Dwapara Consciousness: Living Your Beliefs

Dealing with Fear The Devotee Who Tried Unsuccesfully to Change

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The time for knowing God has come.

—Paramhansa Yogananda

CLARITYA Magazine of Spiritual Teachings & Practices for Everyday Living

F R O M A N A N D A S A N G H A

Fall 2004

ContributorsSwami KriyanandaBarbara BinghamDevi NovakDiana TaylorJohn LentiJyotish Novak

Clarity Editor: Sheila RushEditorial Staff: John LentiGraphic Design: Barbara Bingham

Clarity is the quarterly magazine of Ananda Church of Self-Realization. For information about Clarity magazine, Ananda Meditation Groups, Centers, Colonies, or The Expanding Light guest retreat, please contact:

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© 2004 by Ananda Church of Self-Realization

Clarity magazine is supported by your donations to the Annual Appeal of Ananda Worldwide.

Cover photo - see p. 7

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CLARITYA Magazine of Spiritual Teachings & Practices for Everyday Living

F R O M A N A N D A S A N G H A

Dwapara Conscoiusness: Living Your Beliefs Swami Kriyananda

Sacred ”Selfishness” Paramhansa Yogananda

Contents

Fall 20042

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14 Stories of Grace

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The Man in Orange Happy Winingham

Spiritualizing Daily Life

Dealing with Fear Jyotish and Devi Novak

Spirituality and Science

The Miracle of the ShroudKen Atwell

Spiritual Practices

The 5-Minute Experiment Jyotish Novak

Letters of Encouragement Swami Kriyananda

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The Devotee Who Tried Unsuccessfully To ChangeParamhansa Yogananda

When You Can’t Meditate Nicole DeAvilla-Whiting

New Books from Ananda

The Importance of Listening Swami Kriyananda

WHEN PARAMHANSA YOGANANDA was a young monk in India, a skeptic once said to him, “Some day all you swamis will be very disappointed when you wake up and discover that there is no God. Yogananda replied, "Well, you may be right, but mean-while we'll at least have had the satisfaction of knowing that we've done some good."

The importance of living your beliefsThat was a very Dwapara Yuga kind of

answer. The important thing is not how we define our beliefs, but how we live them. Giving lip service to the concept of God isn't nearly as important as living in a way that gives you inspiration and fulfillment.

Definitions of sabikalpa and nirbikalpa samadhi, as I heard some pundit expound-ing on in a lecture in India, are simply beside the point. Someday we'll all have samadhi, but meanwhile we must start where we are right now.

We all want more happiness, less sorrow; more love, less meanness of heart; more charity, less narrow-mindedness and self-ishness. These are universal desires. We all want to find happiness and to avoid unhap-piness. It's really that simple.

Moreover, we learn by trial and error. Over time, as we experience the results of our actions, we begin to move in the direction of avoiding those things that bring sorrow and seeking out those that produce happiness.

A new way of seeking truth People sometimes worry that science

has undermined faith in religion. In some ways, of course, it has. But basically what science has done is wonderful. It has said that without experiment, which in religious terms would be experience, you can't claim to know anything.

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People used to say that the earth was flat, but their belief didn’t make it so. People also used to say that the earth was the center of the universe, but they eventually found that it wasn’t so. Again and again, experiment has proved that certain dogmas, beliefs, and suppositions simply weren’t valid.

Judge by your personal experience And so it is in our search for truth. We

must approach the search for truth experi-entially. When I meditate I feel great joy. I feel God's love. That's what makes it worth-while to me.

If love were only an intellectual belief it would mean nothing. But I feel so in love with God that I want to do whatever I can to know Him more fully. We all want to experience God's presence in ourselves. When we experience His presence, others can feel it, too.

This is the basis of spiritual teaching in India—to judge by your own personal experience. The Indian teachings rest not on an institution declaring what ought to be, but on people—the great masters—who have actually experienced the truth.

In India--less bigotryIt always struck me as a sad testimony

to religious bigotry that some Christian missionaries in India were outraged to see me in the orange robes of a swami. But all the Indian Christians I met were, without exception, gratified to see me. The Indian Christians would say, "Oh, how inspiring to see you in your ochre robes."

They saw me not as an outrage to their beliefs but as someone who also loved God. It is inbred in their culture that it doesn't matter how you define truth. The important thing is how you live it and experience it.

It's wonderful in India to see Hindus pass in front of a church and bow in rever-ence. They know that the same God they love is being loved and worshipped also in that church.

The religion of the futureThis is what religion in Dwapara Yuga

is all about. It's a matter of living the prin-ciples and the teachings. And that always comes back to the individual. Yogananda used to say, “You have to individually make love to God."

In his discussions of Dwapara Yuga, Yogananda said, "The religion of the future will be Self-realization." He wasn’t talking about building an organization. He meant that in the future, every religion will under-stand that the true purpose of religion is to help you in your own personal relationship with God, in your private devotions.

Why do the great masters come? Not to create institutions like General Motors. No! They come to help us individually to realize that what we're looking for is within ourselves.

Dwapara Yuga will bring people the understanding that religion is about experi-ment and personal experience. Many more people will come to God in this age than previously because they will understand that religion is a matter of individual effort, not

fixed and brittle concepts.In Kali Yuga there is the

tendency to box things into fixed definitions. A definition is not the truth. I can say God

is love and yet live a life totally contradicting this principle. It’s what we do that matters.

We must all become Christ-like Our goal in life should be to become

Christ-like. It's entirely false to say, "He was so great. We could never be like him." Jesus didn't come to show us how great he was, but to show us what we are. He kept bringing it back to this truth and telling the crowds, “Don’t your scriptures say, ‘You, too, are gods?’”

But to reach that level of realization, we need to meditate. We need to practice Kriya Yoga. We need to develop devotion to God. It isn't enough merely to pass pamphlets out in the streets.

Spirituality is inward In Dwapara Yuga there's going to be

more recognition in religion that church authorities don't necessarily know truth.

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Dwapara Consciousness:Living Your Beliefs by Swami Kriyananda

Swami Kriyananda in India, June 2004

I feel so in love with God.

Dharmadas at Kriya initiation in New Delhi.

He alone knows who has experienced it. Sometimes the most ignorant person will be the one who deserves the most respect.

There's a beautiful story in Autobiography of a Yogi that shows how Yogananda saw spirituality as inward, not outward; as indi-vidual, not institutional. He told the story of three hermits on an island in Greece who had a very unusual prayer. They would pray, "We are three. Thou art three. Have mercy upon us."

It wasn't a sophisticated prayer, but the people living on the island reported that many miracles took place in the presence of these hermits. Word of the hermits eventually reached the local bishop who thought, "These hermits must be won-derful souls. For their edification I would like to give them the prescribed prayers of our liturgy and church."

So he went to the island and taught them the accepted, official prayers. The three hermits were humble men, who gratefully received his instruction, and the bishop left feeling he'd accomplished a good thing.

As he was on the boat leaving, however, he suddenly saw the three hermits running over the water hand-in-hand, crying out to him, “Wait, wait, wait, your Excellency, please. We’ve forgotten the prayers you taught us. Could you go over them once more?" He said, "My children, you don't need those prayers."

