Watch this inspiring Sunday Service talk with Jitendra Guindon, recorded at Ananda Village on December 29, 2024. The reading for this week from Swami Kriyananda's book Rays of the One Light is

The Divine Ascension

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 the Gospel of St. John, Chapter 14, we read:

I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

What is this “I,” when spoken by a master who has conquered every vestige of ego-consciousness? Therein lies the mystery of true Scriptural teaching. That “I” that is no “I”: Does it even exist? In what way is it different from the consciousness that animates other human beings?

Jesus was not saying, “Look at me. Don’t look at other masters.” He was saying, rather, “Look at the divine Self that is the essence of who you are, your very Self. You are that ‘I.’ No man cometh unto the divine consciousness except by first recognizing his own intrinsic divinity, hidden behind his delusive ego.”

The Bhagavad Gita, in the fourth Chapter, states:

O Son of Pritha [Arjuna], in whatever way people accept Me, in that same way do I appear to them. For all men, in some way, pursue The Path to Me.

Meditate on the divine incarnations. Their lives, and the consciousness animating them, will be your stairway to the Infinite.

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

Watch this inspiring Sunday Service talk with Nayaswami Jyotish, recorded at Ananda Village on December 22, 2024. The reading for this week from Swami Kriyananda's book Rays of the One Light is

What Was the Star of Bethlehem?

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.

Divine vision is the opposite of worldly sight. Divine vision sees God’s presence behind all outward appearances. Worldly sight sees appearances, merely, coating even the blazing wisdom of a saint. A master, to the worldly man, is a human being with, perhaps, a slightly better attitude than the norm. The Scriptures therefore strive to demonstrate how the divine consciousness, when openly active among men in the lives of great masters, must never be viewed as an expression of ordinary human consciousness. To seek the presence of Divinity behind the life of a great master is to prepare oneself to recognize that same Divinity also in lower manifestations until at last one beholds God everywhere.

Thus it was that Paramhansa Yogananda, on observing his new disciple Swami Kriyananda struggling with the contrast between the guru’s human appearance and his inner, divine reality, looked at him deeply one day and said, “If you only knew my consciousness!”

The story of the birth of Jesus Christ contains an account in the Gospel of St. Matthew, Chapter 2, of the star of Bethlehem. The wise men who sought Jesus in his manger said,

“We have seen his star in the east.”…And, lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was.

This account was important, for it showed all mankind that Jesus was a divine incarnation, and no ordinary man – that he brought divine consciousness to earth,even though he would play a human role among human beings, and that others, too, by “receiving him” in their inner hearts, would acquire power, as the Bible puts it, to “become the sons of God.”

The Scriptures enjoin us to meditate on the lives of great souls, that we may discover our own latent spiritual greatness. As the Bhagavad Gita puts it in the fourth Chapter:

Who knows the truth touching my births on earth

And my divine work, when he quits the flesh

Puts on its load no more, falls no more down

To earthly birth: to Me he comes, dear Prince!

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

Watch this inspiring Sunday Service talk with Nayaswami Ananta, recorded at Ananda Village on December 15, 2024. The reading for this week from Swami Kriyananda's book Rays of the One Light is

Living in the Presence of 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.

In the Gospel of St. Matthew, Chapter 25, we read of a King – capitalized, for the reference is to God – who welcomes certain devotees to the divine consciousness, saying, “I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.”

The elect asked him when it was they had served Him in these ways, and the King answered, “Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”

To see God as residing in every human being, as indeed He does, is to open oneself to limitless opportunities for serving Him. Paramhansa Yogananda, in Autobiography of a Yogi, described a saint who lived in this consciousness as “the greatest man of humility I ever knew.” He described a seemingly chance encounter with this saint:

Another day found me walking alone near the Howrah railroad station. I stood for a moment by a temple, silently criticizing a small group of men with drum and cymbals who were violently reciting a chant.

“How undevotionally they use the Lord’s divine name in mechanical repetition,” I reflected. My gaze was astonished by the rapid approach of Master Mahasaya. “Sir, how come you here?”

The saint, ignoring my question, answered my thought. “Isn’t it true, little sir, that the Beloved’s name sounds sweet from all lips, ignorant and wise?” He passed his arm around me affectionately; I found myself carried on his magic carpet to the Merciful Presence.

