Painting by Jan Tarr

Dear Meditator,

Years ago in Hawaii I had an experience at the ocean that beautifully illustrated the power of meditation and the guru.

While vacationing on the island of Kauai, I went to a beach to swim with a few friends. There I saw sets of ten-foot waves crashing along the shore. It seemed impossible to get through the high, turbulent surf. Yet, I knew it was possible. I could see swimmers beyond the surf bobbing happily in the gentle, rolling ocean. They’d made it through the surf. I wanted to be there with them.

Swami Kriyananda said that no one would ever seek God without the tangible example of liberated souls like the Buddha, Jesus Christ, and Paramhansa Yogananda. Seeing the swimmers beyond the surf was incredibly enticing and I longed to be with them. So I braved the crashing waves.

But the surf was too powerful for me and I was pounded and tossed about like a stick of driftwood. Defeated, I crawled out of the water onto the beach looking like a drowned rat.

After catching my breath, I stood up and again looked longingly at the swimmers. Meanwhile, a local “waterman” had been observing my attempt to reach the open ocean. He walked over to me and introduced himself, then shared the secret of swimming through ten-foot ocean waves:

“Swim on the surface until a waves approaches. Then dive and swim underwater until it passes safely overhead. Surface, and swim like mad until the next wave comes.

“When you dive beneath a crashing wave,” he cautioned, “hold your arms and hands in front of your face in case the wave pounds you into the seafloor.” With a big smile, he said, “This will protect you.”

The waterman’s advice and encouragement made all the difference. I followed his instructions to the letter and was able to maneuver through the turbulent surf, without too much excitement.

I joined the other swimmers who were happily gathered together chatting and reveling in the gentle rising and falling waves. As I floated peacefully, I felt embraced by an awesome, yet gentle love emanating and pulsing through the Great Ocean. “Oh make me Thyself,” Paramhansa Yogananda wrote, “that I behold my little bubble of self ever floating in Thee!”

Spiritual teachers tell us, “This world is a nest of troubles.” We don’t have to relate to surface, or superficial, realities on their own terms. If we live on the surface of life, far from our spiritual center, every passing wave will throw us.

When I tried to fight my way through the high Hawaiian surf, I was defeated. But when I dived beneath the waves, the surf’s power over me vanished.

Why not dive beneath the waves of life’s restlessness and limitations by regular, ever-deepening meditation and God remembrance? The Divine Presence awaits us at the center of our own being. The guru, at home in the oceanic consciousness of God, is ready and willing to guide us to the seas of Spirit.

When God sees that a soul deeply desires freedom, he sends him a guru. Just as the waterman’s instructions allowed me to realize my aspiration to reach the open ocean, the guru’s God-magnetism and careful instructions will enable us to pass successfully through all of delusion’s waves.

Remember the waterman’s sage advice. When creation’s waves loom above you, with their apparent destructive power: dive beneath them.

May your practice of meditation and God remembrance bring you ever increasing joy and freedom.

Blessings of light,
Nayaswami Bharat

Last week at Ananda Village I met two people who were experiencing challenging physical karma. They each had a wonderful spirit. I shared with them the following story told by Swami Sivananda, which I have rewritten. Both friends found the story extremely helpful and I thought you might, too. Swami Kriyananda called karma an expression of divine love. This story demonstrates how God lovingly guides us through every experience in life.

There was an Indian saint in Puri who completely dedicated himself to Lord Hari. One day, the saint became seriously ill with chronic dysentery and was quite helpless. Lord Hari, who greatly loved the saint, saw his plight and began caring for him through the form of the saint’s own servant.

The Lord did not want the saint to have to take another birth to work out his karma. So his devotee had to suffer from the protracted ailment. (Prarabdha is the portion of past karma that has been released and set in motion to bear fruit in one’s current life. It is like an arrow released from a bow. The archer cannot recall the arrow or change its flight. There’s nothing he can do to keep it from hitting its mark.)

Such was the saint’s karmic purgation. But think of this: throughout the intense karmic period, the Lord Himself became the slave of His devotee. Look at the unbounded mercy of the Lord. He Himself serves whoever surrenders himself completely to His wisdom and love.

Paramhansa Yogananda said when seeking a remedy for a physical complaint, we should remain mentally apart from it. Don’t let it disturb you. Accepting your karma calmly and cheerfully is the quickest way to overcome it.

God wants us to experience the omnipresence of our soul. Our sun is a tiny speck in a sky filled with over 170 billion galaxies. Comets and lights flicker around the Cosmic Mother, Yogananda said, and still we dare to think we are our little bodies. It hurts Divine Mother when we say, “I love my little body home more than anything else.”

Just as one million cubic feet of air can be compressed into one cubic foot, so Cosmic Consciousness is compressed by egoic consciousness. When the soul identifies with the body, it confines its awareness of Cosmic Consciousness to a tiny portion of matter. When compressed air escapes its container, however, it rapidly spreads to fill the surrounding space. Our consciousness expands similarly when it breaks free of body-attachment.

