Watch this inspiring Sunday Service talk with Nayaswami Parvati, recorded at Ananda Village on July 20th 2025. The reading for this week from Swami Kriyananda's book Rays of the One Light is

Self-Effort, Too, Is Needed

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.

These past weeks we discussed the need for balancing self-effort with receptivity to divine grace. Both are important in the spiritual life. Passive dependence on grace hasn’t the magnetism to attract grace. Boastful self-confidence, however, which closes itself off from the higher, divine power is shallow, brittle, and – given life’s many uncertainties – susceptible to ultimate failure.

There is a story in the Bible that illustrates the need to put forth personal effort so as to draw magnetically on the divine power. The story occurs in the Gospel of St. Luke, Chapter 8:

But as he went, the crowds nearly suffocated him. Among them was a woman who had had a hemorrhage for twelve years and who had derived no benefit from anybody’s treatment. She came up behind Jesus and touched the edge of his cloak. As a result, her hemorrhage stopped immediately.

“Who was it who touched me?” Jesus asked.

When everybody denied it, Peter remonstrated,

“Master, the crowds are all round, pressing you on every side!”

But Jesus said, “Somebody touched me. I felt power going out from me.”

When the woman realized that she had not escaped notice, she came forward trembling and fell at his feet, and admitted before everyone why she had touched him, adding that she had been instantaneously cured.

“Daughter,” Jesus said, “It is by your faith that you have been healed. Go in peace.”

Self-confidence and self-effort are necessary, as the ignition of a car is necessary to the motor. Of what use the ignition, however, if the motor itself will not work? Wise is he who recognizes the real power in the universe, and guides his life by that supreme power. As it says in the Bhagavad Gita, the ninth Chapter:

To those who meditate on Me as their Very Own, ever united to Me by incessant worship, I make good their deficiencies, and render permanent their gains.

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

Watch this inspiring Sunday Service talk with Nayaswami Sagar, recorded at Ananda Village on July 13th 2025. The reading for this week from Swami Kriyananda's book Rays of the One Light is

Self-Reliance vs. Self-Reliance

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 considered the need for attunement – with God, with the gurus, with the wisdom of others – until we make that wisdom our own. There is a strong, and in fact valid, belief nowadays in the need for standing on one’s own feet rather than depending weakly on others to carry us by their strength.

Swami Kriyananda was once asked, “What is the best yoga posture?” “That one,” he replied, “which sets you squarely on your own two feet.”

Our strength must come from within. If that strength comes from the ego, however, instead of from soul-consciousness, it is like a guitar string without its sounding board: the notes it emits will be thin and feeble. Our strength must come from within, but must be coupled with recognition of our inner link with broader and higher realities.

The Bhagavad Gita says in the tenth Chapter:

Everyone in this world whose life is glorious, or prosperous, or powerful – know that his achievement is but a little spark from the great sun of My effulgence.

Jesus in talking to his disciples emphasized also the power of attunement with his own consciousness as a ray of the Divine. For this ray had descended already, through him, in response to their devotion; it was a sign that God was already “listening” to them with receptive attention, and did not require to be wooed in that way any longer. In the passage preceding the one that we read last week, Jesus said:

I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.

Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.

Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.

Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.

This was the meaning of Paramhansa Yogananda’s counsel also, when speaking more intimately to the disciples of the need for attunement with him.

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

Watch this inspiring Sunday Service talk with Erin Vinacco, recorded at Ananda Village on July 6th 2025. The reading for this week from Swami Kriyananda's book Rays of the One Light is

Abiding in God

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.

Yogananda often emphasized – more often to his disciples than to the general public, but also to everyone generally, for it was a universal teaching – the importance of attunement. For divine understanding cannot be created: It must be perceived. To the disciples, Yogananda spoke of the importance of attunement with the guru. To others, he urged the importance at least of attuning oneself to higher consciousness. Can an eagle rise without support from the sustaining air?

Jesus Christ said in the Gospel of St. John, Chapter 15:

I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.

If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.

If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.

Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples.

