The Wisdom of Ages: Finding Your Path to Truth
Watch this inspiring Sunday Service talk with Nayaswami Ananta, recorded at Ananda Village on September 24th 2023.
Truth is one and eternal. In our hearts, we can recognize this truth. When we look at the different religions and spiritual paths, we can see the underlying truth in them. But to realize the one truth for ourselves, we have to dive deep into one path, our own path to truth. Nayaswami Ananta shares how to dive deep into the teachings and how to keep doing this throughout our entire lives.
The reading for this week from Swami Kriyananda's book Rays of the One Light is
"Many Are the Pathways to Truth".
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.
On the dedication page of Swami Kriyananda’s book The Path appears the following account: A group of Paramhansa Yogananda’s disciples had gone with him to see a movie about the life of Gyandev, a great saint of medieval India. Afterwards they gathered and listened to the Master explain certain, subtler, aspects of that inspiring story. A young man in the group mentioned another film he had seen years earlier, in India, about the life of Mirabai, a famous woman saint. “If you’d seen that movie,” he exclaimed, “you wouldn’t even have liked this one!” The Guru rebuked him. “Why make such comparisons? The lives of great saints manifest in various ways the same, one God.”
The Bible contains a similar account in the Gospel of St. Luke, Chapter 9:
And John…said, Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name; and we forbad him, because he followeth not with us. And Jesus said unto him, Forbid him not: for he that is not against us is for us. The more central a truth, the greater the number of contexts in which it can be applied. Truth is like a pure white light, containing within itself the full spectrum of the rainbow. Let no one tell you what your path to God ought to be.
Many are The Paths. Select your own according to the dictates of your own nature, no matter how out of step that puts you with other people. Sri Krishna in the third Chapter of the Bhagavad Gita, states:
Trying even unsuccessfully to fulfill one’s own spiritual duty (dharma) is better than pursuing successfully the duties of others. Better death itself in the pursuance of one’s own duties. The pursuance of another’s duties is fraught with (spiritual) danger.
Thus, through holy Scripture, God has spoken to mankind.