The practice of observing the breath during meditation brings deep spiritual benefits — one of the most important is a sense of detachment from your physical body and mental processes. Every time you observe the breath without controlling it, you are affirming the attitude, “I am not this body.” Every time your mind wanders and you bring yourself back by repeating the Hong-Sau mantra, you are saying, “I am not this personality.”

Patanjali, the great exponent of yoga, said that when we no longer identify with our one little body, we experience ourselves in all bodies. Attachment to the body is the cause of all misery. “Break this jail of flesh,” Paramhansa Yogananda said, “and get out into the infinite.” By daily, deep meditation and constantly affirming our reality as vast Spirit, we can do this.

The Mother, a great disciple of Sri Aurobindo, tells of going into her garden to pick vegetables and mentally hearing some of the plants say: “Take me… take me.” Other plants stated resolutely, “Don’t take me… don’t take me!” When we meditate, each time the mind wanders in self-involvement, we are like the plants, saying, “Don’t take me, Mother. I’m busy playing in your creation.”

During every moment of meditation and daily life, let us be like the plants that eagerly say to the Divine Gardener: “Take me… Take me. I want to go with you, and live again in my Cosmic home.”

In divine friendship,
Bharat

Ego consciousness isolates us from the rest of life. Those who deeply merge with AUM, however, know, and say, “I am the whole universe. What can possibly harm me?”

In his book, Rays of the One Light, Swami Kriyananda wrote, “Human vision beholds individuality and separation everywhere. Divine vision beholds the oneness of cosmic vibration, of which all things, no matter how diverse, are manifestations. Cosmic Sound and Cosmic Light: These are eternal. The world, as revealed to us by our senses, is illusory.”

When one is deeply absorbed in AUM and feels its awesome power, the external world is seen as only a dream-thought. One knows, without a doubt, that only AUM is real.

Swami Rama Tirtha said blissfully, “Nature is my body,” because through deep communion with AUM he felt he was united with the trees and farthest stars. In his chant, “Marching Light,” he expresses the omnipotent confidence native to every soul who knows AUM. Below are excerpts from his poem.

The world turns aside to make room for me;

I come, Blazing Light! And the shadows must flee.

I ride on the Tempests, astride on the Gale,

My gun is the Lightning my shots never fail.

I hitch to my chariot the Fates and the Gods.

With Thunder of cannon proclaim it abroad:

Wake! Wake up! Be free,

Liberty! Liberty! Liberty! OM

The Cosmic Vibration is beyond duality; therefore, in its reality, there’s no opposite or opposition. In its consciousness, there is no myself against another — but myself as all others.

Swami Sivananda illustrated the universal consciousness of one immersed in AUM with this analogy: AUM is like a canvas with material objects painted on it. “The canvas is real,” he said, “but the pictures in the canvas are unreal because the fire [painted] in the canvas cannot burn your fingers, the knife in the canvas cannot cut your fingers, the tiger in the canvas cannot bite you. AUM is the only solid reality.”

Swami Kriyananda has written a marvelous visualization for affirming and experiencing the universal consciousness of AUM. You can use this visualization when you feel in opposition to anything or anyone, or to unite with AUM during meditation.

Imagine a choir composed of every atom in the universe, each one an individual, but all of them singing together in blissful harmony.

In your own mind, join that mighty choir, composed of all life. Determine from today on to sing in harmony with the universe. Don’t impose on the great anthem of life your little wishes for how you want the music to sound. Unite your notes to that Infinite Sound.

The more you do so, the more deeply you will know yourself to be an expression of the soaring anthem of Infinity.

—from Awaken to Superconsciousness

Nothing Can Touch You

“When AUM came,” a lady once said to Paramhansa Yogananda, “all my troubles vanished.” My friend, Mari, told me recently how her troubles had also vanished when she attuned to the consciousness of AUM.

Several years ago she was waiting to make a deposit at her bank when, suddenly, she found herself in the middle of a robbery. It was a highly stressful situation, and Mari said she “lost it” emotionally.

After the robbery, Mari was disappointed in herself for reacting so emotionally. To change this tendency in herself, she began chanting AUM all day long. Whenever there was a tense situation, Mari would silently and lovingly call on the healing power of AUM to calm herself and others.

AUM is the Great Comforter. Paramhansa Yogananda said that when you are in the consciousness of AUM, nothing can touch you.

Three years later, Mari was again at her bank when another robbery occurred. This time it was a much more violent one.

During this bank heist, Mari was knocked to the floor. But her long practice of thinking of and chanting AUM kept her calm and centered.

As Mari began crawling discreetly away from the robbers, a hysterical woman latched on to her and she guided the terrified woman out of sight of the robbers, where they both would be safe.

Later, during an interview with the FBI, Mari was told that the odds of being involved in two bank robberies were incredibly low. She was the only witness who could give an accurate description of the robbers. Mari attributed this to the calmness she felt from tuning in to the unifying presence of AUM.

