Watch this inspiring Sunday Service talk with Nayaswami Sagar, recorded at Ananda Village on October 20th, 2024. The reading for this week from Swami Kriyananda's book Rays of the One Light is

First Things First

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.

That expression, “First things first,” is a piece of counsel often given to students of business techniques. It is the advice of practicality to those who aspire to worldly success. But according to the Hermetic doctrine, “As above, so below,” that which works best in one level of life is often the best guide to what will work best on every other level. If a person is true to his highest priorities, he will generally find that his other needs are fulfilled naturally as well.

This is true, certainly, of the search for God. One of the greatest sayings of Jesus Christ was this simple sentence, in the Gospel of St. Matthew, Chapter 6:

Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

Paramhansa Yogananda gave his elder brother Ananta a wonderful lesson in this truth. It was Ananta who had captured him and brought him back from his flight to the Himalayas, described by Yogananda in Autobiography of a Yogi. In Yogananda’s book we read how Ananta later challenged him, in the city of Agra, to pit his divine faith against such “practical” worldly considerations as the need for earning a living. Fearless before that challenge, the young aspirant agreed to go by train, without any money, to the nearby town of Brindaban; not to miss a single meal in Brindaban; and to find his way back to Agra without begging and without in any other way asking for help. In one of the most thrilling chapters in the book, Yogananda fulfilled all the conditions of the test. Yogananda continued the account:

As the tale was unfolded, my brother turned sober, then solemn.

“The law of demand and supply reaches into subtler realms than I had supposed.” Ananta spoke with a spiritual enthusiasm never before noticeable. “I understand for the first time your indifference to the vaults and vulgar accumulations of the world.”

Late as it was, my brother insisted that he receive diksha (initiation) into Kriya Yoga.

As the Bhagavad Gita puts it in the ninth Chapter:

Those who worship lesser gods go to their gods…but those who worship Me come to Me.

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

Watch this inspiring Sunday Service talk with Nayaswami Ananta, recorded at Ananda Village on October 13th, 2024. The reading for this week from Swami Kriyananda's book Rays of the One Light is

Victory Demands the Courage of Conviction

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 said in the Gospel of St. Matthew, Chapter 10:

Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.

For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.

And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household.

He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me.

He that findeth [that is to say, that clingeth to] his life shall lose it: and he that loseth [in other words, that giveth up] his life for my sake shall find it.

God tests the firmness of our faith. The “sword” described here is the sword of discrimination. The struggle Jesus describes is not a war against unknown enemies, but the struggle with our own attachment to all that is nearest and dearest to us, humanly speaking. Ultimately, it is a war against the ego itself, and against anything with which we surround ourselves to bolster the ego’s fragile sense of security.

When Yogananda, as a boy, fled to the Himalayas to embrace a life of solitary meditation, he was apprehended by his older brother Ananta, and brought home again. At a certain point, before he would accept defeat, he whispered to his friend Amar, his companion on the flight, “Let us slip away when opportunity offers. We can go on foot to Rishikesh.”

But Amar, whose brother had accompanied Ananta, had turned pessimist, disclaiming any intention of continuing their adventure. Yogananda’s memorable comment on Amar’s refusal was, “He was enjoying the familial warmth.”

The spiritual warrior rejects that “familial warmth.” Rather, he claims the whole universe as his home.

As the Bhagavad Gita puts it in the fourteenth Chapter:

Unaffected by outward joys and sorrows, or by praise and blame; secure in his divine nature; regarding with equal gaze a clod of mud, a stone, and a bar of gold; impartial toward all experiences, whether pleasant or unpleasant; firm-minded; untouched by either praise or blame; treating everyone alike whether friend or foe; free from the delusion that, in anything he does, he is the doer: Such an one has transcended Nature’s triune qualities.

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

Watch this inspiring Sunday Service talk with Nayaswami Pranaba, recorded at Ananda Village on October 6th, 2024. The reading for this week from Swami Kriyananda's book Rays of the One Light is

In Surrender Lies Victory!

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.

A case might be made for surrender as a path to victory in worldly conflicts – the way of passive resistance, for example, in preference to armed resistance. But our point here concerns a higher kind of surrender: the surrender of our deluded, egoic will to the wise and almighty will of God.

Human will is, as Paramhansa Yogananda used to say, guided by whims and limited understanding. The divine will is in harmony with every level of reality. Though the divine will sometimes appears to us, at first, to be wrong, it proves always, eventually, to be for our highest good.

