In this letter Swami Kriyananda responds to a person who was seeking inner guidance as to whether Paramhansa Yogananda was her guru.
Dear _____________________
The best way to find out whether this is your path is to try it and see. Guidance rarely comes to us when we sit back and wait for it. So long as you take positive steps, God will guide you toward further steps to take. But if you wait for guidance to present itself to you, it may never come.
The secret of attracting guidance is to raise one’s level of energy. By moving forward in the best way we know, we generate a flow of energy that can draw God’s guidance to us. This is true even when our initial understanding isn’t as clear as we’d like. So long as we use common sense, and keep an attitude of openness, our understanding will grow over time.
You wrote of feeling the need to make a spiritual commitment. You are blessed to feel this way. If you are feeling inspired by Paramhansa Yogananda’s teachings, why not commit yourself to them provisionally? Yogananda promised that any one not his disciple, who came to him sincerely seeking his own true path, would be led to it.
We must all seek God inside us, in meditation. But it is a mistake to suppose that we can find Him on our own. It is His way to come to us through human instruments, through divinely awakened masters and their disciples.
Yogananda’s vibration is very much alive here at Ananda. Since you’ve already felt to visit us, and to write to me, it seems natural that you try deepening your connection here. If you feel inspired to go to other of Yogananda’s disciples instead, that’s fine, of course. But don’t try to do it on your own. The spiritual path is just too challenging for that!
May God and the masters bless you with clarity and joy in your search.
In divine friendship
Swami Kriyananda
