Ananda recently held its second International Kriya Yoga Retreat in Gurgaon, India. You can watch and listen to all the talks here. I would like to expand on something I mentioned in one of my classes there.

There is a great deal of talk in modern times about investing wisely for a hoped-for future retirement. Most people invest their most valuable resources—money, time, and energy—into feeding, clothing, and sheltering the body, stimulating the senses, and feeling comfortable. What people don’t understand is that they are investing everything in a “rapidly depreciating asset”—since the human body is guaranteed to decrease in value until it is “pushing up daisies” in the end.

On the other hand, when we put our time and energy into feeding the soul, spiritually changing ourselves, and dedicating to a practice such as Kriya Yoga, we are putting our resources into an asset that will continue to appreciate over time—even over many lifetimes.

What if you don’t believe in reincarnation? You can compare the end of life of a worldly person who has lived selfishly, to the lives of saints. Saints’ bodies have ‘depreciated’ just like everyone else’s, but they are living in a state of divine joy, and are able to share that joy with others.

I have seen this truth proven in the lives of many Kriya Yogis, even those who may not have yet reached the most exalted spiritual states. Compared to people who have lived selfish or worldly lives, I can say unequivocally that dedication to spiritual practices is the best investment of time and energy one can possibly make.

People sometimes think, “It’s too late. I should have begun practicing Kriya Yoga when I was young. Now my worldly life is all I have, so I guess I’ll just keep living like this.” This is called “throwing good money after the bad.” It is similar to a homeowner who keeps throwing more and more of his hard-earned money to put a new roof on a house with a completely rotten foundation.

It is never too late! Paramhansa Yogananda told the story of a woman who took up his teachings late in life:

I once met a lady in the state of Washington. She was 80 years old, and all her life she’d been an atheist. By God’s grace, at our meeting she became converted to this path. Thereafter she sought God intensely. For the better part of every day, whenever she wasn’t meditating, she would play a recording of my poem “God! God! God!” She lived only a few years longer, but in that short time she attained liberation.

It is never too soon or too late to dedicate yourself to living a spiritual life. It is the greatest investment we can make for our future, and in the end, it is the only thing we can take with us when we leave this world.

In these pages I aim to show how a spiritual mission, regardless of its name and tenets, can be made to relate to the whole world.

Paramhansa Yogananda prophesied that some day the purpose of all religions would be accepted as being one and the same: Self-realization. Included in that understanding would be a sense of the non-sectarian fellowship of all truth seekers. His own mission as he stated it was, above all, to teach “the original teachings of Jesus Christ, and the original yoga teachings of Krishna.” He stated that he had come, further, to unite all religions in an understanding of their higher purpose. His mission to show the underlying oneness of two great religions, particularly, may therefore be seen as symbolic also, being meant to demonstrate the underlying oneness of all religions, for humanity everywhere is seeking the same eventual fulfillment: bliss in God. Self-realization—the realization of God as the indwelling Self of all beings—is then, in the broadest sense, the true goal of all religions and the deepest desire in every human heart.

The great master, in his teachings, also drew to a focus countless truths that have been expressed diversely through the ages. He showed that the highest wisdom has always been the same essential truths, the first of which is that all men are rays of the one Divine Light, and the second, that man’s ultimate destiny is to merge back of his own free will into that Light.

For this reason, in my book Revelations of Christ, Proclaimed by Paramhansa Yogananda, I proposed that this highest truth be called “Sanaatan Dharma, the Eternal Religion,” for in all the universe this has to be the supreme truth: union with God as the final reality of all beings.

Yogananda presented a way of life that was unitive—one that would make spiritually relevant every aspect of human life: business and the art of self-support generally; marriage; education; the fine arts; self-expansion through service to others; and the supreme art of how to live happily in this world.

