Ask Ananda’s Experts
Questions and answers about meditation, yoga, the spiritual life, and more

Nayaswami Sabari

Ananda Sacramento

Answer

Dear Sharmila,

Karma yoga is the practice of offering one’s daily actions to God. Since I was just reading The Art and Science of Raja Yoga by Swami Kriyananda, I offer his words on your question:

Everyone engages in mere activity, yet few people are karma yogis. The true karma yogi tries, by God-reminding activities, to redirect all the wrong impulses of his heart into wholesome channels. More than that, he tries to become aware of the divine energy flowing through him as he acts.

Tyagini Dharmadevi

Ananda Los Angeles

Answer

Dear Jeff,

That is a great question!

I think the point is to learn to recognize God as the Doer in everything and in everyone, so that our worship and reverence IS to the Divine.

You may have heard the story of the orchestra that played for Yogananda. Technically, they played perfectly, but when he was asked how he liked it, he slightly rebuked them for playing for him as a person, rather than with devotion to God.

Nayaswami Asha

Ananda Palo Alto

Answer

Dear L:

If you are associating with people who make you feel ashamed to believe in God, I suggest you find new friends.

If they are people you can’t escape from — co-workers or relatives — I suggest you walk away when people speak disrespectfully of the divine.

Nayaswami Sabari

Ananda Sacramento

Answer

Dear John,

What an interesting question. In our spiritual practices, the energy and focus we put into them determines how much power we experience from these practices.

Whether it is prayer or chanting, deeply focused interiorized devotion is the most powerful.

Tyagi Jayadev

Ananda Assisi, Italy

Answer

Dear Irina,

Greetings, and joy to you!

You ask a good and important question. I know the situation well: English for me too is the second language.

I have found that reading, singing, reciting poetry, using the language Yogananda wrote in — English — is much more effective than doing so in my native tongue. English just brings you closer to him, to his aura, to his presence. For example he said that he put his vibrations into the Autobiography of a Yogi, which contains the poem Samadhi: the poem he recommended especially to learn by heart, and to repeat often. I certainly find that a translation loses some of that vibration. Another language always introduces another color and feeling.

Nayaswami Shivani

Ananda Assisi, Italy

Answer

Dear Simon,

Let’s say you are wanting to open your own small business, and are looking for advice about the nature of assistance available to small business entreprenuers. Or someone dear to you is having a health crisis and is confined to bed. You want to help them by researching home-care options.

Nayaswami Jaya

Ananda India

Answer

Dear KJ,

Can you truly love that which you do not know? There is a saying, "To know God is to love God," but until we have that experience of "knowing" through inner experience, we cannot love completely.

But certainly we can yearn for that love and expand upon the flickers of love we have experienced for family, friends and loved ones. In your meditation, spread your heart’s feelings to include an ever wider circle of souls. As your sympathies grow, love will come to you.

Nayaswami Asha

Ananda Palo Alto

Answer

Dear Manoj:

Offering oneself to God is mostly a matter of intention, at least at the beginning, because we can’t give to God (or to anyone) that which we don’t own. And for a long time on the spiritual path we are, in a sense, a house divided.

Even though the over all direction has been set, some of our “mental citizens” may still resist. So our offering is incomplete.