Namaste! Yesterday I read the passage in the Gita from the sixth chapter – verse 9: “He is a supreme Yogi who gazes equally upon patrons, friends, enemies, strangers, peacemakers, those who cause trouble, relatives, the virtuous and the ungodly.” Again, I smile at this passage where it says those who cause troubles and immediately follows that with relatives. Most … Read More
How to begin on the spiritual path
To start being Spiritual, I would say start looking at the heart. Don’t look for examples of Religion and Spirituality. They are very different from each other. Spirituality is your inner consciousness. Religion is your outer behaviour. Spirituality begins when you start thinking what is true. How can I find what life is all about? Do I fit in? You … Read More
Attracting God’s Healing Power
Never treat your body with disrespect; it isn’t only your body, it’s the temple of God. Instead of only going on pilgrimages, make the pilgrimage to your own heart by daily meditation. Try to feel that wherever you are God is with you; wherever you are God has to come to you. He doesn’t come only by going to spiritual … Read More
Overcoming Harmful Emotions
Emotions are harmful if they keep us from what we really want. Very often jealousy destroys love. Very often fear destroys the ability to succeed. All emotions in a sense are harmful if they upset the mind. Therefore, what we need to understand is that emotions themselves are upset or ruffled feeling. Feeling is the intuitive part of our nature, … Read More
Attaining the state of Jeevan Mukta
I bow to that infinite guru, in all forms including your forms because that infinite one, although playing at being a man or a woman; playing at being a certain age; playing at having a certain role in life; it’s all a play. Who you really are; is the infinite Brahman. You are that supreme spirit, dwelling momentarily in this … Read More
Overcoming Worry
There’s an interesting episode that occurs in ‘Alice Through the Looking Glass’ (it’s the sequel to Alice in Wonderland by the same author) and because Alice goes through the looking-glass she sees everything opposite, everything takes place sort of backwards and people live in time backwards too. At one point in a boat the Red Queen suddenly cries ‘oh oh … Read More
Stories about the Master
Power of My Guru Of course, my memories of him are only the last years of his life, whereas I heard many stories about him from early, early on. And they also were thrilling stories- how he would come on the lecture platform, full of energy! He would demand that his audiences greet him! Rise to his level of energy! … Read More
The Need for a Guru
We are discussing the Bhagavad Gita – the greatest scripture of the world because there’s all Truth condensed in so few pages. The Bhagavat Gita is a colloquy, a dialogue, between Krishna who is the Divine Guru and also the Representative of God and the disciple Arjuna. And how does the Guru represent God? I needed help I remember when … Read More
Practicing the Presence of God
The Heart is incredible We don’t really understand things with our mind. We can know reasons for them but understanding comes from the heart. Usha has written a beautiful book in which she points out the importance of the heart. A woman had a heart transplant. No one was supposed to know whose heart it was. She found certain things … Read More
How should we worship God?
How should we worship God? Love Him – yes, but how do we love Him. There are many fine points to be considered here. The first is love is centered in the heart, so we should concentrate on developing the energy in the heart but then what do you direct that energy to. The Srimad Bhagavatam gives this technique to … Read More
Leadership
The structure is much less important than the spirit. I haven’t really paid much attention to structure. The reason for that is that when I was in SRF, that was the monastery I was in for 14 years, and I was in charge of all the monasteries in the world and quite naturally I tried to create a system of … Read More
Ananda’s Role in Master’s Mission
Yogananda’s Mission What we see with Yogananda’s teachings, when he said I’m bringing back original Christianity, he meant self-realization and he meant that each of us individually has to make love to God. If you have an institution, the only purpose of the institution is to help that be actualized. It’s like a hive which can help the bees to … Read More