Finally, he proposed a life-style designed to enable people everywhere to incorporate their varied pursuits into a harmonious, God-centered existence. Through the years that he taught in the West, he urged his audiences to adopt this life-style by gathering together in what he called “world-brotherhood colonies.” I was blessed to be able to found the first Ananda World-Brotherhood community in 1968 on what are today some 1,000 acres near Nevada City, California. At present there are eight functioning examples of this ideal in various parts of the world.

The sheer breadth of the Master’s vision, and its practical relevance to the needs of our age, demonstrate that he was, in the fullest sense of the word, a World Teacher, and not the guru only of a particular group of disciples. In fact, he’d been sent to be the way-shower for a new age, and savior for the “many millions,” as he put it, who would tune into the divine ray he had brought. For mankind has arrived at the dawn of new awakening into a globally heightened spiritual awareness.

Swami Sri Yukteswar, the guru of Paramhansa Yogananda, stated in his book The Holy Science that the whole of mankind is now, scripturally speaking, in a new age. The earth itself entered this age in the year 1900 after an interim, or bridge (sandhya), of 200 years, during which time the new rays gradually grew in strength. The ancient teachings of India gave this age the name, Dwapara Yuga.

The first of four yugas, Kali (the dark) Yuga, was an age when most people perceived everything narrowly, both in material and in fixed terms. Men needed outer as well as inner forms. Outwardly, the more solid those forms the better; and inwardly they felt comfortable with carefully formulated dogmas and fixed ideas. Organizationally, they were comfortable with firm structures; they liked everything to be established and in its own place. They believed the universe to be geocentric, and God, to them, was a bearded old man seated “somewhere up there” on an eternal throne of judgment. The earth being conceived of as flat made it easier, of course, to visualize heaven as literally high up above them.

Dwapara Yuga is bringing greater fluidity to people’s consciousness. This is an age, above all, of energy-awareness. Many people, aware of some new awareness stirring within and around them, welcome it exuberantly as though it gave unbridled license to indulge to excess in everything they liked. In the fine arts (painting, sculpture, and music), traditional forms have been cast aside in favor of the grotesque, the trivial, and the blasphemous. In children’s education, certain experiments have brought more confusion than enlightenment. The same may be said of people’s understanding of morality, and in their social behavior.

Thus the term, “New Age,” is also viewed with anxiety by those who believe in the old traditions. In fact, what we are witnessing is a struggle between the old ways—ways that once seemed “carved in stone”—and a new, more flexible spirit that is struggling for clear self-expression.

This struggle between the old ways and the new, though still rather amorphous, is in evidence everywhere. We see it in religion also, in the struggle between those who adhere to the traditions of the past and those who reject all tradition as antiquated. To the religious traditionalist, the mere hint of a new age “sets his teeth agrinding.”

For Moslems, the cornerstone of whose religion is the saying, “There is no God but Allah and Mohammed is His prophet,” no other way is acceptable.

For Christians, time itself is measured from the year of Christ’s birth. Fundamentalists, especially, are convinced that the world is fast approaching the “end times” that were predicted by the Bible with the Second Coming of Christ. Among Moslems also, there are some who believe that something approximating those “end times” is approaching.

Naturally, a world view in which mankind, after centuries of relative darkness, is postulated as poised and ready to soar up into new realities is fiercely rejected by anyone who believes that the past two thousand years virtually defined the term, “Christian enlightenment.”

Much of the present antagonism on the part of orthodoxy toward the “new age” is due, I think, to the arrogance of some who have embraced it mainly for its novelty. For “new age,” as a concept, appeals especially to the young whose tendency in any case is to reject the old. Many scientists, too, have arrogated to themselves the role of “heralds of a new wisdom,” basing the claim not on any suggestion of being better human beings, themselves, nor on any but the thinnest hope that their discoveries will someday make anyone such a human being, but on the simple fact that a few scientists (the very few real pioneers) have discovered unexpected facts about the universe.

Writers since Einstein have had a hey-day with the theory that morality, far from being absolute (“all things being relative”), may even, with a little manipulation, be discarded altogether.