While backpacking in California’s Southern Sierra Nevada mountains, three women from Ananda Village had a dramatic experience of the power of AUM. On the fourth day of their trip, a furious thunderstorm caught them at 10,000 feet. Loud cracks of lightning and massive explosions of thunder crashed around them. Torrential rain fell, then hail began to fall harder and harder. Desperate for shelter, they ran to a couple of small trees, which soon proved inadequate protection against the pounding hailstorm.

Seeing a large tree nearby, they bolted for its sheltering branches. Already wet, they struggled out of their packs and dug for their rain jackets. The temperature, meanwhile, had plummeted, and the hail began to fall even harder.

They knew they were in trouble. As drenched as they were, hypothermia was a real possibility. They badly needed shelter. Yet, standing under the highest tree around wasn’t wise — because tall trees are perfect lightning rods. They wondered aloud, “Do we risk hypothermia or lightning strikes?” Both options were dangerous.

Then one of the women began chanting to all-pervading AUM. The two other ladies quickly joined in. Suddenly, they felt as if a bubble of protection surrounded them. Their fear was gone — a feeling of awe and gratitude filled their hearts. For twenty minutes, they chanted and enjoyed the majestic show of lightning and hail. After the storm, everything was transformed into a white wonderland; they felt blessed beyond measure by the love and protection of AUM.

Being in AUM gives one absolute security. The whole world could go up in flames and it wouldn’t matter to you. Swami Rama Tirtha was a great devotee of AUM. He chanted it always — during lectures, conversations, and solitary walks in nature. Before he knew AUM, he said, every whiff of wind threw him off balance. But after constant practice and remembrance of AUM, he became completely free of fear, anxiety, and annoyance. He told his students, “If one man can do this, you can, too.”

Healing Techniques with AUM

If you are troubled before going to sleep, write AUM or Amen on your pillow with your fingers. Mentally visualize light around your body, look into the spiritual eye and say several times, mentally or loudly: I am Light. Darkness fly away.

Standing or sitting, touch both of your palms in front of your body, and then swing them to touch behind your back, and then forward again several times in rapid succession, chanting AUM, and you will be protected.

—Paramhansa Yogananda, Karma and Reincarnation

AUM Chant

Here’s a chant to help you stay in the consciousness of AUM: “Fill Me with the Sound of AUM” by Swami Kriyananda.

Success in meditation is determined by how dynamically we channel our mind and consciousness. In her book Grace, Nancy Mair tells how we can use our minds to attune to the subtle truth of anything we do. Her story below has great implications for everyone who meditates.

I first understood the power of the mind and how greatly it can effect change when it was demonstrated in my own life. I was an avid downhill ski racer during my high school years.

Painting by Swami Kriyananda

One year, I returned from summer racing camp with high enthusiasm and began my preseason training in July. I trained hard and diligently, three to four hours every day.

In early winter, the snows finally came. Going down my first practice course of the season, I caught a tip on a gate, fell, and tore a tendon and ligaments in my ankle.

I was in a cast until nearly the end of the ski season. I missed skiing tremendously, and under the circumstances, the only way I could enjoy it was by visualizing myself going down the slopes. I added to my mental pictures the many new pointers I had received from the coaches at ski camp. I mentally skied any time of day or night that I felt like it. It was the only way for me to appease my deep longing for the exhilaration of skiing.

My cast was eventually taken off, and I was ready to get back on the slopes the final few weeks of the season. My first day out, I discovered my skiing had improved to such an extent that my coach didn’t even recognize me as I made my first enthusiastic runs down the mountain. I couldn’t believe the change myself. My coach approached me at the end of the day and asked me how I had managed to improve so dramatically without being able to practice. I told him that I had been skiing in my mind, executing turns over and over again. He was astonished by my answer.

That summer when I returned to racing camp, the coaches there could hardly believe their eyes. They, too, asked how I managed to makes such phenomenal progress in my skiing, because they had never seen anyone change so much in just one year. I told them that I did as they had suggested the previous summer and pictured in my mind the way I should be skiing. I was unhindered by the actual physical practice, and I never failed to make the turns correctly in my mind. Once my mind “understood,” my body simply followed along.

Every day I mentally skied exactly the way I wanted to — and my body learned how in reality by my focusing clearly, and with deep concentration. I had no idea that my thoughts were actually making any changes. It wasn’t until I was back on the slopes that I realized the importance of what I had been doing.

Just as Nancy became more proficient in her sport by “skiing in her mind,” practicing visualization techniques can greatly enhance your experience of meditation. Visualizations, Swami Kriyananda said, “help awaken the memory of your deeper reality.” Visualizations are effective because they powerfully direct and attune your will, mind, and consciousness to God.

I once had a dream that taught me about the power of thought in an exhilarating way. In the dream, I was standing on a hill overlooking a small lake. While I was gazing at the lake, a friend walking by said to me, “Go ahead, Bharat. You can fly.”