Human will is inconsistent; it leads us one day to success, another, to disaster. The divine will, when we surrender to it completely (though it is not always easy to do so!), always brings us deep inner peace and joy in the end.

Jesus Christ demonstrated this perfect surrender to God’s will in the Garden of Gethsemane, the night before he was captured and imprisoned, preparatory to his crucifixion. He went apart from the others to pray, and asked them to pray also. But when he returned to them he found them asleep.

Out of his love for them he excused them, saying, “The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” He then urged them again, saying, “Watch and pray.” Their weakness, in those circumstances, was particularly sad, and the disciples themselves must have regretted it bitterly, later on.

We all know the symptoms of human weakness, though we may excuse them in ourselves, saying, “Well, after all, I’m only human.” But what are the signs of true strength? We find in all cases that these are the fruit of a life wholly surrendered to God. The Bhagavad Gita lists these signs in the thirteenth Chapter:

Humbleness, truthfulness, and harmlessness,

Patience and honor, reverence for the wise,

Purity, constancy, control of self,

Contempt for sense-delights, self-sacrifice,

Perception of the certainty of ill

In birth, old age, and frail mortality,

Disease, the ego’s suffering, and sin;

Detachment, lightly holding thoughts of home,

Children, and wife – those ties which bind most men;

An ever-tranquil heart, heedless of good

Or adverse fortune, with the will upraised

To worship Me alone, unceasingly;

Loving deep solitude, and shunning noise

Of foolish crowds; calm focus on the Self

Perceived within and in Infinity:

These qualities reveal true Wisdom, Prince.

All that is otherwise is ignorance!

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

Watch this inspiring Sunday Service talk with Erin Vinacco, recorded at Ananda Village on September 29th, 2024. 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.

 

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

Intuition Is Simple: The Intellect Is Complex

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. Mark, Chapter 10, we read a passage that Yogananda often quoted:

And they brought young children to him, that he should touch them: and his disciples rebuked those that brought them.

But when Jesus saw it, he was much displeased, and said unto them, Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God.

Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein.

It has often been noted that a critical attitude tends to paralyze creativity. Good critics, for example, seldom produce works of creative genius, though their creations may be intellectually clever. The intellect separates; it analyzes, then puts things together again piece by piece. Intellect lacks intuition’s flow, which descends smoothly, like a river, from the superconscious.

Paramhansa Yogananda described intuition as “the soul’s power of knowing God.” To receive the kingdom of God, Jesus was saying, one must do so with the openness and trust of a little child. Intellectuals may object to this statement, saying, “But there must also be discrimination. You wouldn’t want a person to be so open-minded that his brain falls out!” The truth is, however, that the intellect can be fooled, even when it does its best to discriminate wisely. Only intuition is capable of penetrating to the heart of a matter and knowing truth from falsehood. It was the clear understanding of a child, not the elaborately persuaded intellects of his elders, that enabled the child in Hans Christian Andersen’s story to cry out in surprise, “Why isn’t the Emperor wearing any clothes?”

Therefore it was that Sri Krishna said, in the ninth Chapter of the Bhagavad Gita:

To you, who are free from the carping spirit, I shall now reveal wisdom sublime. Grasping it with your mind, and perceiving it by intuitive realization, you shall escape the evils of delusion.

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

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

Intuition Is Simple: The Intellect Is Complex

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. Mark, Chapter 10, we read a passage that Yogananda often quoted:

And they brought young children to him, that he should touch them: and his disciples rebuked those that brought them.

But when Jesus saw it, he was much displeased, and said unto them, Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God.

Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein.

It has often been noted that a critical attitude tends to paralyze creativity. Good critics, for example, seldom produce works of creative genius, though their creations may be intellectually clever. The intellect separates; it analyzes, then puts things together again piece by piece. Intellect lacks intuition’s flow, which descends smoothly, like a river, from the superconscious.

Paramhansa Yogananda described intuition as “the soul’s power of knowing God.” To receive the kingdom of God, Jesus was saying, one must do so with the openness and trust of a little child. Intellectuals may object to this statement, saying, “But there must also be discrimination. You wouldn’t want a person to be so open-minded that his brain falls out!” The truth is, however, that the intellect can be fooled, even when it does its best to discriminate wisely. Only intuition is capable of penetrating to the heart of a matter and knowing truth from falsehood. It was the clear understanding of a child, not the elaborately persuaded intellects of his elders, that enabled the child in Hans Christian Andersen’s story to cry out in surprise, “Why isn’t the Emperor wearing any clothes?”

