excerpted from “The New Path”, by Swami Kriyananda
Paramahansa Yogananda often spoke of America’s high spiritual destiny. When first I heard him do so, I marveled. America? All that I knew of this country was its materialism, its competitive drive, its smug, “no-nonsense” attitude toward anything too subtle to be measured with scientific instruments. But in time that great teacher made me aware of another aspect, an undercurrent of divine yearning—not in our intellectuals, perhaps, our self-styled cultural representatives, but in the hearts of the common people.
Americans’ love of freedom, after all, began in the quest, centuries ago, for religious freedom. Their historic emphasis on equality and on voluntary cooperation with one another reflects principles that are taught in the Bible. American’s pioneering spirit is rooted in these principles. And when no frontiers remained to our people on the continent, and they began exporting their pioneering energies abroad, again it was with the spirit of freedom and willing cooperation that they carried with them, setting a new example for mankind everywhere. In these twin principles Paramahansa Yogananda saw the key to mankind’s next upward step in evolution.
The vision of the future he presented to us was of a state of world brotherhood in which all men would live together in harmony and freedom. As a step toward this universal fulfillment, he urged those people who were free to do so to band together into what he called “world brotherhood colonies”: little, spiritual communities [including meditation groups that gather regularly] where people, living and working together with others of like mind, would develop an awareness of the true kinship of all men as sons and daughters of the same, one God. …
Because the pioneering spirit is rooted in principles that are essentially spiritual—implying the perennial quest for a higher as well as a better way of life—that spirit has not only expanded men’s frontiers outwardly: in recent decades, especially, it has begun to interiorize them, to expand the inward boundaries of human consciousness, and to awaken in people the desire to harmonize their lives with truth, and with God.
It was to the divine aspirations of these pioneers of the spirit that Paramahansa Yogananda was responding by coming to America. Americans, he said, were ready to learn meditation and God-communion through the practice of the ancient science of yoga—meaning…Self-integration…conscious union with the Infinite Spirit, God. …A practitioner of the yoga science, acquires outwardly also a vision of the underlying unity of all life.
by Jake Collier•When we contemplate honesty, we might think of George Washington telling the truth. “Oh yes, I chopped down that cherry tree.”
Deeper levels of honesty, being honest with ourselves, have been documented through interviews with people who’ve had near death experiences. Many of them share a common occurrence: entering a tunnel, and seeing at the end of the tunnel a wondrous white light, which was a living being radiating infinite love and grace. They found themselves being drawn to the Light.
In the tunnel they encountered relatives, and pets, and reviewed experiences of the past. Each received a life review before the Light. There was no judgment, no right or wrong; it was simply a review of their life.
When I meditate on honesty, I reflect on: Am I achieving goals that I have set? If my goal is to meditate for twenty minutes, Did I do that? And if I did, Did I set a new goal of twenty-five minutes?Was I able to focus, to concentrate and see the tunnel in my meditation? Did I try to be a better person, to help somebody? Do I see God’s face behind each of the faces that I encounter—even faces that show anger or resentment towards me?
We all need honest reflection on thoughts we just had, the action we did yesterday that we can’t undo. Through the fires of meditation, we burn up seeds of karma from past deeds, and past thoughts. And while doing so, we seed the future with positive images, positive thoughts, positive actions. Then, as we walk into that future, we want to be honest with ourselves. Did I do what I projected that I would do? Did I achieve what I projected I would achieve?
Imagine being in a room filled with people, and you are the only one who has ever tasted an orange. You have to describe to the other people what an orange tastes like. That is what it’s like to be an enlightened being on this Earth. You can talk about how it’s sweet and wet, and everybody says, “Okay, I know what that is.”But the taste is nothing that you can convey.
Being a good teacher, you come with boxes of orange seedlings, and you pass them out with instructions: How to water, care for, and fertilize your orange tree. Your parting words are, “Be diligent with these instructions and you, too, will taste an orange.”
If we could watch, we’d find that some of these people neglect the fertilizer, some neglect the watering. Only a few would end up with the sweetest, luscious, and most delicious oranges—grown by them. The successful ones can now experience the taste of an orange, and be able to share that with others. They can grow more seedlings, and pass on the sweetness.
So through meditation and virtuous living, we are watering and fertilizing the seed of sweet God-realization within us, that it may grow and overwhelm us, opening us to new understandings, true happiness and contentment, true joy and love.