“Avant garde” artists of all kinds, again, having milked the “new age” concept for every ounce of its shock value, offer nothing to replace the rubble created by their iconoclasm, which still litters the countryside.

And self-styled trend-setters, finally, have no clear notion as to where, why, or how to direct people’s attention. They offer only trivia—or, worse still—blasphemy in place of the worthwhile and the meaningful. Indeed, I personally have reached the conclusion that anyone who follows the dictates of “style” shows himself to be without taste.

The public, quite naturally, finds itself bewildered. Nor is it surprising that many today gaze back for comfort to past traditions which, to them, are at least recognizable. The relativity of time which Einstein claimed, has not, after all, thrown any clocks out of kilter. Scientific discoveries have altered no fundamental human reality. Works of art may titillate or outrage a few people, but the meaninglessness they suggest neither inspires nor offers any hope of new insights. Indeed, the most that the dogma, “art for art’s sake,” will ever accomplish will be to inspire a certain smugness on the part of those who accept it, as they consider themselves favored with insights that are unavailable to the “canaille.”

What is most notable about the times we live in is that, in every field of endeavor, human perceptions are expanding and new windows opening onto the vastness and subtlety of the universe. The need is growing everywhere in human hearts to make sense of these insights. We cannot simply reject them. Nor can we merely embrace them, in the exuberant manner of adolescents, for their shock value. We must assess them and do our best to understand what their implications are for human life.

We must accept first, of course, the simple fact that these new waves of insight are, in fact, unprecedented. We must also transcend any fear we may harbor that eternal values are being threatened. Indeed, Truth cannot be a house divided. Self-proclaimed “wisdom,” moreover, that is rooted in neither Truth nor tradition, is almost always mere superstition.

In this essay I propose to explain at some length what Sri Yukteswar said and meant about the new age, and his reasons for claiming that we have entered it already. I will present facts that support his statement, and that he himself could not have presented back in 1894, when he wrote his book, for science had not yet made the discoveries that would justify his claims.

The first part of this paper will present the general basis for Sri Yukteswar’s predictions, and will explain at some length what is implied by the term, “new age.” The last part will focus more specifically on Paramhansa Yogananda’s mission in this age.

One of the results of the new energy that is now flooding our planet is that people are being challenged to assume more personal responsibility for their lives. In a sense, certainly, religious organizations may continue to obstruct the spread of true, inward religion. I shall also show, however, how religious organizations also can be beneficial and expansive, in the spirit of Dwapara Yuga, and how Paramhansa Yogananda himself set the tone for this new type of organization.

Copyright © 2008 Hansa Trust. All rights reserved.

The full text of the essay will appear in a book by Crystal Clarity Publishers later this year. Click here to pre-order.

Paramhansa Yogananda says, in an article written in 1923: “The week should be allotted to work, amusement, and spiritual culture—five days for money making, one day for rest and amusement, and one day for introspection and inner realization.”

There probably isn’t too much question about working: most of us don’t have much choice about it. Rest and amusement are often too easy for us to seek out. The third area is where we may lack experience and definition: introspection and inner realization.

Ah, sweet seclusion! If you’ve never tried it—well, you must and the sooner the better!

Most likely, you’ll find it so enjoyable that you’ll soon be trying to take a day of seclusion more often, perhaps even one day a week, once a month, or even longer seclusions once or twice a year. Here are some suggestions that might help you to have a better time of your seclusion.

Try to find a place, even if it’s just a room, where you can be completely alone all day. Your own home may be fine, but householders often have problems secluding at home. Try to get the rest of the family to leave or to at least agree to give you as much privacy as possible for the day. Better yet, get out of your familiar environment, where there may be a strong temptation to get back into old routines, habits, or thought patterns. Go somewhere away from home.

Ananda’s Meditation Retreat or The Expanding Light Retreat both a part of Ananda Village near Nevada City, California, certainly are two of the best places to consider.