So I began to fly.

My flight path rose and fell with the rolling topography of the surrounding foothills. After going a short distance, I thought, “Why not fly in a straight line and become free of the land below.”

Immediately, I found myself flying strong and true — free from earthly limitation.

Then, feeling that there was more to experience, I said to myself, “Why not just ‘go’ there?  Flying seems so slow.”

Instantly, I arrived at my destination. Time and space were seemingly conquered — at least during my flight-dream!

This dream taught me that by focusing and directing the mind I could experience increasingly deeper levels of being. Similarly, Swami Kriyananda’s visualization, The Spiritual Eye Meditation, guides you beyond physical limitation to subtler and subtler levels of soul awareness.

The spiritual eye is the reflection of the inner spine, which is composed of three concentric channels of energy. Its outer golden ring represents the astral world; its circular blue field, the causal world; and its silvery star, Cosmic Consciousness. When the life force is interiorized after meditation techniques like Hong Sau, this visualization directs your energy and consciousness more deeply into the channels of the inner spine where soul bliss resides.

In this visualization, you imagine the golden tunnel of light of the astral world and “feel… a glorious sense of happiness and freedom,” and visualize the blue field of the causal world, and “expand your consciousness into that light” and experience “infinite freedom and bliss.”

During meditation, we often use visualizations. For example, we may imagine the guru sitting within our body magnetizing our effort, or we might imagine we are sitting on a bluff overlooking the ocean, feeling the waves flowing in and out as our breath.

“Imagination is the beginning of creation,” said George Bernhard Shaw, and imagining spiritual realities is a dynamic step toward perceiving these realities. Jesus Christ said to pray believing; it is essential that we imbue every moment of meditation with positive, soul-affirmation. God is a God of joy; to experience His bliss we should meditate with the strong mental attitude of inner joy and freedom.

Two excellent resources for visualizations are Swami Kriyananda’s book, Awaken to Superconsciousness and the Metaphysical Meditations CD, which contains thirteen guided meditations based on the mystical poetry of Paramhansa Yogananda.

Paramhansa Yogananda wrote:

As your body is the little body,
so God’s body is space,
and if you want to feel Him,
feel space in the body,
and all space beyond it.

May you always delight in the joy of your soul,

Nayaswami Bharat for the Daily Meditator

I was riding a bicycle on a country road surrounded by wheat fields, when a large falcon swooped out of the sky and began flying right beside me.

I looked at the falcon and the falcon looked at me—and then he smiled. The falcon had a magical presence. It began flying faster, so I pedaled harder to keep up with this magnificent being.

The falcon smiled again, this time seemingly to say, ‘Can you go faster?’ By pedaling furiously, I was barely able to keep up with its faster pace. It took everything I had to stay even with the falcon.

Seeing that I was still keeping up with him, the falcon dramatically increased his speed. To my surprise, I felt a force propelling me forward, and I was able to stay abreast of the rapidly flying falcon.

I wasn’t pedaling anymore; I was being carried along by the falcon’s presence.

Then the bird flew upward into the sky, and I found myself on my bicycle rising skyward with my falcon friend.

God wants to carry us into the skies of Spirit. Our job is to energetically and lovingly offer ourselves to God and let Him transform us.

The following words by Swami Kriyananda express a profound and encouraging truth about how one advances spiritually:

You may think, “I can never love God the way the great saints love Him. I’ll never have their fervor or joy.”

But you will find that as you keep reaching for God, He will uplift you. He will give you the power to find Him. You can’t generate that power yourself. But your love can draw that power to you.

Visualize before you a very young child reaching up with outstretched arms. Feel his childlike faith and conviction that you will pick him up.

His innocence and trust is irresistible. Feel your heart responding to the child’s beautiful innocence. Reach down and lovingly lift him up to you.

God Himself has given you the ability to love. He will respond when you offer yourself to Him with childlike love and trusting expectation. Then, He will reach down and lift you up into His Beloved Presence.

In divine friendship,

Nayaswami Bharat

See before you
the Heavenly Father, our Creator.
Gaze into His radiant face
brighter than a thousands suns.

He is a God of joy
and His nature is bliss.
But as Spirit beyond creation,
He had no one with whom to share His joy.
So God made you.

To enjoy Himself through many,
God projected His consciousness outwards
to manifest the vast universe
through the Sacred AUM Vibration.

AUM is the outpouring of God’s love
flowing to you—and to all creation.
When you commune with AUM,
you enter into, and flow with,
the stream of God’s love.

Visualize yourself standing with the Heavenly Father.
It is the morning of creation.
Feel the vibrations of His love
entering your heart and filling you with joy.
Dwelling in Cosmic AUM, you live in the paradise
of your Father’s Peace, Bliss, and Light.

You are a child of Cosmic AUM. All human life and consciousness emanates from this Sacred Vibration. AUM is the Comforter who reveals God’s loving presence and teaches you that only God is Real.