I Am That I Am, you are our Mother and our Father, and you sustain us every second. We are so thankful that we can feel you today, moving within us and all around us. Strengthen our bodies and focus our minds, that we may keep our feet on the path home to you. Amen
by Norman Paulsen, Sunburst Founder • Your true Self exists beyond the images of creation, in the pure consciousness of your Spirit Mother and Father. To experience who you really are, the false ego-self has to abdicate the throne; then divine consciousness will reign supreme. You, as a living spirit, will rule the forces of the ego. How is this possible?
Through cultivating devotion, through practicing selfless service in whatever way you are guided, and by using the key of Kriya meditation, circulating the breath through your body, you can gain mastery of your own life force. It becomes your magic carpet. By learning to unite the life force in your physical body with the divine cosmic forces, you become one with the sea of life that fills all infinity. Your life force travels in spirit form into the arms of a living Mother-Father Creator. You are translated wherever you desire to go, or wherever God desires to put you. You become a true caretaker of the garden universe.
As you circulate the breath of life and gain mastery, you will gain more life force. Christ promised: I come to bring you life, and bring it more abundantly. You will find that you can use this life force to accomplish whatever task you have before you, be it physical, mental or spiritual. You will be able to help your brothers and sisters, to heal them, to console them. This life is your love. You can put it all in your heart and experience ecstasy.
You, the infinite soul, the awakened son or daughter of God, will have all the forces of the creation behind you. As long as you use this force for good, you will be happy. If you use this life for selfish purposes, it will bring unhappiness, for this destroys the garden of creation. Practice your meditation diligently, and your heart will overflow with love. Perfect peace, and contentment will come.
Circulate the force of life twice a day, in the morning before sunrise, and in the evening after sunset. Practice with all the power of your concentration. The ego mind, your soul’s enemy, is not going to want to do it; but if the soul, your true Self, demands its life away from the ego, then ego has to abdicate.
The restless mind which has been going to and fro on the earth, searching for something new to do, will be conquered and made a servant. The soul, working through the mind, now controls the body and gains mastery over the forces of the air, the earth, the fires, and the waters. You learn how to communicate with and care for all life-forms. You realize that a life of virtue, of giving, brings the greatest joy beyond description. You become free. This is your destiny!
Paramahansa Yogananda: Through use of the Kriya [meditation] key, persons who cannot bring themselves to believe in the divinity of any man will behold at last the full divinity of their own selves.
by Valerie Joy King•My husband Jonathan and I were getting ready to leave Flagstaff for the ten hour drive home. We had been visiting for a week, helping to get our natural foods store on track after its move to a new, larger location. I had really enjoyed our stay. I have always loved Flagstaff!
It is nestled against the foot of the San Francisco peaks, Arizona’s tallest mountains. The whole town is covered with ponderosa pine forests. The sky is crystal clear blue because of the high elevation. The Hopi people state that the Kachinas, guardian spirits and teachers of humankind, make their home in the sacred San Francisco mountains.
While we visited, every day would start out sunny and clear, then storm clouds would roll in amidst thunder and lightning, pour down buckets of rain, and then the sun would return again. I loved the exciting weather!
This particular morning I was sad to be leaving because during our visit I had been working at our store every day, and hadn’t a chance to walk in the pine forests and greet my friends, the trees and rocks, and wild animals. This is one of my favorite things to do.
I sat down on a curb beside our car and looked out across the valley to a rolling foothill adorned with pines. Suddenly I felt the soft yet powerful embrace of Divine Spirit spinning all around me, expanding outward, stretching to encompass my gaze. The hill now also became embraced by the spinning cocoon. I could feel all the trees, the rich, red earth, and the lichen-covered boulders, all living within me. How joyous was our communion! “Hello, dear trees,” I whispered. “Thank you foryour life in I Am That I Am.”
I noticed that everything I looked at seemed to be composed of tiny, shimmering orbs of divine life and consciousness. Even things I ordinarily consider ugly, like exhaust from a tractor, now was filled with the secret Presence.
As I breathed in and out, I felt the dancing, shimmering lights enter in and out of my body. I felt completely clean and renewed, as a favorite poem rang through my consciousness: In Joy I live. In Joy I breathe. In sacred Joy I melt. Thank you, Creator Spirit, I Am That I Am.
by Norman Paulsen, Sunburst Founder • God never told me anything about religions. God never said to me that there are Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Muslims, or Hindus. God never uttered a word to me regarding mankind’s religions, and I can understand why.
Religion is what man has produced, and the Light that all religions seek is what God has produced. Ultimately all religions, all spiritual practices, have but one goal: to meet this living Light, our Divine Mother and Father, face to face.