Don’t eat a heavy meal the night before a seclusion day; this will help your next morning’s meditation immensely. Try to meditate deeply the night before, then go to sleep affirming: “Tomorrow is my day to be alone with God!”

Get up early! Sleeping late will make you sluggish all day—and, besides, you’ll miss the coming of the dawn, the loveliest and often quietest time of the day.

Energize—outside if at all possible. Go slowly and stay very conscious of how you are doing the exercises. Do some yoga postures. Take time to do them carefully, gracefully, meditatively, in the Ananda Yoga way. If you are not used to doing yoga on your own, use a guided Ananda Yoga routine on an audio or video tape. Be adventurous and pick out some postures from the Ananda Course in Self Realization (14 Steps) or Ananda Yoga for Higher Awareness, that you rarely or never practice and give them a try too. Here is your chance to really enjoy them; you’ve probably been too rushed to do them correctly—if at all—during your busy work week.

Now for a long, deep meditation with no time barriers whatever. How glorious to know you can meditate for as long as you can sustain the energy. Do the techniques longer than usual, with your mind deeply absorbed in what you are doing. Do more kriyas and/or higher kriyas than usual, too. End with healing prayers—sending healing vibrations to individuals, to the world, and to yourself, too. Try bridging the gap between meditation and the rest of your day by practicing an affirmation, reading one of Yogananda’s prayers or poem, listening to some of Swami Kriyananda’s inspiring music, going for a walking meditation in the beauties of nature, or having a little ceremony or ritual of some sort for yourself.

A seclusion day is perfect for fasting and keeping complete silence, or breaking your silence only for prayers or chanting (even then, try chanting softly, staying very inward). If total fasting is too much for you (drink plenty of water, please!), you might try fresh fruit and vegetables only or fresh juices all day. Whatever you eat, eat lightly, gratefully, slowly and consciously! Don’t forget the other kinds of diets and fasts that Yogananda recommends his article, “The Divine Magnetic Diet:” the wisdom diet, the courage diet, and of course, a worry fast.

Most people find it much easier to fast if they keep silence at the same time. While keeping silence try to avoid even eye contact with anyone—no note writing either. Just SILENCE. You’ll find your energy begins to build as the time goes by. All the energy that gushes out of your mouth and eyes all day, every day, hoard it up and direct it towards God and toward longer, deeper meditations. It truly works! As Yogananda says: “Silence is the altar of spirit.” After several days of complete silence, you will probably find a greater sense of inner peace and joy within you that you have ever known.

Perhaps your seclusion time can be a time of internal and external cleansing as well. Take a mild herbal laxative one evening or an enema in the morning. Have a long soak in your bathtub, or at least have a good long scrub in the shower. Take a swim if the weather’s nice and you happen to know of a fairly private place to swim. Take a sun bath, too, consciously pulling in those healing rays (be careful of going too long with this—perhaps avoiding the more dangerous times in the middle of the day). Do some of Yogananda’s heliotropic methods of self-healing.

Today may be the day to do all those yoga exercises or techniques that you keep intending to do, but just don’t take the time for: the special mudras, bandhas, or pranayams. Other things to do: practice your chants, letting God flow through your voice. Take one chant and chant it for a long, long time. Learn a new chant. Learn one of Swami’s songs. Sing along with a tape like “Some of My Favorites” or any of the Ananda music and chanting tapes. Chant AUM at each chakra, using the appropriate musical notes. Make music, chanting, japa, and the power of vibration an important part of a seclusion.

Write in your journal. If you don’t have one, use this time of seclusion to start one. If you only keep a brief daily spiritual diary, have another journal for expanding journal writing—and write, write, write! You’ll be amazed at how many problems you can solve by listing them and then asking Divine Mother to help you list all kinds of solutions. Subject such as Why are my meditations so blah? or why don’t I get along with so-and-so? Have a sort of intensive planning session with yourself, on paper.

Write letters of spiritual encouragement; there are surely many folks you know who are in great need of such a letter. Write poetry, but try to make it introspective and God-centered. Draw or paint, but only with a focus on God.