Therefore it was that Sri Krishna said, in the ninth Chapter of the Bhagavad Gita:

To you, who are free from the carping spirit, I shall now reveal wisdom sublime. Grasping it with your mind, and perceiving it by intuitive realization, you shall escape the evils of delusion.

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

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

Ego – Friend or Foe?

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 begins his Beatitudes with the words:

Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

To be “poor in spirit” in such a way as to merit the kingdom of heaven doesn’t mean to be poor-spirited. Rather, it means to see oneself as owning nothing, since all belongs to God. For all is a manifestation of His consciousness.

St. John of the Cross wrote, “If you would own everything, seek to own nothing.” That which the ego relinquishes, offering it up to soul-consciousness, is reclaimed forever in cosmic consciousness. Nothing is ever lost. Paramhansa Yogananda tells the story in Autobiography of a Yogi of the levitating saint, Bhaduri Mahasaya.

“Master,” said a disciple of this saint once, ardently. “You are wonderful! You have renounced riches and comforts to seek God and teach us wisdom!” It was well-known that Bhaduri Mahasaya had forsaken great family wealth in his early childhood, when single-mindedly he entered the yogic path.

“You are reversing the case! The saint’s face held mild rebuke. “I have left a few paltry rupees, a few petty pleasures, for a cosmic empire of endless bliss. How then have I denied myself anything? I know the joy of sharing the treasure. Is that a sacrifice? The shortsighted worldly folk are verily the real renunciates! They relinquish an unparalleled divine possession for a poor handful of earthly toys!”

The Bhagavad Gita in the third Chapter states:

"All things are everywhere by Nature wrought

In interaction of the qualities.

The fool, cheated by self, thinks, ‘This I did’

And ‘That I wrought’; but – ah, thou strong-armed prince! –

A better-lessoned mind, knowing the play

Of visible things within the world of sense,

And how the qualities must qualify,

Standeth aloof even from his acts." 

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

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

Who Are True Christians?

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 said, in Chapter 10 of the Gospel of St. John: “All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers: but the sheep did not hear them.”

Many Christians, not surprisingly, quote this saying in condemnation of other spiritual teachers – not only the old Testament prophets, but also Buddha, Krishna, and others who lived before Jesus, as well as (by inference) any who came after him. Yet Jesus himself said, in St. Matthew Chapter 5, “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.”

Nowhere do we find Jesus condemning, or even gently criticizing, other spiritual masters. His criticisms were reserved for worldly attitudes, and for those hypocritical Pharisees who had allowed religion to become, for them, a pretense.

Paramhansa Yogananda explained that the expression “All that ever came before me” referred to those spiritual teachers who place their egos and their self-importance ahead of the Christ Consciousness, in the sense of drawing people’s devotion to themselves and not offering it where alone it truly belongs, to God.

Yogananda himself was very firm in this regard. For example, he never spoke of anyone as his disciple. Instead, he always insisted, “They are God’s disciples. God is the Guru, not I.”

Ego is a way-station on the soul’s journey toward enlightenment. The soul is first trapped in lower bodily forms. Slowly it evolves to the human level, at which point self-consciousness appears. Only in human form can self-consciousness transcend material form altogether, including the lower identity of ego-consciousness, and discover the true, divine Self within. Self-consciousness manifested as ego is an incentive to deliberate self-development. Later in this process of development, however, the ego becomes an obstruction. Inevitably, new spiritual aspirants do not emerge effortlessly from the vortex of ego-consciousness. Desire must be offered up resolutely and ever-more wholeheartedly on the altar of Infinity. It is a gradual process, and few even among those who seek to help others are free of ego. If, however, their motive in teaching is not to serve, but to be served, they deserve a severe reprimand, as Jesus gave them. For their direction of development is no longer upward, but downward. In the name of giving up desires they are creating new ones. As it says in the Bhagavad Gita in the third Chapter:

Desire obscures even the wisdom of the wise. Their relentless foe it is, a flame never quenched.

Intellect, mind, and senses: These combined are referred to as the seat of desire. Desire, through them, deludes and eclipses the discrimination of the embodied soul.

O Arjuna, discipline your senses! And, having done so, work to destroy desire, annihilator of wisdom and of Self-realization.

Give God the credit for everything you do. See Him as the true Doer.

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

Watch this inspiring Sunday Service talk with Nayaswami Narayan, recorded at Ananda Village on August 25th, 2024. The reading for this week from Swami Kriyananda's book Rays of the One Light is

How Should We Meet Our Tests?

