Watch this inspiring Sunday Service talk with Nayaswami Pranaba, recorded at Ananda Village on June 15th 2025.

Nayaswami Pranaba talks about the balance between inner and outer activity on the path to divine realization. He emphasizes that while outward service is important, meditation and inward focus are heightened activities that align us with the Divine. He cautions against extremes, such as renouncing action entirely or becoming overly attached to outward achievements.

Instead, Pranaba encourages living in the present moment, being open to divine guidance, and maintaining a willingness to say "yes" in our hearts, even when outward circumstances prevent immediate action. The ultimate goal is to merge our hearts with the divine and see life's challenges as opportunities for spiritual growth.

The reading for this week from Swami Kriyananda's book Rays of the One Light is:

How Devotees Rise

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.

Last week we asked the question, Why do devotees fall? and we considered the downfall of Judas in this context. Jesus, in answer to Judas’s criticism for allowing Mary to rub his feet with spikenard, a very costly ointment, said, “The poor always ye have with you: but me ye have not always.”

Jesus is saying here that there is one supreme “injustice” that needs eradication: poverty, yes, but not of a material kind: poverty in a spiritual sense.

Divine blessings are not common in this world. They are extraordinary. When they come, we should give them priority above every other consideration.

Never allow a moment of inner joy, for instance, to be set aside for lesser “duties.” Divine attunement is our highest priority. As Lahiri Mahasaya, the guru of Yogananda’s guru, said, “To listen to the heart’s inner sound (AUM, which issues from the very center of our being) is man’s highest duty.”

Mary was not, at that moment, communing with the Master inwardly. She was serving him outwardly – but in a spirit very different from the restless fussing for which Jesus had reprimanded her sister, Martha. Those who see a radical difference between the paths of action and meditation should understand this distinction. To serve in the right spirit is necessary, for only thereby can we overcome our karmic tendencies toward restless activity. The important thing is that that spirit be always inwardly focused: that in everything we do we act in loving service to the Lord.

Therefore the Bhagavad Gita says in the third Chapter:

The state of freedom from action [that is, of eternal rest in the Spirit] cannot be achieved without action. No one, by mere renunciation and outward non-involvement, can attain perfection.

Whenever the spirit of God descends upon you, however, remember the words of Jesus, “Me ye have not always with you.”

Thus, through holy Scripture, God has spoken to mankind.