If you would see God, watch for Him everywhere. If you would hear His voice, listen for it in all sounds and also in their supporting silences. If you would know God, seek His wisdom behind merely human knowledge.

The Bhagavad Gita, in the sixth Chapter, states:

One who beholds My presence everywhere,

And all things dwelling equally in Me,

He never loses loving sight of Me,

Nor I of him, through all eternity.

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

Watch this inspiring Sunday Service talk with Nayaswami Pranaba, recorded at Ananda Village on December 8, 2024. The reading for this week from Swami Kriyananda's book "Rays of the One Light" is

What Is It, to Fail Spiritually?

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 first passage is from the Gospel of St. Matthew, Chapter 25. Jesus tells the Parable of the Ten Virgins, five of them wise, and five, foolish. They await their Bridegroom, the Christ Consciousness. The wise virgins keep the oil in their lamps, symbolic of their devotion, lit through the night. The foolish virgins placed no oil in their lamps. These foolish ones are like the average devotee, going through the motions of outer ritual but keeping no fire of love burning in the heart.

When the Bridegroom’s coming is announced, the foolish virgins realize their mistake, and hasten out to purchase oil. During their absence, the Christ Consciousness comes and embraces those who have been awaiting him with devotion. The foolish ones, by their lackluster devotion, are not accepted by him. “‘Watch, therefore,’” Jesus told his listeners, “‘for you know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh.’”

In Autobiography of a Yogi, Paramhansa Yogananda describes the “foolish virgin” consciousness he encountered in the Mahamandal hermitage he stayed in as a young man, in Benares. “I was pleased,” he wrote,

that my new home possessed an attic, where I managed to spend the dawn and morning hours. The ashram members, knowing little of meditation practices, thought I should employ my whole time in organizational duties. They gave me praise for my afternoon work in their office.

“Don’t try to catch God so soon!” This ridicule accompanied one of my early departures toward the attic.…[Later, during meditation] I felt lifted as though bodily to a sphere uncircumscribed.

“Thy Master cometh today!” A divine womanly voice came from everywhere and nowhere.

This supernal experience was pierced by a shout from a definite locale. A young priest nicknamed Habu was calling me from the downstairs kitchen.

“Mukunda, enough of meditation! You are needed for an errand.”

The Divine Mother’s words were not spoken for the benefit of that priest – the “foolish virgin,” but for Mukunda, the “wise virgin.” For this was the day his guru, Sri Yukteswar, came to him.

Grieve not, friends, if you feel that you have been foolish. No error is forever. Someday, if you keep your lamp lit now, your opportunity will come. In the Bhagavad Gita, the sixth Chapter, Krishna promises every devotee:

Arjuna, none who works for self-redemption

Will ever meet an evil destiny!

Spiritual failure, though a deep disappointment, is always temporary. “Eternal Hellfire” is but a projection of vindictiveness in the human mind.

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

Watch this inspiring Sunday Service talk with Nayaswami Gyandev, recorded at Ananda Village on December 1, 2024. The reading for this week from Swami Kriyananda's book Rays of the One Light is

The Law of Karma – Bondage, or Soul-Release

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 Epistle of St. Paul to the Galatians contains this oft-quoted statement:

Be not deceived: God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.

In Autobiography of a Yogi Paramhansa tells a story from the life of the Benares saint Trailanga Swami:

A skeptic once determined to expose Trailanga as a charlatan. A large bucket of calcium-lime mixture, used in whitewashing walls, was placed before the swami.

“Master,” the materialist said, in mock reverence, “I have brought you some clabbered milk. Please drink it.”

Trailanga unhesitatingly drained, to the last drop, the containerful of burning lime. In a few minutes the evildoer fell to the ground in agony.

“Help, swami, help!” he cried. “I am on fire! Forgive my wicked test!”

The great yogi broke his habitual silence. “Scoffer,” he said, “you did not realize when you offered me poison that my life is one with your own. Except for my knowledge that God is present in my stomach, as in every atom of creation, the lime would have killed me. Now that you know the divine meaning of boomerang, never again play tricks on anyone.”

The well-purged sinner, healed by Trailanga’s words, slunk feebly away.