How can we “abide in him”? Jesus says, “If my words abide in you.” By words he meant not only his spoken words, but his vibrations, his consciousness, of which the words are only an expression. We must abide by the teachings, but we must also absorb those teachings into ourselves, that they become our own experience. For disciples of this path, the more, in their hearts, they live consciously in the presence of the masters, the more they will find the divine presence living within them.

And for all truth seekers, whether disciples or not, the more they live sustained inwardly by the awareness of God’s presence, the higher they will find themselves soaring in wisdom and joy.

For the Bhagavad Gita says, in the tenth Chapter:

I am the Source of everything; from Me all creation emerges. Blessed with this realization, the wise, awe-stricken, adore Me.

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

Watch this inspiring Sunday Service talk with Nayaswami Devi, recorded at Ananda Village on June 29th 2025. The reading for this week from Swami Kriyananda's book Rays of the One Light is

The Redeeming 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.

The Book of Isaiah in the Bible, Chapter 9, tells us:

The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.

What is this light of which so many Scriptures speak? In Autobiography of a Yogi, by Paramhansa Yogananda, we read of an early experience the Master had with that light:

I was blessed about the age of eight with a wonderful healing through the photograph of Lahiri Mahasaya. This experience gave intensification to my [divine] love. While at our family estate in Ichapur, Bengal, I was stricken with Asiatic cholera. My life was despaired of; the doctors could do nothing. At my bedside, Mother frantically motioned me to look at Lahiri Mahasaya’s picture on the wall above my head.

“Bow to him mentally!” She knew I was too feeble even to lift my hands in salutation. “If you really show your devotion and inwardly kneel before him, your life will be spared!”

I gazed at his photograph and saw there a blinding light, enveloping my body and the entire room. My nausea and other uncontrollable symptoms disappeared; I was well. At once I felt strong enough to bend over and touch Mother’s feet in appreciation of her immeasurable faith in her guru. Mother pressed her head repeatedly against the little picture.

“O Omnipresent Master, I thank thee that thy light hath healed my son!”

I realized that she too had witnessed the luminous blaze through which I had instantly recovered from a usually fatal disease.

“Where My light is,” God once told a saint whom the divine light had healed, “no darkness can dwell.” The divine light – pure, calm, liberating – is the only final cure for every kind of delusion: ill health, emotional grief, and spiritual ignorance. Seek it daily in the silence, in deep meditation.

As the Bhagavad Gita says in the fifth Chapter:

For whom

That darkness of the soul is chased by light,

Splendid and clear shines manifest the Truth

As if a Sun of Wisdom sprang to shed

Its beams of light.

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

Watch this inspiring Sunday Service talk with Nayaswami Jaya, recorded at Ananda Village on June 22nd 2025. He begins with a reading from Whispers from Eternity entitled "Teach Me to Dream Peace" and then connects the reading to the tumultuous times we live in, both outwardly in the world and inwardly within ourselves. The core message revolves around maintaining inner peace not just for personal well-being, but to become instruments of peace and serve others.

Nayaswami Jaya shares a personal anecdote from 1968, a time of great social and political upheaval, and a lesson learned from Swami Kriyananda. He emphasizes the importance of transmuting negative emotions like anger and bitterness into positive action and solutions. He highlights the danger of dwelling on negativity, as it becomes easier to repeat. The key takeaway is to consciously choose what flows through us and strive to be a channel of peace, acting as disciples to bring light to the world, even during difficult times.

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

The Eternal Now

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.

“When will I find God?” Many devotees have asked this question. Because worldly goals require time, usually, for their fulfillment, we imagine time to be a factor on the spiritual path. And so it is, but only because we think it is! God is as much with us now as He will ever be. It is not He who needs to come to us: We need to come to Him! And that process of coming is a matter of transforming our self-perception.

In the Gospel of St. John, Chapter 4, Jesus Christ says:

Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? Behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest.

There is a practical teaching in these words, apart from their statement that we have God already, and have only to realize that truth. Jesus is saying, “Lift up your eyes and look. . . .” To hold the eyes uplifted is the best position for meditation. For the seat of superconsciousness lies at a point midway between the eyebrows – in the frontal lobe of the brain just behind that point. This point is known also as the Christ center. By lifting up your eyes and concentrating there, you will find it easier to enter the state of ecstasy. That is why saints in every religion have often been observed, during states of deep inner communion, with their eyes uplifted, focused on the inner light – ”white,” as Jesus said, “already to harvest.”

