With whom can we share spiritual teachings? How can we know when friends and family members are ready? How can we make ourselves ready to hear spiritual truths?

Drawing on the teachings of Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita, Nayaswami Anandi explains four ways that we can see if we and others are ready for spiritual truth. Finally, she shares the story of a (now) long-time Kriya yogi, who in his early twenties was severely alcoholic, but still ready to learn meditation. 

Do you need a guru? In this service, Peter covers four stages that devotees go through in their understanding of the guru-disciple relationship:

1. The idea that they can get everything they need from books

2. The realization that they need teachers to help them understand deep truths

3. The acceptance of the idea that they need the guru, but not being sure if a guru who is no longer in the body can guide them

4. The faith that a true guru, in the body or not, is their guide to salvation

What place does self-effort have on the spiritual path? Is it more important, or is faith?

In this talk Maria tells the story of how Ananda Sacramento acquired its first temple after 20 years, and the sustained effort that was required. She also shares an inspiring story of Garret (Arjuna) Stanley, an Ananda Village resident who passed away very recently.

Finally, she quotes Yogananda, who said that with the spiritual path, 25 percent is our effort, 25 percent is the effort of the Guru on our behalf, and 50 percent is God’s grace.

But, she explains, the 25 percent that is our effort takes everything we have to give.

40 years after he first arrived at Ananda Village, Nitai gives the last Sunday Service before heading to the Ananda Center at Laurelwood near Portland.

In the autobiographical talk, Nitai discusses what brought him onto the spiritual path and how the journey of finding the practice of meditation, Autobiography of a Yogi, Ananda, and Swami Kriyananda prepared him to let go of the little “self” and embrace the big “Self.”