Swami Kriyananda says “AUM begins to seep into your mind first of all. Then it comes down the spine bursting open the door of the heart, filling you with Love, filling you with Joy.”

After hearing the Holy AUM Vibration, Saint Francis said it was, “a music so sweet and so beautiful that had it lasted a moment longer, he would have melted away from the sheer joy it.”

Paramhansa Yogananda said, “The Lord has created all men from the limitless joy of His being.” AUM is the channel through which God shares His bliss with you.

Both Paramhansa Yogananda and Swami Kriyananda have written profoundly about Cosmic AUM and how to commune with it. Listening to AUM is not only part of the path of Kriya Yoga, but the ultimate goal.

“Just as light is the property of a lighted lamp,” said Lahiri Mahasaya, “so the sound of AUM is the intrinsic property of the stage of samadhi.”

Communing with AUM Program
Expanding Light Retreat at Ananda Village, July 16 – 18, 2010

Lead by Nayaswami Bharat, the program is designed for those with a deep interest in AUM who have a strong meditation practice.

For disciples of Paramhansa Yogananda, there will be a additional AUM technique class.

If you’re not a disciple and would like to take the program, use the contact information below to speak with Bharat’s wife, Anandi.

You will learn little-known techniques taught by Paramhansa Yogananda for merging into Sacred AUM. Visualizations, devotional AUM meditations, chanting, inspirational stories, and deep yogic teachings will bring the Cosmic Vibration alive for you.

There will also be an evening of heart-opening chanting to the Cosmic Vibration, interspersed with quiet listening and absorption, that will help you draw even more deeply on the sacred vibrations of AUM.

May the blissful vibrations of Cosmic AUM always inspire you.

In divine friendship,

Bharat Cornell

Program Contact:
Email: anandi@expandinglight.org
Phone: 800-346-5350, ask to speak with Anandi

In this dream each runner, at some point, fell to the ground. Some devotees got up right away, while others took longer. What was important, the disciple said, was that everyone did get up eventually, and kept moving toward the light.

To progress on the spiritual path, we have to keep moving toward greater soul freedom no matter what challenges we face.

As we evolve from finite awareness, identifying with one tiny body and personality, to soul-thrilling, infinite consciousness, we must expect challenges along the way.

Certainly over our millions of incarnations, we have developed a few soul-negating attitudes and limitations. When we finally become aware of these limitations, we must meet them, and overcome them, with courage.

Discouragement, Paramhansa Yogananda said, is the greatest test of Satan for the devotee, because discouragement paralyzes our will and prevents us from moving forward on the path.

We must keep our minds calm and be like a tractor that moves “easily over the ups and downs in the field of life.”

In the following excerpts (below) from the new book by Paramhansa Yogananda How to Have Courage, Calmness, and Confidence, he tells us how to live as a confident child of God, and embrace the path as a spiritual warrior, with a heart filled with courage and determination.

May you feel the presence of God through every test and challenge, and may the joy of your soul shine ever brighter with God’s light.

In divine friendship,

Nayaswami Bharat

How To Have Courage, Calmness, and Confidence
—Paramhansa Yogananda, excerpts from the book

Yogananda with a tiger skin

Meet everybody and every circumstance on the battlefield of life with the courage of a hero and the smile of a conqueror. Give little weight to the trials that beset you. Eventually, you will pass beyond every shadow of bad karma, beyond all tests and difficulties, and will behold at last the dawn of divine fulfillment.

Tears and sighs on the battlefield of life are the liquid cowardice of a weak mind. Those who give up the fight become prisoners within the walls of their own ignorance. Life is nothing if not a continuous overcoming of problems. Every problem that waits for a solution at your hand is the religious duty imposed upon you by life itself.

Avoid associating with those who always complain about life. They may ruin your newly awakened spirituality, which is like a tender plant growing within you. Avoid such people and try to be happy always, no matter how you are situated.

Change—even change for the better—is often approached with apprehension. “In giving up something,” people think, “will I be left with nothing?” It takes courage to renounce the known for the unknown. It is not easy even to renounce a familiar pain for an unknown, and therefore uncertain, happiness.

The mind is like a horse that for years has pulled its delivery wagon. The horse grows accustomed to its daily route, and cannot be convinced easily to walk a new one. The mind, too, will not lightly abandon its old habits, even when it knows they cause only misery.

The sincere seeker… takes heart at the thought of the hard work before him. A true warrior, though afraid, plunges courageously into battle when the strength of his arm is needed.

A true alpinist, though apprehensive of the sheer cliff he faces, sets out resolutely to conquer it. And the sincere truth seeker tells himself, “I know what an arduous task it must be to achieve perfection, but I will give it all I have. With God’s help, success, surely, must be mine!”

