of what had happened. Apparently the prayers had cleared Andrew’s mind of the psychosis, brought him up to a higher octave of his being, and transformed him back into the gentle man whose heart had a place for every one of his friends.

The next day Brian called Andrew’s physician and described the events of the previous evening. That’s when we first heard the term – prednisone psychosis. Though Andrew continues to live a very challenging life, in these past 15 years we haven’t known him to have another incident of paranoia or psychosis.

Now I pray with intensity
My experience with Andrew taught me much about the power of prayer. Previously, my prayers weren’t very energetic. I went through the motions, prayed for specific outcomes, always adding fatalistically at the end, “if it be Your will.” Now I pray with intensity, with my energy strongly focused at the spiritual eye and my heart fully engaged, so that I feel “plugged in” to God’s loving energy.

Praying in this way deepens my faith and my sense of being an active participant in the unfolding drama of creation. This shift in understanding and practice has been Andrew’s gift to me.

Tyagini Lisa Powers is a Lightbearer and longtime Ananda Member. She lives at Ananda Village where she serves as Director of Member Services.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

From books and talks.

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

Some years ago, I read a story in the book My Grandfather’s Blessings, by Rachel Remen, and was deeply inspired by its message of how we can break out of our imprisoning self-definitions. What follows is a summary of that story.

A paralyzing self-definition
At age seventeen, David was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes. The diagnosis shocked him and filled him with anger and despair. Suddenly, his life required great care about when and what he ate, when he took insulin, and what activities he engaged in. David responded like a caged animal throwing itself against the bars of its cage — not following his diet, forgetting his insulin. The self-definition that paralyzed David was: “I’m a diabetic and that makes finding any happiness in my life impossible.”

Seeing that David was endangering his life, his parents brought him to Rachel for therapy. For six months the therapy seemed to do little good. Then, one day he came into Rachel’s office after having had an extraordinary dream the night before.

David had never had any interest in religion, but in the dream he found himself sitting in a large room with no ceiling, facing a small stone statue of the Buddha. The face of the young Buddha attracted him greatly, as also did the feeling of peace and stillness the Buddha emanated. In the Buddha’s presence, David became aware of feeling more at peace within himself. He sat for quite awhile enjoying the connection he felt with this statue.

“Why is life like this?”
Suddenly, from somewhere behind him, a dagger was thrown that pierced the heart of the Buddha. David responded with shock, anguish, and a sense of betrayal. A question rose up from the depths of his being: “Why is life like this?”

The face of the Buddha, however, remained unchanged in its serenity and contentment. As David watched, the Buddha statue very slowly began to grow and grow, never changing its expression. David understood that this growth was a response to the dagger. Gradually the statue became huge. As David looked up at the enormous statue, the dagger, which had remained its original size, now appeared to be a tiny dot.

Something in David’s heart released at this sight. He understood that his diagnosis of diabetes, which had filled him with such despair and anguish, could become, just as the dagger had, not the entirety of his life, but a smaller and smaller part of it.

A cage with only two bars
Reading this story, I was deeply inspired by the message it gives to spiritual seekers, and not only to those with physical problems. As devotees we are trying to break free of our limitations and experience the limitless peace and joy of our soul nature. Yet we often hinder ourselves by focusing on our faults and limitations, just as David did when he defined himself initially by his diabetes.

I once saw a cartoon of a canary with the tips of its wings holding on to the bars of his cage like a prisoner in a jail. What made the cartoon humorous was that there were only two bars on the cage, the ones the canary was holding onto. The rest of the cage was completely open!

Our egos cannot limit us if we continually try to attune to something much larger: the presence of God within us. The yogic path and Paramhansa Yogananda’s teachings offer tools to help us experience the expanded part of our being.

A verbal ping-pong match
I had a dramatic experience of the effectiveness of these tools a number of years ago. I was teaching a five-day course on Superconscious Living with about eight guests at The Expanding Light Guest Retreat at Ananda Village.

Two of the women in the course had come to The Expanding Light together. They were obviously on a spiritual journey, and one woman, whom I’ll call May, seemed to be the spiritual teacher for her friend, whom I’ll call June. I don’t know if they followed a specific path, but they were familiar with spiritual principles and terminology.

Near the end of the first class on Monday, I presented some aspect of Yogananda’s teachings and May said, “I don’t agree.” I enjoy lively class discussion, so I responded by asking her what she thought and then tried to build a bridge between her views and what I’d said.

No matter how I responded, she continued to come back with disagreement. The last twenty minutes of class became a sort of verbal ping-pong match. May would say something rather argumentative. I’d try to accept what she’d said so we could move on. And she’d disagree again—with everyone else in the class watching first one of us, and then the other.

I didn’t disagree with what May said—it seemed to me that we were using different words to say basically the same thing. Perhaps I was missing something! But it was obvious that if the week continued this way, it would be a tedious experience for everyone.

When I tried to reach out to May with a friendly comment at lunch afterwards, she responded quite rudely. Hmm….maybe the problem wasn’t with our teachings, but with me as a teacher. I definitely had a problem to deal with—without delay!—if the coming days of class were to be useful to the participants.

“I know there’s a solution”
After a quick lunch, I went to my desk in an office I shared with several staff members. While people around me worked on their computers or talked on the phone, I put in my earplugs and began to pray.

First, I said to God and Guru: “I have a problem and I really need help with this.” Then it occurred to me that God and Guru already had the solution to the problem, and that the essential thing was for me to get on their wavelength—to change my “problem-focused” thinking. So, I began to focus strongly at the spiritual eye with the thought, “solution — I know there’s a solution.” My goal was to leave behind all restlessness and to attune to the superconscious mind, the Higher Self, which sees life as a whole and has solutions for all of our needs.

As I focused in this way, my subconscious mind would occasionally chime in, “This is a disaster! What are you going to do? This is impossible!”  Essentially I would say, “Be quiet. I’m not interested in your way of thinking!” My conscious mind also tried to derail me by pulling me down to the lower level of thoughts: “Don’t you think you’d better use this time to plan your class for tomorrow?” But I was not interested. The most important thing was to lift, not lower, my consciousness.

The longer I concentrated at the spiritual eye with the focus of “solution,” the calmer and clearer I became. By the end of twenty minutes, I felt very uplifted and I knew there was a solution. I also knew that remaining in “solution consciousness” was much more important than knowing the details of how that solution would come to pass. God had a solution for me, as long as I remained in this uplifted state of consciousness.

A shift of energy
I had to stop this “meditation” because I’d offered the class the option of private conferences, and June had signed up for one that afternoon. I went to the dining room to meet her. June and May came in together, and June apologized for being late. As we sat together in the conference room, June said, “I don’t know why I signed up for this—I don’t really have any questions.” Then May said, “I have a question.”

May then asked what happens to a person when he dies. Yogananda’s teachings on death are very clear and inspiring. I shared these with May, and she then asked further questions, continuing the theme of the soul and death. Her questions were deep and heartfelt. It seemed that she was dealing with some challenging issues in her life. Whatever had been going on in class earlier, May seemed now to appreciate every answer I gave her. By the end of the session, the energy between us had entirely shifted.

The rest of the classes that week flowed very smoothly. Interestingly, the person in the group I came to feel the most rapport with was May.

We can never perfect the little self
What I have learned from that and other experiences is the power of stepping out of littleness, and aligning my energy with God and Guru. In our little bodies and minds, we are limited. But God and Guru are unlimited. Our job is not only to ask for Their help, but to do our best to align our energy with Theirs: to release the grip of limitations and fears, and to attune to the solutions that always exist in our higher Self.

Early in my spiritual journey I read a quotation by Sister Gyanamata, Yogananda’s most spiritually advanced woman disciple. Through the years, I have repeated it to myself countless times: “Let your weakness be dissolved in the worshipful thought of His strength.”

We can never really perfect our little self, but if we continually attune ourselves to the greatness of God, we discover a part of ourselves that is, and has always been, perfect—not the little ego, but the divine soul.

Nayaswami Anandi is a founding member of Ananda and a Lightbearer, and was initiated into the Nayaswami Order in 2009. She is on the staff at The Expanding Light guest retreat at Ananda Village and does teaching, organizational work, and writing. She also works as an editor for Crystal Clarity, Publishers. She is married to Nayaswami Bharat.

Other Clarity articles by Nayaswami Anandi are listed under “Anandi Cornell.”

Transformation: If we direct the mind wisely, instead of letting it rule us, we can transform failure itself into victory. As Yogananda put it, “The season of failure is the best time for sowing the seeds of success.” Money Magnetism, by Swami Kriyananda.

When people are facing a challenge the most common reaction is to try to protect the status quo. What do people usually ask for in prayer? — health, money, security, a job, protection for those close to them. If you step back and analyze it, these are just ways of telling God, “Don’t change anything in my life.” Or, perhaps, “Make me more secure and less vulnerable to change.”

Everyone has to deal with major tests — disappointment, illness, loss, approaching death. As devotees, we should try to use change as a means of growth. Props such as drugs and alcohol, commonly used to dull the mind and hide from problems, are no longer an option for the seeker. The goal of the yogi is not to avoid change but to use every event to become free from attachments and, ultimately, from all ego-identification.

Most of the stress and pain associated with change is the result of wishing that things be other than they are. Learn to accept life and much of the anxiety brought on by change will disappear. (See visualization at end)

Positive reactions bring positive results!
One of the worst traps is to let change throw you into a mood. Moods take away your objectivity and ability to act and to master the lessons that this school of life gives you. It’s very important to find ways to keep your mind positive and free of negativity — exercise, service, prayer, affirmation, and curbing the tendency to allow moods to develop are great aids. Dump your negative mood as soon as you’re aware of it, before it grows big and destructive.

Paramhansa Yogananda gave us a powerful prescription for moving quickly through life’s trials and knowing how to deal constructively with change: he recommended that we learn to stay “even-minded and cheerful.” Even-mindedness helps us to be happy, but it does much more than that. It gives us the clarity and strength to learn our lessons and to become freed from maya and the endless cycle of reincarnation, which repeatedly plunges us into alternating waves of happiness and misery.

How do you achieve this state of mind? First, commit yourself to being happy under all circumstances. Then watch your reactions to events. As soon as you catch yourself being pulled down, reaffirm your decision to be happy. You may not be able to change the events, but you can control your reactions, which alone will transform your life. Positive reactions bring positive results!

Learn to accept that whatever comes to you is for your ultimate good. The truth is that you attract the situations that will help you learn needed lessons. The law of karma states that, good or bad, you will get exactly what is coming to you. Learn also to accept yourself with all your abilities and weaknesses, and you will discover a great source of strength.

For real power, however, go one step further – learn to be grateful for everything that comes. One of the secrets of the universe is to be grateful for everything. Through gratitude, you begin to live with faith, not fear. Then, don’t dwell on yourself, but think more of others and their needs. And don’t dwell on past events or future plans. By staying in the here and now, you will realize that you can be happy just as you are.

What are “legitimate” prayers?
Prayer is an especially powerful tool for dealing with change as long as the prayer is for something “legitimate.” What are legitimate prayers? It depends on whether the purpose is to remove an obstacle, such as hunger or homelessness, which prevents you from thinking about God, or simply the desire to add one more distraction or possession to your life. When you pray for things of this material world, make sure that those requests are stepping-stones to forming a deeper relationship with God. You can pray for necessities but it’s important to learn to discriminate between “necessary necessities” and “unnecessary necessities.”

If your prayer is for something legitimate, then it will be answered. If it’s not a helpful prayer, then quite likely it won’t be answered. Why should God become a partner to delusion and provide something that’s not helpful? Understand that to pray properly, you must align your will with God’s will. That takes a lot of discrimination. Swami Kriyananda often says that people are quite willing to accept blessings from the Divine, but are much less willing to offer their lives to God’s will. And yet self-offering is the main condition for receiving blessings in the first place.

The ultimate purpose of prayer is to disengage the soul from the ego and the hypnotic power of maya. Always make the essence of your prayer the wish to release yourself or someone else from the net of delusion. If you do that, even if you pray for something on this material plane, the power of God will be behind your prayers.

Every test: can our will be broken?
We can’t really understand the subject of change without understanding its relationship to will power. One might say that the science of religion that Paramhansa Yogananda brought to the West is the science of the proper use of will. The philosophy and various techniques that Yogananda brought are like pearls. The string that binds them into a single necklace, the element that goes through all of Yogananda’s teachings, is the proper use of will.

Yogananda said that every test is a challenge to see if our will can be broken. We quit when we get to a point where we’re no longer willing or able to put forth the energy required. We need to develop our will power until it is strong, deep, and continuous—then the whole of creation will turn itself around in order to fulfill our prayers.

How do we do that? Yogananda gave us a universal law: “The greater the will, the greater the flow of energy.” This law is absolutely central to his teachings. There is an infinite reservoir of energy and grace ready to flow through us. Will is the switch that unleashes this unstoppable flow. In fact, the secret of success in all life is the positive and continuous use of will.

Every day, simply by saying “yes” to life’s smaller challenges, we have numerous opportunities to develop and strengthen our willpower. Say “yes” when faced with that nefarious little voice that says, “I’d rather not get up to meditate today;” or “I’m too tired to exercise;” or “I’d rather not make the effort to understand that person; he’s so confused.” Accepting such opportunities develops will power and expansiveness. So make it a point to always say “yes.”

An irresistible force of attraction
Most people come onto the spiritual path not because they’ve developed great love for God, but because something in their life has become intolerable. Others turn to God out of fear. But, even that has its purpose. By turning toward God, they form a connection with a higher power, and a relationship that is like the warmth of the sun melting a block of ice. Through meditation and devotion, the ego slowly dissolves and love for God becomes the dominant force in our lives.

Deepening your meditation and your devotion are the most important things you can do to prepare for and respond constructively to change. Tune into the joy and peace that lie deep within you. When the mind is still, you can gain new perspectives on your life. It is from these profound inner insights that true understanding comes.

Daily meditation is the way to find these deeper states. Especially important is the practice of meditating every morning and evening. In the morning, meditation prepares you to face the day with inner calmness and joy. At night, it helps you to release everything and offer all your attachments back into the divine light.

We’re like iron filings moving closer to a magnet. At first we’re pushed from behind by winds of trials, but as we get closer to God, we fall under the magnet’s influence and are pulled more and more strongly by His love, until the force of that attraction becomes irresistible. Then, as we reclaim our own higher reality as children of God, we begin to see Him reflected back in everyone and everything around us. Then change — even the most anxiety-producing change—becomes merely another expression of His omnipresent love.

Visualization for Accepting Change

The following visualization will help you accept change with calmness and enjoyment. Visualize yourself floating near the shore in a beautiful blue sea. The sea is calm, the sun is shining, and the wind is blowing gently over the water. Gradually, the waves begin to increase in strength. Now, they are tossing you about. At first you find this annoying and wish they would stop. But now you realize that you can’t control the sea. As you relax, you begin to accept the waves and enjoy the ride they are giving you. You see that they are playing with you. Stay in this state of enjoyment for a while.

Now feel that your vision is floating up above the sea and looking down on your little body. As you look down from this height, you see that the waves aren’t really big at all. From this higher viewpoint, the sea actually looks quite calm and filled with beautiful blues and greens, and little whitecaps. All is incredibly beautiful. You see that the ocean of life is your friend and your supporter.

Now turn your gaze toward the horizon endless miles away. The line where the sea meets the sky never changes. Concentrate on this line and try to feel that underneath the waves of events, you never change. You are always peaceful, always calm, always joyful. Release all attachments, all desires, all regrets. Float now in this vast ocean of contentment and bliss. When you are ready, let your mind come back to a point of concentration at the spiritual eye, between the eyebrows.

From the video, Meditation Therapy for Stress and Change, Crystal Clarity Publishers, and Clarity Magazine articles: 1998, 1992.

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

Other Clarity articles by Nayaswamis Jyotish and Devi are listed under “Jyotish and Devi Novak.”

Growth: “The factor of will is paramount in life. Will is the chief condition of growth.” Yogoda Introduction Booklet: Its Fundamentals, by Paramhansa Yogananda (1923).

Adolescence: wrong choices and wrong company
My own journey to the right understanding about happiness, though in some ways atypical, presented many of the same challenges young people experience today. The main difference was that when I was growing up, my father was in the military and our family moved around – I lived in Europe and Asia as well as in the United States.

When I was very young, my family was my main environment and, even if we moved, I felt safe surrounded by their love and support. Adolescence is rarely easy, and for me it brought the usual confusion, uncertainty and concern about self-image. There were some wrong choices and wrong company, but I had the good karma to avoid the really harmful delusions of looking for answers in drugs, sex, and alcohol. (I remember arguing with friends about drugs – telling them that I didn’t want to be less conscious, I wanted to be more conscious.) Mostly, I remember it as a time of intense discomfort with myself. I couldn’t make the self I felt inwardly match the self that I saw in the mirror.

At some point in my youth I became convinced that moving to a new environment was an opportunity to present a new, improved version of me, and that I could leave behind the things I didn’t like about myself. It was an optimistic attitude, but every time I tried to change I discovered that inwardly I was the same. Wearing different clothes or trying to be something other than what felt natural to me just made me feel silly and self-conscious. It became clear that my inner challenges would always be with me. That was the beginning of understanding that true happiness had to do with consciousness, not outward circumstances.

Anyone can wash dishes or move chairs
Like most adolescents, I looked to the people around me to understand how to be happy. I could feel that there was more to life than the short-lived thrills of outward experiences; I could feel goodness in people and expansiveness in nature. Within myself I experienced a love and awareness that was much bigger than anything I could see in the people and circumstances around me. I didn’t have strong religious or spiritual role models, so it is understandable that I didn’t look for answers in that direction. But I was surrounded by very strong examples of selfless service.

Because I was shy, offering to serve was a way for me to feel secure in new or challenging situations. Anyone can wash dishes or move chairs. Being useful in simple ways doesn’t require great talent, just willingness. Many of my happiest memories involve experiences that put me in a place of self-forgetfulness. Anything that caused me to lapse into self-involvement felt superficial and small compared to the expansiveness I felt in service.

From a young age I planned to be a nurse—it was the only life that made sense to me—and I read all the books at the library about nurses who dedicated their lives to caring for others. There were many experiences of serving in Girl Scouts, as a hospital volunteer, and in YMCA and Muscular Dystrophy Association summer camps.

I was learning that happiness comes in self-forgetfulness and in being true to my inner, expansive self. Finding a true teacher in my guru, Paramhansa Yogananda, brought the pieces together and enabled me to go beyond my budding personal philosophy into a deeper understanding of a universal truth: happiness comes from within.

We choose to be miserable or happy
Today, as a teacher in the Ananda Living Wisdom School in Portland, Oregon it is my joy to be part of a school that offers the understanding and skills young people need to find true fulfillment. The Portland school is part of Ananda’s Education for Life system, which is based on principles taught by Paramhansa Yogananda and set forth in Swami Kriyananda’s book, Education for Life (EFL).

Swami Kriyananda explains that most modern education was developed with material success as the goal. The EFL system, on the other hand, is founded on the principle that what people really want from life is not the mere symbols of happiness, but happiness itself, a state of inner fulfillment not dependent on outward circumstances. According to Yogananda, we all have the power to choose happiness. “Events are neutral,” he tells us. “Whether they appear happy or sad is due entirely to the attitude of the mind.”

In the EFL elementary grades, we try to help children become aware that happiness is a choice, and that they can make choices that move their energy towards expansion and happiness rather than towards pain and suffering.

“You can knock it down, if you want”
A typical example involved a young girl, age 6 or 7, in our Portland school who frequently found life and school challenging, and usually blamed the difficulties on others. Gradually we helped her to understand that no matter what happened, it was her own choice to be miserable or happy.

A revealing moment came when her mother overheard her “instructing” her four-year-old brother that he had the choice to be happy or sad. She used as an example an incident her brother had actually witnessed—the time she had gone to her room in a huff after being disciplined by her father, but then later decided she’d rather choose to be happy.

Another instance involved a child, age 7 or 8, with an overblown sense of drama; he became very loud and expressive when things didn’t go his way. Any little thing could turn into a crisis.

One day, after he had focused a great deal of energy building a tower out of blocks, a younger child came and knocked it down. He was so stunned that he didn’t cry. The teacher immediately came over and helped the younger child express how much fun it is to knock things down, but she also encouraged him to ask permission before he knocked down someone else’s creation. The older boy (to everyone’s amazement) still didn’t yell or cry – he simply started building the tower again.

When he finished, he cheerfully announced to the younger student: “You can knock it down if you want!” This was a real victory for him, and an important step toward learning to choose happiness.

Years of hard financial stress
When my husband and I decided to homeschool our three children, there was no EFL school in Portland. But I was then a Yogananda disciple and a student of his teachings. Intuitively, I used many EFL principles within the home and in teaching our children.

I recently asked my two younger children (ages 13 and 17) whether they ever thought their happiness came from outside themselves. They readily agreed that happiness depends on inner consciousness, not on material possessions or other worldly achievements. Surprisingly, however, my son (age 17) recalled some years of very hard financial stress (which, of course, my husband and I had tried to keep from the children) and remembered thinking, during that time, that everything would be okay if we just had a lot of money.

I also remember feeling the same way. That period of financial stress extended over a long period of time and eventually brought important karmic lessons. But at the time I struggled, not always successfully, to stay calm. I was still fairly new on the path, with young children, and meditation was sporadic. However, by clinging to the Guru, I always knew that the crisis we were facing, though extremely challenging, would eventually pass.

My son’s memory of the financial concerns, and my obvious tension about it, opened the door to a wonderful discussion. I discussed with my two younger children how hard it is to maintain your inner happiness during times of crisis, if you haven’t already made a deep commitment to living that way all the time. The challenges I faced in trying to hang onto inner happiness and peace of mind when conditions were difficult show that mere belief in the principle is not enough. We need to make a serious commitment to living consciously in that reality, day by day, so that it becomes our natural way of being.

The worldly message is flawed
One point my children agree on is that their father and I have given them strong examples of selfless service. Today they all serve happily wherever they can. Just as I did when growing up, they too have experienced the joy of serving others and forgetting the little self. In the EFL curriculum, service is an integral part of the curriculum for all ages, but is particularly emphasized for teens.

By experiencing inner joy in service to others, young people begin to understand that the worldly message of outward fulfillment is flawed. They become aware  that the pursuit of happiness begins and ends in the same place: within their own self. To discover at a young age the infinite source of happiness is a deep blessing that can save them from years of suffering.

Lorna Knox is a founding member of the Ananda Portland colony and serves as a minister there, as well as a teacher at the Portland Living Wisdom School. She is the author of two books published by Crystal Clarity Publishers. Her latest project is writing a curriculum guide for Education For Life teachers. She and her husband have three children, ages 21, 17, and 13.

Growth: “Many times what seems like disaster may be a golden opportunity for your growth as a human being.” Talk by Swami Kriyananda, San Francisco, 1994.

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

The “writing on the wall”
It all began one January day at Ananda Village when the director of The Peace Treaty asked if I would be in the play. My response was brief and to the point: “Umm…No!” Not willing to accept my answer, she replied, “Well, what if I write to Swami Kriyananda to see what he thinks about the idea?” How could I say “no” to that? I agreed to discuss it with her again once she heard from Kriyananda, but already I could see the “writing on the wall.”

We met a few weeks later after Kriyananda had replied to her email. The director told me she had never known him to be so enthusiastic about someone being in the play, adding that it is wise to listen to his advice if we want to grow spiritually. “So,” she concluded, “would you like to be part of the play?”

A tug of war was going on inside of me. I had always seen myself as a “background person,” with no interest in being in the spotlight. One side was saying, “NO! I like the way I am! Think of all the rehearsals, and how hard I’ll have to work to get over self-consciousness.” But the other side, the voice of the soul, was saying, “Yes! I want to grow and change. I want to be free!”

I observed these two warring energies for a moment. Did I want to listen to the voice of the ego or did I want to take a step toward soul-expansion and freedom? At that point there was no longer much of a decision to make. I knew what I had to do.

“Yes,” I said, “I’ll do it.”
I hadn’t won the whole war in that moment, but I had agreed to fight the battle. By saying “yes,” I had affirmed the truth that I was more than the ego, and that I was willing to raise my energy and try to break through  limiting self-definitions.

“What will they think of me?”
The rehearsals involved a fairly constant battle to expand beyond my comfortable little shell. My main challenge was not easy—to open up, get myself “out of the way,” and to project energy. Repeatedly the director encouraged me to try to “flow with it more.” Whenever I thought I achieved what she was asking of me, invariably there was more to learn.

My biggest battle, however, right up to the day of the performance, was nervousness. Unlike most plays, The Peace Treaty is performed only once each year, during the summer. Knowing that everything hangs on that one performance didn’t help my nervousness. I was constantly battling the consciousness of “what will they think of me?” and dealing with that part of myself that was afraid of making embarrassing mistakes.

A great flow of power
The day of the performance, my heart was racing as I stood backstage, waiting for my cue to go onstage in the first scene. I was becoming more and more nervous. In desperation, I gazed out over Lotus Lake, directly behind the outdoor amphitheater, and silently prayed to my Guru, Paramhansa Yogananda: “Master, I can’t do this on my own. I need your help. Please help me!”

Shortly afterwards, I got my cue and stepped out onto the stage and faced the crowd. I was saying my first line when suddenly, I felt a great power flowing through me, and out to the audience. All nervousness was swept away in that current of energy, and I knew that God was right there with me.

In fact, there was a moment in the first scene when I was able to tune into the audience, to feel its joy in the play’s comic moments, and somehow know exactly how to say my lines to increase its enjoyment. The audience was no longer a faceless crowd but a friend with whom I had formed a mutually enjoyable relationship. I realized that this, too, was the Guru’s grace because it took a certain amount of relaxation to be able to relate to the audience this way.

The same tests and lessons repeat
After that first year’s performance, I asked myself, “Do I still need to do this? Haven’t I learned what The Peace Treaty can teach me?” Foolish thought! At least I was aware enough to realize that my very desire to pull away from the play meant I still had more to learn.

When rehearsals began again the spring of the second year, I was more than a little frustrated to discover that I was still dealing with nervousness and resistance to performing. Although I now know that the same spiritual tests often repeat themselves until the deeper lessons are learned, this was my first experience of it. In fact, I seemed to be having more resistance than ever. I prayed to God and Guru for help, but it wasn’t until the director spoke to the cast before the dress rehearsal that an answer came. She told us: “The ego gets nervous, the soul loves to share.”

How helpful that was! Now I had a formula to work with. Any time I felt unwilling and nervous, I could simply say to myself, “Aha, that’s the ego, let it go. The soul loves to share.” I could then focus on that expansive attitude of sharing. I realized that nervousness is simply the ego starting to feel vulnerable. By focusing strongly on the soul’s love of sharing, I found it easier to transcend my counterproductive energies. The only times my formula didn’t work was when I was already too locked into the “what will they think of me?” consciousness. Fortunately, all nervousness vanished during the performance.

A very humbling thought
With my third year of involvement with the play, nervousness became much less of a problem and different lessons came to the fore. The Peace Treaty addresses not only the issue of how to bring about lasting peace after a war, but also many of the spiritual challenges we face as devotees. There is a charming scene in which a soldier named Baltan exclaims loudly that certain other soldiers are “vain braggarts!” His friend Ponder quickly reminds him that we need to, “Be careful. From the things we criticize in others, we reveal what we are, ourselves.”  It is of course Baltan who exemplifies the quality of being a “vain braggart.”

Now, to be sure, I had heard these lines many times and had appreciated the truth they expressed. But on that particular day that truth hit me like a lightening bolt. Suddenly I was able to see very clearly that the things that annoyed me in others—things that weren’t even necessarily bad—were qualities that I rejected in myself. A very humbling thought!

For example, I have a sensitive and soft nature, but because in our culture, masculine strength is often equated with a sort of callous toughness, I had mistaken sensitivity and softness for weakness and was critical of it in others. I had also rejected it in myself and had tried to conceal it by erecting a protective shell of callousness. But I now understand that one can possess great inner strength and still be soft. In fact, it takes great inner strength to be able to stand firmly at your center while keeping an open, loving heart, no matter what life throws at you.

A joyful celebration of devotion
My third year of involvement with the play also brought a new understanding of renunciation. Each year there are scenes that sink in more deeply. In this instance it was a dance by Gazella, a deeply devotional young woman for whom dance is a form of prayer. In the graceful movements of the dance, and the beautiful way Gazella expressed her great devotion for God, I felt and understood renunciation in a deeper way.

I saw that renunciation is not a denial of life and love, but a joyful celebration of the soul’s freedom and devotion in God, and of the determination to seek love in God alone. It is, after all, in God that all love originates. Anandamoyi Ma once said to Swami Kriyananda, “There is no love except God’s love.”

Renunciation means understanding that any love I feel, even for another person, is God’s love, and need not result in attachment. By loving impersonally, my love becomes all the greater because I expect nothing in return.

Rich with wisdom and blessings
As I approach my fourth year of performing in The Peace Treaty, I look forward with almost eager anticipation to the lessons this year will bring. In a sense, the play has become a teacher for me. The experience has given me the self-confidence to embrace a more positive image of myself, and the determination to try to say “yes” to whatever life asks of me. It has also helped me to see the spiritual path as an ongoing process of growth and expansion beyond my limiting self-definitions.

Swami Kriyananda writes that spiritual “evolution never ceases, until at last time itself becomes timelessness, and the ends we seek end in endlessness.” After three years of performing in The Peace Treaty, “endlessness” seems less like a dream and more like something I might actually be able to attain.