The Bhagavad Gita goes further into this meditative teaching. In the sixth Chapter it states:

Holding the spine firm, the neck and head erect and motionless, let the yogi focus his eyes at the starting place of the nose [the point between the eyebrows]. Let not his gaze roam elsewhere.

In meditation, tell yourself: “I have Him already! I am alive forever in the Divine Light.”

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

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.

Watch this inspiring Sunday Service talk with Nayaswami Haridas, recorded at Ananda Village on June 8th 2025.

Haridas emphasizes the importance of spiritual introspection, overcoming delusion, and striving for divine joy amidst life's challenges. He also highlights the need to recognize and resist the deceptive nature of the senses, urging listeners to seek lasting happiness in the soul rather than fleeting pleasures. A story about Yogananda's interaction with a young couple serves as a cautionary tale about how easily worldly concerns can overshadow spiritual aspirations.

The core message revolves around the idea that falling on the spiritual path is inevitable, but the key is to quickly get back up, correct oneself, and maintain a vibrant connection with the spiritual community. Nayaswami Haridas encourages listeners to embrace the challenges as part of the journey towards enlightenment, emphasizing the importance of attunement, compassion for one's karmas, and the ultimate joy that awaits those who persevere. The talk concludes with a song about inner freedom and seeking divine guidance.

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

Why Do Devotees Fall?

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.

An endlessly fascinating question is, Why did Judas fall after receiving the extraordinary blessing of being accepted into the inner circle of Jesus Christ’s disciples? For Judas was one of the twelve apostles. Yet he be-trayed Jesus, and earned for himself the opprobrium of Christendom for all futurity for his sin.

We find Judas reprimanding Jesus just days before that betrayal. Jesus, aware that his disciples would soon be facing, with his death, the supreme tragedy of their lives, allowed Mary to express her devotion by anointing his feet with costly ointment. This act of “wanton waste,” as Judas saw it, awakened indignation in that disciple.

“Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor?”

This he said, not that he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and kept the purse, and bare what was put therein.

Then said Jesus, “Let her alone: against the day of my burying hath she kept this. For the poor always ye have with you: but me ye have not always.”

Doubt not the power of delusion. Respect it – indeed, fear it, though not in the sense of cowering before it. For, as Yogananda said, “One is not safe until he attains nirbikalpa samadhi – the state of final union with God.”

Judas, through attachment to money, opened his consciousness to subtle influences, which may be called satanic, that drew his thoughts toward other related attitudes: the importance of worldly power, for instance, and of worldly influence.

The Bhagavad Gita gives a graphic explanation of how easily the mind can be drawn downward, once it begins to feed on wrong attitudes. In the second Chapter, Sri Krishna states:

If one ponders on sense objects, there springs up attraction to them. From attraction grows desire. Desire, impatient for fulfillment, flames to anger. From anger there arises infatuation (the delusion that one object alone is worth clinging to, to the exclusion of all others). From infatuation ensues forgetfulness of the higher Self. From forgetfulness of the Self follows degeneration of the discriminative faculty. And when discrimination is lost, there follows the annihilation of one’s spiritual life.

“At the first thought of delusion,” Paramhansa Yogananda said, “that is the time to stop it.”

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

Watch this inspiring Sunday Service talk with Jitendra Guindon, recorded at Ananda Village on June 1st 2025. The reading for this week from Swami Kriyananda's book Rays of the One Light is

The Inner Kingdom

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.

Most people imagine that the “inner kingdom,” as Jesus described it, lacks the fascination they attribute to sense life: the bright lights, the diverse attractions, the joys and the laughter. Little do they realize what a vast universe exists in their own selves!

There are many passages in the Old and New Testaments of the Bible that describe aspects of this inner kingdom. In the Book of Genesis we read: “And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden…. And the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil” (Genesis 2:8, 9). This garden was in no earthly place. It exists even now, in the very Self of every human being! The legend of Adam and Eve is allegorical. It describes how the first human beings dissipated their spiritual energy, centered in the spine. The spine is the channel through which flows the river of baptism and of spiritual life.