Karma is best worked out by meeting life’s tests cheerfully and courageously. If you still fear something, that karma has not yet been worked out. To dissipate it, don’t try to avoid the tests you have to face. Rise above them bravely, by dwelling in God’s joy within.

Sorrow has no objective existence. If you constantly affirm it, it exists. Deny it in your mind, and it will exist no longer.

Always remember that your real nature is eternal bliss, and nothing else. The one thing that will never leave you is the joy of your soul.

Every worldly man seeking success must keep his mind calm to meet the constantly changing circumstances of his life. He must be able, like a tractor, to move easily over ups and downs in the field of life.

The moral aspirant should not be overjoyed when he is victorious over a mighty temptation, nor should he be discouraged if he finds himself suddenly a prisoner of temptation. The resolute, even-minded moral individual moves steadily forward until he reaches his goal of complete self-mastery.

When a spiritual devotee, after a few years of deep meditation, acquires a divine joy, he should not be over-confident in the lasting quality of that experience, until he reaches the final beatitude.

Many devotees become self-satisfied with the superconscious joy of the soul and with beholding a few astral lights. They do not make further deep efforts at meditation, and thus fail to unite their consciousness with the omnipresent joy and light of Spirit.

A devotee who meditates regularly but finds himself the victim of a sudden explosion of subconscious restlessness should not be discouraged nor stop making renewed efforts at deeper meditation and God-contact. Until one is anchored in the Infinite, he must valiantly race his mental ship of concentration on the calm or rough seas of inner experiences until he reaches the shores of unending communion with the Infinite.

God answers all prayers. Restless prayers, however, He answers only a little bit. If you offer to others something that isn’t yours to give, won’t that be an empty gesture? Similarly, if you pray to God, but lack control over your own thoughts, that prayer will have no power.

Thoughts and feelings, both, must be focused when you pray. Otherwise, God will meet your little trickle with another trickle of His own! He will dole out His answers to you in a teaspoon. Too often, prayer is more like the halfhearted mumbling of a beggar than the confident, loving demand of a friend.

Carry your love of God deep in your heart before you sleep. Cradle it there, so that when you dream you may dream of Him resting on the fragrant altar of sleep. Actually, God embraces you on His bosom as peace and joy when you sleep. You are sleeping locked in His arms of tranquility. So, before you fall asleep, remember that you are going to embrace Him in sleep and dreams.

The boy was so focused that he was oblivious to the cold and to the snow piling up around him. The snow rose to cover his legs, then his waist, and, still, the boy remained virtually motionless. Everyone else had long since left for the comfort of a large heated tent. Knowing the group was waiting for us, I asked the boy if he had finished his poem. “Not yet,” he replied. Then he immersed himself once again in his poem.

The absorbed boy sitting in the white sea of snow made a strong impression on me. Swami Kriyananda says, “To worship God ‘in Spirit’ means, in deep meditation, to rise above body consciousness.” The Japanese boy beautifully demonstrated the principle of one-pointed concentration so essential to deep meditation and finding God.

The goal of meditation is to free us from physical and mental limitations and realities. In Conversations with Yogananda, Swami Kriyananda tells how Paramhansa Yogananda could withdraw his mind completely from any pain his body suffered. Once, a thousand-pound concrete wishing well slipped from the grasp of the men lifting it, and crushed his foot. Immediately Yogananda said, “I will show you something, I will focus my concentration on the point between the eyebrows.” As he did so, every trace of pain instantly vanished from his face, and he could walk back and forth easily.

When we withdraw our life force into the spine and brain, we experience another world — a world of Spirit. A friend was standing on a hotel balcony one night in Mexico, enjoying the city lights spread out before him. Suddenly a power failure plunged the city into darkness. As the lights of the city were darkened, the brilliance of the stars came alive. The glow of the city had over-powered the stars’ subtler light. For the devotee, a “spiritual power outage” occurs when he pulls the plug that connects his life force with the senses, and then the inner world comes alive.

Nature’s manifestations are often symbols for deep, inner realities. The sun, for example, is the most immediate “physical” form of AUM, because it enlivens all life.

Similarly, the awakened yogi’s spine finds a physical counterpart in a river, because the human body also has a vast tributary system that feeds life force into the central channel of the spine.

Swami Kriyananda wrote in the Raja Yoga part of the Ananda Course in Self-Realization:

Tremendous joy and awareness are experienced as one’s consciousness becomes centered sensitively in the spine. The spine is, indeed, the holy river of baptism in which the Godward-moving soul becomes cleansed and regenerated in waters of divine joy.

There are instructive parallels between rivers and the flow of energy in one’s spine.

The Mississippi River’s drainage area comprises 41% of the continental United States. After it has gathered the water from tributaries along its 2,350 mile length, its flow rate is tremendous — 600,000 cubic feet per second. At its headwaters, however, the Mississippi River is puny — flowing at 6 cubic feet per second — making the river’s volume 100,000 times greater as it enters the Gulf of Mexico. The disparity in flow rate between the Mississippi River’s headwater and mouth is comparable to the difference between the energy flowing in the spine of an ordinary man and an advanced yogi.

