On Tuesday December 23rd, we had our annual all-day Christmas group meditation, where we inwardly celebrate the birth of Christ and the true meaning of Christmas. Paramhansa Yogananda started this annual tradition at Mt. Washington, where he held an eight-hour group meditation on December 24th (Spiritual Christmas), and followed the next day by a banquet (Social Christmas). The inspiration and … Read More
One of the most fantastic and beautiful stories in Paramhansa Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi tells of Lahiri Mahasaya‘s initiation into Kriya Yoga by his Guru, Mahavatar Babaji. To this day, the Kriya ceremony at Ananda is performed just the way Yogananda did it, and is patterned after the way Lahiri Mahasaya received, and gave, initiation into Kriya. In The … Read More
Tuesday night was for me the last night of a several-day seclusion—one that is ending more or less as I write this blog post. (The time-honored practice of seclusion is one of silence and of being alone with God.) During this seclusion, I spent some time outdoors, some time meditating (of course!), some time sleeping (too much?), and some other … Read More
The Christmas holiday Season can get pretty crazy. Everyone knows how it feels to be frantic, overtired, un-centered, or lonely at this time of year. This is too bad, because these Holidays can become true Holy-days and can be a time of greatest joy, if you are willing to make it so. Try a few of these suggestions—they may help! … Read More
The highest octave of human love is the unconditional love a guru gives to his disciple. To find God, we must learn to love Him the same way: unconditionally.
Always avoid the evil of selfishness. It is the root of all troubles, whether individual or national. Selfishness caused the 1930 depression in America. Businessmen and industrialists, by their indifference to the needs and sufferings of others, broke the spiritual law of equal supply. Thus, the richest nation on the globe suddenly became poor.
To activate the law of success, we needed to remain open to what God was trying to teach us and attune to His will, not our personal desires.
Feeling is a response that’s awakened in us as we focus our awareness on something: a person, an event, a circumstance. It’s a way of gaining understanding, and it’s very different from the way the intellect understands. Feeling understands via relationship and, in its higher expressions, from the inside; it is centered in the heart.
The life of a disciple can be summed up as ever deeper self-giving into the vibration of God and Guru. As we offer up our limitations, we open ourselves to their influence and they can enter our heart of hearts and change us.
Quiet Bodies is simply sitting cross-legged, with eyes closed, and not moving for a few minutes. In order to get the children to do Quiet Bodies, I needed to create an aura of specialness around the experience; making an activity “magical” and fun gets them to saying “yes.”