Peter Kretzmann lives at Ananda Village and serves with Ananda Sangha’s IT (computer) Department. He also works part-time for his father’s business, MeditationBench.com

For information about the Summer 2010 performance of The Peace Treaty click here

Growth: “We can–we must–rise above the contractive tides and swim energetically with the expansive, for thereon depend our continuing growth.” Expansive Marriage by Swami Kriyananda.

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

Life is a school and we draw to ourselves the events, circumstances, and relationships we need to help us grow. Every problem presents us with two choices—do we expand or contract our consciousness? Do we become defensive, self-protective, and blame others, or do we use obstacles as opportunities to become stronger, to learn, and to expand? If we contract our hearts, we experience pain, not because others have made us unhappy, but because pain is the inevitable result of excessive self-focus. On the other hand, when we expand, we automatically experience happiness and fulfillment.

The promise of deep fulfillment
Meditation is a process of expanding our awareness. Through meditation, we discover deep within ourselves the soul qualities of peace, calmness, and love—and an underlying joy that doesn’t change under any circumstances. In fact, it is really our longing for these expanded states that we hope to fulfill through our relationships.

This expansion of consciousness is the essence of spiritual growth, and our relationships can be an excellent catalyst in that process. When we nurture these expanded states in ourselves and in others, profound changes can happen in our relationships. Instead of demanding, even subconsciously, that others fulfill our “needs,” we can rest in the inner fulfillment and contentment we experience in a meditative state.

Thus cooperation replaces competition, and the joy of mutual giving replaces the tension of reciprocating demands. A great sense of relaxation comes as we realize that relationships are given to us primarily to help us learn and grow, especially in our ability to accept and to love. Relationships lived in this manner hold the promise of deep fulfillment.

Friendship: the purest form of relationship
Friendship is the purest form of relationship. We choose friends for the sheer pleasure of spending time with them. Most other relationships have some sense of compulsion—the sex drive of lovers, or the predetermined roles of a family.

You will strengthen all of your relationships if you make friendship the foundation. We automatically want the best for our friends; we take delight in their strengths, and overlook their weaknesses. We can laugh together with a friend, and, at times, cry together, and we understand that our friendship is more important than getting our own way. In Indian music there is a “king” note to which the musician returns again and again throughout the raga. Make friendship the “king” note for all of your relationships.

Close and enduring relationships like marriage need to be grounded in a strong foundation of friendship. Usually the first sign of the breakdown of a marriage is that the partners are no longer friends. Even with friends, and very important for all long-lasting relationships is an attitude of respect. It doesn’t have to be formal, but there needs to be a sense of honoring the integrity and validity of the other person. Respect and love grow from the same root.

Elements that build strong, healthy relationships:
Communication: Learn to really listen to your partner and friends. The more you listen to the thoughts and feelings behind the words, the more you will begin to commune in your communication. Be attentive not just to the words, but also to the eyes, the expressions, the tone in the voice, and the unspoken thoughts of the other person. For partners, deep communication is strengthened if you can share times of silence together, and even more if you meditate together.

Love and appreciation: It is important to demonstrate your love and affection. Relationships are like plants, which flourish when given enough light and water, and wither when denied these essentials. Love and appreciation are like sunlight and water for a relationship. Men, especially, need to be more aware of verbalizing approval and affection. Connections grow stronger when people feel appreciated.

Try to bring out the best: Unrealistic expectations are poison for relationships. Remember, it is only you, not others, who can make you happy or sad. Problems arise when someone can see no further than their own needs and desires. That’s why meditation, and the expanded understanding it gives us, can be so helpful.

The fewer demands you make, the better. Always respect another person’s right to be himself, and to think and feel a certain way. There is a subtle law of magnetism between people. If you want a person to change, don’t criticize what is wrong. Instead try to create a “magnetic opening” by modeling the right behavior.

In fact, don’t try so much to change another as to bring out the best in him or her. Think first of how you can help strengthen a person and only then, of how you can improve a situation. True intimacy develops only in an atmosphere of trust. It is only when people feel secure that they are able to change.

Share uplifting experiences: Your bonds with others will be greatly strengthened if you share experiences that are uplifting and expansive—things like walking in nature, helping others in need, or attending events where the mind is uplifted. When we are inspired, our auras begin to merge with those of our loved ones.

Overcoming problems:
We shouldn’t avoid dealing with problems in our relationships, but dealing with them only by confrontation will be counterproductive. Here are some important guidelines for approaching issues:

Don’t speak or act from negative emotions: Train yourself to calm down before you discuss a problem. Negative emotions, like some diseases, are contagious and they block communication. If you are emotionally agitated, take a few deep breaths and then consciously relax the area of the heart. This doesn’t mean that you can’t express your feelings, especially where truth is involved. But your communication will be much clearer if you calm yourself first. Clear expression, offered lovingly, can be very healing.

Emphasize points of agreement: Don’t use the words “always” and “never,” as in “You always do that,” or “You never do this.” This is one of the best ways to insure that a person will become defensive. Remember, other people tend to mirror back to you the emotions you project to them. It is best to start off a discussion by emphasizing points of agreement.

Look for true solutions: Don’t try to figure out a solution to a problem on your own and then present it to the other person as a fait accompli. One-sided declarations rarely solve anything. A true solution has to elicit the commitment of everyone. The essence of overcoming problems is very simple: Look for solutions in which each person treats the other as he or she would like to be treated. In the words of Jesus, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

As a first step, always ask yourself, “Why did I draw this problem? What should I learn from it? What do I need to change in myself?” If you’re not clear on these questions, you will keep repeating the same situation until you discover what life is trying to teach you. Once you’re clear about what the real issue is, then resolve to make whatever changes in yourself are needed. When you work on yourself first, you help open the space for others to make their changes.

Karmic patterns: Sometimes we face the same issues over and over again, often with different people. In the language of yoga, these are “karmic patterns.” Be thankful, not resentful, when these recurring patterns surface. Now, at last, you can begin to work on them. Our greatest enemies are those wrong attitudes that stay hidden and unrecognized in the shadows of our mind.

Once you’ve identified what needs changing, don’t dwell on the problem. Put your energy, instead, into working on the solution. Try to find the polar opposite of the problem and work on implementing that. If the problem is laziness, put out constructive energy. If it is selfishness, look for practical ways to give to others. And if it is continual conflict, find ways to create peace and love. Deep-seated karmic patterns are usually slow to change. Be patient with yourself and with others. Prayer is a great aid—ask God to help you.

A bonding practice
Relationships, like life, must have a center to which they return in order to gather strength. One of the most bonding practices for a couple is to meditate together. By returning daily to your own center, you will gather the strength you need to face all of life’s demands.

If you meditate with a partner or loved one, you might try this visualization in order to increase the love and harmony between you. Toward the end of your meditation, visualize a blue light at the point between the eyebrows. When you perceive the light clearly, let it expand, first filling the whole of your brain, and then gradually infusing every cell of your body.

As the light begins to expand beyond your body, see it surrounding and infusing your partner. Hold him or her in this light until it fills every cell, every emotion, and every thought. Let the light join your auras together. If there is any difficulty or tension between you, let the light dissolve it until there are no more shadows. This same technique can be done at a distance connecting you and others with a harmonizing energy.

From the following books and video: How to Meditate, 30-Day Essentials for Marriage, and Meditation Therapy for Relationships, Crystal Clarity Publishers. To order these inspiring products click here

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

Other Clarity articles by Nayaswamis Jyotish and Devi are listed under “Jyotish and Devi Novak.”

My mother died in March 2008 at the age of 95. She had visited Ananda Village three or four times in the decades I’ve lived here. Her first visit was in 1971—the age of tepees, trailers, and outhouses—and she was in shock at the life I’d chosen. She kept asking herself what she’d done wrong that I would end up like this. After a few days, however, she began to experience some of the magical joy and love that is Ananda. On later visits, while she was never enthusiastic with my choice, she came to appreciate the people who lived here and the way of life that has been created.

A need for support
As she grew older and needed some sort of care, I asked if she wanted to come to Ananda Village and received a definite, “No.” She wanted to stay in her own home in St. Louis, despite the fact that none of her children were anywhere close by to help her. Luckily, she had a couple of relatives who could be called on in emergencies.

At the age of 92, she was still living in her four-storey house (and regularly using the attic and basement). I phoned her daily to monitor her situation, and I was becoming concerned. She had a couple of incidents that required trips to the emergency room. My siblings began to tell her that she must move to a place with more support. The more they insisted, the more she refused. Frantically they called me, saying I had to do something.

My brother and sister are both medical professionals. Their insistence on how dire the situation was turned my concern into real anxiety about what to do and how to do it, especially since I live in California.

Calling on Yogananda for help
I went to my meditation room to meditate and ask for help. After laying everything at Yogananda’s feet and calling on his guidance, I felt a great calmness come upon me and the knowledge that everything would work out well.

I then called my mom and said, “I know you don’t want to leave the house, but I’d like to come there for a week. We can research choices that might work for you when you feel ready to move.”  She agreed, and I went to St. Louis for one week.

Throughout that time I held on to the calm assurance I’d been given in meditation. I never urged her to do anything, but always asked what she wanted to do next. By the end of those seven days, we’d found an extraordinary independent living facility and had moved her into it for a one-month trial visit. The tiny apartment available at the time was ideal, overlooking a quiet garden, and close to the abundant facilities for meals, entertainment, exercise, and socializing.

After a month, she decided to sell her house and move her belongings into that apartment. Unbeknownst to me, one of my cousins was in real estate, and sold the house the first day it was on the market. Within a couple of months, my mom began to enjoy her new surroundings and the many fine people there.

Her greatest dread
As early as I can remember, Mom’s greatest dread, and therefore mine, was that she would become incapacitated and have to live for many years in a nursing home. She moved into her apartment in 2006, and near the end of 2007 began to have more problems.

My mom was always a very energetic lady, with lots of will power and interest in life. She could be critical and complaining, but you could never fault her for lack of zip. She now had slow internal bleeding that required her to go to the hospital for transfusions. Despite the transfusions, she began to be more confused and tired. Mom’s condition became so bleak that the Personal Care Director, by now our good friend, suggested Mom might be happier in assisted living. This suggestion came shortly before another trip to the hospital for a transfusion.

I was in California at the time and spoke to Mom on the phone as she lay in the hospital bed waiting for the transfusion. She was very unhappy. I was amazed when she said, “I have plenty of money, and yet I can’t even eat. Maybe I made a mistake. Maybe I should have joined Ananda.” Surprisingly, she seemed on some level to be open to the value of a spiritual life.

Prayers for my mother
I was very concerned about Mom’s unhappiness and felt she needed all the spiritual support she could get. So, I wrote to Swami Kriyananda’s secretary to see if he would ask Kriyananda, my teacher, to pray for my mother. (Swami Kriyananda had actually met my mother on one of her visits to Ananda.) I didn’t know when Kriyananda might get the message.

The next day I called Mom after her transfusion and asked how she was. “I feel great!” she said. Then she told me that she was reading a spiritual book I’d given her a year before. At that time her response to the book was somewhat caustic. Now she was enjoying it. In the middle of our conversation, she quoted one of Yogananda’s well-known sayings, “Circumstances are neutral.”

It was an amazing phone call. Then I opened my emails and discovered that Swami Kriyananda had begun praying for my mother.

Every time I spoke with her after this, she seemed quite gay, bursting with good will and love for all. She simply couldn’t think ill of anyone, even people she’d criticized in the past. The Personal Care Director said, “Your mother is SO much better! I don’t think we should move her!” How grateful I was to feel that my Guru’s blessings had flowed to Mom, thanks to the prayers of Swami Kriyananda.

Bubbling with joy
I visited Mom after that hospitalization. The difference in her was dramatic. She looked years younger, full of life, and she was bubbling with joy. Throughout the visit she almost didn’t know what to do with the joy she felt. She was fun, funny, and expressed the greatest kindness, love, and appreciation for all. The last month of her life was the happiest and most loving that I’d ever known her to be.

After I left, Mom became much weaker physically, and we arranged hospice for her. The hospice caregiver met Mom on a Friday and immediately set up ‘round the clock care for her. On Saturday, Mom took a dramatic downward turn. I was able to get a plane ticket for that Sunday.

As I was ready to leave for the airport, I felt to phone Mom. She answered with great sweetness and joy and said: “Hi honey.” When I told her I was on my way, she said, “Oh, I’ll be so happy to see you.” I gave the phone to my husband, Bharat, and she immediately told him, “I love you very much.” He said the same back to her and handed the phone back to me. By then, Mom was mumbling sleepily and seemed to let go of the phone.

By the time I got to St. Louis at about 10 pm, she was already in a deep, deep sleep. Hospice had her on morphine to control her tendency to hyperventilate. She never woke during the time I was there, but I felt fine about that—she and I had said all that was needed during the past month. Monday morning I got to her room early, meditated with her, and prayed. She left her body that same afternoon, very peacefully.

The guru’s guiding hand
I felt a deep joy at Mom’s passing—that she escaped her body and her great dread of living in a nursing home. After the funeral, beautifully performed by Bharat, her good friends voiced just what I felt—that she left exactly as she wanted to. I shared with everyone that the last month of her life was the happiest and most loving I had ever known her to be.

Paramhansa Yogananda had visited St. Louis on his cross-country lecture tours. My mom’s Uncle Charles had gone to his lectures and had hosted the Master in his home. Near the end of her life, Mom began to say that perhaps she, too, had met Yogananda. I don’t think she had, since I believe such an event would be clear in her memory. But I do feel that his hand guided her departure from the body, and blessed us both in the process.

Nayaswami Anandi is a founding member of Ananda and a Lightbearer, and was initiated into the Nayaswami Order in 2009. She is on the staff at The Expanding Light guest retreat at Ananda Village doing teaching, organizational work, and writing. She also works as an editor for Crystal Clarity, Publishers.

Other Clarity articles by Nayaswami Anandi are listed under “Anandi Cornell.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The dream has now turned dark for many people. Economically, we’re in a very difficult period. Millions have lost jobs. Whether the downturn will become a protracted depression or whether there will be catastrophic events, as some have predicted, we don’t know. But we do know that many people are fearful for the future.

The question for us is: how can we stay open and expansive in this time of uncertainty and turmoil? How do we remember that God is always supporting and guiding us? Three key attitudes will be our allies: Gratitude, Non-attachment, and Generosity.

Gratitude

Several attitudes help generate happiness, but first and foremost is gratitude to God for everything in life. Gratitude invites a flow of grace while grumbling blocks those sustaining rays and leaves us exhausted and bitter.

If we don’t appreciate God’s gifts, how can we hope to feel His presence or keep our hearts open? Without an attitude of gratitude, we reject the lessons He is trying to teach us.

It isn’t enough just to think about gratitude. We must actively feel grateful and express it consciously. When we open our hearts in this way we find that murky feelings of anxiety and isolation fade away. The antidote to negativity is to make it a habit, several times a day, to thank God for whatever you are experiencing at that moment.

Thank God for the hardships
Don’t thank Him only for pleasant things. Thank Him also for difficulties. Life is a mixture of ups and downs—of what we embrace as “positive” and reject as “negative.” But, since we so often misjudge what is good or bad karmically, it is best to thank God for everything: good, bad, and indifferent. Too often we’re like a patient spitting out the very medicine that can make him well.

Paramhansa Yogananda said he would correct only those who gave him permission to do so. How do we give him permission? Not with words but by opening our hearts to him. So, be grateful to God for everything. Sing Him love songs in the silence of your soul. Then see what that does for your heart.

Non-attachment

Second in importance is gratitude’s cousin, non-attachment. Our likes and dislikes splinter the world into little pieces, which is a classical definition of maya or delusion. Attachment is the main obstacle to knowing ourselves as children of Divine Mother.

With an attitude of non-attachment — simply accepting what is happening — we can respond to life according to what is right rather than what pleases us. Non-attachment doesn’t make us into some kind of machine. We still feel and, in fact, can feel more deeply than when we are in a reactive state.

The next time you eat a meal try to deeply experience the various tastes without judging them as either good or bad. You’ll see that non-attachment actually allows you to deepen your experience.

Like gratitude, non-attachment should be practiced on a daily basis. When an experience comes that you don’t like, try to accept it calmly and appreciate its hidden lesson.  Similarly, when something comes that you like, say “Thank you, God. I give any sense of attachment back to You.” By non-attachment we become supremely free inside.

An inner fire ceremony
Swami Kriyananda has suggested a technique to help with non-attachment. Visualize a fire at the point between the eyebrows and offer into the flames everything in your life.  Especially at night, before sleep, it is good to give God all your possessions, your emotions, your likes and dislikes, and, in fact your very life. Offer back everything and then go to sleep in a state of inner freedom.

It is very important to cast into that fire all those things you are reluctant to give up; money, relationships, job, children. These are the attachments that have the biggest grip on you.  When you are experiencing a state of worry or anxiety it is helpful also to practice this visualization as you wake up in the morning. That way you can start the day with a clean slate.

Another helpful technique is to visualize the heart as a golden ball with threads coming out of it. Each thread represents an attachment, some of them tiny and some the size of thick nautical ropes. But, however big, cut them away until that golden ball is completely free. Then polish it until it is bright and shiny. Doing that two or three times a day cleans your aura, develops non-attachment, and allows the heart’s natural love to shine forth.

Gratitude and non-attachment take you a long way toward being even-minded and cheerful at all times, a state of mind that Paramhansa Yogananda suggested we try to hold in all circumstances.

Generosity: Selfless giving to others

Selfless giving to others, even when in difficult circumstances, brings lots of joy. Paramhansa Yogananda and all great masters have chosen, from a life of complete freedom and joy in God, to reincarnate in bodies doomed to suffer hardships and death. Having no karma, they do this solely for our sakes. To be in tune with them, we, too, must learn to give selflessly.

“How can I serve you?”
It is very helpful to keep in mind that we don’t really have anything of our own to give; we are simply channels of Divine Mother. She is the source from which all things flow. To think otherwise is to diminish our potential. If we can but rid the mind of egoic self-definitions, there is absolutely no limit to what She can do through us.

It is very uplifting to pray to Divine Mother every morning, “How can I serve you? How can I see only You in others today?” Every person has something to offer, because God resides equally in everyone. In these difficult times, people desperately need our love and kindness.

A very natural way of giving to others is through simple kindness. When Swami Kriyananda goes into a store, he doesn’t treat the clerk like an automaton; he creates a connection. Often it’s just a little question or comment: “Oh, what a beautiful blue in that broach you’re wearing” —just enough to begin to create a bond that allows the person to open up. It’s habitual with him to shed a little bit of kindness and joy everywhere he goes. We should try, as Paramhansa Yogananda said, to be “smile millionaires.”

Non-attached and inwardly free
When you give to others, it’s important not to carry a merchant consciousness. Don’t think, “If I give them this, what will I get back?” Try to live more in the faith that the law of karma guarantees that you will get exactly what is coming to you. God and Guru will always show you what is for your own highest, spiritual good if you let them.

Your real reward, when you give to others in a selfless spirit, is freedom from want. The more you give away, the more non-attached and inwardly free you become. Then life becomes beautiful.

A poem by Yogananda says it beautifully: “I have nothing to offer Thee, for all things are Thine; I grieve not that I can not give, for nothing is mine, nothing is mine. Here I lay at Thy feet my limbs, my life, my thoughts and my speech, for they are Thine, for they are Thine.”

“Pay it forward”
It is best not to expect rewards for what you give to others. There’s a movie, Pay it Forward, in which a person helps someone who is in trouble. When the recipient says, “I’ll pay you back,” the giver replies, “I don’t want you to pay me back. I want you to pay me forward. Pay off your debt to me by helping three other people.”

And thus, waves of kindness spread in ever widening circles. In this spirit try to help others feel that they too are channels for the light and love, which the world desperately needs in these worrisome times.

These three together—gratitude, non-attachment, and selfless giving — are very powerful ways of attuning to God during times of difficulty. As Paramhansa Yogananda often said, “The channel is blessed by what flows through it.”

When we truly feel that we are acting as a channel for the Infinite, then not only will we be a source of strength to others, but we too will experience great freedom and joy.

Based on talks at Ananda Village, January 31, 2009 and February 11, 2009.

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

Seemingly a daunting task
At the start of my spiritual search, I defined the spiritual path primarily as meditation. I was fortunate to have a very regular daily meditation habit from the beginning. While not always deep, I would tell myself, “At least I’m moving in the right direction, toward the true goal of life.”

It wasn’t until I had been meditating some years, and became involved with Ananda, that it finally dawned on me that success on the spiritual path was not just about meditation. It was a fulltime job that demanded a complete change in thought patterns. I was being asked to look at every moment of every day and to bring God into it, and I was supposed to do this while trying to deal with all the demands of daily life.

This was a daunting task. Even though I grasped it intellectually, my habit of using the rational mind to influence and direct my life was deeply ingrained and much stronger than my attempts to practice God’s presence. Often my daily life went on just as before.

A gradual shift
Once I committed to the spiritual path, God and Guru introduced circumstances into my life that pushed me in the direction I needed to grow.  First marriage and later, a baby, brought new challenges.

More recently I have been asked to serve in positions that require me to work closely with many diverse people, and I get pushed out of my comfort zone more often. As challenges arise, I remember more often to ask Divine Mother in the moment, “What would you do?” and to pray for guidance about specific situations and people.

Nonetheless, I can still get swept away in the busy details of life. I may have a nice morning meditation but then, boom! Here comes daily life.  After a couple of hours of responding to emails, answering the phone, dealing with the crisis of the day, I might remember, “Oh yeah, think about God and Guru.” Then the phone rings again and off I go.

The day will go by, and I will sit to meditate at night and realize that I had not called on God or Guru during the day. I remember more often than I used to, but not as much as I aspire to.

I’ve begun to realize that it’s mainly during moments of adversity that I remember to focus and draw on God’s presence, ask for guidance, or do japa. I’ve come to see how valuable the difficult times are, and how we can embrace adversity as an impetus to remember to practice God’s presence.

So I’d like to share a few things I’ve learned about turning emotional upsets into opportunities to call on God.

A four-step process

Recognize the upset
The first step is to recognize when I am off center. Most of us are really good at recognizing emotional agitation in others but less so in ourselves. In the midst of the upset, we usually see the problem as “out there;” something’s wrong with the world, with another person, not with us. But Yogananda teaches that events are neutral; it’s our reactions that cause us to suffer.

How do we recognize the agitation? It might be an unsettled feeling centered in the heart. It might be thoughts that keep coming when we’re trying to accomplish a task or sit to meditate: “Why did he do that to me?” “Why did they say that to me?” “I don’t want to feel this way.”

Some people live so embroiled in negative emotions—anger, worry, fear, hatred, jealousy, grief, pride, resentment— that an agitated consciousness seems normal. Fortunately, devotees have a meditation practice. The more we meditate, the more we begin to live in that calm inner center. When emotional agitation pulls us out of it, we recognize the need to do something to regain our inner calm.

Step back/disengage
After recognizing the agitation, do whatever you need to do to get out of the emotional whirlpool. Choose a technique: Do deep breathing. Silently chant “Aum Guru” or some other mantra. Focus at the spiritual eye and pray for calmness. Look at a photo of the Guru, especially the Guru’s eyes.

If possible, change your environment so that you’re disengaged from the outer stimulus that pushed you over the edge in the first place.

Separate yourself from the person or persons who upset you. Unplug from the media so you’re not reminded of the economic stresses that worry you, or the undefined fears of disaster that haunt your subconscious. Remove yourself from the surroundings that remind you of the loss of a pet or loved one.

I have found that the calming techniques are usually more effective if I can get a little space from what upset me in the first place.

Redirect the energy
One of the problems I experienced in trying to draw on God’s presence was that my efforts were plagued by low energy. My mind would get distracted, my prayers would be half-hearted, or I would slip into a subconscious state.

However, when feeling negative emotions, I noticed that even though I was in a negative vortex, my prayers and meditation efforts had much more energy and meaning. Suffering can thus lead to positive spiritual changes once we succeed in redirecting our energy and offering it up to God and Guru.

So when you’re alone, redirect that energy by using it to chant, meditate, and call on God and Guru to help you. When we put more energy into calling on God, He is much more likely to respond.

The initial response is usually a reconnection to interior calmness and joy. But, I have found that it can also take the form of alleviating the outward problem that precipitated the upset in the first place.

Gratitude
And then give thanks that someone or something “pushed your buttons,” and for the last several days you remembered to call to God because you were miserable. Thank God for giving you the opportunity to do that. By remembering how much calling on God helped you, you move closer to living always in His presence.

This approach in action
An example of how this approach can solve a problem in a dramatic way involved our son when he was a year and a half old. He became sick and couldn’t keep any food down. It seemed like a normal sickness, but after two days and he was still throwing up and crying, worry began to set in.

This went on for three more days. By day five we had seen a doctor, followed the instructions, but nothing had changed. Our son was still sick, and hadn’t eaten in four days.

More and more my wife and I were becoming caught in a vortex of negative emotions—fear and also anger because we weren’t getting any sleep. All along we’d been reading books trying to find an answer and asking everyone we knew for advice—but we had not called on God.

Finally, on the fifth day, we woke up and said, “Oh, let’s pray.” So we began praying and offering the situation up to God and Guru. We also put our son’s name on the community’s healing prayer list. Within a few hours Divine Mother sent the answer in the form of a community member who approached my wife and asked, “What’s going on?”

My wife filled her in, and the community member (who was Italian) said, “My son had something like that. Doctors in this country don’t usually recognize the symptoms, but it’s called acetona, and it’s a ketone imbalance. Here’s a homeopathic remedy, which I happen to have, that will take care of it.” My wife gave our son the remedy and within three hours, he was completely back to normal and eating.

But, we had been caught in such a powerful vortex that it had taken us five days to step back and remember to bring God and Guru into our search for a solution. Once we had disengaged enough to call on God, our fervent prayers were quickly answered. We still remember this incident, and are grateful for the lessons it taught us about the power of bringing God into our lives.

Transcending the greatest adversities
My son’s illness was a dramatic example of how adversity can remind us to call on God. Many people have transcended the greatest of adversities by clinging to God.

One instance that I read about recently is Corrie Ten Boom’s story. (The Hiding Place and Tramp for the Lord.) Corrie was a middle-aged woman living in the Netherlands with her older sister and father when the Nazis occupied her country. Hers was a very devout Christian family with a deep inner relationship with Jesus.

For hiding Jews in their house, Corrie and her sister were arrested and sent to a Dutch prison. Later, they were moved to Ravensbrook, a concentration camp deep in Germany, with unbelievably horrendous conditions. In both places Corrie and her sister led secret Bible sessions with other prisoners, prayed for people, and constantly drew on Jesus’ inner presence.

Corrie’s sister died in the concentration camp, but Corrie’s deep connection to God and Jesus gave her the strength to overcome her grief, hatred, and despair. She survived, was released, and later traveled around the world telling people that it was possible to transcend the worst adversities if you pray and call on God and Jesus.

She even went to Germany. Once, after giving a talk on forgiveness, a guard who had been at Ravensbrook walked up to her and extended his hand. He didn’t remember her, but she recognized him: he had been one of the cruelest guards.

She wrote that during those seconds, she wrestled with the most difficult thing she had ever done. She silently prayed, “Jesus help me! I can lift my hand. I can do that much, but you supply the feeling.”

Slowly she raised her hand and gave it to this man. At that moment, she was flooded with the most incredible love and joy. She wrote, “I had never known God’s love so intensely as I did in that moment.”

We have to learn our lessons
Life is a school and we can’t really drop out—we have to learn our lessons. The good news is that the masters promise that God will never give us a test we’re not capable of passing.

So remember to embrace the adversities that come. When we’ve made practicing the presence of God a more dynamic part of our spiritual life, we find that we don’t wait five days after adversity strikes to call on Him. It becomes second nature because we’re always involving Him in our lives.

Peter and his wife Marga are Lightbearers who have lived at Ananda Village since 1992. He has served as manager of the Meditation Retreat and the Expanding Light guest retreat, and currently is village manager in charge of planning and day-to-day operations of the community.

Resources:
To read, “Our Greatest Work in Life” by Swami Kriyananda, click here

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

Our fathers were U.S. Army officers stationed in Germany, and we were on a day outing with a babysitter and our little sisters. When it was time to go home, we thought it was quite cute and funny to hide, and we hid so well they couldn’t find us.

By the time we realized that the babysitter had left, believing we were ahead of her on the path, the tourists were gone, it was dark, and we were lost. I knew we would be in trouble at home, but wandering alone in a gloomy, empty graveyard was more frightening than any punishment I could imagine.

Fear-consciousness: a common habit
I got out of that mess through the kindness of strangers, and as I grew up my fears grew too. I had a pretty normal, middle-class American life and rarely did any of my fears actually materialize. But fear consciousness is a common human habit, so I kept my fears close to my heart and carried them with me.

The Bhagavad Gita promises that even a little practice of meditation frees one from dire fears and colossal sufferings. When I came onto the spiritual path and my life became consciously God-centered, much of my fear consciousness left. There was a feeling of restfulness and calm as I let go of anxiety about myself. But some habits take a lot of energy to shake loose.

The second big fear challenge occurred after I became a wife and mother. Our neighbor’s beautiful 16-year-old daughter died suddenly. It was a shock to everyone who knew her, of course, but particularly difficult for parents. This is the nightmare all parents share. I watched my own children with gratitude mixed with terrible fear. My husband and I also had to deal with their fear – as they faced death for the first time in their young lives.

My sensitivity to the emotions of the neighborhood was acute during this period. It was not long after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. There was another young neighbor girl fighting cancer and an adult neighbor who had died recently. I could sense the entire block vibrating with confusion, fear and doubt.