Yogananda goes on to say:

The reversal of pain was not due to any volition of the master, but came about through unerring application of the law of justice which upholds creation’s farthest swinging orb. Men of God-realization like Trailanga allow the divine law to operate instantaneously; they have banished forever all thwarting crosscurrents of ego.

Not by reason alone, but by Self-realization, are the ins and outs of destiny fully understood. Their web, though tied forever to the post of ego-motivation, is too intricate to be perceived as a single thread. Only great masters can see it with clarity. It is visible to them in all its workings – not from within the tangle, but from above, in superconsciousness.

As Sri Krishna said in the fourth Chapter of the Bhagavad Gita: “He who beholds inaction in action, and action in inaction, is wise among men; he is one with the Spirit; he has attained the true goal of action (perfect freedom).”

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

Watch this beautiful Sunday Service talk with Nayaswami Devi, recorded at Ananda Village on November 24th, 2024. The reading for this week from Swami Kriyananda's book Rays of the One Light is

Reincarnation – the Spiral Staircase

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 the Book of Revelation, Chapter 3, Jesus Christ tells us: “Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out.”

There is a difference between Church dogmas, which are based on reasoned deductions from Scriptural statements, and the pronouncements of wisdom, which are based on the inner realization of Scriptural truths. Reason, like a train, can only follow already-existing tracks of human experience. Human memory, being short, is seldom able to cross back over the threshold of a person’s present existence. Biblical references to previous lifetimes on earth are overlooked in the deductive process, and we find them therefore excluded from the body of official dogma. Nevertheless, such references exist. The Bible itself presents them – as does Jesus in this passage – not as abstract teaching, but as direct, personal perception of truth.

In the same way Krishna, in the Bhagavad Gita, silences Arjuna’s reasonable doubts on the subject not by reasoned argument, but by the frank statement contained in the fourth Chapter of that great Scripture:

Arjuna, you and I have passed through many births. I know all of them, though you, O chastiser of foes, recall them not.

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

Watch this beautiful Sunday Service talk withNayaswami Maria, recorded at Ananda Village on November 17th, 2024. The reading for this week from Swami Kriyananda's book Rays of the One Light is

The Promise of the Scriptures

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 the Gospel of St. Luke, Chapter 15, we read the famous Parable of the Prodigal Son. Jesus tells of the man who took the wealth bestowed on him by his father, and squandered it in foreign lands, where he fell into evil ways. At last, repentant, he returned to his father’s home. When his father saw him, he was (Jesus tells us)

moved with compassion, and ran and fell upon his neck and kissed him. And the son said to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee. I am no longer worthy to be called thy son.” But the father said to his servants, “Fetch quickly the best robe and put it on him, and give him a ring for his finger and sandals for his feet; and bring out the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and make merry; because this my son was dead, and has come to life again; he was lost, and is found.” And they began to make merry.

Small-hearted human beings, identified as they are with their little egos, give exaggerated importance to any slight they receive from others. Thus, they imagine God, like them, to be petty, unpardoning, and vindictive. In God’s eyes, however, when human beings go astray there is nothing to forgive. All of us are aspects, only, of His own Self. He who made us resides in us. He is not far away from us in some far-off heaven. His call to us, always, is to return to our own home, within.

The way of return is described in the Bhagavad Gita, in the sixth Chapter:

Supreme blessedness is that yogi’s who has completely calmed his mind, controlled his ego-active tendencies (rajas), and purged himself of desire, thereby attaining oneness with Brahma, the Infinite Spirit.

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

Watch this uplifting Sunday Service talk with Tyagi Dhyan, recorded at Ananda Village on November 10th, 2024. The reading for this week from Swami Kriyananda's book Rays of the One Light is

The Promise of the Scriptures

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 the Gospel of St. Luke, Chapter 15, we read the famous Parable of the Prodigal Son. Jesus tells of the man who took the wealth bestowed on him by his father, and squandered it in foreign lands, where he fell into evil ways. At last, repentant, he returned to his father’s home. When his father saw him, he was (Jesus tells us)

moved with compassion, and ran and fell upon his neck and kissed him. And the son said to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee. I am no longer worthy to be called thy son.” But the father said to his servants, “Fetch quickly the best robe and put it on him, and give him a ring for his finger and sandals for his feet; and bring out the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and make merry; because this my son was dead, and has come to life again; he was lost, and is found.” And they began to make merry.

