Breathlessness Is Deathlessness
With Brahmachari Sagar during a Sunday Service recorded at Ananda Village March 19th 2023.
How to overcome the fear of death? Paramhansa Yogananda encouraged people to practice death during their lifetime. Brahmachari Sagar explains how we can learn to control the breath and the heart with the sincere practice of Kriya Yoga. Humorously he shares how to approach the impermanence of our bodies.
The reading for this week from Swami Kriyananda's book "Rays of the One Light" is
"We Are Children of the Light".
Truth is one and eternal. Realize oneness with it in your deathless Self, within. The following commentary is based on the teachings of Paramhansa Yogananda.
It is common for people to perceive themselves according to their present realities. A person in ill health says, “I am ill.” Few say, “I am well; it is my body that is suffering.” People in a low income bracket say, “I am poor.” Only the unusual person will say, “Though outwardly I live in poverty, inwardly I am wealthy.” Thus, when it comes to moral and spiritual development, people commonly identify themselves with their weaknesses and their mistakes. They consider it almost a sign of humility to say, “I am a sinner,” though in effect what this means is that they identify themselves with their sinfulness, not with the soul’s power to transcend all limitations in God.
The great masters, including Jesus Christ, have always emphasized the divine potential of mankind. To encourage us, they address us as children of light, not of darkness. The Bible, in the Gospel of St. John, Chapter 3, makes the point that our true home is not the mud of this Earth, but the light of heaven. “No man hath ascended up to heaven,” it tells us, “but him that came down from heaven.” This passage continues: “[even so] the Son of man who is in heaven,” emphasizing that Jesus, though he lived on earth, is perceived by the eye of wisdom as conscious, even in human form, of his true reality in heavenly spheres.
The way to know God is to live in godly consciousness, and not to bewail our imperfection and our distance from God. Jesus said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” And the Bhagavad Gita states, Seekers of union with the Lord find Him dwelling in their own hearts. But those who, lacking in wisdom, seek Him with impure motives, cannot perceive Him however much they struggle to do so.
“If you want to know God,” Paramhansa Yogananda said, “live in the thought that you have Him already.”
Thus, through holy Scripture, God has spoken to mankind.