Acting with love
The downward pull of the emotions around me needed to be reversed, but I wasn’t sure how to do it. I knew, however, how Swami Kriyananda responded to challenges: with great energy and will power. So I walked around the block at night and prayed for every household with deep concentration. I visualized every home bathed in light. And I prayed for a way to act.

It came to me that our grieving neighbor loved roses and a few hours of research revealed that there was a species of rose that shared her daughter’s name. My husband and I thought it would be a small, but meaningful gesture to buy the roses for the family. After more research I found that the roses were only available in Canada and could not be shipped across the border.

I was crushed to have the momentum for the lovely idea stopped so soon. But my husband was more solution conscious – he thought we should go to Canada.

As this idea took hold, I could feel my consciousness shifting into a lighter, more positive direction. It was not a small undertaking, packing up three young children and making the arrangements. We contacted friends and neighbors and received enthusiastic support as well as financial donations for the roses. The trip was fun and successful.

We returned with two rose bushes in the car and lighter hearts. The gathering at which we presented the roses was emotional, but full of love. I tried to put our sympathy into words and invited everyone to add their energy by signing the accompanying letter.

Fear loses its grip
The willpower and energy we poured into acting with love helped to shift the consciousness of an entire community. Others responded with gratitude and relief, as they saw a way to express their sympathy in an expansive way. We were not able to lessen the grief suffered by that family, but we were able to show them that love and friendship were still a part of their lives. And fear lost its grip on our hearts.

Now I act quickly in response to fear. As soon as those thoughts creep in, I move the energy upward and out, away from my little self and into loving concern for others. I’ll write a sincere note of gratitude to a friend, or pour energy into a task that is helpful. I don’t want fear thoughts to settle in and get comfortable.

Keeping company with high-minded souls also helps to change fearful thinking. A friend, the director of a charter school in California, told me of meeting with community leaders and educators to discuss the drastically reduced availability of funding.

Fear and pessimism were strong, but she explained how exciting it was to feel the shift in consciousness as they all began to add up the “intellectual capital” they had access to, and the “creative capital” they shared. The atmosphere of fear and loss changed to one of abundance and infinite possibilities.

New hidden layers of fear
I haven’t totally shaken the fear habit, but now I recognize it and act to change it. Recently, I found new hidden layers to my fears when my husband was facing serious health issues. For weeks we had appointments and tests with four different specialists. Every doctor thought the likelihood of cancer was high, and it took awhile to work through the lists of possibilities and find the answer that ruled out cancer.

One day, during all the doctor visits and tests, I realized my breathing had become shallow, my posture was rounded and my arms were frequently folded across my chest. I was trying to protect myself from outcomes I didn’t want.

“It’s not myself I’m fearful for,” my little inner voice said, “it’s just that I’m afraid for him.” But it’s a trick – all of our fears are rooted in fear for ourselves.

I certainly didn’t want to see my husband suffer, but my thoughts were also crowded with concern for myself: “How could I support the family, care for a sick spouse and see to the needs of three children? What if I couldn’t do what was needed? What if I wasn’t strong enough? What if I failed – as a wife, as a mother, as a disciple? If he dies, how will I face life alone? “

So I began to check myself. I would roll my shoulders back, breathe deeply and affirm, “I welcome everything that comes to me as an opportunity for further growth.” * This simple change in posture was enough to open the energy flow and allow more expansive thinking. I focused on my heart and upper body, because that was where I felt the impulse to cave in. I visualized my heart open and strong and felt calmness replacing fear.

The power of prayer and surrender
As I felt calmness return, I was also able to see God’s hand in every place I had previously felt fearful. Solutions and reassurance seemed to flow through every situation.

The teachers I work with stepped in without hesitation whenever I had to be gone. I unexpectedly had the use of my mother’s car to get to appointments. Anonymous gifts appeared that helped make Christmas possible for my family. The doctors were kind and generous about discounting our bills when they found out we were self-employed.

I could feel the prayers of friends and family all around us. Even the weather seemed to be a blessing as winter storms closed down the city and offered my stressed and worried family the opportunity to be home together and feel comforted, just when we needed it the most.

We now know that my husband does not have a life-threatening cancer, but a chronic arthritic condition that is serious, but manageable. We also know the power of prayer and surrender to God’s grace in all things. I was ready to accept whatever the diagnosis brought because it was so clear I wasn’t alone, and I learned that everything we need comes to us when we can welcome whatever God is giving.

Speculation about the future is natural at the turn of a new year, and as world events unfold, the future, ever uncertain, holds frightening possibilities. Above all, I try to offer my life into God’s hands and to live in the realization that there is no place or circumstance outside of God’s love. Every effort I make to know God more completely brings greater joy and freedom from all fear.

*Affirmations for Self-Healing by Swami Kriyananda

Lorna Knox is a founding member of Ananda Portland and teaches at the Ananda Living Wisdom School in Beaverton, OR. She is the author of Scary News and I Came From Joy!, Crystal Clarity Publishers.

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

In each instance, the people were quite ill and could have died if we made the wrong decision. Their situations were critical, very complicated, and the right type of treatment wasn’t immediately obvious. To top it off, the staff needed my advice on many other things. Whenever I emerged from a treatment room, I was immediately met with a barrage of questions.

“Well, die then!”
I was reflecting on how it had been such an unusually stressful afternoon that I could have easily keeled over with a heart attack. In that instant the thought came to me, “Well, die then!” That was a “wake-up call.” Suddenly I realized I had been feeling sorry for myself, and thinking that my life would be much easier if I practiced medicine in a less demanding setting.

Yet I knew my current job was exactly what God wanted of me, and that it didn’t matter if that day had been especially stressful. I had hung in there and seen to it that each patient received the proper treatment. As much as possible, I had acted with the sense that God was the Doer. That was a victory.

What is “right action?”
So often in our culture we are told that whatever we do, and especially our work, should be something we want to do, something that makes us happy. For devotees, this is a false premise.

The guideline of right action for devotees is not loving what you are doing, but doing it out of love for God. We should perform whatever work we are given as a loving self-offering to God, and with the attitude that He is the Doer, and we are simply His instruments. Then it doesn’t really matter what we do because when we act in that way, we are inwardly fulfilled and very happy.

“Okay Peter, it’s time to go back”
All the challenges we experience in life, even the most horrendous trials, come from God. Before we incarnate, we basically know what our life is going to look like and the difficult times we’re going to have.

I sometimes imagine myself sitting with my Guru, Paramhansa Yogananda, before incarnating. He is saying, “Okay Peter, it’s time to go back. “You will have a certain number of years and here are the experiences you’ll have to go through. There’s one particular situation that is going to be especially challenging, and here’s another one that will be even worse!”

Would I say, “Please give me something easier?” No! I imagine myself saying, “OK, perfect. These experiences are for my spiritual growth. Just keep supporting me so that I can get through them with the right attitude, and without being crushed.”

Whenever I have that thought, in my heart I always feel Yogananda saying, “Don’t worry, I will be with you the entire time. Your job is to remember that I am always with you, helping you, and that God is on your side.”

Expanding beyond likes and dislikes
Knowing what God wants of us in a given situation is usually simpler than we think. Often we’ll be given a choice between a quick and easy approach and something much more difficult.

It’s very tempting to choose the easy approach because we know we can do it and, on the surface at least, it seems to solve the problem. The alternative is to put up with challenging situations that don’t resolve quickly and perhaps may never resolve in this lifetime. Our spiritual growth, however, often lies in choosing the more difficult route, and the need to make that choice is often a test given to us by God.

A friend of mine once had to make a very hard decision about a relationship and was unable to decide what to do. She finally spoke to Swami Kriyananda about it and, in tears, said, “It is so hard to know what to do.” His answer was, “No it’s not.”

In relating this story she said, “At first that sounded kind of harsh to me, but when I thought about it, I realized it wasn’t. The only reason I found it hard to decide was because I was attached to one of the outcomes.”

When faced with conflicting options, I’ve found it very helpful to ask myself, “What would I decide if I didn’t have any likes or dislikes, if I didn’t have an ego? What would my answer be?” This process is very helpful in stripping away the feeling that favors one outcome over another. Once you strip that away, suddenly you’re left with a much more straight-forward problem. The question then becomes, “Can I live with this answer? Can I expand enough spiritually to overcome my ego attachments and do the right thing?”

This doesn’t mean that we bludgeon ourselves into submission when faced with strong inner resistance. Swami Kriyananda suggests that we think of the ego as a donkey—sometimes you just need to pull it along. But if it’s really digging in its heels, you may need to wait before you start pulling it again.

I’ve found this advice very helpful for working with myself compassionately as I try to overcome my ego attachments—while never losing sight of the necessity to overcome them.

God’s transforming power
Many people in our culture worry about losing their jobs or their incomes going down. They say, “I don’t want my life to change; I want things to stay just as they are.”

But as devotees focused on spiritual growth, we understand that it’s mainly by going through challenging experiences that we grow spiritually. I guarantee that if you are a serious devotee of any path, you will go through challenging experiences because that’s how we get rid of the encrustations of ego: our likes and dislikes, our hurts, and all the things that upset us and make us feel bad about ourselves.

Fortunately, God lets us do it in small increments. It’s a bit like getting into very cold water. It’s easier to do it slowly than jumping in all at once. In the end, however, we will be in up to our necks if we want to grow spiritually.

The good news is that if we keep moving forward, calling on God and Guru, and relying on their power to transform us, at the end of our life we will be grateful for everything. We will have grown spiritually and become a very different person. We will have become more Christ-like, more like Yogananda, which is the divine destiny of each and every one of us.

Excerpted from a May 11, 2008 Sunday Service at Ananda Village.

Peter Van Houten, a Lightbearer, lives at Ananda Village and is the founder and Medical Director of Sierra Family Medical Clinic.

My practice when I first step on an airplane is to pray deeply to our line of masters and to visualize angels protecting the airplane and carrying it safely to its destination. I also meditate and do japa for most of the flight.

Mainly because of the intensity of my spiritual practices during flights, my fear of flying has gradually lessened. Sometimes I even enjoy it.

A chance to do hang gliding
In the fall of 2006, my husband, Gyandev, and I led an Ananda Yoga weekend retreat in Chattanooga, Tennessee. After the retreat ended, the friend who organized it took us to watch people hang gliding near Chattanooga.

We sat at the edge of a large rock on the top of Lookout Mountain, overlooking a strikingly beautiful area. The weather was warm and the trees were turning beautiful fall colors. Despite the beautiful scenery, seeing people hang gliding caused my heart to beat faster.

As we watched, our friend asked, “Would you like to try it?” She had done hang gliding, and with great enthusiasm told us how much she’d enjoyed soaring like a bird in the air. “It’s a once in a life time experience!” she said.

My husband’s response was a big: “Yes.” Mine was an immediate: “No Way!”

Compared to hang gliding, flying in an airplane seemed easy: in a plane you are encased in a large metal structure. With hang gliding you are tied to a small aluminum structure, fully exposed to the elements.

After inquiring at the office, Gyandev and I arranged to come back the next day. He would do hang gliding and I would watch.

The Guru’s stamp of approval
That night, as I reflected on the courage of those who do hang gliding, I recalled Paramhansa Yogananda’s teachings on not letting fears paralyze you. I asked myself: “Is it important that I overcome this fear?” I left the question open.

The following morning during my meditation, I inwardly asked Yogananda whether I should try hang gliding and was surprised to feel his stamp of approval in my heart. I tried to visualize myself hang gliding high above the ground—and the fear returned. Nevertheless, I decided to try it.

The flip of the coin
The weather at Lookout Mountain was very good for hang gliding—clear skies with little wind. We watched a video that explained the process and gave many safety guidelines.

Though nervous, I tried to stay calm. By the flip of the coin, it was decided that I would go first.

The hang glider pilot arrived, a young man in his thirties who seemed knowledgeable and trustworthy. For inexperienced people, hang gliding is done in tandem with an expert pilot.

Instead of taking off from the top of a mountain, the hang glider is attached by a long rope to a small airplane that ascends to between 2000 and 4000 feet. The airplane pilot then disconnects the hang glider.

Before we started, I said my good byes. Since I wasn’t sure if I would make it back, I told Gyandev how much I loved him. I also prayed inwardly to all the masters to protect me.

An exhilarating take-off
The pilot and I put on padded suits. Next, he tied me, then himself, to the pole in the middle of the glider, and I lay on his back. As we took off from a grassy field, I held on tightly to handles sewn onto the pilot’s suit.

Taking off was exhilarating. As we soared upward, Swami Kriyananda’s yoga postures affirmation came to mind: “I soar upward on wings of joy!”  I thanked Yogananda for this wonderful experience.

Dipping and rising
When we reached 2000 feet, the pilot told me we would be disconnecting from the plane and flying on our own. The snap came a few seconds later: we were disconnected!

The hang glider took a deep dip and my heart sank. As we took another dip, my heart sank even more. I had expected the gliding to be smooth since the air looked so peaceful, but we kept dipping and rising, going in and out of what are called “thermals.”

“Thermals” are columns of rising hot air caused by the sun heating the ground. A hang gliding pilot, much like a hawks or eagle, relies on “thermals” to gain altitude and maneuver in the air.

The fear kicks in
While the pilot was adjusting the glider, I looked down and, for the first time, realized how high up we were. At first, my mind couldn’t quite grasp the situation. I thought, “I am up in the air, tied with a few ropes to a flimsy little structure—and flying.  Impossible!”

That’s when the fear kicked in and my body went into a state of total shock.
All the muscles in my body started to tighten; even my facial muscles were clenching. Never before had I experienced my entire body becoming so stiff—nearly frozen.

Instinctively, I knew I had to detach myself from the experience in order to survive. I was afraid that as my body became more and more frozen, the fear would reach my lungs and I wouldn’t be able to breathe.

The way to stay alive
The pilot, unaware of my fear, began pointing to the beautiful scenery. We could see open fields, the tops of trees, the outline of hills, and small houses in the distance.

He asked me to smile so he could take a photo with a camera attached to the glider, but I could barely move the muscles of my face. Then he asked if I wanted a photo of myself with my arms out-stretched, which meant releasing my octopus grip on the handles attached to his suit. With my head, I signaled “NO!”

The pilot tried to cheer me up by talking but I told him I wanted to be in silence. Intuitively I knew it would take all of my energy to stay alive.

The grace of God and Guru
With my eyes open, I focused my full attention at the point between the eyebrows. Over and over I chanted “AUM Guru,” “God, Christ Guru,” and “Lord I Am Thine.”

The glider kept dipping and rising and it took every ounce of my energy to remain focused. Yet, surprisingly, as soon as I tried to withdraw mentally, I became aware of God’s presence within. I felt my mind detaching from the fear and becoming still.

I had experienced mental stillness and detachment in meditation, but now in the air, I was able to achieve it much more quickly. It seemed as if God and Guru were pulling me inward and connecting me to a higher power.

The body remains “frozen”
Though staying focused took all of my mental powers, my mind remained detached, completely still, and free of fear. I felt enveloped in God’s presence and was able to endure (though not enjoy) the experience.

Whenever my mind becomes detached and still in meditation, my body also becomes very relaxed. During the hang gliding, however, my body remained tense and tight the entire time. It was as though mind and body were separate entities—I was aware of the body, but withdrawn into the inner Self.

After fifteen minutes, we finally started to descend. As soon as we landed, my body relaxed. I was relieved and happy to be on the ground—and alive!

Gyandev thoroughly enjoyed the hang gliding and felt it ended too soon. Sensing his spirit of adventure, the pilot added a few challenging dips and turns, and an unusually steep descent.

The practice of titiksha
During my hang gliding experience I consciously practiced titiksha, which Swami Kriyananda translates as endurance, even-mindedness, and inward non-involvement.

The goal of titiksha is to withdraw from the body’s reactive process, and to go within and experience joy. The underlying attitude is: “I am even-minded and cheerful under all circumstances.”

Kriyananda says that titiksha should become a basic life-attitude. We should do what we can to relieve pain or other physical distress, but we should, at the same time, resist it mentally and affirm: “I am Spirit! I am not this body.”

The hang–gliding experience has made me much more aware of the power of the mind, acquired through meditation, to detach from the body and to focus on a greater reality. As yogis, we can always do something, even if the body does not cooperate.

Why didn’t my body respond?
Why didn’t my practice of titiksha remove the fear concentrated in my body?  My fear of flying is obviously very deep seated, with many layers.

However, by continuing to work with this fear, it is gradually dissolving. In a recent airplane flight to Wisconsin, which was bumpy all the way, I was able to stay relaxed both mentally and physically.

If the opportunity ever presents itself, and if I inwardly feel the Guru’s approval, I might try hang gliding again, just to see whether my body keeps pace with my mind.

Diksha McCord, a Lightbearer, lives at Ananda Village and teaches at the Expanding Light Guest Retreat.

Widely regarded as a saint in his own lifetime, John’s diminutive physical size contrasted greatly with his spiritual stature. Teresa would later describe him as having reached “the greatest height of sanctity human creature can attain to in this life.”

His was an unusual combination of qualities: asceticism, courage, wisdom, intellectual brilliance, discernment, sweetness, compassion, humility—together withal talent for administration and poetry. John is especially noted for his mystical poetry and spiritual commentary. Often regarded as Spain’s finest lyric poet, his soaring lines were born of his own “dark night of the soul.”

An outstanding student and scholar
Exposure to adversity began in John’s childhood.  His father’s untimely death left his mother with three sons to support by weaving. (John was the youngest.) Destitute, the family barely scraped out a living.

John’s fortunes began to change at age fourteen. The administrator at the hospital where he worked as an orderly arranged for him to continue his studies, and John’s great gifts of mind and spirit quickly gained recognition.

After joining the Carmelite Order in1563, he was steered away from the humble friar’s life he desired and sent to the University of Salamanca to study for the priesthood. An outstanding scholar, John taught classes while still a student.

Yearning for a life of solitude
By 1567, however, the year of his ordination as a priest, John was in crisis. Longing to devote himself to a life of prayer and meditation, he was on the verge of leaving the Carmelite Order when he met Teresa of Avila.

Teresa had launched the Carmelite reform movement five years earlier, in 1562. Having founded several Reform convents for Carmelite nuns, she convinced John that he could assuage his thirst for a deeper spiritual life by becoming one of the first monks of the Reform.

Shortly afterwards, in a tumbledown shack in the remote hamlet of Duruelo, John established the first house of the Reformed Fathers. There he and his companions spent long hours in prayer and meditation, and also visited the nearby villages to minister to the people.

It was the life John had yearned for, but it was not to last. He was destined for a leadership role in the reform of the Carmelite Order, and a life of intense activity.

“Saints are too human to be scandalized!”
In 1572, Teresa was asked to bring the Reform to her old Convent of the Incarnation in Avila. She summoned John to help her by becoming the convent’s spiritual director and father confessor.

John had a gift for guiding others. Gently, yet without compromise, he was able to show people their own unique way to go forward in their interior journeys. Among the one hundred and thirty nuns of the Incarnation, he had ample opportunity to exercise that gift.

Some of the nuns were either awed or intimidated by John’s asceticism and detachment, but as they came to know him, they often loved him for his warmth, humility, and understanding of human nature. One young nun, fearing to come to him for confession because of his saintly reputation, received John’s assurance that not only wasn’t he a saint but had he been, there’d be still less reason to fear because “saints are too human to be scandalized!”

John was most compassionate toward those suffering spiritual dryness or depression in what he later called the “dark night of the soul.” He gave them the encouragement that God loved them and was simply drawing them deeper in faith through their trials. Often he would write on a slip of paper a few words, chosen especially for them, to reflect on.

Kidnapped and imprisoned
While living in Avila, John received his greatest test of endurance. As the Reform effort gained momentum, Carmelites opposed to the Reform intensified their efforts to undermine it.

In December of 1577, John was kidnapped by opponents of the Reform, taken to Toledo, and imprisoned in a tiny cell with no furnishings, little light, extreme temperatures, and bread and water his only nourishment.

There he languished for nine months. Three times a week the monks scourged his bare shoulders in their attempts to turn him away from the Reform. All this the emaciated prisoner bore without a word, exasperating his captors by his refusal to break his silence.

He spoke only to God, and out of the depths of his isolation, deprivation, and physical suffering he began to experience wonderful closeness tithe Divine. Flooded with divine love, he composed and committed to memory the soaring lines oaf poem about the soul’s union with God that would later become The Spiritual Canticle.

Though close to death, he had no thought of escape until the Virgin Mary ordered him to flee and led him through a labyrinth of hazards. In the dead of night, John unscrewed his door lock, stole past the guard, slid down from a window on braided blanket strips, climbed another wall, and leapt to freedom.

At the break of dawn, he finally reached a Carmelite convent where the nuns gave him refuge and arranged for his treatment (in secrecy) at a nearby hospital. Before departing, John told the nuns of the divine love that had flooded his soul during his ordeal and of his deep gratitude toward his tormentors.

A whirlwind of activities
When the conflict with the Reform’s opponents was temporarily resolved, John set out to spread the Reform across Spain and was plunged into a whirlwind of activities.

Sometimes traveling with Teresa, he founded new monasteries and convents; gave support to those already established; dealt constantly with administrative matters; directed the studies for Carmelite students in the university town of Baeza; and had a growing ministry that embraced not only monks and nuns but also lay people. He also completed his four major prose works.

After Teresa’s death in 1582, John shouldered the full responsibility of continuing the Reform. One day, realizing that there was one thing to which he was still attached, he took out his bag of letters from Teresa and burned them all.

In 1588, John had a vision of Christ in which Jesus asked him what he desired. John replied, “Lord, give me trials to suffer for You that I may be despised and held in no account.” Though John had already suffered trials aplenty, his wish would soon be fulfilled.

Dissension within the Reform
With Teresa gone, dissension arose within the Reform itself. John’s courage and forthrightness in upholding Teresa’s vision led to his removal from his various offices and his assignment to one of the poorest monasteries. There John lived as a simple monk gathering chickpeas in the garden, and found more time for prayer and meditation.

Meanwhile, John’s self-styled enemies within the Reform mounted a smear campaign to disgrace him. One of his brother monks, hoping to get him expelled from the Order, went around the monasteries seeking defamatory information. The campaign proved unsuccessful, but some of John’s spiritual brothers, concerned frothier own reputations, began to pull away.

When John fell sick and needed to be moved closer to medical treatment, he was given a choice of going to Baeza, where head many friends or to Ubeda.  He said: “Take me to Ubeda rather than Baeza.” Sensing that death was near, John wanted to end his life in obscurity.

“This is all God’s doing”
The superior of the monastery at Ubeda received John coldly, assigned him one of the poorest rooms, and denied him visitors and adequate medical care. “This is all God’s doing,” John said calmly amidst great physical suffering. A few months before his death he wrote a brother monk: “Where you don’t find love, put love and you will find love.”

Eventually, John’s calm acceptance of his circumstances won over the superior. John died December 14, 1591 at age forty nine. On news of his death, crowds of the poor flocked to view his body and kiss his hands and feet.

One of John’s best-known poems beautifully describes those qualities of humility and selflessness that were the hallmark of his life and the source of his ever-deepening joy:

In order to arrive at having pleasure
in everything,
Desire pleasure in nothing.
In order to arrive at possessing
everything,
Desire to possess nothing.
In order to arrive at being everything,
Desire to be nothing.
In order to arrive at the knowledge
of everything,
Desire to know nothing.

John’s body remained incorrupt for many years and he was canonized a saint in 1726.

Patricia Kirby, a writer and educator, joined Ananda in 2002, residing first at Ananda Village and now at Ananda India.

As devotees, our tendency is to compartmentalize our lives by seeing our meditation times as our “real life,” and the family, work, or health challenges as intrusions. But our goal as devotees is to feel exactly the same when dealing with difficult co-workers, or talking to an angry taxicab driver, as during our deepest moments in meditation.

I recall a time when it felt like I was being crushed by a certain experience, and it suddenly occurred to me, “Well, what did you expect? As a devotee, you’ve ‘signed on’ to go through this process, and others like it, to become more spiritual and of course it’s going to be challenging.”

God takes us very seriously when we come onto the spiritual path; He makes sure that our karma comes to us in ways that will help us to develop spiritually. Our challenging times help us to transcend our likes and dislikes and to realize that behind all the challenges, there’s only one reality: God.

“I am determined to be saintly”
Some years ago, I had an experience that really highlighted how different life is if we approach it with the thought that “I am determined to be saintly.”

When I was an intern in 1980, I had been a devotee for several years. I was working on a ward in a creaky old county hospital taking care of 25 or so highly addicted drug addicts with a wide variety of health problems.

We were stabilizing their health enough for them to be able to stagger out of the front door of the hospital, where the drug dealers would be waiting for them in the parking lot to try to get them re-addicted. It was a revolving door, but they all had health issues that needed attention, and working with them was never easy.

“Don’t go in there!”
I remember the day when I was walking down the hallway to admit a certain woman. This woman had spent most of her life either in jail or in the hospital, and she had been in the hospital as much as she had been in jail. As I reached the door of her room, one of the nurses rushed out just in time to miss being hit by an (empty) bedpan this woman had thrown at her. The nurse grabbed me by the arm and said, “Don’t go in there!”

In that moment, the thought came to me to approach this situation very differently from how I normally functioned as a doctor. I thought, “I know this patient is very difficult, very demanding, and tends to terrorize the staff. Nobody likes her. But I’m going to go in there and pretend I’m Saint Francis. I’m going to go in there and see God in her and try to channel God to her.”

A balm for her pain
I went in and the woman was mean and nasty and swore at me the whole time. She even tried to bite my arm as I conducted the initial exam. But I decided I wouldn’t react to anything. I would just see God in her and keep treating her as my friend, and as a person in a great deal of psychic pain.

I had no medication that would make her psychic pain go away, and there wasn’t much I could do for her physically except give her antibiotics for her infection, which was chronic. But if I loved her, that would at least be a balm for her psychic pain, and a balm for her soul.

This woman was in the hospital for about ten days. Each day I saw her, I would treat her like she had always been my best friend. I would greet her cheerfully and ask her how she was feeling, and tried to make sure that she had everything we could possibly offer as a hospital staff to make her more comfortable.

Her demeanor changed
It was very interesting to see how her demeanor changed. After four days of this, she would know what time I would make my rounds, which was usually around 5:30 in the morning, and she would be expecting me.

She was always awake. Her makeup was on, her pillows were plumped up, and she wore a little housecoat. She had been very disheveled when she arrived at the hospital, but she now looked like someone at home waiting to receive friends. As I entered the room, she would pat the bed where I could come and sit down and talk to her.

By the end of her stay the nurses began asking me, “What did you do?” “Did you give her a tranquilizer?” “Did you put her on an antidepressant?” “She’s actually being nice to everybody.” “She actually said ‘please’ to me the other day when she asked for something.” “What is going on?”

I didn’t say very much, only, “Well, she’s finally feeling better and let’s take advantage that. I think that if we don’t expect her to be bad, we’ll find that she’ll do a lot better.”

“What’s the catch?”
The very last day, when she was in the discharge room and I was preparing to leave, she said, “I want to ask you something and I wonder if you will answer truthfully?” I said, “Sure; fire away!”

She said: “I’m a terrible person and no one likes me. My family hates me; all my ex-husbands hate me; my boyfriend hates me; my drug dealer hates me; everyone hates me. I am awful to people. I am always angry; I am always mean; I am selfish; I steal. Why are you so nice to me?” She was asking: “What’s the catch?”

In that moment, I could feel God in my mind saying, “Well, I couldn’t be any other way.” For a moment she looked perplexed. Then she shrugged and said, “Okay.”

A glimpse of the saintly life
As I walked out of the room, I thought, “Well, of course, I could be another way!” I had quite a temper and could be very unkind to people when I didn’t feel like being nice.

But I realized in that instant how transforming it was, not only for that woman but also for me, to hold the thought that it was God serving God. It gave me a glimpse of what it was like to be saintly, and to always serve others as though you were serving God as your own beloved.

In fact, for all of us, the idea that our lives can be compartmentalized, or that they are separated in any way, is unreal. Whether we are meditating, feeling stressed at work, or having trouble with our finances—every one of these is an opportunity to deepen our relationship with God.

Remember: each one of us has the destiny is to become as great a saint as Yogananda, the Buddha, or Saint Francis, with all the incredible love and interior spiritual power that is our birthright.

Excerpted from a November 11, 2007 Sunday Service at Ananda Village.

Peter Van Houten, a Lightbearer, lives at Ananda Village and is the founder and Medical Director of Sierra Family Medical Clinic.

Once settled in the community, Bill participated in community events, enjoyed coming to meals, and taught a yoga class at the local senior center. Slim and athletic in his sixties, he loved to hike and was once an avid skier. Then, three years ago, he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.

A deeply rewarding friendship
Today Bill and I are going on our weekly walk. It takes us about an hour and we enjoy sharing what’s going on in our lives. But mostly we talk about God, the spiritual path, and the challenges we face as devotees.

Before his illness, Bill and I had occasionally taken walks, but we started going for regular walks when he agreed to help me with a project. I was completing the requirements for a bachelor of science in nursing and needed to do a holistic case study on someone with a chronic disease. Not only was Bill kind enough to oblige, in the process we forged a deeply rewarding friendship.

As we walk, Bill reminds me to keep my arms swinging. I last for about 30 seconds and place my hands back in my pockets. Bill says that the “trainers” at his weekly exercise class try to get everyone to swing their arms. Since this is particularly difficult to do if the Parkinson’s is advanced, the trainers offer walking sticks and encourage the class to use them like ski poles. I realize how fortunate I am to be able to swing my arms, so I silently practice gratitude and give it another try.