Most people’s spines are spiritually paralyzed, and their life force is locked up in their bodies. Spiritual progress begins when we redirect our energy inward — changing the center of our consciousness from the body and senses to the spine and brain, and thus transmuting it into superconsciousness. Withdrawing the life force is the inner, universal path of all spiritual effort.

The goal of every raindrop is to reach the sea, just as it is the goal of every soul to unite with God. Both, however, must enter their respective “channels” if they wish to make rapid progress. Geologists estimate that it takes 90 days for a drop of water to travel the length of the Mississippi River until it merges into the Gulf of Mexico. By contrast, if that drop remained in the earth as groundwater, it would travel just four inches per day. To journey the length of the Mississippi would take it 100,000 years — over 400,000 times longer than by traveling in the river.

Kriya Yoga draws our energy into the river of the spine, which makes it, as Yogananda says, the “super-quick” method for finding God.

According to yoga science, cosmic energy enters the body through the medulla oblongata, the negative pole of the sixth chakra, located at the base of the skull. Then it descends down the spine and out through the chakras to different regions of the body. The energy flowing from the heart chakra, for example, radiates outward through the nerve channels to the physical heart, lungs, and chest, and into the arms and hands.

The spinal centers, or chakras, are found at the points where tributary streams of energy can either flow outward to sustain the body or flow from the physical body inward to the spine. There is a tremendous amount of energy locked in our bodies waiting to be released. When it is released, the devotee feels an overwhelming sense of joy in his spine.

To drive this point home to us, Swami Kriyananda said, “You don’t realize how much power, bliss, and expansion there is in the chakras as you go deeper into them.”

To give you a greater sense of this subtle reality, practice The River of Joy visualization during your next meditation:

Visualize your spine… as a mighty river flowing inside you.

Feel its magnetic current rising upwards from the base of your spine to your spiritual eye and merging into the vast Ocean of Spirit.

Feel streaming into your chakras rivers of divine joy. Feel all of your chakras and your whole spine nourished by inflowing rivers of bliss.

Pray: O Ocean of Bliss I Return to Thee!

Swami Kriyananda has defined Ananda as a rising flow of energy. The whole path of Kriya Yoga: devotion, selfless service, attunement with one’s guru, meditation, and right living and attitudes, help keep your consciousness interiorized and expansive. God’s nature is joy, and when we, like the prodigal son, begin our journey home, we’ll experience more and more of His bliss in our lives.

Interiorization is not only a state one achieves: It is an attitude that must be cultivated consciously. I invite you, dear friend, to share what practices you’ve found helpful in keeping your consciousness interiorized and inspired throughout the day.

May your feel ever more deeply the blissful presence of God. I want to wish you a blessed New Year.

In divine friendship,

Bharat

During my first year at Ananda Village I asked Swami Kriyananda if he had advice for my meditation practice. He replied, “Keep Divine Mother first.”

I realized he was encouraging me to focus more on giving rather than receiving.

The goal of meditation is self-forgetfulness. Yet one’s ego refers everything back to itself, instead of offering itself freely to God. The grasping quality of the ego creates tension, which drives away true meditation experiences.

When we meditate with deep attention and devotion, we break the cycle of habitual self-involvement. This is why concentration is so essential. Concentration is sincerity and its fruits are love and absorption.

In Swami Kriyananda’s book Awaken to Superconsciousness he says that during the higher stages of meditation “even the thought ‘I am concentrating’ is a distraction, and betrays an imperfection in one’s mental focus.”

During your meditations, offer to the Spiritual Eye every personal motive, thought, and feeling of separate existence. Feel that God is meditating through you. Give yourself to the Superconsciousness with the deep receptivity and love. If you do, Paramhansa Yogananda said, someday, when you least expect it, God will reach down and lift you up to His Beloved Presence.

Swami Kriyananda on meditating with a pure heart:

“Even in meditation, it is important not to meditate with desire for the results. We think the spiritual path is about the experiences we receive in meditation, but it is much more about the refinement and purity of our self-offering to God.”

“If the devotee starts to think of how he can get more experience or more realization, then he falls back into delusion. It has to be a constant giving, and in that giving, God can give us more.

“Spiritual experiences will freely flow to us when we meditate with this kind of attitude, there being no longer any hindrances to stop the flow.”

“To eliminate the strain and tension of trying to concentrate, release also the thought, I am meditating. Think rather, the Cosmic Vibration is reaffirming, through me, its own reality. Cosmic love, through me, is yearning for God’s love. Cosmic joy, through me, is rejoicing in our Infinite Beloved.”

As we deepen our meditation practice, we will experience more and more the Great Reality of God, and we will know and say—“I am this reality!”

May your practice of meditation immerse you ever more joyfully into God’s light and love.