The Bhagavad Gita tells us, “The wise speak of an eternal ashvatta tree, with its roots above and its branches below.” (15:1) The “tree of life,” spoken of also in Genesis, is the spine. Its roots are above, in the brain’s energy. Its branches are the outward spreading nervous system. When the “sap,” which is to say, the energy, flows downward the consciousness is drawn into delusion. On the other hand, when the energy is drawn upward in deep meditation, the consciousness is drawn toward its eternal source, God, and is at last united with Him.

Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita therefore urges his chief disciple Arjuna to embrace the yoga science, the path of meditation. “The yogi,” he says, “is greater than the ascetic, greater even than the followers of the paths of wisdom [Gyana Yoga] or of action [Karma Yoga]. Be thou, O Arjuna, a yogi!”

For those who would find the divine truth, Krishna gives this description of the yogi:

Steadfast a lamp burns, sheltered from the wind;

Steadfastly meditating, solitary,

Such is the likeness of the Yogi’s mind

Shut from sense-storms and burning bright to heaven.

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

Watch this inspiring Sunday Service talk with Nayaswami Ananta, recorded at Ananda Village on May 25th 2025. The reading for this week from Swami Kriyananda's book Rays of the One Light is

The Best Way to Worship

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.

In Chapter 4 of the Gospel of St. John, the woman of Samaria asks Jesus, Where is the best place to worship? This question might be expanded to include: What is the best church? What is the best religion? Is it important to go on pilgrimage to holy shrines? What is the best ritual? What is the best mantra or prayer?

Jesus cut across all such questioning with his reply:

The hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship Him.

God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.

It was not that outer considerations of place, church, ritual, etc., are irrelevant. Each person should find those practices and observances which are compatible with his own nature – one might say, with his own vibrations. Not everyone’s natural path is the same. God sent different religions into the world to satisfy different human needs.

The overarching concern, however, considering that the goal is to find God, is to include in one’s worship daily, inner communion with the Lord. God is Silence: He must be sought, therefore, in inner silence. God is Absolute Love: He must be sought, therefore, in the silence of love. God is Spirit, and thus immaterial: He must be sought, above all, in the expanding peace of deep meditation.

Thus, the Bhagavad Gita states in the sixth Chapter:

Sequestered should he sit,

Steadfastly meditating, solitary,

His thoughts controlled, his passions laid away,

From every craving for possession freed.

Wherever you are, whatever your outward beliefs and observances, seek God in the silence of your own soul.

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

Watch this inspiring Sunday Service talk with Nayaswami Jyotish, recorded at Ananda Village on May 18th 2025. The reading for this week from Swami Kriyananda's book Rays of the One Light is

Activity vs. Inner Communion

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 contemplated the well-known story of Martha and Mary. Traditionally, this story has been offered to show the two classic approaches to salvation: the first, through action, and the second, through prayer. The excuse of the Marthas of this world has always been, “The church needs its Marthas, too.” Treatises, moreover, have been written to justify the Martha approach to piety, praising her self-sacrifice as, perhaps, an even higher demonstration of devotion. (Thus do the unmeditative workers in religion try to justify themselves!) Yet the fact remains that Jesus rebuked Martha. Elsewhere, moreover, he spoke of the virtue of feeding the hungry, curing the sick, and housing those who were homeless. It wasn’t that he disapproved of serving people.

Wrong attitude was the object of his criticism. What he was criticizing was forgetfulness of the true goal of right, spiritual action. Good deeds, outwardly, without inner communion with God, will result in good karma but will not bring final freedom from all karma.

The Path to inner freedom was described by Paramhansa Yogananda in these words: “Be always calmly active, and actively calm.”

As it says in the Bhagavad Gita, the second Chapter:

He who is not shaken by anxiety during times of sorrow, nor elated during times of happiness; who is free from egoic desires and their attendant fear and anger: Such an one is of steady discrimination.

Do your duty in life – so counsels this great Scripture elsewhere – but never lose sight of Him to whom all action should be dedicated.

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