How can any one of us be satisfied without knowing God? I couldn’t. As a young man, I cried and prayed and worked in every way I could, that God might look upon me and let me know he was there and that he loved me. There isn’t any one of us that can accept anything short of personal realization in every fiber of our being, knowing that God is alive and is the creator of our bodies, minds and spirits. The truth behind all great religions is knowledge of the Divine Creator of all.
In all the religions I have studied, I found that those brothers and sisters who have experienced God described an ineffable, infinitely loving Light. They were engulfed in the brilliance of a divine inner Sun. They knew in a matter of seconds more than they had gathered in all the years of their lives—in one effulgence. They have been persecuted, nailed to the cross, condemned and done away with by the ignorant and those who do not understand.
Let us pray for the protection of those brothers and sisters, wherever they are, who have had the good fortune to meet God face to face within themselves and who try to describe that Being in their different ways. I pray that they be given protection for their uniqueness, that they might be able to bring through to their brothers and sisters what they have seen, known and felt.
Let us not condemn each other. Let us encourage each other towards God’s inner Sun. Let us pray that God blesses us all, each and every one. No matter who you are, what you have done or where you come from, each and every one can experience full divine illumination. If that vision of Light calls, may you find your way. In the end, there is no doctrine, no belief other than this Light of God. This has been my only desire: to bear witness that God is alive and can be seen, can be known right within you.
Think upon your freedom in God’s Light. Like the wind in the trees,
Like the light from the sun,
Can you catch it? Can you hold it?
God is life, sweet love within each and every one, throbbing in our hearts.
by Greg Anderson • As children, we all had questions. We heard the term God and wondered, “Who is God?” it’s not an unknown question on this planet. It’s been asked by many. And, “Where is he?” and “How do we find God?” These are questions that have existed for centuries.
We enter the path of Self-Realization when we first decide we want to seek God. And Self-Realization is when there is a union between the creative forces of divine Father and divine Mother in our heart which changes us forever. As we work with that union and it consciously resides within us permanently, we call it Illumination.
I believe that’s what Jesus meant when he said, “I and the Father are One.” Cosmic consciousness is what Sunburst’s Founder Norman Paulsen experienced as he followed the life stream of his Divine parents to the center of all creation.
Spiritual experiences are difficult to put into words. Brother Norm said that it took him over 20 years to be able to describe his experience of Cosmic consciousness. Each of our experiences are different just as we each have a different face. No two faces are exactly identical, and the way we perceive the Divine is unique to each of us.
A few years ago when my wife and I sat in our meditation room for evening meditation, I began performing Kriya circulations, counting them as I went along. Suddenly that part of me that was aware was whisked to a different dimension. Here I saw and spoke with those beings from this planet who had reached full illumination. One of them embraced me, and I felt prolonged bliss for the first time in my life.
Suddenly I was back in my meditation room, but instead of being consciously in my body, it was as if I was an observer watching my body sitting in lotus position on my meditation pad. Divine bliss is difficult to describe. It would be like describing chocolate to somebody who’d never tasted it. The best way that I can explain it is: every atom and every electron is suddenly spinning in synchrony, and in between the spaces of the electrons is nothing but love. As I looked as though from above, I could see divine life force circulating through the energy centers of my body and the chakras of my spine.
I also saw my own inner-dimensional tunnel; it was completely flooded with light, rising like a river from beneath me to my heart chakra. I saw rivulets of energy appear and disappear all throughout my body. As I looked above my head, a white string of light connected to the crown of my head. And as it entered through the crown it was like a waterfall of white light moving slowly downward.
When that great light from below met the great white light from above, there was not an explosion. There was an expansion. It was the union of our Divine Father and our Divine Mother in my heart. And as it expanded, waves of light in the color of gold moved out from my body and in all directions three or four feet away from my physical body. I felt connected to God in a very literal way.
Then I felt a hand on my arm. I was back in my body, and Elena was saying, “Are you alright? You were crying.”
My tears were of joy. I witnessed, in my own way, the true nature of our Divine Mother and Divine Father rebirthing, or recreating a new person within my heart. This is a process, and it will continue to be a process as long as I do the things that allow me to grow: as long as I continue to meditate, to live virtuously, and to ask for God’s grace.
At this very moment, YOU are equipped atomically, molecularly, cellularly in this very body, for Cosmic consciousness, Illumination, and Self-Realization. No matter who you are, no matter what you’ve done, God is within.
Oh Divine Creator, Mother and Father, reveal thyself to me. Live in my heart. Dwell in my spiritual centers. Show me how to find my life stream and ride it home to you. Amen