And study! this should be a part of every seclusion. For example, take one of the lessons from Raja Yoga (14 Steps) and read it slowly, reflecting on every sentence. Take notes. Make outlines. Pretend you’re going to have a pop quiz tomorrow, or that you have to teach a class in whatever you’ve chosen to study. Or listen to one of Swami Kriyananda’s talk tapes or perhaps even transcribe it word for word, or at least make some good notes.

Read other inspirational works, lives of saints or biographies of other Godly persons. But please, not light or trashy novels today, no sci-fi, detective or romance novels. And no People Magazine or the San Francisco Chronicle. Remember that this is your time to grow closer to God, and there’s plenty of material of higher consciousness to read and study without falling into those other traps. And, of course, no movies, TV, radio, or non-spiritual music. The idea is to keep the consciousness high; avoid these distractions like the plague!

Do you like to run? Fine! But try to find a place where you won’t see anybody, at least anybody who might want to talk to you. Take a long walk (ditto about the places you go while walking). In fact, do a walking meditation.

At twilight have another nice, long sadhana—perhaps outside, if the weather will allow. Try a three hour meditation with breaks every hour for chanting or stretching. Go even longer if you feel you can, or work up to longer meditations as you are able to take longer times of seclusion. End your day with a prayer of thanksgiving for the joy that comes from spending a day alone with the Friend of Friends.

Certainly your time of seclusion will seem to end too soon, all the better to whet your appetite for the next time. Sweet, sweet seclusion! “Solitude is the price of greatness,” Yogananda said. Seek it out and God bless you as you do.

P. S. I wrote this little article on one of my seclusion days in 1980, not too long after I had first started taking regular seclusions. Now 22 years later, I am still just as enthusiastic about them, if not more so. I now know, without any shadow of a doubt, that times of seclusion are essential to one’s ability to persevere on a lifetime spiritual quest to final freedom in God.

One of the great joys of my work with Kriya Yogis is the frequent emails I receive from them, describing the positive effects of Kriya practice. These testimonials come from long-time Kriyabans, and from people who have been practicing Kriya less than a year.

Many times the practice of Kriya brings what I call ‘unintended consequences’ — all of them positive! A recent email from a new Kriyaban described how they had stopped eating meat, were eating half as much as they used to (good in their case, apparently!) – all of this even though they weren’t trying to make these particular changes in their life.

Because Kriya changes one deeply from the inside, the changes can and do manifest outwardly in many ways. In a sense, the Kriya Yogi changes himself from the inside out, rather than in the typical modern approach of changing one’s looks, clothing, or personality.

Here are some of the comments I’ve received from Kriya Yogis:

“My heartfelt thanks to you for giving me the Kriya Technique earlier in the year. It was the greatest gift I have ever received. Words cannot describe the taste of the daily ‘kriya nectar.’”

“I found intense joy, happiness and peace in my life. Kriya and devotion light up my life, and best of all I have daily guidance from the Masters. Since I started my daily practice I became a vegetarian and celibate and living a quiet life, looking at the external world as an expression of God, with compassion and love. I am very happy to be spiritually awakening.”

“My inner and outer life have changed in ways I never thought possible.”

“Kriya is truly a sacred art that has a profound and life changing effect on one’s thought pattern, and a feeling of great joy and bliss.”

How can the practice of Kriya cause so many positive changes? In his Autobiography of a Yogi, Yogananda promised:

“One-half minute of revolution of energy around the sensitive spinal cord of man effects subtle progress in his evolution; that half-minute of Kriya equals one year of natural spiritual unfoldment.”

Yogananda went even further in a discussion with Swami Kriyananda, which he recounts in his book The Essence of Self-Realization:

“I can take a few young men of the most restless sort, and let them practice Kriya for two hours every day in the way I tell them, and, without question, in four or five years I can make saints out of them.