The simplicity of the heart The future of religion is going to go more

toward the simplicity of the heart and away from official dogmas and creeds. When I was in college, people used to come to me with all sorts of learned theories wanting to know my opinion. I would say to them, “If it doesn't feel right in your heart, don't accept it.” There's great wisdom in the heart.

In the chapter, “An Experience in Cosmic Consciousness,” in Autobiography of a Yogi, Yogananda wrote, "I cognized the center of the empyrean as a point of intui-tive perception in my own heart." Your real center of being is in the heart. This is the seat of intuition, and if you want to know whether anything is true, see whether it resonates with your heart.

In Dwapara Yuga the true expression of religion will be that of the individual’s love for God—God first, God second, God all the time. Then with His love you can love all.

But don't think that merely the feeling of love is the answer. When you feel great love in your heart, that energy can go downward as well as upward. It’s good to love out-wardly, but unless that love is based in an upward flow toward the Spirit it will take you into delusion.

“Do you love me?”We need to love all with God’s love, and

to love Him in all. In Dwapara Yuga people will come to understand more and more that this is what life is about.

When you die, the question God will ask you will be, "Do you love me?" It couldn't matter less to God whether you've been a Baptist or a Protestant or a Jew or a Hindu, or whether you've even gone to church.

The most important thing Yogananda taught was how to love God. It isn’t a mat-ter of how long you meditate, or how many prayers you do. It's a matter of the devo-tion, the energy, and the consciousness that you bring to your search for God. This is the true religion of the future and for all eternity.

Excerpted from an August 2002 talk at Ananda Village.

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Two thousand people attended Ananda’s “launching” of the first Indian publication of the original 1946 edition of Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi.

Held on July 18th at the Siri Fort audi-torium in New Delhi, the event included music and songs by Ananda staff, talks by two Indian swamis, and an inspiring thirty-five minute talk by Swami Kriyananda.

Other Ananda events that are drawing large numbers include three new medita-tion class series taught by Ananda staff. Dharmadas Schuppe, Yogacharya of Ananda India, is also receiving numerous requests for speaking engagements.

Kriyananda’s daily TV program is now available on another cable outlet, Aastha TV, which is widely viewed throughout the world.

In September, Ananda will be opening a store as an outlet for its books, recordings, posters, and other products. Located in a western style mall near the Ananda ashram, the store will be an important new way of reaching thousands of people each day with Yogananda’s teachings.

Your real center of being is in the heart.

Ananda India Update

From top to bottom: Swami Kriyananda addressing Siri Fort audience on July 18th; a view of the audience; Ananda Sangha Singers; Swami Kriyananda with Swami Nikhilananda and Swami Santosh Muni. Swami Kriyananda gazing at Siri Fort audience.

everyone into the circle of brotherhood. Good selfishness yields many harvests—return services from others, self-expansion, happiness, divine sympathy.

To avoid the pitfalls of evil selfishness, a person should first establish himself in the good forms of selfishness, where he thinks of his family and those he serves, as part of himself. From that attainment, he can then advance to the practice of sacred selfishness (or unselfishness, as ordinary understand-ing would term it), where one sees the entire universe as oneself.

Becoming the Self of allTo be sacredly selfish is to seek happi-

ness in the joy of others, and to try con-stantly to remove the wants of larger and larger groups of people. Using his best judgment and intuition, the man of sacred selfishness acts with-out expectation, and helps him-self—as the many—with health, food, work, success and spiritual emancipation. He lives to love his brethren, for he knows we are all children of the one God.

The man of sacred selfishness takes on the suffering of others in order to make them free from further suffering. He counts all his earthly losses as deliberately chosen by himself for the good of others, and for his own and ulti-mate gain.

His entire selfishness is sacred, for whenever he thinks of himself, he thinks, not of the small body and mind of ordinary understanding, but of the needs of all bodies and minds within

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The businessman who thinks and acts only for himself, thinking neither of his clients or customers, nor of those depen-dent on him for support, is engaged in evil

selfishness. Such a man is acting against his own best selfish interests, for in time he will suffer. Evil selfish-ness hides its destructive teeth of suffering beneath

the seemingly innocent assurances of com-fort and gain.

To delight in hurting others’ feelings by carping criticism is another form of evil selfishness. This malignant pleasure is not conducive to any lasting good.

Good selfishness leads to self-expansionThe businessman who, by honest,

wholesome, constructive actions looks after his own and his family’s needs is engaged in good selfishness. Good selfishness causes a man to seek his own comfort, prosperity, and happiness by also making others more prosperous and happy.

Unlike evil selfishness, which isolates a person and shuts out the rest of humanity, good selfishness reaches out and brings

Paramhansa Yogananda in a garden

THE LAW OF SERVICE to others is secondary to, and born out of, the law of self-interest and self-preservation. The real reason behind the scriptural injunction to “Serve thy fellowmen” and “Love thy neighbor as thyself” is the law of service, by which devotees expand the limits of their own selves.

Gaining God’s favorTo serve others by financial, mental, or

moral help is to find self-satisfaction. If any-one knew beyond doubt that by service to others, his own soul would be lost, would he serve? If Jesus knew that by sacrificing his life on the altar of ignorance he would dis-please God, would he have acted as he did?

No. Though Jesus had to lose the body, he knew he was gaining his Father’s favor. All the martyrs and saints make a good invest-ment—they spend the little mortal body to gain immortal life.

Even the most self-sacrificing act of ser-vice to others is done with the thought of self. It is logical, therefore, to say that the higher selfishness, or the good of the higher Self, is the goal of life rather than service to others without thought of self.

The cause of modern depressionsWe must, however, clearly distinguish

between three kinds of selfishness—evil, good, and sacred. The evil kind is that which actuates a man to seek his own comfort by destroying the comfort of others. To become rich at the cost of others’ loss is a sin. Modern depressions are caused by evil selfishness, which leads to unequal prosper-ity amidst plenty.

Sacred “Selfishness”by Paramhansa Yogananda

The man of sacred selfishness takes on the suffering of others in order to make them free from further suffering.

The martyrs make a good investment.

the range of his influence. When he does anything for himself, he can do only that which is good for all.

The man of sacred selfishness becomes the mind and feeling of all creatures and his “self” becomes the Self of all. He whose body and limbs consist of all humanity and all creatures finds the universal, all-pervad-ing Spirit as himself.

The altar of all-expanding goodnessGood selfishness and sacred selfishness put

one in touch with God, resting on the altar of all-expanding goodness. Those who realize this truth work conscientiously only to please the ever-directing God-peace within.

Excerpted from East-West Magazine, November-December 1929

Krishna to Arjuna:

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.

That yogi finds security in Me,

Who, though his days be rushed and action-filled,

Is anchored inwardly, at rest in Me,

And worships Me in every living form.

That one, Arjuna, is the best of men,

And truest he, of yogis, whose heart feels

The joys of all, their pains, their searing griefs,

With equal care as though they were his own.

Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 6, stanzas 30-32

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The Miracle of the Shroud

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Spirituality and Science

THE SHROUD of Turin is possibly the most remark-able relic in human history. Presented as the burial cloth of Jesus Christ, it has been studied by some of the most respected scientists on the globe. An estimated one-quar-ter million hours have been put into its examination, not including the work of archeologists, his-torians, pathologists, botanists, and physi-cians working outside the main group.

Confirmation of the GospelsWhat does the scientific evidence tell us

about the Shroud?We know that the man in the Shroud

was a Jew approximately 5’9” in height, and that he was crucified. Judging from the clear abrasions left on his shoulders, we know that he probably carried a beam of nearly one hundred pounds. We know that he was scourged by two Roman soldiers using fla-grums that left over one hundreds wounds on his front and back, and that he fell numer-ous times, leaving dirt and abrasions on his nose, knees, and feet.

The pollen and flower imprints on the Shroud tell us that he lived in Palestine, and that his crucifixion occurred in April or

We know that he was beaten about the face and head, and that he sustained some thirty blood staining wounds, similar to what might have been left by a crown of thorns.

We know that a spike was driven through both feet and into the cross, and also through each of the wrists. We know that, like all crucifixion victims, it was impossible for him to exhale unless he repeatedly straightened himself upwards to release the stress on his arms, resulting in the image’s over-enlarged chest area.

We know that the man in the Shroud died, and that rigor mortis set in, while he was still on the cross. Contrary to other crucifixion victims, this man’s legs were not broken to stop his upward movements and hasten his death. We know that after his death, his side was pierced by something similar to a Roman lancet, and that blood and water flowed from this wound.

We know that this man was prepared hurriedly for burial by Jewish custom and placed in the Shroud in the Jewish manner. We know that he was allowed to be buried alone, (unusual for a Jewish crucifixion vic-tim), rather than in a mass grave. Traces of limestone on the Shroud indicate that the body was probably placed in a limestone cave near Jerusalem.

We know that while the Shroud and body were in the cave the body did not decay, and that the body did not remain in the Shroud for more than 2-3 days. We know that the body was not manually moved from the Shroud, or the bloodstains would have smeared.

Yet within that time, the body in the Shroud vanished and in the process imprinted a 3-dimensional negative image in a manner never before created in human history.

The “Mandylion”Until very recently, the Shroud’s history

was only partly known. It is now strongly suspected that an ancient picture of Christ, know as the “Mandylion,” or “Image of Edessa,” was actually the Shroud folded into eighth’s and placed in a rectangular frame showing only the head.

It is believed that Thaddeus, one of the apostles of Jesus, took the Mandylion to Edessa, (now Urfa, Turkey), and with it cured King Abgar between 13-50AD. In 944 the Byzantines took it to Constantinople, where it was captured in the Fourth Crusade.

Accusations of fraud Three different theories have the Shroud

finally making its way to Livey, France sometime between 1204 and the 1350s,

where for the first time it was displayed, full length, as the burial cloth of Jesus.

By 1578, the Shroud was sequestered in Turin by the Savoys, the first royal family of Italy, where it resides to this day. At the time, most men of science generally accepted that the Shroud was fraudulent, merely a paint-ing.

The first glimmerings of scientific interest in the relic emerged in 1898 when Seconda Pia, a respected photographer of his time, was allowed to photograph the Shroud. Seen with the naked eye, the straw-yellow image on the Shroud lacks clarity and tends to blend into the background linen, espe-cially when viewed close up.

The Shroud is a “negative!”Upon developing his film, Pia, who had

expected to see a negative, was startled to see a detailed positive image, and one so distinct that the crucified man’s features, posture and wounds were clearly visible. Since it is an accepted scientific principle that a negative of a negative always results in a positive, it became apparent that the body image seen with the unaided eye was itself a “negative.”

These developments undermined the idea

We know that the man in the Shroud was a Jew approximately 5’9” in height, and that he was crucified.

by Ken Atwell

Jesus being placed in the shroud

The Shroud seen with the unaided eye.

The Shroud seen as a positiive image.

means of draping a cloth over a human body, statue, or bas-relief.

It was found also that the Shroud image was imprinted only on the uppermost sur-face fibers of the threads in the fabric. Were the image a painting or drawing, the materi-als would have penetrated more deeply and caused the fibers to mat and bind.

Evidence from bloodstains The analysis of the blood on the Shroud,

its flows and staining characteristics, chemi-cal composition, and anatomical positioning were all as they would have been on the cru-cified Jesus. The analysis showed that the blood was that of a human, that it flowed “downward” as it would on an upright cross victim, then “back-wards” as it would on someone later lain in a supine position, and that the stains were on the Shroud before the image was created.

STURP member John Heller expressed his own frustration and that of his fellow scientists when he stated, “If you were to give me a budget of $10 million, and told me to make a replica of [the Shroud], I would not know how to do it.”

Still, the image looks back at us. How did it get there?

The dematerialization of the body Mark Antonacci, in his book, The

Resurrection of the Shroud, puts forth his “Historically Consistent Method,” which comes closest to matching all the evidence gleaned thus far. A key component of this approach is the idea that the Shroud might have undergone something similar to “nuclear disintegration,” a theory first proposed by Dr. Kitty Little, a retired nuclear physicist.

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that the Shroud image was the work of a medieval forger: photo-negativity was unknown before the 19th century.

A perfect contour mapThen, in 1976, a breakthrough occurred.

Two scientists decided to process a photo of the Shroud with a VP-8 Image Analyzer, a device used in space probes to acquire accurate 3-dimensional images of celestial objects.

If the VP-8 is used on a normal photo-graph, or on a drawing by an artist versed in how the VP-8 works, the resulting image lacks true 3-dimensionality. To the scien-tists’ utter astonishment, the VP-8 image of the Shroud was a perfect, 3-dimensional rendering—a contour map of the body.

Respect for the Shroud deepens Intrigued, the scientific community took

action and in 1978 organized the Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP). Members of the team—world-renowned scientists, physicists, and pathologists from highly prestigious institutions—were given per-mission to examine the Shroud scientifi-cally. For the first time in history there was unprecedented access to the relic.

Most scientists thought that, under this scrutiny, the cloth would not live up to its traditional claims. But as the 1980s pro-gressed, and mountains of findings were published in scientific journals, respect for the Shroud deepened.

The researchers concluded that the Shroud was not a painting, vapograph, block print, or scorch. Nor was it an imprint of body heat or funeral anointing. It was not produced by the rubbing of dry com-pounds. Nor was it formed by any known

According to her theory, the energy that held the atoms of the Shroud body together was somehow released, causing a dispersal of radiation and atomic particles (electrons, neutrons, protons, etc.) Some of these par-ticles turned the linen fibers a straw yellow and created the image of the crucified man.

Little’s theory may account for another Shroud feature—its durability. The neu-trons, electrons, and gamma rays would act as a kind of preservative, making the Shroud more supple and resilient. Researchers have found the Shroud to be in amazingly good condition.

Antonacci’s overall theory also seriously challenges the 1988 carbon-dating tests, which suggested that the Shroud dated to 1260-1380 AD. These findings are now repudiated by most scientists because of fatal errors in the testing process, and the use of a fabric sample contaminated by smoke, wax, and patching.