The appeal of warmer weather
Having grown up in New Jersey and skied most of his life, Bill is used to cold weather. But today it’s about 42 degrees and that’s a bit chilly for us both. The conversation changes to Florida and warmer weather. Bill has been talking about Florida for some weeks now. Although he enjoys the community and the friends he has made, a warmer, dryer climate is very appealing. Parkinson’s affects the joints and muscles causing stiffness, especially in cold weather.

Bill has friends in Florida and will be visiting soon to check it out as a possible place to live. His only living relative, a brother, also lives on the east coast.

Bill knows that to meet the challenges of Parkinson’s, he needs to raise his physical, mental, and spiritual energy. He believes that miracles do happen and that a recovery from Parkinson’s is a very real possibility. It is this thought that keeps him going. He says, “The key for me is not to lose hope.”

A disciple of Paramhansa Yogananda, Bill’s faith is built upon years of practicing yoga and meditation, and reading the Bible. In his daily sadhana, he spends about half of his time doing deep relaxation, visualization, and affirmations. The rest is spent meditating in the silence and feeling God’s presence. He tells me: “In the silence I don’t have Parkinson’s. Everything is all right and I feel at peace.”

Grateful for the entire body
Currently, he is working with the concept of gratitude. Bill has a lot of low back and neck pain, hoarseness of throat, and fatigue. He visualizes what is working well in his body, gives thanks for what is healthy, and expands that gratitude out to the entire body. His affirmation is: “I rest and relax in God’s perfect love. My mind is at peace and my body is healed.”

Near the end of our walk, I ask Bill how his practice of the Energization Exercises is going. He has been doing them in bed because of balance problems. Just then, Bill stops in the road and starts doing the calf tensing exercise. He gets a big smile on his face because he is able to do it today! We talk about how doing the Energization Exercises strengthens our will and ability to direct the life force.

The most healing remedy
I also ask Bill how Parkinson’s has changed his life. He responds with a story. “I was riding the light rail one day when I noticed a fellow in a wheel chair. Instead of arms, he had two floppy stubs. He had no lower legs. Our eyes met and a connection was made. I wanted to go over and hug him. I guess I recognized myself in him and wanted to let him know he was loved, that it was all going to work out, and that he was in God’s hands. I now have great empathy for those who are dealing with chronic physical, mental, or emotional issues.”

In my work as a hospice nurse, I have seen that the knowledge that one is loved is one of the most healing remedies available. Hope of a cure may be gone but not for a “transition” full of compassion, kindness, and dignity. Patients and family are deeply reassured to know they will not be abandoned, and that loving help will be available during the final weeks and hours.

The potential for isolation
Later, Bill and I have tea together. He starts to cough while drinking the tea and I ask if he has been having any difficulty swallowing. He says he has had some problems. He is at risk for aspiration pneumonia because of a poor swallow reflex related to Parkinson’s. He is also at risk for falling because of muscle stiffness in his legs. Bill says: “I am learning that I am not the body, but spirit in the body. The only thing that counts is my personal relationship with God.”

With any chronic illness there is the potential for isolation. Bill doesn’t mention it directly, but I sense he is already feeling a bit of this and, for this reason also, is looking towards Florida. He is still able to drive and shop, but no longer teaches at the senior center. He had been living alone, but six months ago a family in the community changed their sleeping arrangements and offered him the master bedroom. Even so, I know he is concerned about becoming a “burden.”

Have I done my best?
Though Bill and I have never discussed it, surely the thought must come: When will this lifetime end? How will I look back on my life’s story? Will I be satisfied that I did my best? Even when we do our best, our general conditioning is to think we could have done better, something Yogananda cautions us never to do.

In his writings on “Evening Hospice,” Swami Kriyananda offers a number of suggestions meant for the end of life, though certainly of benefit at any time. Some of the most important are:

• Relinquish attachments.
• Release the grip of ego-consciousness.
• Offer every regret into God’s love and infinite consciousness.
• Forgive past hurts and betrayals.
• Give out universal love to everyone, even to so-called enemies.
• Concentrate on infinity.
• Practice devotion.
• Overcome fear by realizing that you are not this body.

Transforming before my eyes
These are not suggestions that can be knocked out in a day or two. They are life-long pursuits requiring daily attention.

But they are certainly the issues Bill is now addressing. Every day he practices relinquishing attachment to a body that no longer obeys him, releasing a bit more “the grip of ego-consciousness,” and offering “universal love” to everyone.

Thinking of how I’ve faced lesser challenges, I am humbled by how well Bill has succeeded in raising and focusing his energy. It’s as if he were taking a crash course in Self-realization with extremely challenging subjects, requiring him to be fully present, moment-by-moment.

And he is transforming before my eyes. Whether or not his disease is cured, a miracle is already in the making.

Post Script: Bill recently moved to a graduated living community in Florida where he has a small studio apartment. Though he misses the community and our weekly walks, he is enjoying the warm climate and the opportunity to spend time at the beach. If he continues to deteriorate physically, he can remain in the community and move from independent living to assisted-living, then to intermediate care, and finally, if necessary, into full time care.

Kent Baughman, a Lightbearer and founding member of the Ananda Community in Portland OR, currently works as a hospice nurse and case manager in Portland. His goal is to create an Evening Hospice program based on the teachings of Paramhansa Yogananda.

Suffering encourages us to let go of our attachments and limitations and reach for something higher. Without it, we wouldn’t have the motivation to seek further.

“Lord, give me more suffering”
Kunti Devi, the mother of three of the Pandavas princes in the Indian epic, the Mahabharata, became very sorrowful when her sons were banished to the forest. In her despair, she constantly repeated the name of Lord Krishna. After some time, her mind became free of sorrow and she began to experience an ever-present joy filling her soul.

Pleased with her faith and devotion, Krishna appeared to Kunti and asked what “boon” she would like—which of life’s many pleasures could he bestow upon her. She replied, “Lord, give me more suffering, more difficulties, for it is in suffering that I remembered you.”

Tests come to us for one reason only: that we seek our fulfillment in God. Paramhansa Yogananda said that for most people, a life without difficulties is a wasted life, because there is no incentive to grow and take on a larger understanding. It is suffering that encourages us to reach for the divine within us.

Two years of worsening symptoms
Illness is often one of the most serious challenges people face and can be a major test. Fifteen years ago, I had a rare, debilitating illness; fatigue, fever, pain and shortness of breath were my constant companions. Early in my illness, I was told my symptoms would eventually go away and my health would improve. During this time, I tried my best to heal myself through conventional and alternative medicine, and prayer. I also meditated as best I could.

After two difficult years of worsening symptoms, I had to honestly ask myself, “What if this illness never goes away?” I faced the very real possibility that it would be with me for the rest of my life. Then I thought: “I am going to have to change my consciousness!”

The purpose of tests is to raise and uplift our energy. If we simply wait a test out without raising our energy, the karma that caused the problem will sprout again seed-like in the future, and we will be right back where we started.

My illness lasted three and a half long years. What did I learn during this time? The first lesson was not to become frustrated over what was happening to me, because giving in to frustration always led to despair. At times, this was very difficult, but the more I succeeded, the happier I was.

The second lesson was to see my illness as God’s agenda for me at this time, right now. What was occurring in my life was not a mistake. I realized that I had to welcome what He was giving me. To the degree I resented or resisted it, I would be unable to see the situation clearly and then make the necessary changes.

Usually our positive attitudes, service, and meditation practices enable us to sail past any difficulties. But a test is designed to stop us in our tracks so that we will look at, and discard, specific attitudes and delusions that are holding us back spiritually.

What were the attitudes holding me back? Before the illness, I tended to evaluate myself by how much I served, how much I meditated, and how much good I was doing, which included giving lectures around the world. When I became ill, that was all taken away because I couldn’t serve or meditate.

As a result of the illness, I learned not to define myself by anything outward. I went to the core of my relationship with Divine Mother and realized that She was satisfied simply if I loved Her.

The illness changed me in dramatic ways.  I became more centered in myself and felt a greater sense of freedom and joy in all my activities. Cooperating with God’s will during the illness enabled me to renounce personal desires and live more fully for God.

Although the test was not easy, every day I am deeply thankful for it and the invaluable soul lessons I learned. Tests can be a source of tremendous blessings when we receive them in the right way.

“Master, help me to understand.”
Swami Kriyananda said the way to overcome tests is through love. What he means by that is to accept and embrace everything that comes to you. We should respond the way one of Kriyananda’s brother disciples did when he fell off a ladder and broke his arm. Instantly he said: “Yes, Master!”

Another of Yogananda’s disciples showed the same spirit under much more challenging circumstances. This woman underwent surgery for highly advanced cancer. When she woke up, the anesthesia had worn off; she was in tremendous pain and thought she might die.

She didn’t want to die with the consciousness of feeling trapped in the body and identified with suffering. So, with all her heart and soul, as strongly as she could, she prayed to Yogananda: “ Master, I have always tried to accept everything that comes to me as your will and for my highest good. Show me that this is true now. I’m not afraid of dying, but I don’t want my life to end in this horrible negative consciousness. You cannot let me die like this!”

Gratitude and total acceptance
Immediately she felt a calm presence surrounding her, and inwardly she heard Yogananda say: “I will help you through this. The key is: Be grateful for everything.”

From the response in her heart, this woman knew that her gratitude had to be total—that she needed be grateful for every tube that went into her mouth, for every intravenous drip attached to her arm, for every nurse and doctor, for every pain. What God wanted of her was total acceptance.

As she practiced being grateful for everything, she said it was like climbing a ladder step by step. “I was still in the darkness,” she said, but she kept on thanking God for everything. It took a few hours but she eventually climbed the ladder into a great feeling of light and joy. And she became a source of great inspiration to all the doctors and nurses in the hospital.

God comes to us through all of our life experiences. Swami Kriyananda said, “Karmic law is an expression of divine love.” A test is God coming to us to reveal our limitations and to help us to grow and expand beyond them. Every challenging experience is our own special “lesson plan” designed by God.

The way to overcome tests is to accept them calmly and pleasantly. It is reacting against challenging circumstances that increases their hold over us. When we respond to tests calmly and cheerfully, it means we are no longer identifying with their reality and their power to affect us.

We don’t have the full picture
Usually we have no idea why a test comes to us because we don’t see the big picture. It’s very much like the wrestling program I was involved in as a freshman in high school. My school had just started the wrestling program and all of us were new to the sport.

We began our first season with a week of intensive physical training. The exercise we practiced the most was the “bridging exercise,” where you lie on your back and arch your neck to lift your back off the ground. We practiced this exercise constantly and were so sore afterwards that we couldn’t turn our heads without moving the entire body.

Being young and eager, we wondered when our coach would teach us how to pin our opponent. We thought, “Isn’t the point of wrestling to win your match? Why are we spending so much time practicing this bridging pose—it’s so painful!”

As it turned out, being new to wrestling and not very good, we spent most of our time on our backs with our opponents trying to pin us to the mat. We found that “bridging” was our best move. Knowing how to keep ourselves from being pinned allowed us to survive long enough to actually win a few matches.

Life is often like this. We have no idea why certain things come to us, so we need to face our challenges with faith and courage—the faith that God knows what He is doing, and the courage to embrace and work with what He sends.

Contact God in meditation so you can experience Him as a God of love and joy. Then when trials come, you will be able to fully trust Him and know that He is with you.

Become a spiritual warrior
A “spiritual warrior” is someone who fully accepts what comes to him. He understands that God is behind all of life’s experiences because only God exists—nothing else is real.

From this understanding come liberating joy and freedom. Remember, nothing in creation can harm you when you live in the consciousness of God.

From an August 26, 2007 talk.

Bharat Cornell, Lightbearer and longtime Ananda member, works in the Sangha Office as the Meditation support Coordinator. He is also the author of the award-winning Sharing Nature Book Series.

The emotional and spiritual challenges of an illness are perhaps even harder than the physical. There’s the temptation to fall into self-pity or to be hurt by other people’s impatience or lack of understanding. We live in a fast-paced, youth-oriented culture where “perfect, graceful bodies” are held up as the ideal.

For now, when I struggle with negative emotions, I pray for the grace to have a broader perspective:  to understand my karma more deeply and to learn its lessons. I pray especially for the right attitude and the ability to stay positive.

Quietly turning pages
As if in answer to my prayers, I recently had the good fortune to be involved with the Ananda Village audio recording of Swami Kriyananda reading The Essence of the Bhagavad Gita. While Kriyananda was reading aloud the entire book, I was by his side in the recording booth, quietly turning the pages.

The task was surprisingly demanding. I had to be awake and alert at every moment so I would be sure to remove each page at exactly the right time. I also had to listen for any unintended changes or mistakes, so that I could bring them to Swami Kriyananda’s attention.

Also, due to space and noise considerations, I was on my knees for the entire six days of recording. For me, perhaps more than for most people, it was a sacrifice—but one that strangely added to the overall joy of the experience.

All great works are accompanied by tapasya or austerity. Swami Kriyananda’s entire life has been one of self-sacrifice, especially in the creation of Ananda. It seemed fitting, then, that the recording of The Essence of the Bhagavad Gita should require some mild discomfort on my part.

Since my involvement in the recording of the book was the result of an unusual series of circumstances, I have asked myself, why did this experience come to me? I think there are two reasons, one personal, the other related to the book.

A microcosm of lessons
My days with Swami Kriyananda in the recording studio were a microcosm of lessons in how to live as a disciple, and how to meet the challenges of the body. Kriyananda had just celebrated his 80th birthday, yet his energy and focus remained consistently strong both during and after the recording process. Though he may have been physically unwell, he rarely mentioned it.

A friend who went to India this year for the celebration of Yogananda’s mahasamadhi (his final conscious exit from the body), told me of a day when Kriyananda’s body was so ill, he practically went straight from his sick bed to the teaching platform, and was brought into the hall in a wheel chair. Deeply moved by his example, she said, “Swami is showing us that we can always find a way to serve our Guru—even up to the moment of death!”

“I am not the body”
During the recording of The Essence of the Bhagavad Gita, Kriyananda served as a powerful role model of self-transcendence. Over the 35 years of my association with him, I have often observed his non-identification with the body.  He knows he is not the body, while most of us are still trying to realize this truth.

While with him in the studio, I experienced a taste of that transcendence. Any physical discomfort was just a faint buzz in the background. In the foreground of my mind was the joy of the experience, including helping to manifest a recording that will inspire so many people. Etched in my soul was the lesson: self-transcendence is a matter of what you focus on.

Gradually, the liberating idea that  “I am not the body” has started to ring true in unexpected ways, bringing a new sense of freedom. The radiant memory of those days in the recording studio helps me open up to the bigger picture. I try constantly to remind myself of the joyful devotion and detachment I felt while in Kriyananda’s presence.

An ocean of inspiration and grace
The other reason this experience came to me, I believe, relates to the book itself. From the reports of those who were with him, Kriyananda was immersed in an ocean of inspiration and grace during the writing of The Essence of the Bhagavad Gita. He often says that Yogananda wrote the book through him.

The inspiration Kriyananda felt permeates the book in an almost tangible way. I had already experienced the power of that inspiration in reading the book. During the recording session, I was immersed in it for six entire days.

Being careful not to squander a precious opportunity, after each day of recording, I remained quiet and inward while handling my other duties for Radio Ananda, (Ananda’s internet radio station). Meditating and reading The Essence of the Bhagavad Gita were the highest priority; I yearned to stay in that sacred vibration as long as possible.

I can now appreciate more fully the Bhagavad Gita’s promise to any one who listens with devotion to its timeless wisdom:

Even that person who, full of devotion and without skepticism, merely listens to this holy discourse, and heeds its teachings, shall become free from earthly karma and shall be blessed to dwell in the high realm of the virtuous.

The Gita as a friend
A few months after the recording session, I sat one day in front of a picture of Sister Gyanamata, Yogananda’s greatest woman disciple who, at death, became a liberated soul. Among Yogananda’s disciples, she is known for the depth of her inward attunement to him.

Silently I prayed to her, asking for guidance on becoming more in tune with the Guru.  I felt her answer: “Read the Bhagavad Gita.” This was another confirmation that the Gita had become an important vehicle for attuning myself to the ray of divine grace that flows through Yogananda and Kriyananda.

However, the Gita is a valuable resource for any spiritual aspirant. For many of us there are times when meditation is difficult, when reading The Essence of the Bhagavad Gita may be all we can do. The book can help us on many levels, including the powerful level of vibration. What’s essential is that we approach it, as we would any good friend, with respect and an open heart.

“Wisdom is the greatest cleanser,” said Sri Yukteswar. The Gita is a flowing stream of wisdom and light, which we can tap into at any point. If we bathe in that stream, it will cleanse and purify us.

Each moment is precious
Recently I felt a welling up of gratitude for all the blessings in my life: for my Guru and for Swami Kriyananda, for the practice of yoga and meditation, for the spiritual community of Ananda.

Increasingly, I see my life in terms of quality more than quantity. Each moment is precious. Each day provides opportunities for giving my life to God—for loving and serving the Divine Friend.

* A line from Life Is a Dream, a song by Swami Kriyananda.

Nalini Graeber, Lightbearer and long-time Ananda member, works for Ananda Radio, Ananda’s new internet radio station. She is also working on a book.

Was meditation to blame?
Was this crisis caused by meditation? At the time it seemed possible for I had begun to experience a feeling of disconnectedness, and other unusual feelings, only after I had started meditating. Afraid to have another emotional catastrophe, I stopped meditating altogether.

During the next 18 months, I often fell into deep moods. Life seemed to have little value or purpose. I believed in Yogananda’s path, but was frightened to do the one thing he seemed to suggest above all others—meditate—for fear it would make my situation worse.

At this time, at age 20, I was living in the greater Seattle area, sharing a home with my parents and younger brother, delivering pizza, and wasting most of the rest of my time with “fillers” and distractions. Then, one morning—April 22, 2003—I woke up with an intense, even desperate, desire for God.

Too desperate to give up
I consider this the greatest miracle of my life. It changed everything. That same morning I tried to meditate and again experienced a disconnected feeling, but I was now too desperate to give up.

Searching for help, I found the main Ananda website and wrote the person in charge of meditation support. Because I lived near Seattle, he suggested that I contact Terry McGilloway, one of the spiritual directors at Ananda Seattle.

Meeting Terry turned things around. He was able to guide me to meditate in ways that worked. One of his first suggestions was that I try meditating with open eyes, focusing on some object slightly above the “horizon line.” I was surprised to find that this worked marvelously.

A dramatic difference in my attitudes
Before too long, I was able to meditate without trouble—gradually, using closed eyes. I soon noticed a dramatic difference in my attitudes—an increased ability to be happy, and to appreciate life. Years of depression began to evaporate in the light of meditation.

I’m still not clear what all the issues were. In part, I believe my attitudes about meditation needed correcting. At least some of my disconnected feeling came from the attitude: “When I meditate, I am detaching myself from the world.” A more helpful understanding might have been: “When I meditate, I am expanding myself to become the world, and everything in it.”

Meditation becomes enjoyable
After participating in the Ananda Seattle community for a year and a half, I moved to Ananda Village in February 2005. Seven months later, I moved to the Ananda Meditation Retreat as part of Ananda’s new monastery. Living in a place where people come to seclude, and where silence is often practiced, I came to appreciate meditation in a new way.

I was now meditating not only because it would help me find God, but also because I enjoyed it. It became a fulfilling act, in and of itself.

The challenge of ongoing “moods”
I do not go through depression like I used to, but I still sometimes face difficulties with moods. I would have once called this depression, but “moods” implies a temporary state, which is what they’ve become. Living closely with other devotees makes it impossible to withdraw from people the way I used to.

For example, I am often asked how I am, and if I mention my difficulty, I sometimes receive helpful advice. More than once I have been saved from weeks or months of sorrow by a few kind words, or simply by being in a friend’s presence.

Over time, I have become more committed to meeting my moods “at the crest.” Swami Kriyananda has said that the highest gains come when we raise our energy to meet our spiritual tests as soon as we see them coming. This is called meeting them “at the crest.” Applied to meditation, it includes, among other things, spending the first several minutes of meditation concentrating with extra intensity.

To meet my moods at the crest, I had a double challenge. I not only needed to raise my energy level, but I also had to fight the mood’s tendency to pull my energy down.

A six-week test
The most difficult test I had was with a lengthy (six-week) mood in the spring of 2006. Right at the outset, I sprained my ankle. I received a lot of kindness and sympathy, but because of the mood, I could barely muster up enough positive energy to be grateful for the support! Thankfully, Nitai Deranja, head monk and longtime Ananda member, and I had a helpful talk during that time.

On spiritual path, he said, we all need “different gears.” He explained that sometimes it’s like you’re running downhill and everything is wonderful. Other times it’s hard even to get up in the morning. He encouraged me strongly to continue to make the effort to meditate. “Otherwise,” he said, “if you stop, life will become very difficult.”

In fact, I did cut back on meditation. Most things had become difficult, or even painful, to do, and meditation was very near the top of the list. Even so, my habit of going to morning meditations was strong enough that I was able to get to most of them. Importantly, I still always meditated at least twice a day.

Only two things are needed
During that same talk, Nitai said something else that was very encouraging. He said that to find God, you need only two things: “aspiration and perseverance.”

“Well,” I thought. “Surely I can put one foot in front of the other. Nothing else is even needed!”

One evening a few weeks later, I was meditating in the Meditation Retreat temple. Toward the end of the meditation, I felt a deep joy wash over me, as though I had been safely lifted from dark waters onto a calmly floating raft. The emotional suffering wasn’t gone, but I didn’t mind. The joy was more powerful.

God had taken care of me
The mood faded after about six weeks of suffering. At the time I thought I had done very poorly in meeting it at the crest. But six weeks is a drop in the bucket compared to the years I had preciously spent in depression. This time, with the help of good friends and a good environment, I had generated enough energy to draw God’s grace and break the mood in less than two months.

This was my first real experience of being sustained by a higher power during severe testing. God had taken care of me; I wasn’t fighting life’s battles alone. And because I had maintained my meditation practice, the return to “normal life” was like hitting the ground running.

Immediately afterwards, there was another challenge to face, not a mood but a test that seemed more dangerous. A friend encouraged me to meet it at the crest; this time there was no mood pulling my energy down and I was able to do it. As I raised my level of energy, I found that there was an energy that reached down to help me.

Overcoming your difficulties before they fully reveal themselves gives one a tangible sense of inner freedom. Increasingly, in moments of trial, I have come to rely more and more on God.

Together these tests marked a turning point, after which I was less afraid and more ready to give myself to God, even in small struggles. Like King Arthur pulling the sword from the stone, God can pull victory and joy from the rocky path of any spiritual test.

Meditation changes the brain
A few months later, I heard a talk by Peter Van Houten, a physician at Ananda Village who writes and lectures extensively on the brain. He explained that concentrating at the point between the eyebrows in meditation can eliminate one of the main causes of depression–low serotonin levels in the pre-frontal lobes, located directly beneath that point.

Meditating at that point gradually brings serotonin levels back to normal. All of Yogananda’s meditation techniques involve concentrating at the point between the eyebrows.

My life has changed completely because of meditation. Surprising, then, that I had thought meditation would make life worse; it has made it much, much better. I had once thought it a cause of troubles, but now I am finding it’s a solution.

Nabha Cosley resides at the Ananda Meditation Retreat and works in the computer department at Ananda Village, designing and developing websites.

To seek happiness outside ourselves is like trying to lasso a cloud. Happiness is not a thing: It is a state of mind. It must be lived. Neither worldly power nor moneymaking schemes can ever capture happiness.

Mental restlessness results from an outward focus of awareness. Restlessness itself guarantees that happiness will remain elusive. The more widely we scatter our energies, the less power we have left to direct toward any specific undertaking. Octopus habits of worry and nervousness rise from ocean depths in the subconscious, fling tentacles around our minds, and crush to death all that we once knew of inner peace.

Happiness is a choice
Persons of strong character are usually the happiest. They do not blame others for troubles that can be traced to their own actions and lack of understanding. They know that no one has the power to add to their happiness or detract from it, unless they themselves allow the adverse thoughts or wicked actions of others to affect them.

A strong determination to be happy will help you. Do not wait for your situation to change, thinking that therein lies the trouble. Try to be happy under all circumstances.

Happiness depends to some extent upon external conditions, but chiefly upon conditions of the inner mind. Without internal happiness, one can be a prisoner of worries in a rich castle. Happiness comes from struggling against the difficulties of life with an acquired attitude of unshakable inner happiness.

The habit of preserving an internal happy attitude of mind should have been started when you were very young, but it is not too late to begin now. From today onward, make up your mind that when you meet your trying relatives, when you come in contact with your overbearing boss, and when you experience the trials of life, you will try to retain your internal calmness and happiness.

Always remain even-minded and cheerful
The most important condition for lasting happiness is even-mindedness. Remain ever calmly centered in the Self, within. As a child’s sand castle disintegrates before invading waves, so does a restless mind, lacking strength of will and perseverance, succumb to the pounding it receives from the waves of changing circumstance.

A diamond, however, retains its strength and clarity no matter how many waves crash down upon it. The man of inner peace, similarly, his consciousness made crystalline by inner calmness, retains his equanimity through even the storms of mighty trials.

A good rule to live by, and one that will take you sailing through many tests in life is, under all circumstances, to remain even-minded and cheerful. Tell yourself simply, “Whatever comes of itself, let it come.”

Toil and struggle are the norms of life on earth. They are blessings, not misfortunes, for they provide us with a testing ground for our own inner development.

As we hone our peace of mind—its pure metal forged in meditation—on the abrasive surface of outer difficulties, we develop the clear discrimination with which to slice through to delusion’s heart. Eventually we arrive at that blessed state where the very luster of our peace protects us during all our activities.

Why sneer at the world?
The worst pests that attack our plant of happiness are: lack of the desire to progress, self-satisfaction, and skepticism. The chill of inertia—or lack of definite, constant effort to know the Truth—is the greatest ill.

It requires only shallow wisdom to be disillusioned with life. World-weary metaphysicians pride themselves on their “aloofness from it all,” and turn up their noses at the mere mention of anything beautiful. Granted, life is riddled with inconsistencies. Earthly fulfillments are, in fact, short lasting. Recognition of these realities is not, in itself, a proof of profundity. Nothing of value is ever attained by negativity alone.

Wisdom must be approached with a positive outlook. Why sneer at the world? World-weariness is inadequate as a cure for life’s sufferings, for it fosters an attitude of indifference, the progenitor of spiritual laziness.

Pride and lust cause unhappiness
Evil is the absence of true joy. That is what makes it evil. Otherwise, can you say that a tiger commits evil in killing its prey? To kill is the tiger’s nature, given to it by God.

Evil comes into the picture when one has the potential for attaining inner joy. Anything that separates us from that divine state is evil for us, because it distances our awareness from what we really want in life.

Hence the scriptural injunctions against lust, for example, and pride. The commandments are for man’s welfare, not for the Lord’s gratification! They are warnings to the unwary that, although certain attitudes and actions may at first seem fulfilling, the end of the road for anyone pursuing them is not happiness, but pain.

Overspending leads to constant worry
Most people spend more than they earn, yet to spend more than you earn leads to constant mental worry. The extra money is acquired by borrowing, or by buying with promises to pay in the future.

Think for a moment: If you should get sick suddenly, how would you continue without the usual income, if you have no savings put away? Along with the art of moneymaking, it is well to learn the art of money saving.

Simplicity is the key. Simplicity is not grinding poverty. To live simply is to pursue a  path of moderation. In a life of balance between extremes lies inner happiness.

Accept change as life’s only constant
Change is often approached with apprehension. In giving up something, people think, “Will I be left with nothing?” It takes courage to renounce a familiar pain for an unknown, therefore uncertain, happiness.

As long as one’s hopes for better things are opposed by fear of their attainment, the mind can never be at peace. Accept change, therefore, as life’s only constant.

Our lives are an endless procession of gains and losses, of joys and sorrows, of hopes and disappointments. At one moment we find ourselves threatened by the storms of trials; moments later, a silver lining brightens the gray clouds; then, suddenly, the skies are blue again.

Neither brood on life’s disappointments not revel in its fleeting victories. See God’s changeless beauty as the heart of all change.

The cause of all suffering
You are living directly by the power of God. Suppose God suddenly changed the climate of this country. Where would be the food? How would you live? Why not remember that God is the sole support of the life He gave to you?

Even though He made that life dependent upon food, He is the cause of everything. When you lose your connection with God you are bound to suffer.

The law of life is this: The less one lives in harmony with the truth within, the more he suffers; but the more he lives in harmony with that truth, the more he experiences unending happiness.

Nothing then can touch him, even though his body waste away with disease and people ridicule and persecute him. Through all the vagaries of life, he remains ever blissfully centered in the indwelling Self.

Millions of earthly joys crushed into one
The purpose of human life is to find God. That is the only reason for our existence. Job, friends, material interests—these things in themselves mean nothing. They can never provide you with true happiness, for the simple reason that none of them, in itself, is complete.

Only God encompasses everything. Divine joy is like millions of earthly joys crushed into one. Divine joy is the blazing Reality. Before it, earthly joys are but shadows.

The quest for human happiness is like looking around for a candle while sitting out of doors in the sun. Divine joy surrounds us eternally, yet people look to mere things for their happiness.

“He is always with me”
Yogis have learned that God can never be found outside. But when you go deep within your soul, in the temple of God, then you can say: “No one in the whole world cares for my health, prosperity, and happiness as my Father does. He is with me always.”