“I won’t preach a single sermon to them. I will simply tell them to practice Kriya for two hours a day, and they will see the difference in their lives. That is a good challenge.

“Of course, they must practice in the way that I tell them. That won’t be easy. But it is surely worth the effort.”

People often make resolutions to change their lives - typically at the start of the new year. Often, these resolutions have little effect, perhaps a little lost weight or a few better habits. Imagine making just one change that will have benefits for every aspect of your life!

Yogananda did not say that his “young men of the most restless sort” would have to change this bad habit or that. He didn’t say that they would have go to church every Sunday. All they would need to do is “practice Kriya for two hours every day in the way I tell them,” and they would become saints in 4 or 5 years.

I can honestly say, based on my own 30-year experience of daily Kriya practice, and on my interactions with hundreds of other Kriya Yogis, that Kriya effectively changes people’s lives out of all proportion to the self-effort required.

If you are interested in learning Kriya Yoga, feel free to email me. If you already practice Kriya, consider dedicating 2008 to a deeper and more devoted practice of it. You may well be surprised at the many “unintended” positive consequences resulting from your deep, sincere practice.
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I’m a mom, an oldest daughter, a nurse, a teacher, a karma yogi, - any way you look at it, I have “the heart of a servant”, as one friend described me. I am happiest when serving others, I always have been.

An attitude of service is helpful when I am in a new situation or I have to speak to a group of unfamiliar people. If I ask God to use me as an instrument, I am able to see past the outward circumstances and relax into what is trying to happen.

If I am having trouble waiting for something to happen (which occurs far too often!), finding something helpful to do directs the energy away from impatience.  Joy immediately returns because I am no longer focused on me.

Paramhansa Yogananda said that service is one of the fastest paths to God, but he also said that meditation is essential. Meditation is the best way to get out of focusing on the self and learn to focus on God.

Getting up at night with a sick child, doing endless piles of laundry, rubbing my husband’s aching shoulders, and volunteering time at the Portland Ananda Temple and Teaching Center, are all done with a heart full of gratitude at the opportunity.  But when it comes to finding the time to meditate, my mind hits a snag, because it feels like “me” time. Meditation is time away from family, time away from the long need-to-do list of outward service to others. Meditation is time alone. Meditation looks…selfish.

All self-definitions are limiting, even when viewed as positive, and they get in the way of our spiritual growth. Seeing meditation like an afternoon at the spa is wrong thinking.  I have been working on correcting my thinking and perhaps you moms out there need to work on this as well.

Although more subtle, meditation is the most powerful way we have of serving our family, our community, and the planet.  Meditation opens the door for more divine light to pour into the world, through our devotion and will. The greatest servants throughout history, the saints, spend many hours alone with God every day.

When my children need my help with a special interest or concern, I spend long hours reading and doing whatever I can to assist them.  I am always looking for ways to improve my ability to serve.  Meditation is the ultimate “how-to” course. Meditation opens the heart and increases our awareness so we are able to serve more effectively in every area of our lives.

The results of meditation are harder to measure than the dwindling pile of laundry.  But if we look we will notice increased joy, patience, calmness, peace and compassion in ourselves and those around us. The improvement in our relationship with God is immeasurable, but even more profound. 

Yogananda advised, “Be ever busy for God. When you are not meditating, be active for Him. And when meditating, offer your mind up to Him in the same spirit of service, with keen, alert attention. Keep the mind ever busy with God, and with doing good for others.” from Essence of Self-Realization

In divine friendship and service, Lorna

September 21, 2001 was a day unanimously adopted by the UN as an international day of peace. Ananda Village joined in spirit with people the world over by dedicating our prayers and positive affirmation toward world peace.

We supported Peace Day by filling our day with prayer, meditation, focused healing energy and joyful chanting.

The day began with Lisa Powers leading our morning community meditation at Hansa Temple. She concluded the meditation by leading us in a profound visualization and prayer for peace and harmony throughout the world.