But object ions to Antonacci ’s “Historically Consistent Method” continue to be voiced, so the controversy continues. Perhaps the planet must move more fully into Dwapara Yuga before science will be capable of understanding exactly how the Shroud image came into existence.

Ken Atwell lives with his wife, Hridaya, at Ananda Village and oversees the Village water system.

Upon developing the film, the crucified man’s features, posture and wounds were clearly visible.

What Is a Miracle?By Swami Kriyananda

What is a miracle? It is simply a phenomenon waiting to be explained. Television would have been a miracle to the people in medieval times. For that matter, the fact that it doesn’t seem miraculous to us now isn’t because most of us understand it. We accept it because it is commonplace.

There is no such thing, really, as a bona fide miracle. There are only dif-ferent workings of cosmic law.

Science will never be able to trace the genesis of the universe to its ulti-mate source, for it is obliged by its own disciplines to approach real-ity from its periphery, not from its center. Creation, on the other hand, is like a living tree: It is a radiation outward from its center in Pure Consciousness.

The mysteries of cosmic creation can be solved only by people who, in deep meditation, succeed in pen-etrating to the core of their own being—which, they find, is the center of Being everywhere.

Excerpted from Awaken to Superconsc iousness by Swami Kriyananda, Crystal Clarity, Publishers.

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The Man in Orangeby Happy Carol Winingham

WHEN I WAS 19 years old and living in Texas, I was critically injured in a 100-mile-an-hour collision with a drunk driver. What happened next isn’t something I could have explained in familiar terms at the time—in the helicopter on the way to the hospital I had a heart attack and “died.”

The last thing I remember before I died was that my body began to convulse vio-lently and I felt exceptionally cold. But I could still hear the loud, droning rhythm of the propellers overhead.

A tunnel of light A speck of light appeared at the point

Stories of Grace

between my eyebrows and I experienced a tremendous upward surge of energy, like bouncing in the air from a trampoline—a feeling of going up but not coming down again. The realization dawned that I wasn’t breathing.

There was a liberating sense of relief in not being in the body, an almost amusing awareness of how heavy it had been. I felt like I was floating in a pool of warm water with the sun shining on me, the warmth absorbing me as I absorbed it. I was com-fortable and relaxed.

The only sound was like wind rushing through trees. In front of me was a tunnel of light.

“Do you want to stay?”I passed quickly through the tunnel and

came out into a big open space where I was surrounded by a powerful presence. This presence consisted of many souls and ema-nated pure light, pure golden warmth, pure nurturing comfort, and an overwhelming feeling of love.

It seemed that I had merged with all these souls. We were all one and yet individual, too. Nothing else existed; nothing else mat-tered. It felt like home.

Then, from the midst of these souls, a loving, gentle presence spoke to me, not in words but through the medium of feelings. The question asked was, “Do you want to stay, or do you want to go back?”

Somehow my soul knew exactly where it was, why it was here, and what was happen-

ing. I knew I had died and left the material world. My answer to the familiar presence was, “I haven’t met the right people yet, and I haven’t learned to serve.”

The reply that came back was, “If you go back, you will experi-ence physical suffering. It will not be easy for you physically.” And my soul said, “I need to go back because I need to do these things before I can come home.”

Back in the bodyAs soon as there was an understanding,

I could again hear the loud beat of the heli-copter blades and then, a man’s voice yelling, “Clear!” After a violent shock, I felt myself thrust upward, and the heaviness of being in the body returned. The medical technician had used defibrillation paddles and restored my heartbeat.

At the time, no books had been pub-lished on the near-death experience, so I had no reassuring explanation for what occurred. But somewhere deep inside I understood that my soul had chosen a mission in life. Who were these people I needed to meet? What did it mean to “learn to serve?”

For several days I was in a coma. The doctors said my survival was miraculous. I had suffered a ruptured spleen, six broken ribs, a collapsed lung, a deep laceration to the head, and a contusion of the heart that would have killed me instantly had it been a fraction of an inch to either side.

Who is my guide?My memories of leaving the body lent

urgency to the process of recovering and embracing life. I knew I wouldn’t die again

until I had learned the lessons my soul had chosen. And I knew there was a loving guide who watched over me, who would help me find my way home.

After I awoke from the coma my mother told me details of the accident, the first being that my friend Joe, who had been with me in the car, had survived and would be fine.

Then she told me something that she had learned from Bobbie and Jodie, two close friends who had been in the car behind us.

When Bobbie and Jodie pulled Joe and me out of the burning car, it was dark and raining. I was choking on blood but Bobbie couldn’t see well enough to help me. Bobbie yelled for Jodie to go to their car and get a flashlight so he could clear my air passage—something he had learned in law enforce-ment training.

Flashlight from an angelJodie returned empty-handed and Bobby

exclaimed, “God, I need a flashlight!” In that moment, Bobbie noticed a man behind him who handed him a flashlight. He said that the man was short, rotund, olive-skinned, with long black hair and small hands, and was wear-ing what appeared to be an orange choir robe.

After clearing my passage, Bobby turned

In that moment, a man in orange handed Bobby a

flashlight.

Happy and friends at Ananda Village

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to thank the man but he had vanished, and there were no car tracks. Bobby later discov-ered that there wasn’t a farm for two miles in any direction. Mom said, “Bobby still has that flashlight and calls it his flashlight from heaven, delivered by an angel.”

A second miracle occurred shortly after the first. Two cars stopped within minutes of the collision. In the first car was a doc-tor on his way back to Mexico, who had decided to take this remote, scenic route to avoid the highways.

In the second car was a couple return-ing to their farm two miles away. The doc-tor attended to Joe and me while the couple went to their farm to call an ambulance and Joe’s and my parents.

Finding Ananda Over the years I continued to be puz-

zled by what it meant to “meet the right people and learn to serve.” Eventually, I discovered the Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramhansa Yogananda. Later, I found out about Ananda Village.

It wasn’t long before I understood that Yogananda was my spiritual guide, and that at Ananda I had found the “right people.” In this family of friendly God-centered dev-otees, I knew I would “learn to serve.”

When I prayed or meditated, I felt Yogananda’s presence all around me. I knew I had spent many lifetimes as a disciple of this great teacher, and that he had been guid-ing my life long before I found Ananda.

In fact, it seems that Yogananda was present at the scene of the accident—the “man in orange,” ready with the flashlight

I knew I would not die again until I had learned the lessons my soul had chosen.

Paramhansa Yogananda spoke—from personal, visionary experience, and not from book learning—of countless mysteries of the universe: of how it was made, and why. He told us of life on other planets, and predicted a time of interstellar travel—which he said was a reality, despite its seeming impossibility, according to the known laws of modern physics.

He described—again, from direct experience—levels of real-ity that are much too subtle to be perceived by the physical senses. He spoke of the ages of civilization on earth, and of the implications for mankind of having entered, as we now have, a new age.

He revealed to our imagination a divine creation so marvel-ous, so infinitely vast and complex, so inspiring in its beauty and lofty purpose that I think not all the books in the world could equal what we heard from him in person.

He could see people in the astral world, converse with them, and receive messages from them. He could tune in to high souls and let them speak through him. From what he told us, and from what seemed to us truly our own experience with him, God Himself used his voice to teach us and guide us.