Excerpted from How To Be Happy All the Time by Paramhansa Yogananda. Available from Crystal Clarity Publishers, to order click here

Of course, I didn’t know how wrong I was at the time. All I knew was that Mama had relied on prayer to heal her of breast cancer. Instead, God took her from me—just when I needed her most. The resultant grief, anger and confusion led to my fatal decision: to reject that cruel, heartless God who separates children from parents.

A devout Christian Scientist
Mama was a devout Christian Scientist. She would spend hours each day studying Mary Baker Eddy’s writings, praying, copying inspirational snippets into her journal, and calling on practitioners for herself and the family whenever needed.

Our family attended church each Sunday and Mama habitually attended Wednesday-evening testimonial meetings, where members took turns testifying how “knowing the truth” cured them of unwanted conditions. The Christian Science reading room was one of Mama’s favorite haunts, and I remember her watching the Christian Science TV show each Sunday morning.

Mama always made sure that my brother and I, who attended the Christian Science Sunday school, did our “homework.” We would take turns reading the weekly lesson each morning at breakfast. She was so proud of a poem I wrote that she submitted it to the Christian Science magazine.

All that praying—to no avail!
When Mama developed cancer at age 54, she called on practitioners to pray for her, and naturally, the family prayed too. As her condition worsened, she finally went against the Christian Science injunction never to visit doctors.

With great reluctance, she saw a doctor who gave her the diagnosis and later, did a mastectomy. But it was too late by then. The cancer returned and spread.

At 15, I was still a believer—so it was a huge blow when she died. All that praying—to no avail! Wasn’t God supposed to deliver her?

No one said so out loud, but it was implied that all of us who prayed for Mama had somehow failed in our efforts to save her. I considered my faith very strong, and thought that my prayers—combined with everyone else’s—would be enough to produce the hoped-for miracle.

I certainly did not want to lose my mother at so young and vulnerable an age. Consumed by grief, anger and deep disappointment, I blamed God for taking her, in direct opposition to my pleas that He spare her.

Swept up in materialism
I might have spent the rest of my life in God-denial—but for the pain. At first it was the indignity of too few acceptances, a not-uncommon occurrence in the professions I had chosen: acting and writing. To numb that awful sense of inadequacy, some turn to alcohol or drugs; my drug of choice was romance. It took years to learn how ultimately unsatisfying such relationships are compared to the bliss of God’s unconditional love.

The source of the pain was twofold: unresolved grief, and fear of being alone. Years later, I came to understand that leaving God out of my life made resolving my grief—and a rising tide of related problems—much more difficult.

I thought I was over my loss, but since I did not really know how to grieve, I pushed it so deep inside, it was easy to pretend it was gone. Having left religion behind, I allowed myself to be swept up in materialism.

Yet something was always missing. There was always a part of me, albeit unacknowledged for years, which longed for God—the sweet, loving embrace of Divine Mother, the strength, power and protection of the Father.

I wanted to believe, but experience made me doubt. And doubt had the upper hand for twenty years.

The turning point: a mysterious illness
When I was about thirty, a barely-acknowledged inner voice began vying for my attention. I responded to that “call” by the usual routes—books, classes, workshops. I didn’t have a clear concept of exactly what I was seeking, but finally, I was able to acknowledge my need to re-connect with God.

The turning point came with the birth of my child, which was soon followed by a mysterious psycho-physical illness. My recovery was progressing slowly until a friend gave me a set of meditation tapes geared to my condition. My illness had added a new sense of urgency. What did I have to lose?

Since I was confined to bed anyway, I began listening to the meditation tapes, following the instructions—and feeling better. In fact, every time I practiced that routine, I noticed far more improvement than simply following the prescribed medical regimen.

The prodigal daughter returns
Autobiography of a Yogi was one of a dozen books recommended by my metaphysics teacher. To say it was the most transforming book I ever encountered is to greatly understate its power. I would have to stop after one or two chapters just to savor the heavenly effects of those timeless truths, so beautifully embedded in Yogananda’s remarkable story.

Tears sprang forth when I came to “An Experience in Cosmic Consciousness.” Never had I read so thorough, poetic and enthralling a description of that sublime state. My spirit leapt at the realization that it could be mine as well—especially on reading Sri Yukteswar’s illumined explanation:

Spiritual advancement is not to be measured by one’s displays of outward power, but solely by the depth of his bliss in meditation. Ever-new Joy is God…seductive beyond thought of competition…Desire for material things is endless. Man is never satisfied completely, and pursues one goal after another. The ‘something else’ he seeks is the Lord, who alone can grant lasting joy….

Through Yogananda, I felt Divine Mother welcoming home Her prodigal daughter with open arms. Willingly, happily, with deep gratitude, I surrendered.

What joy to find a Master who defined God not as some distant Father/Mother, but as Divine Bliss that can be found right inside my Self. Life ceased to be a struggle filled with fear, grief and pain. Yogananda turned on the light, and I have been abiding in its all-encompassing clarity ever since.

My mother was not really gone
That’s how I came to know my mother was not really gone. Between immersing myself in Yogananda’s teachings and meditating—turning off the restless mind and making the leap into the soul—I realized the soul cannot die, and that death is not the enemy nor the loss most people believe it to be.

It’s one thing to be told our departed loved ones are “in a better place.” To actually bear witness to that fact is quite another—“convincing to your very atoms.” In spirit, I am as close to her as when she occupied her diseased body.

I could now totally accept that Mama’s death (as well as those of other loved ones) was in divine order, that it was NOT a failure or defeat, and rejoice in her soul’s freedom.

There was no longer any sadness or guilt, just calm acceptance and love. This liberating realization marked the end of my search, and the beginning of an unbreakable bond with my Guru, dear Yogananda–who also lost his mother early in life.

God knows our true needs
I see now that Mary Baker Eddy had it partially right: prayer does produce results. But Yogananda makes it clear that all the praying in the world is useless unless you are first attuned to God. It’s like making calls with a disconnected telephone; you’re just going through the motions.

With prayer and affirmation, Yogananda places the emphasis where it belongs: on the unassailable power of God to heal any condition, and more importantly—on the precise steps required to connect with that power, and stay connected.

Also, there is so much more to prayer than merely petitioning God for what we want. As Swami Kriyananda writes, “It’s not up to us to decide if a person should be healed; it’s ultimately God’s will…God knows our true needs better than we do.” How much better to live surrendered to God’s will than to regard Him as some spiritual paramedic who can be called on to do our bidding.

Today, I look back on that sorrowful, angry child wandering in the wilderness, and can hardly believe that was me. If rejecting God was my worst choice, inviting Him back into my life was my best. The very thing I worked so hard to deny was the key to my deliverance. And the healing of my mysterious psycho-physical illness was only the beginning.

Valerie Putney, an author and certified yoga teacher in Greensboro, NC, received Kriya Yoga initiation in 1988.

In his book, Intuition for Starters, Swami Kriyananda discusses a number of qualities needed to live attuned to the flow of superconsciousness—courage, determination, humility, openness, faith. But courage, he writes, is especially important:

We need to have the courage to act on the guidance we receive. As you do this, you’ll create a flow of energy that increasingly opens the doorway to superconsciousness.

In other words, the superconscious doesn’t impose its inspirations on unwilling recipients. It is through our courageous willingness to act on God’s guidance that we draw intuitions that others may never receive. An extraordinary experience of Kriyananda’s in India gives insight into what this can mean.

A daunting task
In 2004, several months after Ananda started its new center in India, Kriyananda felt the guidance to record 235 twenty-minute television shows in a single month. He received the idea to do this intuitively, from inspiration. He had already recorded 134 shows and they were doing well, but he had the inner sense that he should record enough for an entire year.

But Kriyananda didn’t just leap into this idea. Instead, he began to attune his mind and will more and more deeply to what would be required, so that he would have the energy to complete this daunting task.

In the end he was able to fulfill this project: recording at least tens shows each day, all on different topics and all done extemporaneously. These are some of the best talks Kriyananda has ever given. Shown each evening at prime time on a program known as “A Way to Awakening,” they have become the most important way Ananda’s work in India is becoming known.

Because of Kriyananda’s extraordinary courage and willingness, he was able to draw an inspiration for a project that most people would find impossible. Two other stories illustrate the same idea.

Will there be enough food?
A few years ago, two teachers in our Living Wisdom schools at Ananda Village had a special opportunity to share with their students the power of drawing on superconscious inspiration. In this instance the teachers, along with two other adults, took ten teenagers on a backpacking trip along the remote and challenging Lost Coast of California.

The teacher who had the responsibility for planning the food had no experience in this area. On a backpacking trip you don’t want to bring too much food since everything has to be carried. Wanting to make sure there would be just the right amount, she sought out the advice of another adult who had backpacked with children.

Unfortunately, this person’s experience was with seven to ten- year-olds instead of healthy, growing teens.

No real danger of starvation
From the first meal it was apparent that there would be a shortage of food. After devouring the meager portions, the students were overheard grumbling about the dangers of starvation. By the second and third meals, the students’ energy was definitely moving in a negative, self-centered direction.

Although there was no real danger of starving, the adults were concerned about the situation. The four of them met to decide what to do. In situations like this, people can become nervous and worried. Sometimes there’s finger pointing: “Why didn’t you…?” Or defeatism:” Let’s give up and go back; it’s hopeless.”

“If there’s no food left, we’ll fast.”
But one of the teachers, drawing on inner guidance, received an inspiration on how to turn the situation into a learning experience for the students by helping them become aware of the contractiveness of their attitudes.

She said, “We know we can stick with the rations and be fine, but they don’t see that. For each meal, let’s combine all the portions and serve the students first. After they have been satisfied, we will eat. If there’s no food left, we’ll fast.”

Everyone agreed. One of the adults was also chosen to hike out the 25 miles to the nearest town to get more food.

The next day the adults cooked and served the food. After setting the meal out for the teens, the adults went down to the beach and did Paramhansa Yogananda’s Energization Exercises, consciously drawing divine energy into their bodies. They were refreshed and recharged. By the time they returned, all the food had been eaten.

At first, the students only noticed that there was a little extra food. Soon, however, they noticed the adults weren’t eating and began to express concern that it would be the adults who were going to starve. A few students started to eat less, but it wasn’t enough to tip the balance, as the others ate those extra portions.

The adults’ fast continued into the second and third day as they hiked deeper into the wilderness. Meanwhile, in their concern for the adults, the students had stopped complaining.

The students take control of the “kitchen”
The teacher who received the inspiration later related: “You know, I used to believe I was hypoglycemic, and at the end of the first day I was feeling very shaky. I didn’t know if I could go on. Through God’s grace, I let go of this thought and instantly I felt stronger.”

By the fourth day, when the teacher who had hiked out returned with more food, the students’ concern was only for the adults. Taking control of the “kitchen,” they announced, “We’re cooking the meal this time, and the adults eat first!” As the adults broke their fast, the teenagers all applauded.

This experience taught the students important lessons about caring for others, cooperation, self-sacrifice, and how a superconscious attitude can produce unexpected solutions to difficult problems. The gains for the adults included deeper faith and increased courage.

Putting others first
In his book, A Place Called Ananda, Swami Kriyananda shares a poignantly striking example of the type of courage that draws superconscious inspiration. He was then part of Self-Realization Fellowship and lived alone in a little cabin at Mt. Washington. It wasn’t fancy, but it provided a small private meditation room where he meditated many hours a day.

When he was put in charge of the monks, Kriyananda saw that many of them weren’t meditating regularly. Nearly all of the monks lived in one big dormitory-like room. They were mostly young men, new to the spiritual path, and lacking in discipline. They would stay up late at night talking, laughing, and roughhousing, and would often miss morning and evening meditations. As head of the monks Kriyananda needed to find a solution. What could he do?

The right decision
He could, of course, call meetings and exhort them to meditate, but this type of thing rarely works. There was one solution that proved effective, but Kriyananda had to have necessary courage and willingness to draw that guidance. The inspiration he received was to move into the dorm with the monks.

He lived with those young men for a year and a half. Through his example, the monks gradually began to follow the prescribed practice. Were Kriyananda’s meditations as good during that time? It’s doubtful that he could meditate as long or as deeply living in that group setting.

Were his attunement and spiritual life deepened? More than likely they were very much deepened because of his selfless willingness to fulfill the demands of his role as head of the monks—a role his Guru, Paramhansa Yogananda, had given him.

Living in the divine flow
It’s very beautiful when we can say, “Who cares about me? I want to serve others. I want to do God’s will, whatever the cost.”

In one of Yogananda’s recorded talks he says, “Do you know why I serve seventeen hours a day? Do you know why I’m always trying to help other people? Because it keeps my energy in the flow of God, away from my little ego, away from thoughts about myself.”

On the spiritual path we are trying to transcend the limitations of the “little self.” This happens more and more completely as we offer ourselves courageously into the superconscious flow and try to live by the inspirations we receive.

Anandi Cornell, Lightbearer and long-time Ananda member, serves at The Expanding Light guest retreat at Ananda Village. Other Clarity articles by Anandi Cornell are listed under “Nayaswami Anandi.”

Nitai Deranja, Lightbearer and teacher, currently serves as Co-Director of the Living Wisdom School at Ananda Village.

These powerful times can have a deep impact on us if we are open. Such was the case with all of us who were touched by the passing of our friend, Vairagi Escobar.

A shining gem
In many respects, Vairagi was a simple soul. She loved God. She loved her guru, Paramhansa Yogananda and Swami Kriyananda, her spiritual teacher. For most of her life, she lived as a renunciate, a nun, quietly serving Yogananda’s mission through Ananda.

These were the bare facts – not remarkable in the eyes of the world, yet each one of them a shining gem from the soul’s perspective.

Why was I so moved by Vairagi? Perhaps because we had much in common. We had similar challenges—struggles for self-confidence and inner security; battles against hurt feelings. Like Vairagi, I had had cancer, so I could readily identify with her healing journey. As her condition worsened, the thought would sometimes come, “That could be me!”

We shared positive aspirations also, such as an intense loyalty to our spiritual path and a deep desire to serve. We admired these qualities in each other and sought each other’s counsel.

Accepting “what is”
It was the differences between us that were to become my teachers. For instance, Vairagi had the wisdom to accept what came to her as coming from God, and the faith to know it was for her highest good. Since I struggle to “accept what is,” her faith was and is a beacon of light for me.

Also, Vairagi (whose name means “non-attachment” or “austerity”) had chosen to be a renunciate in the formal sense of the word. Many years ago, one of her female friends came to her and confided that she desired a relationship. Vairagi’s cryptic reply was, “Why do you need marriage when you have five gurus?”

It’s not as if she was never tempted to leave her single state. She was, but as soon as she realized it wasn’t God’s will, she was able to let it go. For her, the spiritual path was all-sufficient and she was able to find solace inside. I found her independence quite inspiring.

A different form of sadhana
Yet as her disease progressed, this independence and strong meditation practice gave way to a different form of sadhana—a sadhana of gratitude and receptivity.

“Be grateful for everything, be receptive, and above all, be positive.” These were Swami Kriyananda’s words to Vairagi during her visit to India in May, 2005.

His words would be good advice for anyone, but for Vairagi, living in a body ravaged by cancer, they became a sacred command—indeed they became her sadhana. Several times, as she was experiencing physical pain, I would hear her whisper to herself, “Thank you, Master. Thank you, Divine Mother.”

As her physical condition worsened, it became harder for her to meditate and she invited friends to come over and meditate with her and for her. Various practical tasks were divided up among friends and other caregivers, who took turns helping her.

This loss of independence turned out to be a profound blessing for Vairagi.  Having felt a sense of unworthiness as a child, the love and nurturing she received from her family, and especially from the Ananda Village community, during the last months of her life were literally life-transforming.

As she practiced the “sadhana of receptivity” I saw her moved to tears by the sweetness she felt coming to her. “God is so good,” she would say.

She never stopped giving
Yet, even while her receptivity was increasing, it’s not as if she stopped giving. Vairagi, who had spent her life serving others, continued to give until the end.

For example, when her health appeared to be better, Vairagi made a commitment to teach classes on healing prayers at the Expanding Light Guest Retreat at Ananda Village. At the Ananda community near Italy, where she had lived since 1989, she had taught many classes on that subject; it was one of her favorites.

But before she could teach more than one or two classes, her condition took a turn for the worse. One day she suddenly asked me if I would enjoy teaching the classes. “Yes,” I said, “as long as you train me!”

So she did. I’ll never forget the smile on her face when I told her I had finally been asked to teach the healing prayer class. Although we never spoke of it, it felt as if, through me, she were fulfilling her promise to teach the classes.

Healing prayers had been such a prominent feature of Vairagi’s life that even in the midst of her own challenges, she had the ability to remember others and express compassion for them. Occasionally, she forced herself to sit up in bed so that she could more effectively send prayers to those in need. At other times, she served us just by being herself.

A struggle with fear
I remember one evening in particular, perhaps a week before the end, when Vairagi shared with me her struggle with fear. At this time it was not so much a fear of death as a fear that in some way she had been egotistical or displeasing to God. Many devotees, whether dying or not, have these self-doubts.

Moved to the core by the obvious purity of her heart and soul, I said emphatically, “Oh no, Vairagi. Master and Swami love you. You have pleased them very much. It must be Satan who is tempting you to feel this way.”

Apparently my words touched a chord of truth in Vairagi, for she replied, in a whisper, but with surprising strength, “Nalini, listen carefully.  I know you have the same test.  It is Satan! He’s trying to make me doubt God’s love for me, and he almost succeeded. Don’t let him do that to you. Remember this, Nalini. It’s so important.”

I hold Vairagi’s precious words in my heart, but felt to share them for the benefit of other self-doubting souls.

The final leap of faith
As for the fear of death (the basis of all fears, according to Yogananda), even long-time devotees still experience it. Though Vairagi’s trust in God was strong, she too needed support near the end in making that final leap of faith to “the other side.” This is one of the most profound ways that we can serve each other as friends in God.

In preparing for the final transition, she asked friends to pray and chant with her, sometimes around the clock. A few she asked to bless her for a long time at the spiritual eye, as a reminder to keep her attention there.

At other times she enjoyed hearing Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi being read aloud to her.  When her friends needed to sleep or attend to other duties, she listened for hours to the tape of Swamiji chanting AUM.

Even when Vairagi was in a semi-coma, barely able to talk, she managed to communicate, “Help me.” We knew that meant she wanted us to pray for her transition. Although her whole life had been dedicated to God, she didn’t want her concentration to lapse at the very end due to illness

“Thank you, Divine Mother”
When the end finally came, those of us who were with Vairagi, or who came moments later, could feel her deep peace and joy. Although we meditated in the room where she left her body, some felt her spirit more outside the house, as if she were celebrating her victory and new sense of freedom from all limitations.

Indeed, Divine Mother Nature celebrated too by painting an unusually beautiful sunset in the sky for all to enjoy. All of Vairagi’s months and years of effort and austerity had culminated in a blissful reward.

“Thank you, Divine Mother,” one could almost hear her say, “Thank you.”

*****     *****     *****

Vairagi’s “Pilgrimage” to India

by Nalini Graeber

In retrospect, Vairagi’s visit to Swami Kriyananda in India seems even more remarkable than it did at the time. Many of us collapse into bed at the slightest cold or indisposition, but here was Vairagi, terminally ill, undergoing what would be a very rigorous trip, even for a healthy person.

For months she had been struggling with low energy and digestive problems, but that didn’t hold her back. As soon as she heard that the doctors could do no more for her, she set her sights on going to India, completely open to the possibility that she might die there.

That she succeeded is a testimony to the strength of her determination, and an example of the universal principle that when we fix our minds on something, the universe cooperates in helping us to achieve our goal.

I suspect that the desire to see Kriyananda had been in her mind all along, but that she had been waiting until she felt better. Now the hope of recovery was ripped away from her. As she grew steadily weaker, there was no time to lose.

A little over two weeks later (the minimum time required for reservations, visas, etc.) she was on a plane to London, and then from there to New Delhi, with Kent White, her travel companion. Despite his busy work schedule, Kent felt guided to help his friend, Vairagi, at this crucial time. Without his much needed service and support, this demanding trip would have been impossible.

During the two weeks before she left, Vairagi had several group healing prayer sessions with friends and also spent time with Jyotish and Devi Novak, Ananda’s spiritual directors, Mary Kretzmann, who heads the Healing Prayer Ministry at the Village, and other Ananda ministers. We all prayed that she would have the strength and energy to make this important journey.

On a spiritual level, the trip to India exceeded Vairagi’s expectations. Kriyananda saw Vairagi daily and blessed her many times. He urged her to dwell, not on death, but on the love and beauty of God.

A Lightbearer, writer, and longtime member of Ananda, Nalini Graeber lives and works at Ananda Village.

People from all walks of life have testified that it was not Padre Pio’s miracles but his Christ-like presence and deep devotion to God that changed their lives. Through Padre Pio, they experienced the presence of God, or as one person put it—“He made God real.”

Suffering for the salvation of others
Padre Pio dedicated his life to what he called “co-redemption.” For him this meant following the “way of the cross,” whereby great saints suffer for the salvation of others— a view that parallels the Eastern spiritual tradition of taking on the karma of others.

Born Francisco Forgione on May 25, 1887 in Pietrelcina, a small farming community in southern Italy, Padre Pio grew up in a close-knit, religious family and loved going to church and listening to stories of saints. Often he would go off alone to pray and “think about God.”

He would later reveal that from early childhood he regularly spoke with Jesus, Mary, and his guardian angel. In 1902, when he was 15, he became a monk of the Order of Friars Capuchin, which traces back to St. Francis of Assisi, Padre Pio’s patron saint, whom he often saw in vision.

“I want to offer myself”
In 1910, when ordained a priest, Padre Pio decided to offer himself as a victim for the salvation of souls. Writing to his spiritual director, he said:

For some time I have felt the need to offer myself to the Lord as a victim for poor sinners and for souls in Purgatory. This desire has grown continuously in my heart until now it has become a powerful passion.

Though forewarned in visions that demonic forces would try throughout his life to derail this mission, he remained undeterred.

In July 1918, a few days after Pope  Benedict XV urged all Christians to pray for an end to World War I, Padre Pio offered himself as a victim for the end of the war. He was then living at Our Lady of Grace friary at San Giovanni Rotundo, a remote, mountainous farming village in southern Italy.

The stigmata appear
A few months later, on the morning of September 20, 1918, while praying in the friary church, Padre Pio received the stigmata—the outward manifestations of Christ’s five wounds. Describing the experience to his spiritual director, he wrote:

All the internal and external senses and even the very faculties of my soul were immersed in indescribable stillness. Suddenly, I saw before me a mysterious person (whom he later identified as the wounded Christ)whose   hands and feet were dripping blood….When the vision disappeared, I realized that it was my hands and feet and side that were dripping blood.

The wounds in his hands and feet went straight through—and caused constant pain. They bled unceasingly, emitting the sweet scent of roses and violets. He was unable to close his hands and wore special gloves and shoes, except when saying Mass.

Skeptical doctors subjected him to painful examinations, but the wounds defied medical science. Padre Pio accepted the stigmata as a gift from God for the redemption of mankind, but he would have preferred to suffer in secret, without drawing attention to himself.

To his spiritual children: “pray and meditate”
By now, a circle of “spiritual sons and daughters” had begun to form around him— the beginning of the worldwide prayer groups he would later establish.

To his spiritual children Padre Pio spoke of God’s presence within. He urged them to live in that presence by praying as much as possible, meditating on the life of Christ, surrendering to God’s will, and loving both God and neighbor.

Counseling joy in the service of God, he warned them against the harmful effects of discouragement and worry. Despite his physical trials, Padre Pio’s distinguishing characteristics were joy, serenity, kindness, and humility.

No distance between him and Christ
The Mass was the means by which Padre Pio publicly expressed his oneness with Christ. Eyewitnesses said that he was always in a state of deep inner communion, which uplifted the entire congregation. One eyewitness described it:

The Capuchin’s face, which a few moments before had seemed to me jovial and affable, was literally transfigured…. Fear, joy, sorrow, agony or grief… I could follow the mysterious dialogue on his features. Now he   protests, shakes his head in denial and waits for the reply. His entire body was frozen in mute supplication….

Suddenly great tears welled from his eyes, and his shoulders, shaken with crushing weight…. Between him and Christ there was no distance….

Padre Pio’s Mass could last as long as three hours. He re-lived Christ’s crucifixion and prayed for all who had asked for help.

A “surgeon of the soul”
Equally important to Padre Pio’s ministry was the hearing of confessions, sometimes as many as a hundred a day. He “read souls” with unfailing accuracy and knew exactly what to say to each person.

If a person failed to report a serious sin, Padre Pio would invariably point it out by relating all the details of the offense. Because some would respect him only if he shouted, he would shout— though in his heart, as he said, he was smiling.

Those who came to “test” him, or who weren’t prepared to be truthful, he would gruffly send away. To be refused by Padre Pio was such a shock that it changed people’s lives.

The first wave of persecution
By the spring of 1919, news of the stigmata had leaked out. Miraculous cures were reported, and newspapers throughout Italy were publishing articles about Padre Pio.

This new interest in Padre Pio and the influx of pilgrims and donations to his monastery created jealousy among the local clergy. Spreading vicious lies, they insisted that his wounds were self-inflicted. They claimed he used perfume to create the “heavenly” odors, and that he was possessed by the Devil and having illicit relationships with his “spiritual daughters.”

The accusations—and jealousy— spread to the Vatican. In 1922, the Church clamped down: Padre Pio could no longer hear confessions, see his spiritual children, answer any correspondence, or say the Mass, except at irregular times and later, only in private. The Church issued statements denying the spiritual origin of the stigmata.

Thus began the years of what Padre Pio called his “imprisonment,” a trial he offered as a sacrifice to God for the needs of the “unsaved.” During his imprisonment, he spent his free time in prayer and silent communion with God, and also studied the Scriptures and the writings of the Church Fathers. Not until 1933 were all of the restrictions lifted.

The world discovers Padre Pio
World War II opened up Padre Pio’s ministry to the world. Between 1943 and 1945, hundreds of Allied soldiers stationed in southern Italy visited San Giovanni Rotundo to meet the man who bore the wounds of Christ.

Inspired by his sanctity and mystical celebration of the Mass, Catholics and Protestants alike came to revere Padre Pio. To the shock and dismay of his fellow monks, Padre Pio often administered the sacraments to Protestant soldiers and never pressed anyone to convert.

“The sick person is Christ”
Service men and women took news of Padre Pio home with them. Soon after, pilgrims and donations began pouring into San Giovanni Rotundo. These funds enabled Padre Pio to bring to fruition a project dear to his heart, the construction of a hospital: The House for the Relief of Suffering, or Casa as it was called, which opened May 5, 1956.

Padre Pio conceived of the Casa as a place where the sick would be treated in ideal circumstances, both material and spiritual, for them to open to the grace of God. He dismissed those who thought the Casa was too luxurious. He would say:  “the sick person is Jesus, and doing everything for our Lord is doing little.”

Today, the Casa is one of the largest and best-equipped hospitals in Italy. It is also the international center for over 2000 Padre Pio prayer groups with more than 200,000 members worldwide.

“God’s judgment is not man’s judgment.”
Jealous of Padre Pio’s success and determined to get control of Casa funds, his superiors in the Capuchin Order soon instigated a new wave of persecution: Padre Pio’s incoming mail was opened; his conversations in the confessional and friary guest rooms were secretly recorded; and his reputation was besmirched through a successful smear campaign.

In 1961, a Vatican investigation brought new restrictions: Padre Pio could not go outside the friary; his access to the faithful was strictly regulated; and the time of his Mass had to vary from day to day.

Before his death, Pope Pius XII had granted Padre Pio a special dispensation—title to all Casa property and administrative control of the hospital.  However, the new pope, John XXIII, reversed  this dispensation and ordered Padre Pio to sign over the Casa to the Vatican.

Not until 1964, and the ascendance of Pope Paul VI, was Padre Pio released from all restrictions. In spite of these injustices, his inner joy was untouched. Without blame or judgment he said simply, “God’s judgment is not man’s judgment.”

The stigmata disappear
As he approached his 80th birthday, Padre Pio’s health began to deteriorate. Though confined to a wheelchair, he continued to say Mass, hear fifty confessions a day, and receive over 5,000 letters each month.

For more than a year the stigmata had begun to vanish. When he passed away peacefully on September 23, 1968, three days after the fiftieth anniversary of the stigmata, the wounds had completely healed.

John Lenti, a minister and long-time Ananda Village resident, serves at Ananda Sangha.

The feeling of the wind in my face
Running gave me energy, a sense of well being, and a good feeling about myself. I loved the feeling of the wind in my face and the sheer effort I had to put out to achieve my daily running goal.

Vidura and I kept up our running routines for quite a few years after moving to Ananda Village in the mid-1970s, but my knees began to weaken, and I was forced to give it up. As an alternative, I began walking. Some part of me, however, still yearned for the determination and perseverance that running required.

Over a year ago, we decided to join the new fitness center at Ananda Village. Vidura started going there with his friends three times a week at 7AM, and it wasn’t long before I was joining them, mornings being the best time of day for me to exercise. For all of us it was a happy and productive time. Friendships were easy and relaxed and we both looked forward to those mornings.

Difficulty getting up early
But one morning while meditating, I realized that I didn’t want to leave my meditation to work out. Unlike my husband, I was having difficulty getting up early enough to complete my regular sadhana.

I have always been an early riser. Rising at 5AM or even earlier was never a hardship. But I had been going through some physical challenges that made it almost impossible to meditate upon rising. Often I’d have to wait for over an hour before I would have the wherewithal to meditate with deep concentration.