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 Satan’s temptation of Jesus in the wilderness, after his baptism by John. We discussed the question, Does Satan exist?

All of us experience temptation of one kind or another in our lives – some of us, frequently; others, only occasionally. Whether temptation comes to us from our own subconscious, or from outside ourselves, is secondary to the fact that it does come, and that we must deal with it. More important, then, is the question, How to deal with it – in fact, how to deal with tests of any kind?

Martin Luther flung an ink pot at the devil, who had appeared to test him. A dark stain on the wall of Luther’s cell is pointed out to tourists in support of this story. Unfortunately, our trials are not often so summarily dismissed. As a fellow monk once said to Swami Kriyananda, speaking of Satan, “If only I could get my hands on him!”

Jesus during his temptations in the wilderness overcame them, and thereby set an example for all time, by clinging the more determinedly to God. As Paramhansa Yogananda used to say, “Darkness cannot be driven out of a room with a stick. Once you turn on the light, however, the darkness will vanish as though it had never been.” Jesus manifested this principle. The Bible tells us therefore that at last, “The devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him.”

In the Bhagavad Gita the point is clarified further by the added explanation that there are three qualities in human nature: sattvic, or spiritually elevating; rajasic, or ego-activating; and tamasic, or spiritually darkening. It is this triune aspect of human nature that the third Chapter refers to with the words:

As fire is hidden by smoke, as a mirror is dulled by rust, and as an embryo is enclosed in the womb, so is the indwelling Self enveloped by desire.

Yogananda explained that each of these examples describes one of the qualities, or gunas. Sattva guna, that which elevates our consciousness, can be freed of any identity with ego by a little puff of meditation and right affirmation. Rajo guna, which embroils the ego in restless activity, can be worked off with a little more, and a little longer, effort. Tamo guna, embracing as it does such mental states as laziness and stupidity, can only be outgrown in time, since it inhibits even the desire for self-improvement.

The example Jesus gave us was intended more for those in whom sattva guna is predominant. But if you yourself find elements in your consciousness that resist even the effort to cling to God in prayer and meditation, don’t despair. Patience, as it has been well said, is the fastest path to God. As long as your efforts take you steadfastly in the right direction, you will come out right in time. Remember Yogananda’s words: “A saint is a sinner who never gave up.”

If, however, your nature impels you, even against your will, to move in the wrong direction – toward egoic desires, and away from God – strive at least to detach yourself mentally from your wrong actions, which are induced by habit. The time will come when their own stored-up energy will tire and diminish. At that time, if you have not contributed to that energy by your consenting will, you will find it possible at last to redirect your energies more constructively.

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

Watch this inspiring Sunday Service talk with Nayaswami Sagar, recorded at Ananda Village on August 18th, 2024.

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

Does Satan Exist?

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 Bible tells us in Chapter 4 of the Gospel of St. Matthew:

Then [after baptism] was Jesus led up of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.

To most modern minds, this passage seems quaintly obsolete. Psychologists would say – have said, in fact – that the temptation of Jesus, if it occurred at all, was purely psychological. They call it a projection of desires lurking in his own subconscious mind.

The subconscious plays a strong part, certainly, even if not a unique one, in any testing the spiritual seeker must undergo.

The Bhagavad Gita, in dealing with this undeniable reality, quotes Arjuna in the third Chapter, and then Sri Krishna’s reply:

“Yet tell me, Teacher! [said Arjuna] by what force doth man

Go to his ill, unwilling; as if one

Pushed him in that path?”

[Krishna replied:]

“Desire it is!

Passion it is! born of the Darknesses,

Which pusheth him.

Mighty of appetite,

Sinful, and strong is this! – man’s enemy!”

Yet even Krishna describes passion as “born of the Darknesses.”

The fact is, as Paramhansa Yogananda wrote in Autobiography of a Yogi, “All thoughts vibrate eternally in the cosmos.…Thoughts are universally and not individually rooted; a truth cannot be created, but only perceived.” Psychology, yes, but psychology attuned to currents of consciousness that pervade the entire universe, attracted by each of us according to our own personal inclinations.

Yogananda, quoted in The Path, said, “I used to think Satan was only a human invention, but now I know, and add my testimony to that of others who lived before me, that Satan is a reality. He is a universal, conscious force whose sole aim is to keep all beings bound to the wheel of delusion.”

We should take pains, then, to attract uplifting currents of universal consciousness, and to avoid attracting the negative, which – disease that it is! – can infect our thoughts even while it leads us to believe that our thoughts are purely our own.

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