He saw things in people’s past that even they had forgotten. He saw far back in time, also, beyond the portals of this life, and helped people thereby to understand problems in the pres-ent lifetime that, until then, had left them confused, perplexed, or resentful. And he saw things in their future, as well. People couldn’t bring themselves to believe all the predictions he made, but they proved right nonetheless.

Excerpted from How to Be a True Channel by Swami Kriyananda, Crystal Clarity, Publishers

Paramhansa Yogananda: A Great Modern Channel

just when Bobby needed it. Bobby’s descrip-tion fit him perfectly.

Excerpted from AIDS: Pathway of Miracles, by Happy Carol Winingham. For a copy of the book, e-mail London@mcn.org.

Several years after moving to Ananda Village in the 1980s, Happy was diagnosed with AIDS, and given 6-12 months to live. Despite ongo-

ing health challenges, she lived ten more years and was able to “serve” in many ways—as a spiri-tual teacher, actress and playwright, and AIDS activist.

“I live protected by God’s infinite light. So long as I remain in the heart of it, noth-ing and no one can harm me.” It is followed by this beautiful prayer: “I look to Thee for my strength, Lord. Hold me closely in Thy arms of love. Then, whatever happens in my life I shall accept with joy.”

Use this affirmation just before you go to sleep and immediately when you wake up. Say it several times with deep sincerity, driv-ing it into the subconsciousness, and then finally lifting it into the superconsciousness. It will become a powerful ally to help you drive out fear whenever it tries to attack.

VisualizationFear originates in parts of the primitive

brain that are pre-verbal. Visualization helps re-program reactive processes in these areas. Visualize yourself bathed in a golden light that both protects and strengthens you.

See the light especially bright in your heart center, radiating away all little dark clouds of attachment and anxiety. The more clearly and powerfully you visualize, the more quickly the light can change your very brain cells.

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Dealing with Fearby Jyotish and Devi Novak

Spiritualizing Daily Life

WE’VE RECENTLY HAD several conversations with friends who mentioned how prevalent fear is today in the general consciousness. “Fear of what?” we asked. “Everything,” they said. “Losing jobs, going broke, violence, relationships. You name it. People are just filled with fear these days.”

Fear is a pernicious problem that shuts down our life-force. Like depression or any other problem that inhibits the flow of positive energy, fear starts a negative cycle that becomes self-reinforcing—decreased energy causes a decrease in will which, in turn, reduces our energy even further. But, fortunately, there are ways to reverse this cycle. Here, are some tools from our spiri-tual path.

The law of opposites In theory at least, it is easy to overcome

any problem: Simply put out equal or greater energy in the opposite direction. The best way to cancel a negative tendency is to develop its positive counterpart. To over-come fear, develop faith or non-attachment.

Start with small steps. Concentrate first on simply increasing the flow of physical energy. Exercise daily, do some deep breath-ing, and, best of all, be sure to practice the Energization Exercises that Paramhansa Yogananda taught.

Then apply your increased energy to overcoming fear. Think of fear like a wild-fire in the brain. Stomp out the small sparks right away before they have time to start a conflagration.

Non-attachmentMost fear centers around losing some-

thing you value. The more you develop non-attachment, the less vulnerable you will be. Every night, before you sleep, give all your possessions and all your desires back to God. Make Him responsible for your well-being and security.

He won’t mind. In fact, He is much bet-ter at taking care of us than we are ourselves. In the morning you can have the responsi-bility back again if you want.

Try especially to give Him negative desires, the ones that contract your con-sciousness and cause you to emphasize your ego or little self. They are the main source of our fears and anxiety. They include all the ways we don’t say “yes” to life.

AffirmationReplace fear thoughts through the use of

affirmation. Here is an affirmation for cour-age that Swami Kriyananda suggests in his book, Affirmations for Self-Healing:

Giving love and securityHere is a final tool to change thought

habits: Give to others that which you want for yourself. In this case, give love and secu-rity to others. Look for at least two oppor-tunities each day to help allay fear in some-one else.

One of the opportunities should be for a friend or loved one. But the other, if pos-sible, should be for a stranger. This practice unleashes the infinite power of the law of karma and the Golden Rule, which advises us to give unto others that which we would like to receive ourselves.

Remember, that God’s infinite love and protection already surrounds you. Your job is simply to recognize its presence and let it work its magic. As Paramhansa Yogananda said, “To those who think me near, I will be near.”

Jyotish and Devi Novak are acharyas (spiri-tual directors) for Ananda Sangha. Jyotish is also spiritual director of the Ananda Sevaka Order, worldwide.

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silence. Disciples working around him were permitted to speak only when necessary. “Silence is the altar of God,” he often told us. He said that only in silence can you really feel God’s presence.

I once told him I was having trouble calming my breath in meditation. “That,” he replied, “is because you used to talk a lot. The influence has carried over.” Gradually, inspired by his example, I learned to speak less, and to listen more to God’s soundless whispers in my soul.

Listening is receptivityListening involves a mental attitude of

receptivity. The great scientists, to a large extent, are yogis—because they listen. They don’t try to create what the world ought to be. They try to observe what it really is.

A true yogi is even better than that. A true yogi calms his mind and simply perceives.

This is the secret of human living, also. If you want to know what the world is, you’ve got to calm your mind. You can’t be making a loud noise all the time. The more quiet you are, the more ready you are to listen.

Yoga helps people to eliminate the agita-tion in their own minds and, in the calmness that ensues, to begin to perceive the higher realities in the world around them.

This is what Yogananda came to teach us. He came to teach us how to meditate. And he came to teach us how to listen—how to listen, first of all, to God, not with the ear only, but with our entire being.

The sound of God’s voiceGod has a sound. It’s not as if He were

up there speaking in the clouds, but there is an AUM sound, the infinite vibration of

universe. We are all are part of that sound. But because most people haven’t learned to listen, they are deaf to the symphony of sounds in the world around them.

If you go to a quiet place in the country-side where there’s complete silence, behind that silence you can sometimes hear a sound—a soft hum or a gentle murmur like the whisper of wind in the trees, sometimes a deep roar. The sound emerges from no dis-cernible point in space but seems, rather, to come from everywhere.

If you could eliminate every sound of the world around you, you would still hear that sound. It underlies everything. By closing your ears and listening quietly in deep med-itation, you can begin to hear that sound.

The most important teaching of yoga The most important teaching in yoga is

to attune to that AUM sound. As you com-mune with AUM, you begin to perceive that there are many different levels of real-ity, of which we are all a part. You begin to understand your connection to all life.

By communing deeply with AUM, you become conscious of God as the underlying reality of everything in existence. You enter into the stream of vibration that proceeded out from Spirit and that merges back into Spirit at creation’s end.

God’s voice is silence. If you really want to commune with Him, it must be done first in the silence of your own mind, and then in the silence of the Infinite. In that silence, you will hear the voice of the Infinite booming with the great power of AUM all through creation.

Excerpted from talks and books.

Yogananda came to teach us how to listen with our entire being.

Having felt God’s presence in the silence within, you see all things, and all people everywhere, as opportunities for commun-ing with that Presence without.