I realized that, to make it to the fitness center on time, I would either have to leave the deepest part of my sadhana sooner than I wanted, or substitute the fitness center altogether. My thinking at that time was, “Well, it’s better to get some exercise than to stay here thinking of my pain.”

It wasn’t that I didn’t think of God or my guru, Paramhansa Yogananda, while working out at the fitness center. Japa is an extremely important part of my spiritual life. Whether riding in the car, walking to work, playing with my godchildren, or having some quiet time at home, “Om Guru” is my near-constant mantra. But as I experienced more depth of inner communion, japa was just not enough.

The deep yearning of the heart
Then, one morning, the thought came to me, loud and clear: “I must spend my mornings with Master—in my meditation room. Completely. Utterly. With no thought of time schedules!” It was as if Yogananda had whispered in my ear and I could feel His presence, so sweet and full of love.

I hadn’t actually asked God or Yogananda for help in resolving my dilemma. But the guru responds to the deep yearnings of our heart—our unstated but heartfelt aspirations— when we have offered our lives to him in complete surrender. As I was willing to see an alternative, he was able to open my heart and mind to his advice.

Treasured counsel: “The tests become harder”
There were other times when I had felt Yogananda’s guidance, but my most profound experience of his grace came when I least expected it.  At that time, there was a person in my life who seemingly never passed up a chance to find fault with my sincere efforts to bring the community to new levels of creativity and expansiveness. He appeared unable to see the possibility of finding solutions to our differences.

I struggled with this situation for over ten years and, as hard as I tried to work out our disagreements, nothing succeeded. I finally asked Swami Kriyananda about it. Though sympathetic and supportive, he said, “Durga, the tests only become harder as you become stronger—until you become one with God. How else do we evolve except by being tested in the cold light of day?”

I treasure that counsel from Swamiji, and it has comforted me many times since then. What seemed like such a personal test (“Poor me!”) now became the impersonal love of God. Having gained more detachment, I was finally able to surrender the entire situation to God. I decided that whether or not the other person changed, I would continue to do everything possible to resolve the conflict. But the outcome was completely in God’s hands.

A sudden and lasting freedom
Soon after that I went into seclusion and while there, let go of an idea for a project that was important to me, but in opposition to this other soul. The very next morning, I felt the guru’s grace descend upon me like a warm embrace. After years of torment and frustration, the rift was over. And it has never returned.

What was most amazing, perhaps, was that this other person was also healed. From one day to the next, he became my friend. It was the most powerful example of the guru’s grace I’d ever experienced, and so deeply healing that it had to have come from him. Mere wishful thinking, in my experience, had never brought this type of sudden and lasting freedom.

Important lessons of life come in God’s own timing: no longer did I simply believe my guru would protect and guide me—I knew, from my own experience, that it was so.

Joy in my heart
And so it was again that morning. I felt extremely blessed to have heard what certainly felt like my guru’s thoughts, and my own heartfelt desire, expressed so clearly: “There ARE other times in the day to exercise!” I laughed and felt joy in my heart.

Giving the best hours of my morning to meditation now seems obvious. Yet when one faces challenges on any level, what’s important is not the solution but knowing that the guru’s blessings are so tangibly at hand.

Durga Smallen and her husband, Vidura, serve as Ananda Village community managers.

I felt an intensive yoga program would help. It did, and one important side effect was that I learned to meditate, which changed my life permanently for the better. But in addition to the usual difficulties of a beginning meditator, sitting was the worst position for my back pain.

A loss of body consciousness
One day I was determined to try my best to go deeper in meditation and transcend the pain. I remembered being told that visualizing a saint’s eyes was a powerful technique for meditation.

At that time, I knew little about saints. However, I had read Swami Kriyananda’s book, The Path, so I decided to look at his cover photo. I closed my eyes and, with all my will power, focused on his eyes.

It was tough going. The back cried out as usual for attention. Eventually, to my amazement and enjoyment, I was able to transcend the pain! Through the strong concentration, I experienced a loss of body consciousness. To be free of pain, even for a short time, was a wonderful and expansive feeling.

The most intense back pain ever
More than twenty years have passed since that experience. Gradually, through yoga and other techniques, my back healed. Last year, however, I re-injured it. Applying all the healing techniques I knew, within a few weeks I managed to reduce the pain to a slight twinge.

Then one night I was up late working on a writing assignment. My five-year-old daughter was having trouble going to sleep and had climbed into bed with her father. Both my daughter and husband were asleep when I went to pick her up and return her to her room, as I have done many times.

This time, however, I forgot all about the body mechanics I had learned over the past twenty years. I reached toward the middle of the bed and picked her straight up.

Fortunately, she was only a few inches above the bed when my back “went out” and I dropped her. The pain was more intense than any back pain I had ever felt. I let out a sound that woke both my daughter and husband, and somehow came down onto the floor, where I lay on my back next to the bed, with my knees bent.

With this pain I knew I needed help
I focused immediately on deep diaphragmatic breathing—breathing deeply into the belly and blowing out the pain with my exhalations. My husband and daughter rushed to help me. I asked them not to touch me.

Normally I take medication only as a last resort. However, without much hesitation, I asked for Ibuprofen. With this pain I knew I needed help. Then I asked my husband if he would gently cover me with a blanket. I convinced him and my daughter (in between deep breathing) to go to bed, that I could take care of myself.

The spasms were intense. I had to use my breath just to maintain the pain at the current level. If I even attempted a therapeutic pelvic tilt, the spasms would deepen and increase.

There was no reason not to still be joyful
As I lay there working with the breath and consciously trying to relax the spasms, I automatically went into my usual practice of mentally chanting, “I love you God.” I focused at the spiritual eye and invoked Yogananda and Divine Mother’s presence.

Shifting into a more God-conscious state made me recall that I had been feeling very joyful before my back went out. I reflected that, though I was in pain, I was grateful for many things in my life and that there was no reason not to still be joyful.

I then started mentally chanting one of my other personal mantras, “joy, joy, joy”— all the while breathing deeply to control the pain. Chanting “joy” reminded me that joy was still part of my core being.

Somehow I knew I had a choice: I could feel sorry for myself (poor me!), and worried about the possibility of a long and difficult rehabilitation. Or I could stay in the present moment, get back to my center, and experience joy. I chose joy.

Two separate and distinct realities
It wasn’t a matter of pretending that the pain did not exist. In fact, I needed to focus part of my attention on the deep breathing to keep the pain from intensifying and spreading.

Gradually, however, despite the pain (and the need to focus on it), my awareness of joy expanded. Before long I was feeling great joy. The pain was as intense as ever. But I was experiencing two separate and distinct realities: pain and joy.

It was a revelation that I could experience such a depth of joy and still be aware of physical pain. I had always assumed that saints who remained joyful despite great physical trials had transcended body consciousness in ecstasy.

But I recalled something I had read about St. Teresa of Avila. When not in ecstasy, she often experienced great physical pain. However, in her joyful devotion to the work Christ had given her, she was only partially aware of it.  Not all saints with serious physical ailments, I began to realize as I lay on the floor, lived in a constant state of ecstatic communion. Their joy in God was so intense, however, that physical pain simply did not matter.

When the spasms became less intense, I was able to move into a therapeutic pelvic tilt. After half an hour of deep breathing and gentle pelvic tilts, I was able to get up. I placed pillows under my knees—and, covering myself with blankets from the bed— went to sleep on the floor.

I am deeply grateful
The physical healing took awhile. I slept on my back on the floor with my legs over a padded bench for almost a week. For several weeks I asked both my daughter and seven-year- old son to be very careful with me— too forceful a hug could be extremely painful.

As I applied my knowledge of therapeutic yoga and other techniques, I tried to focus on God, Guru, and the joy within. Whenever I became focused and centered, I once again experienced joy.

I am deeply grateful for the blessing of the pain that was not transcended but became a separate reality. It has helped me see that the goal of life is not necessarily to remove or even transcend life’s difficulties, but to live in joy regardless of the ups and downs.

As I live this way, the more things tend to work out for the best. Challenges still come but as I live more deeply from my center in God, I am able to handle them more gracefully.

Nicole DeAvilla-Whiting lives with her husband and two children in Marin County. She teaches Ananda Yoga at The Expanding Light guest retreat and in Marin County, where she also leads an Ananda healing prayer group.

There seemed to be no way to escape and his first thought was one of despair. “I don’t know what to do. It’s hopeless.” As soon as there’s any thought of despair, there’s a sudden lowering of energy, a sudden paralysis of the mind.

“I’m getting better and better”
But this man followed a teaching in which you affirm, “Every day in every way I am getting better and better.” This positive, cheerful outlook was a very important part of his life. He suddenly remembered this affirmation and started saying it.

Things certainly didn’t seem “better and better”—with the Nazis ready to swarm up the stairs. But basically he was saying, “Okay, this has happened. Now what can I do about it? At least I can be joyful.”

Joy is an expression of your soul reality, of that inner center from which positive attitudes radiate. From that center, this man was able to generate the magnetism to draw the inspiration he needed.

He confidently walked down the stairs and went up to the nearest group of Nazis and asked, “What’s going on here?” They stared at him and one of them said, “Well, there’s a problem here.”

He said, “Oh, I saw that fellow. He’s up there on the top floor.” And while the Nazis went storming upstairs, he walked calmly out the door.

The test of intuition: does it work?
When you can keep a cheerful, buoyant outlook—and that necessitates affirming that whatever comes is the right thing—you can change situations. For instance, this man did not affirm, “Oh, my God, the Nazis shouldn’t be here.”

He said, “They’re here. Good. Now things are getting better.” A ridiculous thought from a reasonable standpoint but it worked. That’s the point.

A common characteristic of the flow of intuition is that it often defies the reasonable way of doing things. Not that it’s irrational, but it’s a different kind of reasoning which is difficult to explain to people. The only proof of whether a feeling is intuitive or not is whether it works.

Absorb the obstacles as they come
To shift with the flow of circumstances, you need to be flexible and not always think, “I’m going to do this and I’m going to that.”

It’s like going down a ski slope. You don’t stand at the top of the slope and say, “Well, at this point I’m going to turn left, and at that point I’m going to turn right.” It’s only when you reach the little hillocks, or moguls as they’re called, that you can decide whether you’ll turn left or right to go around them.

The expert skier sees the ski slope as a continuity. He absorbs the obstacles as they come, into a graceful, flowing movement. Similarly, when you begin to see life as it really is—a divine flow—you understand that life’s obstacles are simply a part of that flow.

How do you “break?”
Without an ability to flow with life, spiritual growth is difficult. There is a story about Saint Francis when he was living in a leaky, fragile hut with his brother monks. It was wintertime and a peasant with a donkey entered the hut and said, “This place is just perfect for me and my nag. Get out you bums.”

The monks were outraged. They said, “How can we give this place up? We’ve given up everything else for God.” But Saint Francis said, “No, we must leave.” And they left. God was testing St. Francis to see whether he had absolute faith in Him or whether he would say, “All right. I’ve given up this much, but not that.”

To flow with life one must trust God. It’s important never to say, “No God. I’m willing to have any test, but not this one.” That’s probably the first thing God’s going to work on. And that test will be the very door through which He wants to bless you.

Be content in yourself
One of the most important lessons in life is to learn to “break” the right way when pushed to the breaking point. The right way is always to remain centered and at peace in yourself.

I read a beautiful story years ago about a man who had great serenity and peace of mind. A young man who became his student asked him one day, “What is the secret of your calmness?” The older man replied, “Come with me, and I’ll show you.”

He opened a little drawer in his desk, took out a fragile shell and said, “This is my secret.”

The older man explained, “Many years ago I was a very wealthy person, but in the stock market crash of 1929, I lost everything overnight. I decided I would commit suicide, so I sent my family away, and went to our little cabin by the beach on Long Island. I wrote them a farewell note, and then set out to walk into the ocean—to just let the waves take me and drown.

“I tried to walk out into the ocean, but the waves kept throwing me back so hard against the beach that I couldn’t even stand. Each time I’d get up and try again but to no avail. Finally I tried with all my strength but was thrown down.

Go where the wave takes you
“As I lay on the wet sand, right in front of me was this fragile shell. It amazed me that although the waves were so powerful that I couldn’t stand up in them, this shell had not even been cracked. I realized its secret was that it went wherever the waves took it, without any resistance.

“That moment on the beach was the turning point in my life, because from then on I tried to adapt to whatever circumstances existed in my life, to wherever God placed me. Although I never became a millionaire again, I really didn’t mind because I found peace of mind.”

You can’t control your environment, but you can control yourself by learning to live at your center. And having that control, you will be able to accept whatever is, and to be happy in yourself no matter what happens.

Thomas is the superintendent of a small, rural school district. He had recently suspended the high school wrestling coach for verbally abusing his players. The suspension had enraged the coach and his large, extended family—so much so, that some of them had physically threatened Thomas.

One Sunday Thomas was working alone in the district office, when four cars came to a screeching halt in front of his building. Out came a furious mob of the coach’s relatives. As they charged into the building, Thomas called his daughter to notify school security.

In the seconds remaining, Thomas centered his energy within and waited for the approaching storm. His “guests” barged into his office and began yelling, trying to intimidate him. Calmly, and without fear, Thomas listened to their tirade about why he was wrong to suspend the coach, and then quietly explained why he had made that decision.

The coach’s relatives were very physical people, who respected strength. Thomas’ demonstration of courage and centeredness won them over. Soon afterwards, they not only accepted but also helped to resolve the situation with the coach.

Centered energy is stronger than dissipated, reactive energy. The more centered we are, the more outer events adjust themselves to our inner control.

Meditation is the art of learning to live from one’s center. It brings our consciousness dynamically into the spine, putting us in tune with God and our spiritual nature.

Lahiri Mahasaya’s advice for overcoming any problem was always the same—to meditate more. Through regular meditation, we literally change our destiny.

Joseph Bharat Cornell, an Ananda Lightbearer, serves at the Sangha Office, where he oversees the meditation support website: www.learn-meditation.org. He and his wife, Anandi, live at Ananda Village.

Fear is a pernicious problem that shuts down our life-force. Like depression or any other problem that inhibits the flow of positive energy, fear starts a negative cycle that becomes self-reinforcing—decreased energy causes a decrease in will which, in turn, reduces our energy even further. But, fortunately, there are ways to reverse this cycle. Here, are some tools from our spiritual path.

The law of opposites
In theory at least, it is easy to overcome any problem: Simply put out equal or greater energy in the opposite direction. The best way to cancel a negative tendency is to develop its positive counterpart. To overcome fear, develop faith or non-attachment.

Start with small steps. Concentrate first on simply increasing the flow of physical energy. Exercise daily, do some deep breathing, and, best of all, be sure to practice the Energization Exercises that Paramhansa Yogananda taught.

Then apply your increased energy to overcoming fear. Think of fear like a wildfire in the brain. Stomp out the small sparks right away before they have time to start a conflagration.

Non-attachment
Most fear centers around losing something you value. The more you develop non-attachment, the less vulnerable you will be. Every night, before you sleep, give all your possessions and all your desires back to God. Make Him responsible for your well-being and security.

He won’t mind. In fact, He is much better at taking care of us than we are ourselves. In the morning you can have the responsibility back again if you want.

Try especially to give Him negative desires, the ones that contract your consciousness and cause you to emphasize your ego or little self. They are the main source of our fears and anxiety. They include all the ways we don’t say “yes” to life.

Affirmation
Replace fear thoughts through the use of affirmation. Here is an affirmation for courage that Swami Kriyananda suggests in his book, Affirmations for Self-Healing:

“I live protected by God’s infinite light. So long as I remain in the heart of it, nothing and no one can harm me.” It is followed by this beautiful prayer: “I look to Thee for my strength, Lord. Hold me closely in Thy arms of love. Then, whatever happens in my life I shall accept with joy.”

Use this affirmation just before you go to sleep and immediately when you wake up. Say it several times with deep sincerity, driving it into the subconsciousness, and then finally lifting it into the superconsciousness. It will become a powerful ally to help you drive out fear whenever it tries to attack.

Visualization
Fear originates in parts of the primitive brain that are pre-verbal. Visualization helps re-program reactive processes in these areas. Visualize yourself bathed in a golden light that both protects and strengthens you.

See the light especially bright in your heart center, radiating away all little dark clouds of attachment and anxiety. The more clearly and powerfully you visualize, the more quickly the light can change your very brain cells.

Giving love and security
Here is a final tool to change thought habits: Give to others that which you want for yourself. In this case, give love and security to others. Look for at least two opportunities each day to help allay fear in someone else.

One of the opportunities should be for a friend or loved one. But the other, if possible, should be for a stranger. This practice unleashes the infinite power of the law of karma and the Golden Rule, which advises us to give unto others that which we would like to receive ourselves.

Remember, that God’s infinite love and protection already surrounds you. Your job is simply to recognize its presence and let it work its magic. As Paramhansa Yogananda said, “To those who think me near, I will be near.”

Jyotish and Devi Novak are acharyas (spiritual directors) for Ananda Sangha Worldwide.  Jyotish is also spiritual director of the Ananda Sevaka Order, worldwide.

Other Clarity articles by Jyotish and Devi Novak are listed under “Nayaswamis Jyotish and Devi.”

Material desires are gathered by the soul through incarnations, from the time it leaves the abode of Spirit. Pre-natal material habits appear as strong tendencies in the present life. Residing in the subconscious mind, these matter-bent tendencies are highly skilled in the use of psychological weapons.

People who are meek prisoners of bad habits are so engrossed in their negative tendencies that they never dream of escape. When the spiritual aspirant becomes inwardly awake, he finds that his consciousness becomes a battleground. The mental warriors of bad tendencies, with their weapons of temptation, rally to fight the forces of good habits and discrimination.

A story will illustrate this:
Mr. J was a confirmed drunkard, who made a nuisance of himself to his family and neighbors. After meeting a saint and taking a vow to abstain from drinking, he asked his servants to hide his costly wine in locked boxes and to keep the key. He instructed them to serve the liquor to his friends only.

Because of his joy in his new resolution against drink, everything went fine for Mr. J.  For a while, he did not feel the unseen lure of the liquor-tempting habit. As time went on, and he felt himself proof against liquor temptation, he asked his servants to leave the key of the wine room with him, so that he could serve the wine to his friends himself.

Later, feeling more mental security, he thought it was too much bother to go to the cellar to get liquor for his friends. So he kept some wine bottles hidden in the parlor. After a few days Mr. J thought: “Since I am proof against liquor, let me look at the sparkling red wine in the bottle.” Every day he looked at the bottle.

Then one day he thought: “Since I am proof against the liquor temptation, I may just as well smell it.” So he allowed himself to smell the wine. Then he thought: “Since I no longer care for liquor, I will take a mouthful of wine, taste it, and then spit it out.” This he also did.

After a few days passed, he thought: “Since I am so strong and absolutely proof against liquor, there will be no harm if I swallow a little just once.” Having done that, he thought: “Since I have conquered the liquor habit, there will be no harm if I take one swallow of wine at a time—as many times as my unenslaved will desires.”  He did that and soon became drunk — and kept on becoming helplessly drunk every day, just as before.

The above story shows that Mr. J was temporarily able to overcome the liquor drinking habit by his strong resolution to conquer. But he failed to realize that his resolution had not yet ripened into a new, good habit.

Every devotee should remember that it takes from five to eight years to substitute a good habit for a strong bad habit. Until the strong good habit is formed, the devotee must stay away from tempting environments and refrain from tempting actions. Above all, one must never allow evil thoughts to enter the mind. Evil thoughts cause evil actions and are therefore more dangerous.

Mr. J disregarded this law and brought the wine bottle near him, which gradually reawakened the memory of the drinking habit. He also failed to recognize the psychological weapons used by his bad habit to defeat his good resolution.

The liquor habit remained unseen, hidden in Mr. J’s subconscious mind, secretly sending out “armed spies” of desire and pleasing thoughts of taste. Thus the way was prepared for the re-invasion of the liquor habit, which triumphed and again usurped Mr. J’s body and soul.

If you have a tendency to engage in misery-producing behavior, cast out all thoughts of temptation. Surround yourself with the right kind of environment and fill your mind with thoughts of God.

Most important of all, cultivate the habit of contacting the superior joys of the soul by meditating every day immediately upon awakening. Daily meditation will help you transmute your harmful desires into the joy producing, lasting happiness of Spirit.

From: Bhagavad Gita interpretations, Chapter 1, East-West Magazine.

Yogananda writes:

Why forgive one who wrongs you? Because if you angrily strike back you misrepresent your own divine soul nature—you are no better than your offender. But if you manifest spiritual strength you are blessed, and the power of your righteous behavior will also help the other person to overcome his misunderstanding.

The desire for vengeance is a karmic cage that imprisons both individuals and cultures into enduring suffering. If you carry a strong enough desire for vengeance into your after-life, you will have to reincarnate in circumstances where you can fulfill that desire.

But then your “victim” will have to get his chance for vengeance. On and on goes this terrible cycle until you can say “Enough, let God, not me be the judge.” You will pass a great test of karma if you truly pray that God forgive your adversary.

Why carry the heavy weight of negative emotions from past events? Isn’t it time to lay down your burden? Forgiveness is the way to cut yourself free.

Yogananda said that through the forgiveness of Jesus “an unseen monument of the mightiest miracle of love was established in each heart.” Most of Christ’s more obvious miracles were not greatly important for themselves, but rather to give proof to his divinity and his teachings. “Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe.”

Imagine, for a moment, if we could perform some of the miracles of Christ. How would they improve the world? Would mankind be better off if we could change water into wine? Not really. Would the world be improved if we had the power to cure the lame and give sight to the blind? Yes, of course, but modern medicine has already accomplished many such feats and yet mankind’s consciousness is not greatly enhanced.

But think now for a moment about the miracle of forgiveness. How vastly improved would this world be if forgiveness could replace hatred? If the blessing of forgiveness were given to mankind tonight as we slept, we would wake to think we were in paradise.

Perhaps it is too soon to expect everyone caught in a cycle of pain and hatred to forgive their enemies. But it is not too soon for you or me. We have only to choose to forgive. This choice is within our grasp. Let the miracle of forgiveness start with us. Let it start now, in this very moment.

Here is a beautiful and inspiring prayer-demand from Yogananda on forgiveness:

Teach us to forgive others who offend us most, inwardly first, then outwardly. Bless us, that we may scatter the fragrance of forgiveness, and impart sweet speech for sour exclamations, love for hatred, kindness for anger, and good for injury. Awaken us, that we may feel that even the most night-black soul is only an error-dreaming immortal. With the divinity of our forgiveness, inspire us to awaken him to the consciousness of his celestial sonhood, potential purity, and immortality.

Jyotish and Devi Novak are Acharyas (Spiritual directors) for Ananda Sangha Worldwide.  Jyotish Novak is Spiritual Director of the Ananda Monastic Order worldwide.

Other Clarity articles by Jyotish and Devi Novak are listed under “Nayaswamis Jyotish and Devi.”

The secret of self-acceptance is…

FORGIVING OTHERS; for as we forgive, so are we ourselves forgiven by them, and by Life itself. By forgiving others, we acquire also the wisdom to forgive ourselves.

From Secrets of Self-Acceptance by Swami Kriyananda.

There are those rare people we meet in life who have a profound and lasting influence on our consciousness. Such was Ron Heynneman’s experience with Jeanne van Diejen (vahn DEE-yun), a woman of towering strength and courage, whom he met during his internment by the Japanese in WWII.

In his recently published book, Ibu Maluku, Ron shares with us Jeanne’s life before, during, and after her internment. Brimming with suspense, human drama, and vivid portrayals of people and places, Ibu Maluku is an inspiring account of courage, selflessness and devotion. Jeanne, a woman of deep faith who always placed the needs of others before her own, emerges as a heroine of the stature of Florence Nightingale and Mother Teresa.

Internment by the Japanese
Ron Heynneman was born in the Netherlands East Indies (now Indonesia) and was eleven years old when the Japanese invaded to get the country’s extensive oil resources. His father and older brother were interned in a “man’s camp” in Central Celebes, while Ron, his mother, and younger brother were interned with 1600 women and children in southwest Celebes. (Celebes is an island larger than the State of Idaho.)

Ron met Jeanne van Diejen in the camp in 1943, when she was forty-seven and he barely thirteen. On the rare occasions when they met, she would tell about her life— always with a great sense of humor—while he listened spellbound, sometimes for hours.

A pioneering spirit
He thus learned that Jeanne married a Dutchman by proxy and left Holland to join him on a coconut plantation in the remote jungles of the Netherlands East Indies, the country she had at a young age read so much about in missionary journals. He further learned how she started her own coconut plantation (at a time when women were not supposed to work), and how her courage prevented the annihilation of the city of Ternate, in the Moluccas, by the invading Japanese.

In the camp, Jeanne organized and led a “garden team” to grow vegetables, cassava, sweet potatoes and rice. Had it not been for the efforts of this garden team, more people would have died of malnutrition or suffered the long-term effects of severe vitamin deficiencies.

Ron and Jeanne were interned for three years, separated from loved ones, and completely cut off from what was happening elsewhere in the world. They battled malaria, dysentery, and rabid dogs, and survived two devastating bombardments by Allied airmen who did not know they were targeting women and children.

When freedom finally came (too late for many), Ron and Jeanne went their separate ways. Ron and his family went to the Netherlands for badly needed medical care. Jeanne returned to her war-ravaged coconut plantation on Halmahera (the largest island in the Moluccas), where she learned that her husband had died at the hands of his Japanese captors.

Eradicating the fear of lepers
Ron met Jeanne again in Holland in the early 70s, and learned what had happened to her since the end of the war. Inspired by her courage and selflessness, he persuaded Jeanne to cooperate in the writing of her memoirs, never thinking it would take more than 25 years to publish them.

As interesting as Jeanne’s early life had been, she stressed that the period after the war was of greater importance to her. It was then, as a civil servant of the newly formed Republic of Indonesia, that she devoted herself fully to improving the lives of the people of the Moluccas, traveling by boat to the almost 1,000 islands that make up the famed Spice Islands of the Orient, and learning some 23 different languages and dialects in the process.

Eradicating the fear of lepers in the Moluccas, and helping cured lepers regain a useful role in the society that had once banished them, were only two of her many achievements.

In recognition of Jeanne’s exploits, Indonesia’s first President Sukarno started calling her “Ibu Maluku” (EE-boo mah-LOO-koo), mother of the Moluccas, the name by which she is still remembered today throughout the Moluccas. But Jeanne’s outspokenness finally brought her into conflict with Sukarno and she left Indonesia in 1958, returning only once, 25 years later, for a memorable visit with the now grown-up ex-lepers, whom she had saved as children.

“God just passed by”
A short vignette from the book describes a supernatural experience Jeanne and her husband had, before the war separated them:

A long walk, which took place on a beautiful Sunday, brought us an experience that I vividly remember to this day. Everything around us was quiet and serene, and infused with a feeling of peace. We walked through the kapok plantation, which, pierced by shafts of sunlight, gave the appearance of a cathedral.

The birds sang and chirped. The dog ran either behind us or in front, searching for some unseen quarry. It was all so stunningly beautiful that it made us speechless. Silently, side by side, we walked on. Then, something unreal happened.

The rustling of the trees stopped, the birds fell silent, and the air ceased to move. The dog stopped in its tracks and looked puzzled. We looked at each other: “What was happening here?”

Then a feeling of great happiness flooded over us. We felt ourselves becoming extremely light, almost bodily detached! The silence deepened; the light intensified; and the feeling of joy became even more intense.

The silence belonged to something grand, something supernatural.

We felt the urge to genuflect or kneel to that Being that enveloped us, that permeated us with this bliss and made our heads swim!

The incredible silence and indescribable feeling of happiness lingered for several minutes—and then it was over.

The wind rustled through the treetops again, the light returned to normal intensity, the dog resumed its never-ending search, and birds started again to sing and fly!

We looked at each other and tears of happiness were flowing down our cheeks. John took my hands, and whispered: “God just passed by.”

Ibu Maluku provides the reader with a rare, fascinating look at the world’s fourth most populous (yet little known) country, and a chance see why Jeanne’s extraordinary experiences led her to conclude “that there are inexplicable forces between heaven and earth that can destroy us, or protect and save us.”

A copy of Ibu Maluku can be obtained from The Expanding Light boutique at Ananda Village or from www.amazon.com. An autographed copy can be obtained from ron@heynneman.com.

Examine a dozen minds—most remind you of one-horse-power engines. Most people’s lives consist of waking, eating, engaging in amusements, and sleeping. Weeks, months, and years pass, and they are always the same. They have aged but they have not changed.

Different types of initiative
How does one acquire initiative? There are three types of initiative—the extraordinary, the medium, and the common. The common type is shown by the person who tries only to improve on the inventions of other people. Such a person has not yet developed the power to think independently and creatively for himself.

The medium type of initiative is shown by people who write a little book or invent something new but on a very small scale. The extraordinary quality of initiative is that which makes you stand in blazing fame. We see this type of initiative in men like Luther Burbank and Thomas Edison.

Is God partial to these men, that they had this particular greatness? Did God specially choose them to experience so much glory? No–anyone can become great. But you must first get in touch with the Infinite Power within you, which is the source of all initiative. By practicing meditation and following the teachings of yoga, you can develop that initiative and bring it into play. The ones who struggled long ago now see the fruition of their actions.

Those who look for glory are never great. Their inflated pride prevents them from receiving God’s power. Those who enjoy giving to others, giving strength, courage, and inspiration—all such people are great.