In divine friendship,

Bharat

The universe is projected from God through vibration…

–Swami Kriyananda

“Why did you make creation?” a saint asked God. “I did so,” He replied, “because I wanted to share My joy.”

God’s nature is bliss, and to share His joy He created us through the Cosmic AUM Vibration. When we commune with AUM, we enter into, and flow with, the stream of God’s love. AUM is Divine Mother existing in the heart of all things. During the Meditation on AUM exercise, try to feel Her blissful presence in everything you see and hear.

AUM not only proceeds from God, it is God.

–Paramhansa Yogananda

The Sun Is the Form of AUM

Look at the sun. See its rays flowing down, warming the nearby hills, and enlivening the trees and flower-covered meadows. Reflect on how all life depends on the sun.

Gaze at a plant and feel how it, and everything else, is nourished and influenced by the great power emanating from our star.

Just as an iceberg is formed of water, so the sun is formed of AUM. “The sun,” Kabir said, “is the most immediate ‘physical’ form of AUM we can experience, for it is really solidified, materialized AUM.”

See the sun as AUM. Think of it as AUM materialized.
Feel its vibratory rays descending from heaven and bringing into manifestation all life around you.

See each bird and flower as AUM solidified. Behind every form, sense AUM’s underlying presence and vibrancy.

Feel and hear all nature proclaiming and singing AUM.

Let Every Sound Remind You of AUM

Even in outward, physical imitations, sounds can be thrilling.

–Swami Kriyananda

Listen intently to the sounds around you: the rushing wind… the roar of a river… the buzzing of a bee… the joyful song of a bird. Commune with each sound you hear. Open yourself completely to it; feel it coming into you. Listen for the sound of AUM within every outer sound.

Watch the wind flow through the trees and grassy fields. See in every trembling leaf and sailing cloud — in every movement — the sacred AUM Vibration.

Try to perceive AUM in everything you do, see, and hear.

Attune to the Cosmic Choir

Observe the ways God, through Cosmic AUM, expresses Himself. Notice how each tree is marvelously unique. Take delight in the countless expressions of AUM you see before you.

Communing with AUM helps us understand and utter the language of all creation. When we unite with AUM, we unite with all existence.

Affirm your oneness with all beings and with God by practicing the following meditation by Swami Kriyananda from his book Awaken to Superconsciousness:

Imagine a choir composed of every atom in the universe, each one an individual, but all of them singing together in blissful harmony.

In your own mind, join that mighty choir, composed of all life.

Determine from today on to sing in harmony with the universe. Don’t impose on the great anthem of life your little wishes for how you want the music to sound.

Unite your notes to that Infinite Sound.

The more you do so, the more deeply you will know yourself to be an expression of the soaring anthem of Infinity.

Whenever you feel anxious or inharmonious, use this meditation to attune yourself with God and all creation. Then you will feel the universe is not against, but with you, in loving unity.

Live in the Consciousness of AUM

You are not a physical body, but a blissful manifestation of AUM.

–Swami Kriyananda

Live in the consciousness of AUM. One who constantly sings AUM during his activities, and with his whole being, makes his life a continuous song of joy.

AUM Booklet and CD/MP3

To inspire greater attunement with the Cosmic Vibration, I am creating an inspirational resource on AUM from the writing of Paramhansa Yogananda, Swami Kriyananda, and other saints. Included in this project will be personal stories from devotees to help make AUM more real to our consciousness.

If you’ve had a deeply inspiring experience of the Cosmic Sound, would you share it with me for possible inclusion in the resource? I realize spiritual blessings are sacred and should not generally be shared with others, so I will keep your experience confidential.

Below is a story a friend recently told me.

The Healing Power of AUM

“When AUM came,” a lady once said to Paramhansa Yogananda, “all my troubles vanished.”

A friend (who I will call “Nancy”) told me recently how her troubles had also vanished in the consciousness of AUM.

Nancy was waiting to make a deposit at her bank, when, suddenly, she found herself in the middle of a robbery. It was a highly stressful situation, and Nancy said she “lost it” emotionally.

After the robbery, Nancy was disappointed in herself for reacting so emotionally. To change this tendency in herself, she began chanting AUM all day long. Whenever there was a tense situation, Nancy would silently and lovingly call on the healing power of AUM to calm herself and others.

AUM is the Great Comforter, and Paramhansa Yogananda said that when you are in the consciousness of AUM, nothing can touch you.

Three years later, Nancy was at her bank, and another robbery occurred. This time it was a much more violent one.

During this bank heist, Nancy was knocked to the floor. But her constant practice of thinking of and chanting AUM kept her calm and centered.

As Nancy began crawling discreetly away from the robbers, a hysterical woman latched on to her and she guided the terrified woman out of sight of the robbers, where they both would be safe.

Later, during an interview with the FBI, Nancy was told that the odds of being involved in two bank robberies were incredibly low. She was the only witness who could give an accurate description of the robbers.

Nancy attributed her calmness to her practice of tuning in to the unifying presence of AUM.