When you speak, it’s from a conscious-ness of inner silence. You refrain from

speaking when speech is likely to become chatter.

We saw this in Rajarsi Janakananda, Yogananda’s chief disciple and successor. He was humble, com-pletely dispassionate,

always centered in the Self within. He took almost no interest in small talk.

Though a self-made man of considerable worldly means, he referred hardly ever to his outer life. For all we heard from him per-sonally, he might have been a man of few achievements.

Virtually his sole topics of conversation were God, Guru, and meditation. His mind was always focused inwardly on God.

Yogananda’s habitual silence Yogananda placed great importance on

THERE’S A STORY of a Bengali man who liked to talk a lot. One day he said to a young man, “My boy, are you married?” And the young man said, “What do you mean, am I married? I’m married to your own daughter!”

“Oh, yes, yes. I know that. I just wanted something to say and couldn’t think of any-thing else.”

Well, when you’re so busy wanting something to say, even if it makes no sense, then you’re not going to hear what’s going on in life.

Why most people don’t listen Most people talk from their own reality,

their own point of view. They’re always talk-ing about what they think, what you ought to do, and why can’t you see their point of view? They don’t even communicate.

They’re like peo-ple living on two dis-tant islands shouting at each other. No matter how long they shout, the islands remain separated and they can't hear each other.

When a person has achieved a certain level of maturity, he is able to listen to others. He is able to absorb what they're saying and relate it to what he already understands, and often come up with new insights.

A consciousness of inner silence.The more deeply you meditate, the more

you lose the worldly habit of “small talk,”of talking just to have something to say.

When a person has achieved a certain level of maturity, he

is able to listen to others.

Spiritual Renewal Week, Ananda Village, August 2004

The Importance of ListeningBy Swami Kriyananda

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The 5-Minute Experimentby Jyotish Novak

Spiritual Practices

SWAMI KRIYANANDA recently challenged Ananda members to practice the presence of God for five minutes a day. It doesn’t sound like much, but it’s a bit like challenging someone to dunk a basketball once a day. You have to rise to a certain level just to do it once. Practicing the presence of God for even five minutes a day takes a certain elevation of consciousness.

A life-transforming

practiceBut if we really do

it, this practice has the potential to transform our lives. Practicing the presence of God is a central aspect of this spiritual path and an enormously powerful practice. To be able to hold onto the conscious-ness of God’s presence in daily activity is a very high spiritual state. If we were able to do it throughout the day, even the hard times would seem like wonderful times.

Practicing the presence of God begins with the desire in the heart to be closer to God. As Sri Yukteswar put it, “We can’t take a single step on the spiritual path with-out love.” In this context, Sri Yukteswar’s meaning is love for God, the desire to be close to Him.

Now we don’t have to produce that desire, thank goodness. It resides in our souls. In fact, the most powerful force in the universe is the soul trying to recover its unity with God. We need to bring to the

fore this dynamic desire to reunite with God, and nourish it so that it becomes more and more powerful.

Practice outwardly

first So how do we get

there? Well, it takes a lot of energy to get there. On the deep-est level practicing the presence of God means to feel Him in ourselves and in the world around us.

Because our minds are habituated to outward expression, the first level of practicing the pres-ence of God is to have a more continual relation-

ship with Him in an outward sense. We should try to think of God in a form that attracts us—Yogananda, Divine Mother or perhaps another.

But whatever the form, try to think more of God. Connect your life with Him in an attitude of self-offering. Carry on a conver-sation with Him throughout the day.

The ability to pray continuously There’s that beautiful story in The Way

of the Pilgrim, by an anonymous Russian writer, about a man who, while in church, heard the priest say that one should pray continuously. That idea stayed with him and he began to wonder how he could do it.

He began asking people how one could pray continuously, and was led from teacher to teacher until he met one who knew how. The teacher said to him, “I want you to repeat five hundred times a day this simple prayer, ‘Lord, Jesus Christ, have mercy upon me,’ and come back in a week.” When he came back, his teacher doubled the number.

Week after week the man returned and the teacher kept increasing the number until the man’s lips and tongue became numb from repeating the prayer, and his fingers became calloused from moving the rosary.

But gradually the prayer began to go deeper and deeper into his conscious and subconscious mind until the day came when his teacher said he no longer needed to count, and that he should continually practice the prayer during his waking hours.

As he did this, he found that the prayer took on a life of its own. He would wake up in the middle of the night and the prayer was still going on. It was as if his heart were repeating that prayer.

Finally, he achieved the state of being able to pray continuously. And the remain-der of the book is about the remarkable things that happened as he walked through the countryside in such an uplifted state.

Not an “I and Thou” relationship This is an extraordinary state to reach

and one we should all strive for. But, extraordinary as it is, even that isn’t practic-ing the presence of God on the deepest level. There’s still an “I-Thou” relationship with God, a bit of separation.

We should strive for the state where there’s no separation between us and God. This is the deeper aspect of practicing the presence of God. But how do we get there?

On our spiritual path we have the techniques of yoga. By practicing Hong Sau and Kriya Yoga we can withdraw the life force from the senses and calm the mind in meditation. When the mind is calm we begin to feel God’s pres-ence.

Yogananda said that when we meditate, we should try to feel the presence of God in certain ways—as joy, love, or peace. Choose one of these divine qualities and try to feel that vibration deeply in the heart. Try to become so connected with it that you iden-tify yourself as that quality.

Become identified with GodWhen you can identify yourself as joy,

love, peace or any of the other divine quali-ties, you are identified with God. You are actually practicing the presence of God. Then, if you can stay in that vibration after you leave meditation, and project it as you go about your work, you will be practicing the presence of God on the deepest level.

Unless we can feel God’s presence when

The most powerful force in the universe is the soul trying to recover its unity with God.

Ram Smith plays the tamboura at Spiritual Renewal Week,

Ananda Village 2004

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we’re most quiet and centered, we aren’t going to feel it when our minds are engaged in the turmoil of phones ringing, people upset at us, and all the events of daily life. Maybe we can remember to think of Him a few minutes a day here and there. Or we can set our watches on a beeper so that once an hour it reminds us to say a little prayer. But it’s mainly affirmation.

To practice the presence of God success-fully throughout the day, you first need to do it deeply in an inner way. It’s a rare per-son who can repeat a prayer so deeply and continuously that the mind spontaneously goes into a meditative state.

A slow processEach day in meditation we should try to

reach the state where the life force and con-sciousness are withdrawn. We should try to go deep enough in meditation to feel God’s presence. If we can feel God’s love or joy deeply in our hearts, and then stay in that vibration for five minutes outside of medita-tion, it will transform our lives and the lives of those around us

This is a slow process. We need to be very

by Nicole DeAvilla-Whiting

When You Can’t Meditate

SWAMI KRIYANANDA WRITES that what we judge in others we will have to experience ourselves. This is how God teaches us compassion.

Before becoming pregnant, I was medi-tating at least two hours a day and teaching 12 – 15 yoga postures classes a week. I was the San Francisco Ananda meditation group leader. Now, with two young children, I was doing none of that.