Mary Kretzmann, the director of Ananda’s Healing Prayer Ministry led a healing prayer intensive and meditation to a small group at The Expanding Light Temple. Mary taught Paramhansa Yogananda’s healing techniques then led visualizations using maps and globes of our planet to help focus our prayer intensity and direct it to different areas of the world. It was a very powerful session.

The evening program at Crystal Hermitage was a very special event. Our teenage kirtan group, White Light, led a very inspiring kirtan (chanting session) which was attended by many members of Ananda Village. Several members of the group took turns leading the chanting. It was wonderful to see these young people with such poise lead us all in an evening of devotional chanting.

I am in the Chicago (where my husband Dave is attending a conference) We walked around Chicago on Sunday and I noticed on a church bulletin board a sign encouraging people to attend their Peace Day observance held on the same day. I was reminded that all over the world there are many, many people who pray and believe that through prayer we can have a positive affect on our planet.

It is sometimes easy to be fearful or discouraged when the evening news is filled with the reports of war and violence. It is those times we should try to very consciously offer ourselves into the light of God and see that light spreading throughout the world.

The Healing Prayer Ministry shares the techniques given to us by Yogananda to bring healing energy into the lives of our loved ones, and to bring light more strongly into the world. By consciously tuning into this light and try to feel it strongly in our lives we will be comforted and be part of a wave of peace.

I have a favorite chant that was frequently sung by Sri Yukteswar, Paramhansa Yogananda’s guru. It’s titled Desire, My Great Enemy:

Desire, my great enemy,
With his soldiers surrounded me,
Is giving me lots of trouble, oh my Lord,
Is giving me lots of trouble, oh my Lord.

That enemy, I will deceive,
Remaining in the Castle of Peace,
Night and Day in Thy joy, oh my Lord,
Night and Day in Thy joy, oh my Lord.

What will be my fate?
Oh Lord, tell me.
Pranayam be thy religion,
Pranayam will give thee salvation,
Pranayam is the Wishing Tree,
Pranayam is the Wishing Tree.

Pranayam is Beloved God,
Pranayam is Creator Lord,
Pranayam is the Cosmic World,
Pranayam is the Cosmic World.

Control the little pranayam,
Become all-pervading pranayam,
You won’t have to fear anything anymore,
You won’t have to fear anything anymore.

Pranayama (or pranayam) means in Sanskrit, “control of one’s life force, or energy.”

Most people think that pranayama describes various breathing exercises and yoga techniques. Yogananda explained that “pranayama is a condition, not a technique.” The very purpose of pranayama exercises is to give us complete control of the inner life force. This is the true meaning of pranayama.

Paramhansa Yogananda said that the author of the chant took poetic license by saying, “pranayam is Beloved God” and “pranayam be thy religion.” Even so, he emphasized that the words of the chant do describe the only way to union with God, through control of one’s energy.

What does control of one’s energy have to do with union with God? Yogananda said:

God answers all prayers, but restless prayers He answers only a little bit. If you try to give someone something that doesn’t belong to you, your gift won’t mean much to him, will it? However touching the gesture, it will be lacking in substance!

So is it when your mind is not your own. You may want to give it to God, but you can’t. Your prayers, then, are hardly more than a gesture.

Get control over your mind. When you can pray with concentration, the Lord will know that you mean what you are saying. He will answer you, then, in wonderful ways.

The Kriya yogi, through ever- deepening practice of Kriya, controls his life force to the extent that he can withdraw the energy that would otherwise go into restless thoughts and desires. As a result of that control, he can achieve final union with the divine in deep samadhi meditation.

Even if the Kriya Yogi falls short of the ultimate goal, he finds over the years that his meditations become ever deeper, and that God answers his prayers “in wonderful ways.” This has been true in my own life, and in the lives of countless other Kriya yogis.

P.S. The chant, Desire, My Great Enemy, is beautifully performed on the chanting CD titled Power Chants, available from Crystal Clarity Publishers.