I never met Swami Kriyananda in person, but his words have been a guiding force in my life. Swami’s books and his guru Paramhansa Yogananda’s books are basically the only spiritual books I read. I do not feel an interest in other spiritual readings and also, my full-time job for a global company and my two children keep me quite busy.
“O waves that we are on the bosom of the Infinite Sea, joyfully together let us celebrate our own greater reality. . . . Whereas suffering and sorrow, in the past, were the coin of man’s redemption, for us now the payment has been exchanged for calm acceptance and joy.” When the winter birds began to arrive, among them three Northern Flickers … Read More
Most people meditate for relaxation, stress relief, better health, and calmer emotions. Those who practice meditation regularly with attention, sooner or later will have an experience of superconsciousness. Swami Kriyananda writes: Spiritual advancement is not a question of attaining anything. It is simply a matter of opening wide the door to a state of conscious being that is ours already, … Read More
Growing up whenever someone died in our family, it was customary to ask for a sign from God that their soul was at peace. I don’t know if this was an Italian thing, a Catholic thing, or a combination. Surely, we all want to know our loved ones are at peace after passing from this physical world.When my cousin Joanna … Read More
Like so many in my generation of the 1960s, I wanted to unravel one of humanity’s deepest questions: What is the purpose of life? I studied psychology, hoping to find something that would show me the far horizon of human potential. My studies in college were a dry hole, a barren landscape (for me, at least) of lab rats, mental … Read More
Worshipping Our Mistakes In the early days of Paramhansa Yogananda’s work in Los Angeles, a small group of disciples lived with him at his Mount Washington ashram. Despite this blessing, one young woman was drawn to leave the ashram and marry. After a few years, she realized marriage was not what she wanted, and she came back to live in … Read More
I was instantly awestruck, lifted to a heightened state of awareness. My entire focus was drawn to this man, and for a few seconds it was as if time stood still in order to allow me to absorb something very profound, even thrilling.
Birth of a Spiritual Scientist By Nayaswami Gyandev Autobiography of a Yogi shocked me—in the best possible way. Many years ago, I rejected the God that my Christian upbringing had taught: as Paramhansa Yogananda’s guru put it so amusingly, “a venerable Personage, adorning a throne in some antiseptic corner of the cosmos.” And why would God—supposedly the home of all … Read More
In 1977 I was living in southern California in the town of Leucadia, right next to Encinitas, where Paramhansa Yogananda had his seaside hermitage Though I had been looking for a spiritual path to follow I knew nothing of Swamis, or Yogananda or Eastern religions. I take no credit whatsoever for what ensued! I was living in the area taking … Read More
Martin Luther King Jr. was born on January 15, 1929 into one of the most cathartic periods of American history. African Americans were enslaved on American soil for more than 246 years between 1619 and 1865. Following the Reconstruction era in the late 1800’s and well into the 1960’s, it was the status quo for African Americans to be terrorized and disfranchised by social, educational and employment discrimination, racial hatred, mass violence and lynching. Blacks in America at all socio-economic and political levels were often treated as second-class citizens without the right to vote, without enforced protections of the constitution and without federal civil rights.