Have faith that God will respond
When I first started lecturing I made up my mind that I would lecture by inspiration, and not by collecting the ideas of others. I believed that the Infinite Creative Power was behind my words, so I did not say, “Father, do it.” Instead, I said, “I want to do it Father, but you must guide me; you must inspire me.” I now know without a doubt that the Great Spirit which is the source of all inspiration and knowledge is within me. If that is behind me, how can I fail?

My Master, Sri Yukteswar, used to say: “Remember this: if you have that kind of faith, and if there is something you desire which doesn’t exist, it will be created for you.” Because I had that faith in God and the strength of will, new product lines were created to give me the things I needed.

Conscious acts of determination
Defeat, disease, lack of prosperity—all of these are God’s tests for you. God’s tests are designed to bring into play the almighty power of Spirit that is within you, so you can fulfill your destiny on the stage of life. God will not allow you to be tested more than you are able to bear. So never say, “God has forsaken me.” Say, instead, “I may be defeated one hundred  times, but I am going to conquer.”

The man of extraordinary initiative swallows all difficulties. No matter how impossible it seems to accomplish his goal, he never gives up. As long as he lives, he engages in ongoing acts of determination.

Fear destroys initiative by paralyzing the will. Use fear as a stimulus to dive deep into the inner consciousness where you will find the understanding and power that will permanently remove the causes of fear.

Why people fail
On the stage of life, people often fail because they try to play a different part from the one God designed for them. God intended this world to be a huge show to entertain us, not to make us suffer. But we forget the Stage Manager and want to play the wrong parts.

How do you find out what part suits you? Always strive to be in tune with the Stage Manager. If we all want to be kings, who will be the servants? In God’s eyes, the parts played by kings and servants are exactly the same. If God gives you the tragedy parts, always remember that they are but parts in a play, designed  to bring out your innate God-given strength.

On the stage of life, always strive to play your part well, realizing that the infinite power of Spirit is always with you. Attune yourself to that power and whether you are working in the factory, running a  business, or mixing with people, always say, “I and my Father are one. What He can create, so can I.”

Excerpted from Inner Culture, June 1936; Praecepta Lessons, 1938.

Though alert to any trace of heresy, the Inquisitors ultimately acquitted her and recommended the reading of her biography to strengthen one’s faith.

Teresa yearned for a life of solitude, absorbed in divine communion, but her calling was to lead the reform of the Carmelite Order. Modeled after the early church fathers, the Carmelite Order developed from a community of hermits living on Mt. Carmel in Palestine. Their monasteries were places of contemplation, prayer and total austerity.

An ideal reformer
When Teresa entered the Convent of the Incarnation in 1536, the Carmelite Order’s original spirit had given way to laxity. The convent was home to 180 women, including servants and laywomen, who arranged themselves by wealth and rank.

Free to come and go as they pleased, they chattered noisily, listened to popular music, wore expensive clothes and jewelry, and gossiped with male and female guests in the convent parlor. Those who troubled to observe the religious disciplines were in the minority.

Teresa’s eighteen-year struggle to transcend these temptations made her an ideal reformer. She wrote of herself, “All things of God gave me pleasure, but I was held captive by those of the world.”

It was only after an experience of ecstasy in 1554, that her “resolution to give up everything for His sake became unshakeable.”

Teresa saw the need to return to the original austerities, not only for herself but also for the younger nuns toward whom she felt a sense of duty. But it wasn’t until 1560, when she was 45, that she felt the inner guidance to act.

“His Majesty’s” command
In her words: “One day after communion, His Majesty (her name for God or Christ) earnestly commanded me to strive for this new monastery with all my powers…. He said it should be called St. Joseph’s and…that it would be a star shining with great splendor.”

From that day on, Teresa worked unceasingly to get the new convent built and approved. The first step was approval by the local Carmelite superior, who seemed pleased with the idea and promised his authorization.

But when news of her plans exploded on the town of Avila, people of rank and influence mounted a campaign against her. Convents in which laxity prevailed took a dim view of a return to primitive austerities. Teresa’s superior ordered her to give up the idea.

Going forward in secrecy
Anticipating trouble with the local authorities, Teresa had already appealed to a powerful Vatican official. After careful consideration, he gave the new convent his unqualified approval.

Teresa could not disobey her Carmelite superiors, but urged on by the Vatican official, one of her supporters secretly sought official authorization from Rome. With Rome’s approval, the convent would come under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Avila, not the local Carmelite leader.

A building for the convent was purchased, but Teresa could not visit the site unnoticed. Undeterred, Teresa persuaded her sister and brother-in-law to occupy the building under the pretense of setting up house. The subterfuge worked and Teresa lived with them for months at a time, supervising the work of turning the house into a convent.

After months of delay, the authorization from Rome finally arrived and St. Joseph’s opened August 24, 1562—to an uproar of opposition. Teresa was accused of treachery and disobedience.

Under her vow of obedience, she was forced to return to the Incarnation while her enemies tried—unsuccessfully—to close St. Joseph’s down. Six months later, Teresa was allowed her to rejoin her nuns.

“Preach by deeds”
Teresa created small convents, often with only 12 or 13 nuns, who lived completely enclosed, in solitude and silence. Dressed in coarse sackcloth, they went barefoot or wore rope sandals, and thus came to be known as “Discalced” or unshod Carmelites. They sustained themselves through spinning and needlework, which was placed outside the convent door for donations.

Humility was the hallmark of Teresa’s leadership. She showed each Carmelite how she must “preach by deeds,” often using her own example to show that a thing was blameworthy, and urging her nuns to correct her whenever she erred.

Constantly spinning, even when talking to influential visitors from behind the curtained grille, Teresa also cooked, cleaned and swept. She would later write into the Rule that prioresses should be at the head of the list for sweeping, and that they should make themselves loved in order to be obeyed.

God is the Doer
Four years after the founding of St. Joseph’s, the head of the Carmelite Order endorsed Teresa’s reforms and gave her permission to found other convents. It was at the site of her second convent that Teresa met John of the Cross in 1567.  Inspired by her example, he became the first of the Discalced friars.

Teresa never saw herself as the doer, but only as God’s instrument, and she employed all of her considerable resources of intelligence, charm, and personal magnetism to carry out God’s will. She displayed great skill in dealing with businessmen and church dignitaries, and in the art of winning adversaries to her point of view. Her keenness of mind caused one church dignitary to exclaim: “Good God, I would rather argue with all the theologians in the world than with this woman!”

Combining a deep inner relationship with God with a practical, commonsense outlook, she met all difficulties with equanimity and cheerfulness, knowing with unshakeable certainty the rightness of her mission.

Persecution and betrayal
The persecution Teresa underwent toward the end of her life had its roots in her success. “Calced” friars and nuns were jealous of Teresa and the admiration aroused by her monks and nuns. They violently opposed any extension of austerities to their monasteries.

Their hostility turned to hatred when King Phillip II, is his zeal for monastic reform, ordered the founding of Discalced monasteries in traditional Calced strongholds. In response, Teresa’s enemies mounted a well-organized campaign to destroy her reputation.

Teresa was accused of having lovers and of founding convents for immoral purposes. Using bribery and intimidation, including threats of excommunication, her enemies fabricated discrediting evidence.

In many locales, Teresa, so recently venerated, was greeted with distrust or threats of violence. Discalced monks, including John of the Cross, were kidnapped, imprisoned and beaten, and Teresa feared for their lives.

“I am speechless with wonder”
Teresa’s response to the persecution was to issue a summons to prayer in all her convents and monasteries “in order that whatever is for the greatest service of God may come to pass.” She and her supporters also worked tirelessly to bring about the separation of the Calced and Discalced into independent branches of the Carmelite Order.

At the urging of Teresa’s supporters, King Phillip initiated an impartial investigation into the charges against her and the reform. Based on the findings, he was able to silence Teresa’s enemies. Finally, in 1581, Pope Gregory VII formally announced the separation of the two orders.

Teresa said, “When I consider the means Our Lord has used to turn the malice and cruelty of the enemies of Carmel solely to our advantage, I am speechless with wonder.”

With the adoption of the Rule and Constitution for the Discalced Order, Teresa, who would never admit she was unwell, was dying. She had founded 22 convents and monasteries throughout Spain.  En route to Avila, she died October 4, 1582.

John Lenti, and Ananda Minister, lives at Ananda Village and serves on the Ananda Sangha staff.

Paramhansa Yogananda: Teresa of Avila is “in our own line.”

by Swami Kriyananda

Several of the monks were reading the lives of saints. At this time, the Master gave us the following recommendation as to what we should read of those lives:

“Read the lives only of those in our own line: Saint Francis of Assisi, for example, and Saint Teresa of Avila.”

His expression, “those who are in our own line,” was one I pondered for a long time. The Master could not have meant, “those who are directly connected with our line of gurus,” for we’d have had no way of knowing who such persons were. He could only have been referring, then, to saints who had attained deep states of inner communion with God. Not all saints, certainly, even among those canonized by the Church, belong in this higher category.

From Conversations with Yogananda by Swami Kriyananda.

A struggle to stay awake
It was after midnight when we reached Nevada City and began the last part of our drive home through the Yuba River Canyon. This stretch of the road parallels the steep mountains of the South Yuba River, and winds and curves for many miles. There are no guardrails—just a mountain wall on one side, and oaks and a sheer drop to the river, on the other.

It had been a long and full day for both of us. Wyatt was asleep, and I was fighting to stay awake. As we descended the canyon toward the Highway 49 bridge, I squeezed my eyes, and even tensed and relaxed my body several times. But it didn’t help. Suddenly I, too, fell asleep. Now with two sleeping yogis, the car veered across the road to the canyon’s rim.

I awoke to shouts of “Bharat! Wake Up! Bharat!!” Seeing the threat, I grabbed the steering wheel and managed to turn us away from almost certain calamity. Wyatt had warned me just in time.

Wyatt’s dream
Fully alert now, we continued on in silence. Wyatt was the first to speak: “Master came to me while I was sleeping and told me, ‘Bharat’s asleep! Wake him up!’” Wyatt had come right out of deep sleep and started shouting my name.

I had been thanking Yogananda inwardly even before hearing Wyatt’s account. Yogananda teaches that we should try to see the loving hand of God and Guru behind all that happens in our lives. This is a wonderful practice, yet in the beginning it can be simply an affirmation on our part.

Learning the full story of how Yogananda had come to our aid helped me to know that he is truly guiding and watching over us at all times.

The Guru is always with us
During the rest of the drive home, I felt a deep outpouring of love and gratitude for Yogananda. Swami Kriyananda writes in his book, The Path, how Yogananda’s grace protects his disciples, and I felt very fortunate to be counted as one of his children.

A couple of years later, I experienced a severe illness that lasted four years. It was my faith that Yogananda was there in the midst of it, overseeing my life, which got me through that difficult time.

Last fall Wyatt visited Ananda Village after many years of service at our Ananda Assisi community. We were catching up on each other’s lives when at one point I quietly asked, “Do you remember our drive from Sacramento when we nearly went into the canyon?”

Smiling inwardly, Wyatt simply said, “Yes.” We sat for a while, remembering the one who has guided and inspired our lives—not only on that eventful night—but every day since.

Joseph Bharat Cornell, a Lightbearer, oversees the Meditation Support Ministry at the Sangha Office at Ananda Village.

My outer life is a reflection of my inner thoughts. Filled with the
joy of God, I express His joy and harmony in everything I do.

Prayer

Problems cannot exist, Lord, whenever Thou art near. Give me
strength always to hold Thee in my heart.

From Affirmations for Self-Healing by Swami Kriyananda.

The time to prepare is now
What did these two women have in common, and what can we learn from them? Both of them, as long time members of Ananda Village, spent their lives practicing the teachings of Paramhansa Yogananda—meditation, selfless service, and love for God.

The teachings of yoga are full of lessons on this very important process. Not coincidentally, the practices that prepare us to leave this earth in freedom also give us a deeper, more dynamic spiritual life right now.

Call to God inwardly
Mahatma Gandhi was heard to say, “Rama, Rama” as he fell to the ground after being assassinated. A friend, on hearing this story, told me that he hoped for the presence of mind to call to God when he dies.

Did Gandhi merely think quickly as he fell to his death? A study of his life shows that he spent most of his waking hours talking to God (as Rama) and chanting his name. We can start preparing now by inwardly calling to God throughout the day—practicing “japa” as it’s called in India.

Tie up karmic loose ends
Secondly, we can begin tying up all of our karmic loose ends right now. Paula phoned a few people in her last days apologizing for misunderstandings. To one friend she said, “That was weighing heavily on me. I’m glad we’re both big enough gals to put it behind us.”

Bella asked her sister near the end, “Have we worked everything out between us?” After her sister answered yes, Bella said, “I think I’ve worked everything out with everyone.”

Growing up, I had a difficult relationship with my father. I was the rebellious hippie, and he was a lifelong conservative who never was able to express his love for his children. As I was preparing to leave on a long trip, I said to him in the middle of a mundane conversation, “I love you.”

Even though his personality wouldn’t let him respond to me verbally, he later wrote a note expressing his own love for me. I never saw him again, as he passed away suddenly while I was traveling.

Overcome your fear of dying
Thirdly, don’t be afraid. Talk with people who have been around those who have died with freedom and joy. Watch the beautiful video, “Life after Life,” which interviews people who have had near-death experiences.

It was obvious watching Bella and Paula during their last days that both had long overcome any fear of dying. Paula comforted a hospice nurse who was there to comfort her by saying, “Tell the world that death is nothing to be sad about. Death is joy!”

The path of meditation gradually cuts the karmic bonds that tie us to our body and to this earth. By offering our little selves each day into the light of God in meditation, we gradually overcome all fears.

“So this is what death is like”
My own fear of death was diminished greatly by an experience I had shortly after beginning the path of meditation. One day I was swimming in the ocean—a relatively new experience for someone who had spent most of his life growing up in the farmland of the Midwest. I was suddenly caught in a powerful and unrelenting rip tide. I didn’t even know what a rip tide was at that time. I just knew that I was in big trouble.

The more I struggled and fought the current, the farther I was pulled out into the ocean, until I was far from any help, tossed like a cork on crashing waves. After many minutes of the most intense struggle, I finally ran out of strength. Exhausted to the point of collapse, all I could do was turn onto my back and accept what I thought was the end of my life.

Lying on my back, I gazed into the vast, blue sky and offered my whole self into God with complete love and surrender. I was suddenly engulfed with an extraordinary bliss. At that moment I thought, more with intuition than words: “So this is what death is like.”

After floating in this bliss for a couple of minutes, I found myself being washed up on shore. Later, I learned that fighting a rip tide doesn’t work—swimming parallel to the shore and getting out of the current is what will save you.

Apparently, that’s what God did for me as I lay exhausted, and in bliss, floating on my back. That experience forever made me know, just as Paula knew, that “Death is joy!”

This world is not our home
I had an unforgettable experience with Bella during one of her last days. As she was slipping in and out of consciousness, it seemed that her soul was already experiencing some of the freedom of the astral world. Late one night she was awake and throwing up. While throwing up, she was singing with joy!

Bella knew she was going to her true home and she was celebrating in song. Paramhansa Yogananda once said that when a soul leaves the beautiful astral realms and is born in a body, it enters this world crying in pain, while everyone watching is cooing with joy at the newborn baby.

He also said that when the soul leaves this world at death, the soul is smiling with deep joy while those watching are crying. Remember this always, and your fear of death will diminish.

Offer up all attachments
There is a popular bumper sticker that says, “He who finishes with the most toys wins.” For the yogi, it’s just the opposite. The yogi who finishes with the least toys (attachments), wins (finds freedom).

If we leave this world with strong attachments, those attachments will draw us back to this world. We are compelled to reincarnate when we die with desires, such as desires for material possessions, that can only be fulfilled here on earth.

Every night offer all attachments, all regrets—everything—into God’s hands. The more we do this, the freer we will be when it’s time for us to leave this earth.

The few of us sitting with Bella at the end felt such joy that her husband brought out glasses and bubbly water, and offered a toast. We were “celebrating,” not only because Bella told us to, but because we all felt her freedom and joy.

Dave, a Lightbearer and Ananda Village resident, serves as webmaster for the Sangha Office and Crystal Clarity, publishers.

Before moving to Ananda Village in 1972, I had taught for one year at a public school and earned a teaching credential. During those pioneering days of Ananda, even this very limited teaching experience attracted attention. Arriving at the Village on a Friday, I was enthusiastically greeted by certain community members who asked if I would be willing to start a school… on the following Monday!

There was a pressing need for the school. One of the keys to the success of a world brotherhood colony is finding solid, workable ways to integrate children into the community. There were then seven children between the ages of five and eight who had nothing to do during the day and were getting into mischief. The parents had come to Ananda for spiritual reasons and wanted a suitable alternative to public school.

So with Swami Kriyananda’s blessing and support, the school got underway. Soon we were able to move into our permanent schoolhouse on top of a hill overlooking the “downtown” area of the Village. The schoolhouse was newly built but unfinished. The only access was via a deeply rutted, badly maintained tractor trail.

During one recess the children became excited watching a car drive up the tractor road, something we’d never seen anyone attempt before. It turned out to be an official from the State Fire Marshall’s office on an inspection visit.

The man who got out of the car had a rather serious expression on his face. After a perfunctory greeting, he walked around the building, clipboard in hand, taking official-looking notes. When he finally spoke, it was to tell me that we would need to provide access for a fire truck to reach our building via a paved road that connected with the public road about a mile away.

I was shocked. “Do you have any idea how much that might cost?” I asked.

He said, “Well, somewhere around $300,000, including the grading and pavement. I’ll be back in three weeks. If you haven’t made substantial progress by then, we’ll have to close your school down.”

As his car bumped away, I reflected on our current operating budget of $75 a month, including salaries. Being asked to come up with $300,000 was like trying to pay off the national debt.

My next thought was to offer the problem up to my Guru, Paramhansa Yogananda. I said, “Master, this is something you’re going to have to take care of, because there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it.”

A huge obstacle had been placed in our way. If it was to be removed, the solution would have to come from God. Not wanting to waste energy worrying, I went about doing what I could to keep the school moving ahead.

About three weeks later another car came driving up the hill. As I walked somewhat hesitantly out to greet it, I saw that it was driven by a different man. He too was from the State Fire Marshall’s office, but had a much friendlier expression on his face. He explained that the previous official had recently decided to switch to the Arson Inspection Division. I reflected that this new line of work would be much more appropriate for him.

As the new man looked around, I waited nervously for him to ask about the paved road. Finally he looked up and said, “Let’s see, now the issue here is fire safety. The main thing is to make sure the children don’t get trapped in a burning building.” Looking around with a smile on his face he said, “Up here that shouldn’t be much of a problem with all this open space around the school. What you need is a good fire warning system.”

“Yes,” I agreed, thinking that now he was going to ask for some expensive sprinkler system that would still be way beyond anything we could afford. “I was thinking,” he continued, “that what you need is a good whistle. Yes, that would do the trick.”

I was stunned. “A whistle?” I stammered. “Yeah, sure, that’s something we could do.”

“Okay,” he said handing me a paper to sign. “This is your promise that you’ll take care of the situation.” I gratefully signed the paper, making a mental note to set aside $1.25 from this month’s budget.

People have asked me if I thought this was a miracle. I do, because it was such an unlikely solution to a problem that I had no way of solving. A major difficulty had been resolved in a very unusual way. It seemed a divine blessing on the Village as the first world brotherhood colony, as well as a confirmation that the time was right for getting the schools underway.

Michael Nitai Deranja is a Lightbearer and Ananda Village resident. He currently serves as Director of the Living Wisdom High School at Ananda Village.

Mr. Sham was unfaithful to his wife and indulged in unbridled sin, yet he had a loyal, beautiful, spiritual wife who put up with his cruel ways. It seemed that the more Mr. Sham sinned and caroused, the more he prospered, and grew strong and healthy.

On the other hand, Mr. Honest was strictly loyal to his wife, even though she was ugly, nagging, and unfaithful. Yet, it seemed that the more Mr. Honest absorbed himself in metaphysics and meditation, the worse his misfortunes became. Loss of friends, bad investments, and extreme poverty doggedly pursued him.

Mr. Sham often said: “Mr. Honest, look here, if you will forsake all religious and metaphysical nuttiness, I will give you a financial start and you will then attract riches and friends.”

Mr. Honest, in reply, would remonstrate, saying: “Nay, my friend, thank you for your offer, but I have no intention of giving up my virtuous ways, which give me an inner satisfaction, even though they do not yield a harvest of wealth and prosperity.”

One evening Mr. Sham forced an issue on Mr. Honest in the house parlor. Mr. Sham gravely said: “Don’t you see that I live a natural life? I take a drink when I want it. I do what my impulses move me to do, and see, I am as healthy and happy as a lark.

“Your metaphysics have paralyzed your will power and creative ability, and you have become queer in your mind. Your sick mind keeps you physically and financially sick. Look here! Give up God and follow me, and you will be happy. There is no God, and there are no laws of life except what you create.”

Mr. Honest, who was beside himself with wrath, shouted: “You ignorant man, there is a God and He listens to prayers. He has mysterious ways of rewarding His devotees after they pass His earthly tests. I bet I can show you that God exists and that He responds to prayers.”

Mr. Sham shot back a quick challenge: “Well, Mr. Super-Favorite of a non-existent God, why don’t you coax your Almighty Nothingness with your prayers to demonstrate something tangible to me?”

Mr. Honest, with perfect assurance, answered back: “All right, I accept your challenge. I will start praying to God night and day for a month. I am confident God will answer my prayer through all that happens to you and me on Friday, a month from now.”

Mr. Sham retorted: “What do you mean by all that happens to you and me on Friday a month from now?’”

Mr. Honest responded: “If God sends fortune to you and misfortune to me on that Friday, then you win and we shall know there is no God. But if He sends fortune to me and misfortune to you, then you will know that God exists and has responded to my prayers. If I lose, I will follow your ways of living, and if you lose, you must follow mine.”

Mr. Sham burst into a torrent of laughter and said: “All right, Archangel, I will wait for your prayers to bring God’s action on the appointed Friday. And remember, if I win, you must follow my natural ways of living.”

Mr. Honest prayed to God night and day for a month in the following manner: “Heavenly Father, my own dear God, if You exist, please punish Sham on Friday and bring me good fortune, so that I may win for Your sake.”

When that telltale Friday arrived, Mr. Sham was in high spirits. He felt he was sure to win the bet and, led by a strange hunch, went to a near-by forest to hunt. Ruthlessly he killed more birds than he needed to feed his family and packed them on his horse.

On his way home, Mr. Sham stopped under a shady tree to rest. As he lay on the ground, he began to strike absent-mindedly at the sod with his knife. Suddenly he heard a metallic sound. Curious, he began to dig and struck an iron chest. Opening the lid, to his amazement, he beheld three million dollars in pirate-plundered gold coins.

Mr. Sham was beside himself with joy and, emptying his sacks of the dead birds, filled them with the gold coins. On his arrival home, to his great astonishment and merriment, he heard that Mr. Honest, while walking in a prayerful mood, had nearly been killed through a collision with a horse and carriage, and had been carried unconscious to the hospital.

Exultingly Mr. Sham said to himself: “Now I know that there is no God. I hope Mr. Honest recovers from his accident and lives long enough to realize this.”

On his return from the hospital, Mr. Honest heard about his friend’s luck that Friday afternoon. In response he threw all his metaphysical books into the fire and rushed out of the house into the forest, determined to end his life. He could not believe in God any longer, but neither could he relinquish virtue or deliberately become evil. So he went to a lake in the jungle and was tying himself to a stone to drown himself, when God sent a plainly dressed saint to explain matters to him.

The saint gently but firmly accosted him: “Mr. Honest, what are you doing there on this glorious God-ordained day?”

Mr. Honest angrily replied: “Get away. It is none of your business what I am doing. I don’t ever again want to hear that meaningless word ‘God.’”

To this the saint replied: “Why? Is it because you bet about God and lost by being run over by a horse and carriage?”Mr. Honest was astonished that this stranger knew about the bet.

Softening he said: “Honored sir, can you tell me why I, who have zealously studied metaphysics and faithfully meditated, should grow physically and financially poorer in every way. And why did God not only turn a deaf ear to my prayer, but made a fool of me before Mr. Sham, seemingly proving to him the truth of atheism?”

The saint replied: “Mr. Honest, you could not bribe God by your prayers. You must never bet about God, and whenever you pray, you must not decide that He has to answer your prayers. You should depend upon His wisdom to determine whether your prayers should be fulfilled.

“Do you know, Mr. Honest, that in your past incarnation you were a great sinner, and thus sick all the time, and that you made up your mind to be a virtuous man only just before your death? That is why, in this life you were born with a strong resolution to study metaphysics and to meditate. But because you were a sinner before, you have met with many physical, mental, and spiritual reverses in this life. You also had a very good, forgiving wife whom you never appreciated and tortured with your evil ways.

“For all the sins of your past life it was ordained that on Friday you were to die, but because you have been virtuous in this life, your life was spared and you escaped with only an accident. All the evil seeds of your past actions have now sprouted and are dead, and the balance of virtue in you has become greater than the evil. Return home, and henceforth luck will seek you in everything.”

Mr. Honest sobbed with gratitude and burst forth: “O God, my Beloved. I crave your pardon. Forgive my ignorant blasphemies against you.”

Then Mr. Honest inquired: “Honored saint, will you satisfy my curiosity as to why all good things were attracted to Mr. Sham, and why even on that Friday he found three million dollars?”

“Well, my son,” the saint replied, “Mr. Sham in his past life was a tolerably virtuous man, but in time became tired of his virtuous life and made up his mind to live according to his evil impulses. And it was just about then that he died.

“So, Mr. Sham was born a sinner due to his resolution before death. But because he was virtuous for most of his last incarnation, he automatically reaped the results of his past good actions. Thus he attracted to himself a good wife, friends, fortune, and health.

“Now, however, the balance is turned and the sins of this life have grown heavier than his past virtue. The treasure he received that Friday is nothing compared to the imperishable virtue you have acquired in this life by constant hard labor.”

Saying this, the saint vanished. Mr. Honest returned home to find his nagging wife stricken with a terrible disease. After she died, he met a sweet and spiritual woman, whom he married. His ill health disappeared and he received a large inheritance from a rich aunt, who changed her will a few hours before her death.

On the other hand, Mr. Sham found himself suddenly stricken with paralysis. Shortly after this, his wife died. Mr. Sham had buried all of his money in a secret chamber beneath the floor under his bed, but a disgruntled servant got scent of it and arranged for masked robbers to steal the money while Mr. Sham lay helpless. After that, Mr. Sham lived the rest of his life on the charity of his friend, Mr. Honest.

From the Praecepta Lessons, 1938.

If You Die Trying You Will Be Reborn
with the Determination to Succeed
by Paramhansa Yogananda

According to the law of cause and effect, the mental state of an individual preceding death follows him in the after-death state.

The individual who dies battling his evil tendencies is reborn with a strong tendency to resist evil until success is achieved.  But when a man dies in the consciousness of his inability to conquer temptations, he finds that formidable negative tendencies dictate the moods and habits of his new life.

Every individual should continuously fight his prenatal or acquired bad habits. All evil tendencies, no matter how strong, are only mental grafts and can never destroy the power of the soul.

Even if a person is overpowered by evil tendencies, he can strengthen his virtuous tendencies by contacting the soul’s power of goodness in meditation. With a little spark of deep meditation, he can ignite the dynamite of eternal goodness within himself and explode mountains of self-created evil.

Devotees who achieve scant spiritual progress after years of regular but absent-minded meditation often become discouraged for not having gained a foothold in the kingdom of cosmic consciousness. Such souls fail to perceive the depths of their accumulated ignorance, and how it compares with the indifferent spiritual efforts of a few years of one life.

A person can rouse his spiritual powers by continuously fighting restlessness with the silence of meditation. One who dies while making a strong spiritual effort will be reborn with spiritual tendencies and a great determination to win the kingdom of bliss and immortality.

Bhagavad Gita Commentaries: Chapter 2, Stanza 37, Section 2.

Dear _____________________

I know you feel you are being honest in the bitterness of your appraisal of life. Still, you seem a reasonable man, and on that basis I would like to offer you these few thoughts. And I offer them also as one who has known suffering in life.

My faith, too, in God was severely shaken—not faith in His existence, nor even His love for others, but certainly in His love for me, a lack that seemed to me the more painful for the selectivity of its focus.

There was a thought that helped me at that time, one that I hope you won’t take amiss if I share it with you. For I, too, am a reasonable man, but during that trial I remembered the many times in my life when my ability to reason had been affected by my feelings—even to the extent of becoming totally clouded, when my feelings were distorted.

The logic on those occasions had seemed so transparent, so ineluctable, that I hadn’t imagined that it might be wrong. Yet, when the upset in my feelings subsided, the logic changed with them, giving me finally a calmer, more balanced perspective.

Looking back on those occasions, what I resolved to do during my time of severe testing was to suspend judgment for the time being, and wait for a time when I might view my experience without the intense aversion which, I knew, was affecting my reason. In fact, that time did come at last, though only after the passage of years. The marvelous thing was that, when it came, I was only grateful for what I had experienced.

I’m not going to ask you even to imagine gratitude for what you’re suffering, but I do ask you to suspend judgment for the time being. I might even put it to you this way: Why suffer twice? You are experiencing physical pain: Why add to it mental torture?

I’ve tried this simple technique many times since those dark days in my own life. Whenever things have gone wrong and I’ve been tempted to get upset about them, I’ve told myself, “This isn’t the time for me to pass judgment. For now, let me try to accept things as they are without trying to understand what they mean. If in fact they do have a meaning for me, perhaps it will come clear later on.”