Judgmental thoughts Before my first pregnancy I ran into a

yoga teacher who told me that since the birth of her first child, she had given up teaching. I noticed she had also gained weight. My words were consoling, but

thoughts were judgmental: “I would never be like that!”

I visualized myself not only as the dedi-cated and loving mother, but also the prac-ticing yogi, and resolved to be teaching yoga classes six weeks after giving birth, as slen-der as I was before pregnancy.

I was slow to accept that the birth of my first child was changing my life more pro-foundly than I had expected. My attempts to get my spiritual practices back on track ended in frustration. I was also gaining weight.

Reality slowly sank in. Late one night as I was up once again rocking my beloved child, my body and mind tired from lack of sleep, I made a decision that changed my life.

Dealing with guilt First I had to come to terms with my

guilt over having judged the other yoga teacher, and to let go of trying to live up to an impossible standard. I realized that holding on to preconceptions about what I should be doing was making it harder for me to deal with the challenges of the moment.

I was then able to accept that life was not the way it used to be, and would never be again. Period. For me, this was a huge and

Nothing Can Steal My Love for TheeBy Paramhansa Yogananda

No loud or whispered words of prayer shall steal my love for Thee.With the soul’s unspoken language I will express my urge for Thee.

Thy voice is silence, and through my silence, Thou must speak to me and tell me Thou didst love me always, but that I knew it not.

From Whispers from Eternity, 1958 edition.

accepting of ourselves because it’s not easy to do. So don’t get down on yourself or on others. It doesn’t help the process at all.

Just put intense love, devotion, and self-offering into your meditation. Offer up to God every thought, every attachment—everything that keeps you from practicing the presence of God. Then, after you feel God’s presence, go out and try to practice it for five minutes a day.

Excerpted from a 1999 talk. Jyotish Novak is spiritual director of the Ananda Sevaka Order, worldwide.

To be able to hold onto the consciousness of God’s presence in daily activity is a very high spiritual state.

Nicole with her son Schuyler, teaching a mother/child yoga class.

I decided that each day I would always find ways to deepen my attunement with God and Guru, no matter how modest.

Jyotish conducting an Ananda wedding

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Finding a middle ground Still, I couldn’t just put my spiritual

practices on the shelf. Surely there must be a middle ground. What could I do in my current circumstances? Holding a baby, rock-ing in a chair, I couldn’t meditate but I could chant AUM at the chakras. I tried it and it worked.

Then and there I decided that each day I would always find ways to deepen my attunement with God and Guru, no matter how modest. At the time, I had no idea how profound this decision was.

Prayers of gratitudeCaring for young children can open our

hearts and expand our consciousness. It’s an easy and natural way of increasing our devo-tion to God, if we offer our heart’s expanded love up to the Divine.

When my heart overflowed with love for my child, I would try to tune into the spark of the Divine within him. I offered prayers of gratitude to God for entrusting this soul to my care. Thus began my practice of con-versational prayer, which I did regularly throughout the day.

After starting this practice, I was blessed to feel my heart opening to God and all of life. To this day I continue to thank God for the many blessings in my life, especially the blessing of my husband and children.

An opening toward inner freedom! Swami Kriyananda has said that when we

react emotionally to a flaw in another per-son, it’s because we haven’t come to terms with the same flaw in ourselves. Many

things upset me, but I had no clue as to how they mirrored my flaws. As I went about my daily tasks, I began to observe my reac-tions and ponder my motivations.

In time, I saw the subtlety of this teach-ing. Someone might say or do something I would never do. But on some level my thoughts were in sympathy, or I was holding onto a fear or misconception that

tied me to that behavior. By constantly reminding myself that

I had the power within me to control how I responded to situations, I trained myself to think before reacting emotion-ally. Whenever I “blew it” and reverted to old habits, I would review the situation mentally and visualize how I might have responded differently, and how I would respond in the future.

I found this practice enormously benefi-cial. I now have fewer “buttons” and those that remain are much less volatile. What an opening toward inner freedom!

A change in consciousnessOne day, with my son in a stroller, I

found a treasure at a used bookstore–an out of print edition of The Master Said by Paramhansa Yogananda. Two sayings in particular were of great help.

The first saying is so simple that it’s easy to underestimate. Yogananda says that keep-ing our attention focused at the point between the eyebrows throughout the day will greatly speed our spiritual progress. I loved this advice and began to focus my attention at the spiritual eye as often as I could.

Right away I felt the positive effects. I thought I would never forget to place my attention there for at least a good part of every day. “Simple” does not necessarily mean easy.

I was shocked one day when I realized I had gone through the entire day, and most of the previous day, without focusing at the spiritual eye. Eventually I placed notes in various places around the house as remind-ers. It’s a habit that needs to be cultivated, but the benefits are enormous—more energy, a change in consciousness, increased intuition, and greater attunement with Yogananda.

Increased focus and clarity In this same book Yogananda counsels

us to “routinize” our lives. I knew that reg-ular routines were important for babies and children, and I was trying to establish them, but it was a foreign concept. My life had been one of constant change, new projects, and candles burning at both ends.

Yogananda’s emphasis on routines moti-vated me to establish them and to work on sticking to them. It was well worth the effort—not only for the focus and clarity it has brought into my life, but also for the overall calming effect it’s had for the whole family. Although I still struggle with consis-tency, my energy is much more focused.

A new way to serveI went back to teaching six months

after the birth of my first child. Instead of teaching several classes a week, I taught one mother/child class. Gradually I taught a few more classes, but with the birth of my sec-ond child, I again stopped, this time without expecting a quick return.

Even though the desire to serve others

through teaching is strong in me, I was more and more content to stay home and serve God through my husband and children.

I’ve always loved the story Swami Kriyananda tells about an Indian sadhu who achieved great powers, but was led to two souls more highly advanced spiritually than he. One was a wife who had attained that state by serving her husband, the other a butcher whose path to God was caring for his elderly parents.

Serving my husband and children are the roles God has given me at this time. The more I play these roles with deep attun-ement, the more I am able to please Divine Mother. Tears come to my eyes when I think of the love and grace she has given me over these years.

It has taken me eight years to re-establish a regular meditation practice. I would never have sought these alternative ways to deepen my attunement had I regained my regular meditation practice sooner. I continue all of them to this day.

Nicole DeAvilla-Whiting lives with her husband and two children in Marin County and teaches Ananda Yoga in Marin and at The Expanding Light guest retreat at Ananda

The more I play these roles with deep attunement, the more I’m able to please Divine Mother.

Nicole with daughter Raquel

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IT IS EASY FOR A MAN to go down a deep, gradually descending subway, but when he tries to climb back out, he finds resistance. Likewise, the man who lives completely controlled by his material desires goes smoothly down into the depths of evil. But when he tries to climb out of the sub-terranean pit, he encounters resistance from evil desires and habits.

Material desires are gathered by the soul through incarnations, from the time it leaves the abode of Spirit. Pre-natal mate-rial habits appear as strong tendencies in the present life. Residing in the subcon-scious mind, these matter-bent tendencies are highly skilled in the use of psychological weapons.

People who are meek prisoners of bad habits are so engrossed in their nega-tive tendencies that they never dream of escape.When the spiritual aspirant becomes inwardly awake, however, he finds that his

consciousness becomes a battleground. The mental warriors of bad tendencies, with their weapons of temptations, rally to fight the forces of good habits and discrimination.

