In 1820, in Maryland, a girl was born into slavery and given the name Harriet. She was the great-great-granddaughter of a woman kidnapped from the African plains and sold to the highest bidder in Baltimore. At the age of seven Harriet was charged with caring for Miss Sarah’s baby. One time the baby cried out just as Miss Sarah entered … Read More
“Master’s arms are around me. He is guiding me and supporting me every moment of my life. . . . I am never alone, nor will I ever be alone, for he is with me.” Brother Bhaktananda, “Protection Prayer” “I am responsible! If I, a doctor, will not do it, who will?” So speaks the protagonist of Stefan Zeromski’s Homeless … Read More
Mukunda, as a boy of sixteen, determined to see Krishna, meditated and prayed all night, with increasing intensity and devotion, until at last Krishna himself, walking on clouds of gold, appeared to his inner vision. Weeping with divine joy, Mukunda cried out his prayer of gratitude: “O Divine Krishna, lead all thy lost children, as thou hast led me, to … Read More
“Lord, we left You countless eons ago. Ours was a holy mission. You charged us to learn great lessons from life: to be fruitful in the gifts You had given us; to expand and multiply them.” When Yoganandaji, meditating in a storeroom of his Ranchi boys’ school, saw in vision a sea of faces staring intently at him, he knew … Read More
In the autumn of 1861, Lahiri Mahasaya, then in his 33rd year, undertook the 30-day, 500-mile journey to Ranikhet in the Himalayas, there to meet for the first time Babaji, who materialized for his beloved disciple a golden palace and there initiated him into Kriya Yoga. Far away in America a terrible civil war was raging. But here in these … Read More
When Lord Krishna played the role of a boy chela in the Avanti ashram of Guru Sandipani, He formed an intimate friendship with His fellow disciple Sudama, a Brahmin boy so impoverished that his clothing was in tatters, and so free of material attachment that he paid no attention. He was affectionately known as Kuchela, meaning “poverty-stricken” or “dressed in … Read More
“Greater can no love be than this: From a life of infinite joy and freedom in God Willingly to embrace limitation, pain, and death For the salvation of mankind. Such, ever, has been the sacrifice Of the great masters for the world.” Such is the divine gift to mankind of Christ, of our Masters, of the great saints of all … Read More
Shivaratri, 2018. The community gathered in Hansa Temple for a nightlong celebration in honor of Shiva, the supreme yogi. Chanting together, meditating, giving and receiving divine love and divine joy, we moved into a realm of Spirit, our own true home. The light of a candle was offered before the altar, offered to each of our Masters, then held up in offering before a devotee.
“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
During an all-day Christmas meditation this past month we sang a chant specially blessed by Paramhansa Yogananda during an all-day meditation that he used to lead: Do not dry the ocean of my love With the fires of my desires, With the fires of my restlessness. For Thee I pine, for Thee I weep. “Christ is here,” Yogananda told those … Read More