So far, it always has come clear, in the end.

In divine friendship

Swami Kriyananda

First we can learn to live in our bodies without thinking of them as ourselves. When you are feeling tired, don’t think to yourself, “I’m tired,” but rather, “This body is tired.” If you’re not feeling well, don’t announce it to others—that gives energy to the thought that you are unwell. Instead, simply admit to yourself that your body needs some care, but that you are fine.

Try to mentally separate yourself from physical pain. There are two techniques for doing this. First, if a specific part of your body is injured, try to sit quietly, calm the mind, and then mentally send light and energy to that part as we do in the Energization Exercises. Do this repeatedly with a focused mind, and you will find healing energy flowing to that body part.

A second technique to mentally detach from both physical and mental pain is to concentrate the mind strongly at the point between the eyebrows, the spiritual eye. By concentrating there, we can actually change our level of consciousness from suffering to our natural state of joy. To maintain this uplifted state, do this not just once but at regular intervals throughout the day.

We should try not to be identified with shifting emotions and mental states, or with unpredictable conditions of good health and fortune. Live in the thought of your eternal nature. By not allowing physical sensations to take control of our minds, by conscious use and direction of our energy, and by living our lives in longer rhythms mindful of our eternal nature, we can overcome the force of delusion that binds us to suffering.

*****

The other major cause of our suffering is our own bad karma. The law of karma is based on the principle that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. The kind of energy we put out into the world is exactly what will come back to us. If we offer the world love and understanding, we draw this in return. If, on the other hand, we live with hatred and indifference to the suffering of others, we will attract these qualities into our lives.

When seemingly undeserved suffering comes into our lives, it’s because at some time in the past we have set into motion the events that have brought about the present pain. But what can we do about it? We can’t undo past mistakes, but we can deal with our present misfortune by expiating our wrong actions, and without incurring more bad karma.

First we must accept responsibility for everything that comes to us. Try to have the attitude, “I have created this bad karma, and I can destroy it.” If we put the blame off on others, we will never see the wrong understanding that caused us to err in the first place. Use your will power to deal unflinchingly with whatever comes. No matter what happens to you, always feel that you have the ability to rise above it.

If you give up, or get discouraged, then the bonds of karma will triumph over you. If, however, you determinedly resolve to keep trying until you have passed through your difficulties, then you will find that even if you fail temporarily, you will ultimately win the battle of life.

Our own bad karma allows darkness and suffering into our lives, but with our will and determination we can overcome its power. Paramhansa Yogananda said, “Life is a struggle for joy all along the way. May I fight to win the battle on the very spot where I now am.”

*****

We can’t be warriors all of the time. Sometimes in the midst of trials, it’s all that we can do to escape through sleep. However, try to see even these periods when we want to escape from our suffering as part of an overall strategy. Think to yourself, “I’m going to escape into the subconscious realm of sleep for a while, but only to renew my energy and determination to take up the battle again.”

Finally, the worst result of our bad karma is that it makes us forget that we are all children of God. By deep, regular meditation, we can renew our contact with God. When we begin practicing the presence of God in our lives, delusion and karma no longer have a hold on us. We can walk triumphantly through all of life’s difficulties feeling that God’s strength and protection are always with us.

Jyotish and Devi Novak are Acharyas (spiritual directors) for Ananda Sangha Worldwide. Jyotish Novak is also Spiritual Director of the Ananda Sevaka Order worldwide.

Other Clarity articles by Jyotish and Devi Novak are listed under “Nayaswamis Jyotish and Devi.”

There are several hundred prayers in Whispers—prayers for dealing with material needs, for overcoming trials, for transcending greed, to mention only a few.  Yet not one prayer says, “Give me a good job.” “Help me to find an apartment.”  Yogananda wrote Whispers for sincere seekers on the path of Self-realization, and he’s showing us how to pray with Self-realization as the goal.

The correct way to pray
To be effective, our prayer has to be that we get in tune with the Divine—that we have the courage, no matter what comes, to live in attunement with God’s will. Yogananda shows us over and over that “successful” prayers are those that uplift and expand our consciousness to an awareness of our oneness with the Divine.

Yogananda’s “Demand for Prosperity” is instructive. The prayer asks not for money or goods but for the understanding that “I am Thy child, and as such, have the right of possession over all things… Rescue my consciousness, shipwrecked on the tiny island of my body.”

Yogananda is showing us here that to meet the material demands of life, we must overcome any consciousness of “lack” or that “I am tiny and separate from God.” We don’t beg God to solve our problems for us; we pray for the consciousness that empowers us to attract what we need. A “begging” prayer actually limits the power of the soul to draw what it needs.

What pulls us down in life is not our circumstances, but our attitude toward those circumstances. Yogananda said that circumstances are always neutral; whether we see them as happy or sad depends entirely on our attitude. If we hold the right attitude, we can handle anything.

Without the right attitude, our consciousness is pulled down and we forget God. In Whispers, Yogananda shows us that, more than anything else, we need to pray for right attitude.

Learning to express divine consciousness
Thus, if harsh words or cruel behavior threaten to pull us down, we pray for an attitude of Christ-like forgiveness—to be able to “behave like the orange which, though crushed and bitten, fails not to impart its sweetness.” Or if we are facing seemingly insurmountable trials, we ask God not to remove the trials, but to turn us into warriors—“burn away all the dross of weakness in me; bring out the steel of endurance, and harden me into the strength of calmness.”

In other words, we pray for the will power, the energy, or the devotion needed to live in attunement with our divine nature.

The need for focused energy
Yogananda’s guidance on how to use his prayer demands breaks down into ten distinct steps. (See sidebar below) He tells us first to select a prayer that has personal meaning for us. It’s important to pick something that we’re in tune with and don’t resist with part of our mind.

Then we need to calm ourselves so that we can relate to the prayer deeply. Most prayers don’t work because we’re not focused enough. One of the ways to calm and focus our minds is by using the prayer itself, repeating it slowly and concentrating deeply on each word.

The power of visualization
Once we’ve grasped the prayer’s meaning, then in meditation we visualize that meaning as clearly as we can, as if we were living through it. “Prayer at Noon,” for example, describes God’s energy as the sun shining down on us: “Thou are invisible yet Thine energy flows through the rays of sunshine….”

It’s one thing to understand intellectually that God’s power flows into us as continuously as the sun shines on earth. But it’s another to take that meaning so deeply into our hearts that there’s absolutely no doubt. To do that, we need to picture ourselves in various situations.

For example, we need to think of all the circumstances that we’re ever in and ask, “is there ever a time when God’s invisible rays are not coming into me?

If I’m in the grocery store, can God’s rays penetrate to me there? When I’m driving my car on the freeway and hit a traffic jam—are God’s invisible rays present then?”

If in meditation we visualize God’s energy as the sun shining down in a variety of situations, then one day when we see the sun shining down—suddenly, it’s God’s rays coming into us. The two images begin to merge.

Nearly all of the prayers in Whispers describe ordinary realities: walking down a crowded street when the sun is shining; seeing a honey bee gathering nectar; going to the movies; swimming in the sea. Over and over Yogananda is telling us that if we want to progress spiritually, we must learn to see God in everyday life. Before we can transcend this level of reality, we must first spiritualize it.

We have to become “hungry”
To understand the meaning of a prayer, we must also take that meaning so deeply into our hearts we awaken our longing for the Divine. The key is to repeatedly “saturate” the prayer with devotion.

In meditating on the sun’s rays coming into us, it’s helpful to try to feel those rays coming into our heart and to receive them with great gratitude. If we are truly grateful for the sun’s rays, it’s but a short step to feeling that it’s Divine Mother’s loving presence shining down on us through the sun.

If devotion remains a challenge, the solution is to find a prayer-demand that speaks to that need. As devotees, one of the most important attitudes we can hold is devotion. A relationship of deep love and intimacy with the Divine removes any sense of separation between our lives and God.

Don’t dig up the prayer plant
Yogananda says to “Imbue yourself with faith that your heart’s craving is being felt by God.” He tells us to feel that God is listening and then, afterwards, “Be fully convinced that he has listened.” One of the best ways to do this is to visualize one of the Masters sitting with you when you pray, or to feel that God is inside of you.

Don’t doubt. Don’t go digging up the prayer plant by saying, “Well, I wonder if it’s going to come true.” We must accept that we’ve done our best, and that it’s in His hands. This attitude requires discipline because we’re fighting against the inclination to believe ourselves small and separate from God.

Sometimes we have to accept the fact that, by not answering, God has answered our prayer. His answer is that we must go through the trial or other difficulty and learn our lessons through that experience. Ultimately, to pray correctly, we must learn to see everything as coming from God.

These prayers have the power to re-educate our subconscious minds on a profound level. The more continuously and deeply we use them, the sooner we break through the limiting power of words and the power of Spirit begins to flows into all areas of our lives.

Excerpted from a November-December 2002 class series. The complete 5-class series can be ordered by calling 650 323-3363, ext. 206, or e-mail inform@anandapaloalto.org. Asha Praver and her husband, David, are Acharyas for Ananda Palo Alto.

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

Yogananda’s 10 steps for using prayer demands

1).  Select a demand according to
your need.

2).  Calm your mind.

3).  Meditate on the meaning of the
demand until it becomes a part
of you.

4).  Saturate the demand with
devotion and meditate upon it.

5).  Meditate more deeply, increase
your devotion, offer the demand
as your own heart’s outburst.

6).  Imbue yourself with faith that
your heart’s craving is being felt
by God.

7).  Feel that God is listening to the
silent words of your soul.

8).  Be thoroughly convinced that
He has listened to you.

9).  Go about your duties, seeking
not to know whether God will
grant your demand.

10).  Unceasingly meditate on God.

Remember, no matter what our trials have been, or how discouraged we are, if we will make a continued effort to be better, we will find that, being made in the image of God, we are endowed with unlimited power that is much stronger than our worst trials. Let us make up our minds that we will win, focusing all our concentration on the ceaseless efforts to succeed, and we will surely be victorious.

Remember that our past difficulties did not come to crush us but to strengthen our determination to use our limitless divine powers to succeed. God wants us to conquer the difficult tests of life and come back to His home of wisdom. Let us return in this New Year.

Inner Culture, January 1938.

Legendary self-discipline
A man of tremendous will power and energy, Washington placed duty, honor, and the ideal of selfless service first and foremost in his life. Underlying his idealism was the conviction that nothing truly worthwhile could be achieved without self-mastery. As the commander of the Continental Army, it was Washington’s legendary self-discipline coupled with his deep conviction of the rightness of his cause that enabled the colonists to prevail in the face of overwhelming odds.

George Washington was born Feb. 22, 1732 in what was then the British Commonwealth of Virginia. His early life presaged little of his future greatness as a military hero, international statesman, and first president of the United States. One of ten children, he was the eldest son of a second marriage and was raised in the tradition of a Virginia planter. His father’s sudden death in 1743 ruled out the possibility of an English education, which was proper for a young man of his social class.

At age 16 Washington decided on a career as a surveyor and later led many expeditions into the frontier wilderness, where he developed a lifelong interest in westward expansion. Upon the untimely death of his older half-brother, Lawrence, in 1752, Washington inherited the family’s Mount Vernon estate, as well as his brother’s British military office.

In spite of his youth and inexperience, Washington made a name for himself during the French and Indian War and became widely known for his military judgment. Most important, he gained valuable military experience that would later serve him well as Commander in Chief of the Continental Army.

After marrying in 1759, Washington settled into the life of an eighteenth century gentleman farmer, amassed a fortune as a planter and businessman, and for sixteen years occupied a seat in the Virginia State legislature. By 1774 he had become an influential member of the First Continental Congress.

“A sad choice”
Everything changed radically for Washington after the April 19, 1775 Battle of Lexington, the first major engagement of the American Revolution. Washington wrote to a friend in England saying, “The brother’s sword has been sheathed in the brother’s breast. We now have a sad choice. Either we are to live as slaves or the once happy plains of America are to be drenched in blood.”

In the summer of 1775, Washington was named Commander in Chief of the Continental Army, position he did not seek. John Adams, who lobbied for Washington’s appointment, later wrote in his diary: “I had but one gentleman in mind, someone whose skill and experience, whose independent fortune, great talents and excellent character would win the approval of all America and unite the colonies better than any other person in the union.”

The first eighteen months of Washington’s command went badly; he lost battle after battle. By the winter of 1776, the crisis had come to a head and Washington wrote to his stepson saying, “If I were to put a curse on my worst enemy, it would be to wish him in my position now. I just do not know what to do. It seems impossible to continue my command in this situation, but if I withdraw all is lost.”

“Victory or death”
Many Americans thought it was time to give up. Washington’s troops were underfed, poorly armed, and suffering from typhus and dysentery. Unfairly, Washington was blamed for the ineptitude of the Continental Congress, and there was open talk of replacing him. Yet, despite the military losses and public criticism, it was a measure of Washington’s character, idealism, and political judgment and that he never lost sight of the larger objective. His rallying cry became “victory or death.”

In one last desperate attempt to salvage the war, on Christmas night 1776, Washington crossed the Delaware River and launched an attack on the British in Trenton, New Jersey. Catching them by surprise, the Continental Army captured over 900 prisoners and lost only four men. Washington followed up immediately with another victory at Princeton, New Jersey.

Militarily these were not important victories, but they breathed new life into the revolution. Enlistments poured in from all over the colonies, and people everywhere began to feel that it was possible to reverse the course of the war.  Washington, whose very command had been in doubt, now became a national hero. With the aid of France, he achieved final victory in 1783.

“I return my commission”
Once the peace was secured, Washington retired from public life. In a brief statement to Congress he said, “Many years ago when I accepted your commission, I never thought I had the abilities to accomplish so difficult a task. But these doubts were always overcome by a belief in the justice of our cause. I have acted under orders from this august body and now I bid an affectionate farewell to congress. I return my commission and take leave of public life.”

Washington’s actions, which were without precedent, electrified the world. Traditionally, victorious generals expected political rewards commiserate with their military achievements. By renouncing power and fame, Washington gave a new definition to the meaning of greatness. It is no accident that on his deathbed Napoleon said, “They wanted me to be another Washington.”

In 1789 Washington was once again pressed into public service when he was unanimously elected first president of the United States. Washington was acutely aware that his character and actions would define the very nature of the presidency. Speaking of the challenges he faced, he said, “I walk on untrodden ground. There is scarcely any part of my conduct which may not hereafter be drawn in precedent.” After two terms, he deliberately stepped down as president, dispelling the notion of a presidency for life.

Although always reluctant to discuss his spiritual life, in his Farewell Address Washington underscored the importance of God in his life, saying “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would a man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and cherish them.”

Washington died December 14, 1799. Henry Lee, a friend and fellow compatriot, eulogized him with the words, “First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.”

John Lenti, an Ananda Minister, lives at Ananda Village and serves on the Ananda Sangha staff.

The howling of stray cats
A group of superstitious men, fearful of evil spirits, believed that making loud music would keep them safe from the spirits during the night. But this wasn’t music at all, and certainly not the sweet devotional chanting that Mukunda, as Yogananda was then called, loved, or the lively festival music that was familiar in India. The superstitious men banged loudly on drums and cymbals and their singing sounded like the howling of stray cats fighting over garbage.

They did not care that people complained, or that their music disturbed everyone who could hear. The growing exhaustion and anger of their neighbors meant nothing. They thought only of keeping the ghosts away.

As a young man, Mukunda was known for his pranks and tricks. One morning he overheard someone remark, “The uproar they make is enough to wake the dead!” Mukunda smiled and told his friend that he had a plan. He then asked his friend to spread the word to all the boys in the neighborhood to come to his house at ten o’clock that night and to bring wooden spoons and tin pots.

Mukunda’s pranks were well known but his fun was always centered in love.  If Mukunda had a plan, his friends were sure it would be hilarious and they wanted to help. All day the boys whispered in anticipation and passed on Mukunda’s instructions. By ten o’clock a crowd of boys had arrived at Mukunda’s home.

A ghostly rout
Mukunda knew that the thoughtless “musicians” would only heed complaints that came from the very “ghosts” they were so afraid of. If these men were convinced that even the evil spirits were tired and annoyed, surely they would stop.

The boys sneaked quietly through the darkness and surrounded the noisy house. The men inside couldn’t hear anything through all the noise they were making, and the boys didn’t make a sound until Mukunda signaled.

When Mukunda gave his signal, the boys began beating on their pots. They all howled and screeched and moaned until they sounded like an army of angry ghosts—the frightening noise was deafening.

The boys’ racket finally got the attention of the musicians who all stopped to listen. Mukunda signaled and the boys stopped too. The moment of silence was tense. One of the musician’s timidly opened the door and called out into the darkness, “Brother Ghost?”

Mukunda aimed and threw firecrackers through the open door, exploding the silence. Then all the boys renewed their ghostly noises, louder than before.  It sounded as if every evil spirit in Calcutta was descending on that house!
This uproar was too much for the poor men who were now certain that they had angered the entire spirit world.  Every one of them dropped their instruments and ran out into the darkness.

Peace restored
Mukunda’s family and neighbors slept well that night, grateful that peace had been restored and a solution had been found without anger or serious consequences. However, when the frightened men discovered that the “ghosts” they had heard were led by Mukunda, they demanded that the school principal expel him from school as punishment.

Fortunately, the principal saw how inconsiderate the men had been and understood Mukunda’s humorous plan. He told the men that if the disturbances continued he would do something about it himself. Angry ghosts, real or imaginary, and a school principal after them were enough to make the men promise never to resume their midnight music.

Adapted by Lorna Knox from Stories of Mukunda by Swami Kriyananda.

Lorna Knox, a teacher and member of the Portland Ananda Church, is the author of I Came from Joy, Spiritual Affirmations for Children, Crystal Clarity, Publishers.

This emphasis on energy represents a shift in thinking from a model of the universe based on fixed, insensate matter toward one based on fluid, conscious awareness. The more we recognize that energy is the essence of all that we see and experience through our senses, the more we come to depend on that energy and understand how to work with it.

The subtle causes of illness
As we go back and try to perceive what is behind each outward, physical manifestation, we can see that there is a subtler reality responsible for that manifestation. God created the universe first as thought, then He projected that thought out as energy, and finally He condensed that energy into matter, or the physical world. The more we are in touch with the unseen cause of the outward form, the more power we have to work with the energy which created it and to effect changes in it.

This is extremely relevant to our understanding of the field of self-healing. The more we can tune in to the subtle realities of thought patterns and energy that produce illness, the more we can change those patterns at their source.

Generating the right energy
The future of healing lies in knowing how to introduce energy into the body and to work with it in such a way as to destroy disease and bring about lasting health. Energy, in fact, has always been the cause of radiant well-being. Merely eating the right foods won’t necessarily give you good health, but right attitude and the energy it generates can.

An attitude of joy is perhaps the best healer of all. Norman Cousins, the well-known writer, was able to cure himself completely of what had been diagnosed as a terminal illness by deliberately laughing for many hours every day.

Energy has been the cause of seemingly miraculous cures. Yogananda said, “The greater the will, the greater the flow of energy.” This is the basis of our Energization Exercises. But we also need to understand that healing requires more than just generating lots of will and energy. We must learn how to use that energy sensitively in cooperation with a higher power.

Learn to work with God
I’ve found in working with healing energy, it’s more effective to hold the thought, “I want to work with God, not just for God.” Of course, it’s good to do things for God, but when you’re doing them in cooperation with Him, the flow of energy becomes subtly but very tangibly different. Then amazing things seem to happen effortlessly in a harmonious flow.

A few years ago I had been working very hard, and my heart started to feel very tired and strained. I began sending energy there but with the added thought, “God, let’s do this together.”

With that approach came the understanding of using energy in a different way—not just with determined will power, but with a consciousness of a flow of health and happiness to that body part. My heart immediately began to respond and quickly returned to feeling well. By working with God, our will works with the energy rather than driving it, and we find we can do a great deal to heal our bodies.

Certainly there are times when it’s necessary for us to consult a doctor, but we don’t constantly need to be running off for medical attention. Once Master said, “Every time I turn my back, I find people here starting to go to doctors all the time. But if they have faith in God and in the divine flow, everything will work much better.”

A new approach to healing
There are many indications that, in a hundred years from now, our understanding of how the world operates will change dramatically. Every development in modern science is moving away from a focus on outward physical forms  into an awareness that the universe is really a flow of energy.

Healing in the future will be a fusion of new medical knowledge with spiritual insights about the effects of energy and consciousness upon the body. When these two disciplines converge on a single point, a whole new approach to healing will emerge that reflects the fact that our bodies are essentially composed of energy. By working with new forms of energy, and being in tune with a higher source, we can accomplish things that pills could never do.

I’d like to share a story about a healing experience that I had which doesn’t involve the deliberate sending of energy on my part, but rather being in tune with a higher consciousness. Some years ago I had an extraordinarily painful attack of kidney stones. I’ve never experienced anything like it—the pain was so intense that every muscle in my body was quivering like a leaf, and I couldn’t speak.

A friend was helping me and was urging me to go to the hospital, but the thought of driving over our bumpy roads was totally out of the question. Two hours passed, and the pain was getting worse and worse. I don’t like to pray for myself, so I just hung in there. I can’t say I grinned and bore it, but I bore it.

Then I looked at my watch—it was Sunday morning, and I was supposed to give the Sunday service in fifteen minutes. Feeling desperate at this point, I prayed, “God, I’m totally incapable of giving the service in this condition, so if you want me to give it, please take this pain away.”

It was quite amazing but within the length of time it took me to say that prayer, the pain vanished and was replaced by intense joy. It wasn’t just the emotional joy of relief, but rather the feeling of God’s presence. In fact, during the Sunday service I was so overwhelmed with joy that I could hardly speak anyway.

What is true healing?
This healing wasn’t brought about by sending energy to the kidney, but by offering the illness up to God and letting Him do it. It can happen in either way, but the important thing to understand is that if we do it together with God, the possibilities are unlimited. If we send that energy with His grace, if we ask Him to heal us, and if we understand that all true healing should be according to His will and not our own, then all this can become a means for our spiritual growth.

We can think of disease as a natural process of the psyche in its effort to cure itself of sin, delusion, or various kinds of error. Therefore in self-healing it’s important for you not to send energy only according to your own desires, but to try to feel what is God’s will in the matter.

Ultimately what’s important isn’t the healing of your body, but the spiritual growth of your soul. If you grow in the consciousness of God, when this body goes, you’ll keep on growing. But if you’ve only focused on physical health, you’ll have created a beautiful mausoleum—a white sepulcher, as Jesus called it.

Change your attitudes
Transformation of consciousness is the essence of self-healing. Learn to change your attitudes, because in the last analysis, wrong attitudes are always responsible for anything that goes wrong with you. Even accidents that occur are caused by something in your consciousness that attracts them.

Finally, remember that regardless of health or disease, you should strive to be a part of that divine flow and be united in your consciousness with God. Saints, too, sometimes have to deal with illnesses—maybe they’re taking other people’s karma, maybe they’re working out their own—it doesn’t matter. But remember we go through what we need to in order to achieve the highest healing of all—the healing of our ignorance of who we really are: children of God.

From a 1987 talk by Swami Kriyananda.

Good Health:
Good health is more than a state
of not being ill! It is a radiant state
of inner well-being.

Such radiant well-being comes
after the mind has been cleared of
every shadow of unwillingness, of
fear, and of doubt; when one has
learned to say “yes” to life; and
when one has learned to love.

From Affirmations for Self-Healing by
Swami Kriyananda.

Like attracts like
The kind of energy you put out determines what you attract in life. The karmic law functions as a hidden energy that blossoms forth and creates different kinds of magnetism that draw to us certain experiences.

Even before I came on the path, I discovered that according to the kind of expectation I put out, I attracted those kinds of results. When I got discouraged and that discouragement weakened my energy, nothing went right. When my former optimism came back, suddenly everything was going right again. Your aura, being magnetic, attracts to itself its own.

Although the experiences that come to you are determined by karma, you can change those experiences by the use of your will. There are two aspects to it. You can generate enough positive energy to neutralize the negative influences that are being attracted to you by your magnetism. To avoid accidents, for example, you can become very, very careful in everything you do, so that you’re no longer sending out that particular negative magnetism.

Build a strong protective aura
You can also introduce into your life a new kind of magnetism that forms a stronger protective aura around you. When the energy flow is strong, the aura is strong, and when the energy is weak, the aura becomes weak and we can become prey to all sorts of negative moods, and also illnesses. When you put out good will and positive enthusiasm; when you always try to see the good side of things and try to do good for others; then you create the kind of willingness that ultimately generates spiritual power.
By the practice of Kriya Yoga, by being in tune with this ray of divine power that has been brought into our lives, we can generate enough energy to protect ourselves and those within the aura of our influence. Even though you’re living through difficult times, you’ll remain untouched by them.

Overcoming mass karma
But we also have to take into consideration the effect of mass karma. You might, for example, not have the karma to die if you’re on a plane that crashes, but because the group karma is stronger than your own, it may determine what happens to you.

Despite negative mass karma, if the energy you put out is strong enough, you can create enough power of your own not to be sucked in—like the people who were planning to take the Lusitania and decided at the last minute not to go. Or, even if you were on a ship, you would somehow be saved. That’s the kind of protection we’re talking about.

Do things with God
In building spiritual power, there are a number of things to remember. One very important point is that you limit this power if you think of it as your own. You can generate some energy on your own, but the thought of ego, of “I,” blocks the flow of energy at the medulla. If you think, “God is the Doer. This is His power,”—then the energy flows unimpeded and with much greater strength up the spine through the medulla to the spiritual eye.

We need to generate the energy ourselves, but with the understanding that we don’t create that energy. “Your own but God-given power” is the way Paramhansa Yogananda described it. You have to take God’s power, draw it by your will, and then in cooperation with that power, let the energy flow through you. What works best is to feel that you’re doing it with God.

The importance of positive energy
The next thing in building spiritual power is to learn to live more in a positive spirit. Learn to say things, do things, in a positive way. We must be affirmative in our life, because this raises our energy.

It isn’t negative to see the problems. When you’re trying to accomplish anything, you need to see where it can be improved and that means to be aware of its weaknesses as well as its strengths. But it’s negative to be pulled down by what you see.

If Master said something against a person, as he sometimes did, it didn’t lower your consciousness because he would always say it in such a way that inspired you to try to make it better. When certain people talk to you about something negative, however, you go away feeling dark and helpless. Negativity is that which offers you no alternative, no solution, no way out. It paralyzes the will.

Seek positive values and positive friends. It’s a great mistake to allow negative people into your aura. Unless you’re very strong, you’ll find that in some subtle way that you’ll be affected, too.

Positive thoughts create positive magnetism, and this is what draws to you what you need, and protects you from adverse influences. When you put out good will and positive enthusiasm; when you always try to see the good side of things and try to do good for others; then you create the kind of willingness that ultimately generates spiritual power.

As Yogananda said, “The greater the will, the greater the flow of energy.” That willingness, unblocked by doubt or opposing negativity, generates an energy so powerful that only good things will be able to come to you.

Join your energies with others
A third important aspect to this subject of building spiritual power is that we’re much more effective if we join our efforts with others. If there are many people meditating by themselves, it will change the vibrations of the planet to some small degree. But when you get a vortex of energy created by a group of people either living together, or living apart but in attunement with each other, that kind of vortex of shared faith and shared practice can change the course of destiny.

Finally, Yogananda said that if you are in AUM, nothing negative will be able to touch you. Concentrate on AUM at the point between the eyebrows, or better still listen to the sound of AUM within. Try to see the Inner Light and live in the thought of that Light.

You can’t really solve things just by reading the newspaper and knowing all the terrible things that are happening throughout the world. You don’t need to know all about the shadows in order to understand the Light.

In these ways you will build spiritual power, and whatever good can be accomplished through you will have great effectiveness. Share that Light with others, live in the thought of AUM and of God, and then actively radiate it outward. It will not only change your life, but the lives of countless others as well.

Kali Yuga, which represented a freezing of energy in matter and a defining of it in dogmas and rigid rules, began in 700 BC. It reached its lowest point at 500 AD and ended in 1700 AD. Dwapara Yoga started in 1900, after a 200-year transition period.

That’s a long period of history as we know it. What we see in all that period is the tendency of mankind to try to do everything purely by rational ways, without love, and to see reality in terms of form, rigid institutions, laws for the institutions, systems, and dogmas.

Materialism vs. an intuitive flow
The light that is now coming into the planet with the start of Dwapara Yuga is being battled by darkness. This battle is epitomized by the conflict between the forces that have made a virtual religion of materialism and the forces that have embraced the new understanding that consciousness is the basis of matter. This battle is happening all over the world, and it will continue until we leave behind an old way of thinking.

The real challenge of our times is the introduction of a more flowing, intuitive kind of consciousness and the disintegration of the old form-bound consciousness. We are also at a time of a greater awakening of Spirit, not just a more intuitive flow in our work and various dealings, but a greater awareness of ourselves in terms of energy and consciousness.

A time of heightened energy
That awakening of Spirit is not going to happen automatically. What’s coming to us through the rays brought by Dwapara Yuga is not so much spirituality but a heightened energy, which it is our responsibility to turn toward the good. Some people are taking that energy and using it in evil ways.

People of higher consciousness have to bring that light out into the world. This is why we were born. We’ve been attracted here not only for ourselves but also to help bring that Light out into the world.

Yogananda pointed out the Bible passage where God promised to protect Sodom and Gomorrah if ten righteous people could be found—righteous in the eyes God, not self-righteous. Where there i