Facing Challenges

Adapting to Change

by Nayaswami Uma

“Change your thoughts if you wish to change your circumstances. Since you alone are responsible for your thoughts, only you can change them. You will want to change them when you realize that each thought creates according to its own nature.  Remember that the law works at all times and that you are always demonstrating that according to the kind of … Read More

Right Attitudes

The Eight Meannesses of the Heart: How to Overcome Them – Part 5

by Darshan Lotichius

There was a period in my life, sometime during my mid-twenties, when I was despondent because my girlfriend had left me.I simply couldn’t comprehend how and why this had happened – and so unexpectedly! Maybe the deep bond that I felt with her had eclipsed my awareness of residual effects of traumas of her dysfunctional childhood. Maybe she could already … Read More

Peace

How to Achieve Peace of Mind

by Swami Kriyananda

It would be relatively easy to control the mind, were our conscious thought processes all we had to deal with. Unfortunately for this wished-for ease, the conscious mind is only the tip of a vast iceberg of consciousness. Buried in the subconscious, too deep even for conscious recognition, is a vast realm of unfulfilled desires and unresolved tendencies, which often … Read More

Discipleship

From Prodigal to Pilgrim

by Sanjaya Connolly

If you, thinking of God, take one step towards Him, in response, He, who is more kind than a mother, thinking of you, takes nine steps—such a long distance—and accepts you. So great is His grace. (Ramana Maharishi) Yogananda’s encounter with Ramana Maharishi, whom he named “the enlightened Rishi of South India,” highlights the universal power hidden behind Jesus’s parable … Read More

Right Attitudes

The Eight Meannesses of the Heart: How to Overcome Them – Part 3

by Darshan Lotichius

It must have been sometime in the mid-nineties when I was part of a small group spending informal time with Swami Kriyananda, who had arrived from America a few days earlier. The energy was high and joyful, as always in Swami’s presence, and the conversation free flowing. I knew about the challenges he’d faced in America, where a lawsuit had … Read More

Right Attitudes

The Eight Meannesses of the Heart:
How to Overcome Them – Part 2

by Darshan Lotichius

There is nothing wrong with being happy to belong to a certain family, community, social class or nation. Every individual needs a social base to work from. A yogi’s spiritual progress will be tested first by his ability to relate appropriately to those near him: his family in other words, biological and spiritual. As long as these are, even to … Read More

Right Attitudes

The Eight Meannesses of the Heart: How to Overcome Them – Part 1

by Darshan Lotichius

In The Holy Science Swami Sri Yukteswar lists eight negative qualities that prevent the natural magnanimity of the heart to manifest. Interestingly, he states that only after the heart is free of these obstructions, man becomes fully fit for the practice of Asana – remaining in steady and pleasant posture. An interesting statement for Hatha Yoga teachers all over the … Read More