A

OSHO

While watching the changing world outside and the movement of thoughts and emotions within, I become aware of a presence that doesn’t change. It is impossible to define what this is in words, but I do know that it is always the same presence, that when it comes, it is everywhere and nowhere at once; that nothing I’m thinking or feeling can connect with it; that it is so still it doesn’t exist and so sublet that at times it is too alive to bear. I remember encountering this presence first as a child. Beloved Master, am I rediscovering my lost innocence?

A

A

ZEBRA FINCHES

A

A

Dhyan Arjuna, yes you are rediscovering your lost innocence. Religion is a rediscovery. It is something that we had known, that we had lived, but we have left far behind – so far behind that it seems almost as if it was not a reality but only a dream scene, just a faint memory, a faraway echo. But if you become meditative that echo starts coming closer, the dream starts changing into a reality and the forgotten language of innocence is suddenly remembered. Hence it is not a discovery, it is a rediscovery.

A

REAL ME IS BEINGNESS, NOT LITTLE ME

A

A

Every child is born feeling the whole universe, not knowing his separation from it. It is by slow education that we teach him to feel separate. We give him a name, we give him an identity, we give him qualities, we give him ambitions – we create a personality around him.

a

a
ALASKA

A

No matter who we are or what we are—and even though we are somewhat bound by circumstances of our karma, the effects of our past actions—we can do anything we want to in our minds. In the vault of the mind he all the chains of bondage, as well as the keys to freedom. All actions originate in the mind.  

Paramahansa Yogananda 

A

I would like to share with you a beautiful story that was published in our magazine some years ago. It took place in an ashram in India. One of the young devotees who had come there to receive the training of the guru was going about his duties, and the guru was watching and noticed that this young man seemed dejected and a little depressed. So the guru went to him and said, "My boy, why are you so sad?" And the young man said, "Sir, I love to hear you speak about the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita, as you do for all of us. But the problem is I don't remember much afterwards. It just goes in one ear and out the other. The other boys casily talk about the holy teachings, and yet I know nothing. I really wonder if I'm worthy of being here. Maybe I don't belong here. 

    The guru was thoughtful for a moment. Then he turned to the young man and said, "Fetch me the coal basket." And the boy, who loved to serve and carry out anything that the master asked, returned quickly with the basket that the students used to carry coal to the cooking stove. The inside of the basket was completely black, covered with the dust of the coal that it was carrying every day. The master said to him, "Fill that basket with water from the river and bring it back to me. The boy looked befuddled and asked, "Fil it with water?" But the master said, "Don't be worried. Just do as I say."

      So the boy dipped the basket into the river, but before he could get back to the guru all the water had leaked out. But the guru said, “Do it again.” 

    Five times the boy went to the river and filled the basket with water. Each time he ran faster and faster to try to get back while there was still some water in the basket, but it was always empty by the time he got to the guru. 

     Finally the boy said, "Teacher, you have given me an impossible task! It's useless to try to bring you water in this basket.” And the guru looked at him and said, "You think it is useless? Look inside the basket The young man looked in and saw that the basket was now different-very different. It was completely clean. The water had washed away all traces of that coal dust, of that dirt and grime that had covered it. 

    And the master explained to him: "You may not remember or understand everything when we study the Bhagavad Gita and when we talk about these holy teachings. But even just lisening with patience and reverence- that is going to gradually change your consciousness until your heart is cleansed of mortal delusion and fears and darkness." And then the master put his arm lovingly around the young disciple and said, "Just remember: God is not a scholar, God is a lover. And if you seek Him sincerely, one day you will see how He has transformed you utterly.

Swami Chidananda Giri,

SRF Convocation, 2020.

A

The non-eating state attained by Giri Bala is a yogic power mentioned in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras III:31. She employs a certain breathing exercise that affects the vishuddha chakra, the fifth center of subtle energies located in the spine. The vishuddha chakra, opposite the throat, controls the fifth element, akash or ether, pervasive in the intra-atomic spaces of the physical cells. Concentration on this chakra (“wheel”) enables the devotee to live by etheric energy. 