A story will illustrate this:Mr. J was a confirmed drunkard, who

made a nuisance of himself to his family and neighbors. After meeting a saint and taking a vow to abstain from drinking, he asked his servants to hide his costly wine in locked boxes and to keep the key. He instructed them to serve the liquor to his friends only.

Because of his joy in his new resolu-tion against drink, everything went fine for Mr. J. For a while he did not feel the unseen gripping lure of the liquor-tempting habit.

As time went on, however, and he felt himself proof against liquor temptation, he asked his servants to leave the key of the wine room with him so that he could serve the red liquid to his friends himself.

Later, feeling more mental security, he thought it was too much bother to go to the cellar to get liquor for his friends. So he kept some wine bottles hidden in the parlor.

After a few days Mr. J thought: “Since I am proof against liquor, let me look at the sparkling red wine in the bottle.” Every day he looked at the bottle.

Then one day he thought: “Since I am proof against the liquor temptation, I may just as well smell it.” So he allowed himself to smell the wine.

Then he thought: “Since I no longer care for liquor, I will take a mouthful of wine,

taste it, and then spit it out.” This he also did.

After a few days passed, he thought: “Since I am so strong and absolutely proof against liquor, there will be no harm if I swallow a little just once.”

Having done that, he thought: “Since I have con-quered the liquor habit, let me take only one gulp of wine at a time—as many times as my unenslaved will desires.”

With that he became drunk and kept on becoming helplessly drunk every day, just as before.

The above story shows that Mr. J was tem-porarily able to overcome the liquor drinking habit by his strong resolution to conquer. But he failed to realize that his resolution had not yet ripened into a new, good habit.

Every devotee should remember that it takes from five to eight years to substitute a good habit for a strong bad habit. Until the strong good habit is formed, the devotee must stay away from tempting environments and refrain from tempting actions.

Above all, one must never allow evil thoughts to enter the mind. Evil thoughts cause evil actions and are therefore more dangerous.

Mr. J disregarded this law, brought the wine bottle near him, and gradually reawak-ened the memory of the drinking habit. He also failed to recognize the psychological

weapons used by his bad habit to defeat his good resolution.

The liquor habit remained unseen, hidden in Mr. J’s subconscious mind, secretly sending out “armed spies” of desire and pleasing thoughts of taste. Thus the way was

prepared for the re-invasion of the liquor habit, which triumphed and again usurped Mr. J’s body and soul.

If you have a tendency to engage in misery-producing behavior, cast out all thoughts of temptation. Surround yourself with the right kind of environment and fill your mind with thoughts of God.

Most important of all, cultivate the habit of contacting the superior joys of the soul by meditating every day immediately upon awakening. Daily meditation will help you transmute your harmful desires into the joy producing, lasting happiness of Spirit.

Excerpted from Yogananda’s Bhagavad Gita interpretations, Chapter 1, East-West Magazine.

The Devotee Who Tried Unsuccessfully To Change

by Paramhansa Yogananda

For a while Mr. J did not feel the unseen gripping lure of the liquor-tempting habit.

Yogananda meditating at Dihika, India 1935

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In this letter Swami Kriyananda responds to a devotee who writes that Eastern spiri-tuality is world-rejecting, whereas Christian spirituality embraces life.

Letters of Encouragementfrom Swami Kriyananda

Dear _____________________ You speak of the “‘tension’ between

elements in Christian spirituality and elements in Eastern spirituality.” I read something the other day that struck me as particularly useful for people experiencing stress in their lives. In paraphrase, what the writer said was, “Stress is a perception of reality.”

I would say the same thing of your use of the word “tension.” There is no ten-sion between the teachings of Jesus and of Krishna, or of any of the great masters. The tension arises in our efforts to under-stand their teachings.

The Hindu teachings have a reputa-tion for being world-rejecting. And, in fact, there are teachers in India who have emphasized this attitude. The Bhagavad Gita, however, which is the Scripture we follow, states at a certain point, “By works alone, Janaka and others of the ancients attained Me.”

The Eastern teaching that all is a dream must be paired with the understanding that it is God’s dream, and therefore inherently right and just. It is we who, by our igno-rance, make it an ugly dream. Yogananda emphasized matter being a dream, but we don’t see him refusing to take responsibil-ity for his role in the dream. He did more work than ten, or a hundred, other men.

31

You say that creation is “good, good, good,” but you can’t mean “good” as we human beings understand the word. Is it “good” that there is suffering every-where?

Creation is good in that it carries out God’s design, which affords man the opportunity to evolve to the point where he discovers the long-hidden secret of exis-tence. It is man’s end that is wonderful, not his ignorant fumbling as he voyages.

I do not accept that any truth can be a uniquely “Biblical view.” Truth is truth. Great masters in all religions have realized it, regardless of any inherited religious tradi-tion.

There are many ways of presenting the truth. We’d only get confused if we tried to follow, or even to justify, them all. Yogananda’s is the way God wanted the truth presented for this age, and for us, his disciples. I never challenge him with the objection that other masters seem to have presented it differently.

In divine friendship

Conversations with YoganandaCompiled by his disciple, Swami Kriyananda

From the book:The Master was in the process of healing me of headaches I'd been

having. I referred, in the presence of others, to my progress in follow-ing his advice. To my surprise, he responded rather sternly. "You must not talk about these things before others," he said. "The Divine doesn't work that way." He had been helping me from within, in other words, and not only through outer suggestions he'd given me. To speak of it before others invited their consciousness into the process, and might have diluted his subtle vibrations.

Later he told me privately: "You will get well, provided you don't talk about it. It is in silence that God comes."

Television appeared on the market only late in the Master's life. He cau-tioned us against watching it too much. "Television has a satanic influence," he said. "Don't let yourself be too fascinated by it. Seek instead the 'television' of superconscious visions in the spiritual eye."

Features nearly 500 new stories and sayings by Paramhansa Yogananda and 25 new photos. Available September 2004 from Crystal Clarity, Publishers. See enclosed order form or call 800-424-1055

30-Day Essentials for Career by Jyotish Novak

From the book:Day 24--The Law of Reciprocity Always be guided by integrity and morality. One of the fundamental

laws of the universe is the Law of Reciprocity, know as "karma" in the teachings of the East. It says that life reflects back to us the kind of energy that we put out, just as a mirror reflects back the color and intensity of the light it receives. Give love, kindness, and compassion, and the world will return these to you. Build your career upon a ruthless disregard of others, and the universe will mirror callousness back to you.

Once we understand this principle, it becomes clear that the way we perform our work is more important than what we achieve. Our most

important job is to become the kind of person we want to be. Our career is simply a means to that end. It is not so important to please others, but it is vital to follow our own sense of righteousness….

With fifty full color photographs, this gift quality book is a step-by-step guide to the attitudes and practices that bring success and happiness in the workplace. Topics include money magnetism, time management, patience and perseverance, intuition and decision-making--and many others.

Available October 2004 from Crystal Clarity, Publishers. See enclosed order form or call 800-424-1055.

New Books from Ananda