Small-hearted human beings, identified as they are with their little egos, give exaggerated importance to any slight they receive from others. Thus, they imagine God, like them, to be petty, unpardoning, and vindictive. In God’s eyes, however, when human beings go astray there is nothing to forgive. All of us are aspects, only, of His own Self. He who made us resides in us. He is not far away from us in some far-off heaven. His call to us, always, is to return to our own home, within.

The way of return is described in the Bhagavad Gita, in the sixth Chapter:

Supreme blessedness is that yogi’s who has completely calmed his mind, controlled his ego-active tendencies (rajas), and purged himself of desire, thereby attaining oneness with Brahma, the Infinite Spirit.

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

Watch this uplifting Sunday Service talk with Nayaswami Parvati, recorded at Ananda Village on November 3rd, 2024. The reading for this week from Swami Kriyananda's book Rays of the One Light is

Why Tell God Anything When He Knows Everything? Why Offer God Anything, When He Has Everything?

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.

Jesus Christ teaches as the ideal prayer one that addresses very human demands to God: “Give us this day our daily bread,” “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors,” and, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”

Jesus himself says, just before suggesting this prayer, “Your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.” Why, then, his recommendation that we pray for anything? The answer is that we should offer ourselves up in acceptance of His abundance. Don’t pester God, as though pulling constantly on His sleeve to get His attention. Approach Him with the confidence of a child in its parent. And in that spirit, then, ask Him lovingly, but with complete trust, as though demanding your birthright, and without the slightest doubt in your mind that He wants only your best. For you don’t have to persuade Him, the way a beggar or a stranger might. You are His own child.

God knows everything already. He knows what is in your heart. It is you who need to clarify your feelings, that you attune yourself to Him in turn more clearly. For only by such clarity will you be able to receive perfectly what He gives you.

For the same reason, we need to offer ourselves to Him not because He needs anything from us (except, as Yogananda said, our love, to complete His love for us), but because by self-giving we expand our awareness from its confinement in the little ego, outward to infinity.

“Those who partake of the nectar remaining after a sacrifice,” says the Bhagavad Gita in the fourth Chapter, “attain to the Infinite Spirit. That person, however, who makes no sacrifices never truly succeeds in enjoying even the blessings of this material world; how, then, could he attain happiness in subtler realms?”

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

Watch this inspiring Sunday Service talk with Sundara Traymar, recorded at Ananda Village on October 27th, 2024. The reading for this week from Swami Kriyananda's book Rays of the One Light is

What Is the Best Way to Pray?

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.

Jesus Christ and Sri Krishna, both, advised praying to God as personal. Yet both emphasized also that God is above form, and that He must be sought, ultimately, in Infinity. As Jesus put it, “God is a spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.”

Yet he spoke of God constantly as our Heavenly Father. In what is known as the Lord’s Prayer, he proposed a very human prayer to the Heavenly Father, asking fulfillment for all our spiritual needs.

The Bhagavad Gita explains that man, living as he does in a human body, finds it difficult to worship Infinity as though the ego and body didn’t even exist. Far better for human beings, Krishna says, to work with reality as we know it than to affirm a reality of which the human mind is incapable of forming any clear notion. Encouraging the devotee in this direction, he says, “O Arjuna, be thou a yogi!” – that is to say, be one who works with, not in rejection of, the energies of the body and the natural tendencies of the mind.

In the twelfth Chapter of the Gita, Arjuna asks:

“Those who, ever steadfast, worship Thee as devotees [that is to say, in an “I” and “Thou” relationship], and those who contemplate Thee as the immortal, unmanifested Spirit – which group is the better versed in yoga?”

The blessed Lord replied: “Those who, fixing their minds on Me, adore Me, ever united to Me through supreme devotion, are in My eyes the perfect knowers of yoga. . . .

“Those whose strict aim is union with the Unmanifested choose a more difficult way; arduous for embodied beings is The Path of dedication to the Absolute” – the followers, that is to say, of The Path of Gyana Yoga.

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