In 2010, my husband, Gyandev, and I visited our friend Francis at his home in Palm Springs. He was a devotee of Paramhansa Yogananda and took us to visit Palm Canyon, a place Yogananda had visited in the late 1920s. While there, Yogananda went into a deep period of samadhi (a state of oneness with God). After he emerged from … Read More
This quotation of Muir captures the essence of his love for the California Sierra Nevada mountain range and passionately attests to the inspiration that enabled him to strive tirelessly to preserve their beauty. As I read these words colorfully painted on a bench alongside the forest path at our Meditation Retreat, I was immediately struck by their powerful relevance to … Read More
Swami Kriyananda, Paramhansa Yogananda’s direct disciple and the founder of Ananda, counseled thousands of people during his lifetime. He developed our approach to counseling others spiritually. Most people live in the conscious realm, which is limited to the material world. They are not used to thinking in superconscious ways or to drawing on intuition to find solutions. In spiritual counseling, … Read More
In the Autobiography of a Yogi (AY), Paramhansa Yogananda describes many of the miraculous events that he personally witnessed. He speaks of yogis levitating, sitting in a state of suspended animation without any trace of heartbeat or breath, and he further delights us with stories of his own guru’s powers. Yogananda also shares with us a number of mind-expanding scientific … Read More
A lot of people decide to learn meditation but far too many do not stick with it nor decide to make it a practice for life. I suspect that to these individuals meditation seems too much of a labor, an investment of time they don’t think they have, or as some may call it — a selfish pursuit. There are … Read More
The state of our world today can easily have an unsettling effect on us. We see increasing strife and disunion everywhere. Is what we see the portentous rumble of more planetary tension? Could it be the announcement of even greater, horrific global roars and upheaval? What really is happening in the world right now is a battle of mass-consciousness: Aggression … Read More
The most important condition for lasting happiness is even-mindedness. Remain ever calmly centered in the Self, within. As a child’s sand castle disintegrates before invading waves, so does a restless mind, lacking strength of will and perseverance, succumb to the pounding it receives from the waves of changing circumstance. – Paramhansa Yogananda Today, perhaps more than any other time, we … Read More
Devotion is an essential ingredient of one’s meditation practice. It sparks the initiative to meditate, sustains our practice, inspires depth in our practice, and magnetizes God’s response. I like to think of it as the language of Love between Guru and disciple. Devotion is not a commonly used word in the West but, in fact, we express our devotion in … Read More
The writings of the great sages who lived and dedicated their lives to truth have long been spiritual lifelines for me. The saints and masters have endured and arisen victorious over the many hardships and temptations of life on the physical plane. They’ve left many footsteps for us to follow in their scriptures and other written experiences. Many of the … Read More
Harmony with all living things, said Kirpal Singh, comes from the “recognition that all things are [made of] the same Essence” (Singh, 2016). From my earliest years, I have often sensed a loving presence that permeates this world and has inspired my lifelong service to others. One day while hiking through a remote valley in Desolation Wilderness, I felt an overwhelming … Read More