Therese Neumann neither lives by gross food nor practices a scientific yogic technique for non-eating. The explanation is hidden in the complexities of personal karma. Many lives of dedication to God lie behind a Therese Neumann and a Giri Bala, but their channels for outward expression have been different....

~~Paramahansa Yogananda 

 Autobiography of a Yogi

( foot note of Chapter "The Woman Yogi Who Never Eats")

A

Don’t feel badly if you find yourself too restless to meditate deeply. Calmness will come in time, if you practice regularly. Just never accept the thought that meditation is not for you. Remember, calmness is your eternal, true nature.

- Paramahansa Yogananda

A

PMHNSA YGANANDA

When I was a teenage boy and was precociously trying to read the great philosophers, I once came upon a statement attributed to Aristotle: "The wise man is never in a hurry." 

I remember putting the book down and then picking it up and reading the sentence over and over again. What did it mean? What did being in a hurry have to do with being wise? I understood that a wise man would be compassionate, would not be mean, vain, or petty.... But why this "not be in a hurry"? Wasn't a wise man ever late? Did he or she never have to run for a bus?

I was puzzled and fascinated... This idea of never being in a hurry was actually something I could immediately apply to myself, something I could try to do. 

 The other attributes of wisdom—compassion and great knowledge and self-denial—were all well and good as ideals, things to dream about, things to inspire one.... But this "not be in a hurry presented itself immediately as something I could do.

 So I tried. Again and again, I would catch myself hurrying here and there without any real need....

A

On Being Too Busy - Part 2

I would catch myself hurrying here or there without any real need for haste or, for that matter, without any real awareness of what I was  doing at all. When I caught myself like this I would immediately slow down. Sometimes I would move as though in slow motion, wondering if people passing me would think I was mad. At meals I would chew slowly, one bite at a time, instead of stuffing food into an already full mouth...

I distinctly remember one morning when I was late for school. As I was automatically rushing to get dressed and put my books together, I recalled Aristotle. But even as the aim of not being in a hurry came to me, my thoughts started to tell me that I mustn't try now or I would never be able to make the opening bell and would be marked late and .... who knows what terrors would follow from that?

What  stands out in my mind, even after all these years, is the attitude I took toward my thoughts. I simply ignored them. I simply and swiftly ignored them. I did not argue with them and I did not look for other thoughts to put against them, such as the thought that there was still enough time, that I always got to school early or that even if I was late it wouldn't really make any difference, I could always make up an excuse and even one late mark didn't matter anyway...I did not bring forth any of these thoughts at all. 

I simply turned my attention away from all my thoughts. Suddenly, swiftly, gently, without bargaining with them at all. I calmly turned my attention to putting on my shoes and socks, tying my shoes, selecting my brown sweater, assembling my notebook and textbooks, walking into the kitchen, sitting down and eating the cornflakes. 

I was not thinking of anything at all except shoes and socks, the sweater, the books, the cereal and milk. 

It seemed that, having made one .....

(To be continued )

Extract from an article published in YSS Magazine 1/2003

A

“Spirituality is generated slowly, sometimes imperceptibly. Even though the meditating devotee feels that his attempts at controlling the mind are fruitless, yet if he continues with zeal, believing in the words of his preceptor, he suddenly finds RESPONSE FROM GOD, intimated THROUGH his LONG SILENT MEDITATION” 

 Paramahansa Yogananda   

 God Talks with Arjuna (The Bhagavad Gita II:1)

A

A devotee, even in earlier stages of spiritual progress, who has attained calmness in meditation but later succumbs to habits of restlessness constantly feels the painful contrast — a contrast he also endures between the formerly experienced deep happiness of the meditative state and the subsequently experienced evanescent mundane pleasures if he returns to his “old ways” of materialistic habits after a deep meditation. The lustre of earthly pleasure is pale before the splendour of God-joy! From communion with the bliss of God the devotee breathes true life and happiness — once quaffed, never forgotten!

Paramahansa Yogananda 

A