Squatting before the seated figure of an elderly Brindaban widow, his face suffused with compassionate concern, his hands gently tending the deep gash of a monkey bite, the young man emanates inner joy, selfless love, reverent self-offering in service to the needs of those he cares for. Preetam is a young devotee from the village of Radhakund, not far from … Read More
“Sharing,” Swamiji writes, “is the doorway through which the soul escapes the prison of self-preoccupation. It is one of the clearest paths to God.” Leo Tolstoy tells a story of two old men, lifelong friends from a small village in central Russia. Many years before, they had made a vow to each other, and before God, to make a pilgrimage … Read More
Dear Friend, Out of the corner of his eye, the old man caught a movement—waving hands, a mother smiling out of the fullness of her maternal love, a very small boy rushing forward, arms up and out ready to embrace the big, yellow tractor. The boy looked up trustingly, eyes wide and clear, unblinking, until the man understood, stopped the … Read More
Our winter here at Ananda has seen a succession of storms, with high winds and soaking rains. At Christmastime, a lone snow goose appeared on Lotus Lake. Perhaps this bird, like the young bird in Swamiji’s Festival of Light, had “entered a storm cloud, and soon found itself struggling for its life. Wind and rain lashed at its wings. The … Read More
Dear Friend, When the diagnosis came, Judith turned inward to God, and there felt His presence more powerfully, more sweetly than ever before—that it was God in the birds, in the trees, in herself, even in the disease that would take her life. All was God. All was joy. She asked her friends to join her, during the time remaining … Read More
Christmas at Ananda’s Living Wisdom School Friend, Late in December Ananda’s Living Wisdom School let out for Christmas vacation. The magic of Christ-love was everywhere: colorful lights in windows, on trees; warm fires indoors; a growing sense of universal family. The next day would be the annual eight-hour meditation, all of us gathered in honor of the tradition started by … Read More
On October 9, 2012, fifteen-year-old Malala Yousafzai was shot in the face at point-blank range by a Taliban gunman in retaliation for her public work on behalf of education for girls. Malala gave all credit for her miraculous survival to the enormous outpouring of prayer from her worldwide family of well-wishers.
Dear Friend, In the gang-ridden Englewood neighborhood of Chicago’s South Side, a place where children playing outside can lose their lives in drive-by shootings, where a young man’s ambition is more often to be “like my big homie L.D.” than to be a teacher or a doctor—where his future is likely to be the penitentiary, or the morgue, or continuing … Read More
Songbirds come regularly to drink and bathe in a small birdbath just outside my window. The adults approach cautiously, flitting from branch to branch, looking around anxiously at each stop, lest the local hawk catch them unawares. Finally they land on the outermost edge, there to continue poised for flight even while drinking and bathing. Into this ritually structured scene … Read More
I sat in the middle of the floor—overwhelmed with love and gratitude for the all-merciful, all-forgiving, unconditional love of our Master, there all the time, waiting patiently for his child’s heart to open, that he might enter and take charge of my life.
