Director of Ananda Yoga Academy in Italy, devoted Kriya Yogi, author of 5 yogic books in Italy, husband, loves the Himalayas where he guides a yearly pilgrimage, happy to have lived for the last 23 years at Ananda as a disciple of Yogananda, with fantastic brothers/sisters on the path.
Namashkar! God is one. Could you please tell me the difference between Divine Mother and Divine Father and how can I address them separately during my prayer.
Yes, God is one, and in “His” true essence He is beyond any human understanding. To understand His eternal essence we have to go beyond our human level, and meet Him on His own level, by expanding with our formless soul into in “heaven”, into Eternity, beyond time, space, gender, and definitions.
Sir, I am meditating since January this year but I still can’t concentrate more than 2-3 seconds. My mind chatters all the time whether I am meditating or not.
But on the other hand, in spite of my failing in meditation, I am getting a lot of benefits. e.g., I am now less short-tempered and my attitude has started changing. I am becoming closer to God. My relationships are a bit better now... Why is this so?
These are your first six month of meditation. Meditation for you is still young, like a child. It needs some time to grow up. One of the secrets of success is patience. Patience, it has been said, is the shortest way to God. “Keep going” is the best advice I can give you.
What do guruji’s teachings tell us about 'luck'? Where does the idea fit within the ideas of karma and dharma? Is it just a concept of past karma materializing in the form of what we want? Could you help me decipher and understand the idea? Am I lucky or is it all pure chance, of being in the right place at the right time around the right people?
"Luck" is only an appearance, and "pure chance" is perfectly nonexistent in this world. Everything is pure mathematics: what happens to us has to happen, and is mathematically perfect. Einstein said it this way: "God doesn’t play dice with the world." It’s all A+B=C. It is all karma. It looks like luck, or misfortune, but it never is. All creation is governed by law.
Is it undesirable to have a strong sense of right and wrong? The other day I was having discussion with a few people in which I said that criminal lawyers should not protect criminals just to get money, as in this way they help to increase sin in this world. I was told that what is wrong for me may not be wrong for the criminal lawyer. He may have his own justified opinion. Everything after all is subjective. What is the take of spiritual leaders on it? Shouldn’t we call wrong 'wrong' and right 'right'?
Your question concerns one of Patanjali’s ten yamas and niyamas: satya, truth, truthfulness. Satya is not a simple black & white issue. It has many facets.
Truth is objective. But our perception and interpretation of it is subjective. In addition, the outer expression of truth is an art to be learnt in the school of wisdom. There is a beautiful sentence about Sri Yukteswar in the Autobiography of a Yogi, which is surely meant to be a guideline for us all: "His thoughts were weighed in a delicate balance of discrimination before he permitted them an outward garb."
Namashkar !!! Man proposes, God disposes! God knows our true needs and gives us the best in his own time. What then is the use of prayer apart from the fact that we remember Him at least on the pretext of asking for something. I mean God will anyways give us what we deserve and what we need? So why pray?
The reason is: if you pray, miracles can happen, if you don’t, they won’t.
It’s like this: God is impersonal, but He is too great to be only impersonal, as Yogananda explains. He is also very personal: He is a Father, Mother, Friend. If you don’t pray, His impersonal law will be active, which is karma. Everything then that happens is in the flow of action/reaction, cause/effect.
I keep having horrible nightmares. I’ve heard that sometimes God communicates through dreams, but are all dreams from God? Is it simply karma that must be worked out? I also fear that in another life I will get very lost from being born in the mode of darkness and not remember everything I have learned.
God sometimes communicates through dreams, but if so, they are superconscious dreams, full of light, inspiration, beauty, upliftment. Horrible nightmares on the other hand come from our subconscious mind, never from God.
Yes, all our difficulties are karma which we ourselves have created, and which has to be worked out. It is best worked out by giving strength to its opposite positive quality: fill your day consciously with whatever is the antidote to your nightmares. It might be calmness, love, joy, courage, or peace. Use affirmations, songs, thoughts, your behavior, to strengthen that quality. In this way you consciously oppose this nasty "inner warrior" which causes you nightmares with the good soldiers of the soul, with its divine qualities. The good news is: the soul wins in the end, always. But it is not effortless.
My question is: several times we might have an intuition of an event before it happens. So I would like to know if the intuition is a warning that comes to us before the happening, or is our intuition the cause of the event to take place?
In either situation, is there a way we may control the happening? Specially if it is an untoward thought.
It depends on the type of your "intuition", of that feeling: if it is a calm feeling in which you are emotionally uninvolved, then it might well be a true intuition, a premonition; and if it is an undesired event, you might call it a "warning".
I’ve started with the Hong-Sau and energization exercises for a very short time, like 2 weeks ago, but yesterday I was doing Hong-Sau and I experienced that I had no or almost no breath, like taking a little drop of it. The feeling of my lungs can be compared with if you hold your breath out and move you abs a very little bit in and out. And I felt strange feelings through my body, and I felt bigger than I normally should be, and it felt very fine.
This is quite wonderful what you are experiencing, just after two weeks!
What happens is that the "Divine Fisherman" often blesses beginning seekers, to show that the results of meditation will be indeed special. In this way He "catches" the seeker. Often, after these beginning blessings, our long-time work begins, day for day, with patience and persistence, month for month, year by year.
Sometimes we experience a failed love affair. Will these failed love affairs lead to karmic debt? If so, will we be born again and repay it by making the love affair work? Will a love affair failed now lead to union in our next birth?
Thank you for your answer on the highest virtues, Jayadev. Your answer is helpful and makes a lot of sense to me.
May I request that you elaborate a little more on the concept of Love for God.There are certain people who love God but not aware of all virtues. Also what does being true to one's self mean, and how is it a virtue? I do agree with simplicity, self-sacrifice, and truth, but honour of what?
About love for God: God watches the heart, Yogananda said. It is the heart's intention that counts. I don't think we need to perfect all virtues to reach God. Perfection is not of this world. Yogananda once said, "Never count your faults. Just see that your love for God is deeply sincere. For God doesn't mind your imperfections: He minds your indifference." (From The Essence of Self-Realization). So this is why loving God is the virtue Nr.1. In Jesus' words: "Wherefore I say unto thee, her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little." (Luke 7:47)
