Dear fellow students,

I’ve been teaching at the Living Wisdom School in Portland for about six weeks now. It’s new to me and I’ll admit I was a bit anxious about taking on the challenge. I was told I have all the skills and experience needed to be a good teacher and I would be surrounded by a team of knowledgeable and supportive coworkers who would guide me along.

All this is true, but those wonderful supporters didn’t know my secret: This job would be absolutely the best way to highlight every one of my weaknesses, underscore them in bold, and show them off for the whole world to see.

I feel pretty comfortable and capable in most situations, and I was afraid that I couldn’t pull this off with the ease I feel in other circumstances.

It’s not exactly a secret that God puts us in circumstances that challenge our weaknesses. And certainly God is very aware of my self-imposed limitations. But my secret hope was that becoming free of limitations would be a private project, kind of like extra-credit for school, accomplished outside class.

It’s a pretty silly idea, even more so when I see the thought put in writing, but there it is.

As for teaching - it is highlighting my weaknesses;and I’ll let you imagine what those are. But I’ll tell you what I’ve learned so far: teaching is no different than any other thing put in our path. It requires an open and willing heart, a loving response to all souls, an attitude of service to others, and great diligence to always see the highest good in all circumstances.

I’m learning to accept that class is always in session and teaching may be new to me, but the lessons being taught are very familiar.

In joyful friendship, Lorna

I had the blessing to attend Ananda Portland’s 20th anniversary a few weeks ago. I had decided to go because I love being part of these celebrations with our greater Ananda family. I find it’s fun to be serving in that flow of energy. It was a wonderful weekend and I was grateful to have been a part of it. There were so many beautiful shining faces that were joyfully taking part in one way or another. It was inspirational to see all that had been created by all the years of loving service. Together we enjoyed a retrospective on Friday night, looking back at the last 20 years and the founding of Ananda Portland. Saturday Morning was a wonderful look at the future of Ananda, not just Ananda Portland, but Ananda Worldwide. Saturday night there was a beautiful concert and then after lunch on Sunday we dedicated the new community room and meditation chapel. Between these events there was time to enjoy the sweet satsang of fellow devotees. It was great to see that there were devotees from Sacramento, Palo Alto, Seattle and Nevada City (the village) there to support Ananda Portland at this milestone.

Ananda Portland’s Temple

Two concepts that speakers touched on that weekend struck me in a way that they hadn’t before. The first is that Ananda is not a place, it is a movement. It’s a change of consciousness and a flow of energy. I’ve noticed at different times that when I try to define exactly what Ananda is and try to hold on to that image, it becomes crystalline and fragile and soon shatters. No box can contain that flow of energy. It was even said that the form Ananda takes essentially doesn’t matter. The important part is not what we accomplish or how good it looks, but rather how we do it. It also doesn’t really matter where we are. What is important is the consciousness we are experiencing as we embark on this endeavor. How’s our attitude? And are we, as individuals, deepening our experience of the divine within? Are we in tune with the divine flow of Master’s grace?

Enjoying a Sunday lunch in the Portland Community

The second concept is that Ananda’s success is not based on getting more members. We are not in some sort of numbers game where whoever gets the most members wins. We are successful when we inspire and help others to find that presence of the divine within themselves. If we can show people how beautiful it is to live for God and seek Him inside, then we are succeeding. We need to show people that this is something that they can accomplish. We of course have many tools to help get there, but I believe that the essential part is that the individual is inspired to find that divine presence within. That yearning must come from within themselves, no one can do that for them, but we need to inspire those who are ready. Each seeker will search in their own way, but the important part is that they are sincere in their search for God.

During the Chapel dedication

Any box that we put Ananda into will only end up limiting the flow of energy that comes to us and therefore limit the extent that we can express the vision that Master brought.

In the spring of 2007 a dear friend suggested that we build a new entry sign at Ananda Village to welcome people to the community. To help it happen, she volunteered money for the project. This started discussions in our monthly planning meetings about building an informational sign that was also “nice-to-look-at.”

So began the long saga of drawing up sketches: should it be one sign or more? Should it be a more than a mere sign? A monument, perhaps? What about building materials: stucco? Wood? A combination? What should the sign say? “Ananda,” and perhaps a subtitle: “A World Brotherhood Colony,” or “Joy Is Within You” (the name of Ananda’s logo). Should it have directions to Master’s Market, just to the right at Ananda’s famous “downwtown”; and Crystal Hermitage, on the other side of the hill?

Over the next number of months, it seemed to our village members like there was a lot of talking, pointing, and head-scratching at the building site, but little action. For the group of us involved in the actual creation of the sign, it had become clear that nothing truly inspired us, so nothing happened for awhile.

Then, after seeing some preliminary sketches, Jyotish Novak suggested that the greeting one receives upon entering Ananda Village should be artistic and inspirational, rather than just practical.

Thus began some fun out-of-the-box thinking. Lotus columns and kundalini (Sanskrit for inner energy) pillars came and went. Finally Jyotish suggested an infinity pool (a pool with the water is filled to the brim and perfectly calm ) with the Joy Is Within You Symbol (Ananda’s logo), seeming to emerge from the still water. This inspired some real enthusiasm.

Devi Novak came to one of the meetings and suggested waterfalls on the back rim. I (being a pool and landscape contractor) drew up a few sketches and then we began the mock-up phase.

Now our village members saw ACTION at the site, but their questions remained: what the heck are you guys doing? A masonite (a brand of hardboard) board was bent to show the shape of the pond perimeter. On the front was spray-painted Ananda Village in a nice bright orange. To top it all off there was the Joy Symbol constructed of glued-together PVC pipe with a Salvador-Dali-type “bend” to it.

Later on a member of the team made a plywood to-scale Joy Symbol, which was painted gold and put up in our “masonite” pool.

At this point, we agreed that the proportions were just about right. Our sign had turned into something much greater than was originally visualized, and our benefactor tripled the money pledge. I took on the pool aspect of the project. Others began the process of creating the real Joy Symbol. They spent weeks making it out of wood, which was later cast into a polymer resin. When they were finished, it was transported by truck to a business in the nearby Nevada City to be cast.

I began forming the pool basin with the drain, filter system and footings for the Joy Symbol. I also found some fantastic greenish boulders to edge the pool. Power and water were brought to the site.

Swami Kriyananda was scheduled to arrive from India soon for a busy summer at the Village, so we filled up the pool and installed the gold-painted wood mockup.

Later in the summer the newly-cast Joy Symbol was carefully brought back to the Village, sanded and triple-pained with coats of gold epoxy car paint by the members of the building team.

All the pieces came together during the week we celebrated Ananda’s 40th Anniversary, and Swami’s 60th year of discipleship. The Village was overflowing with guests from all over the world. A beautiful sign greeted everyone on their arrival. Many have expressed their appreciation of the labor of love that went into creating it. Guests and residents alike still remark how much the new Joy Is Within You entry sign truly expresses Ananda’s spirit.

Editor’s note:

These are excerpts from a 77-page article by Bhasbuto, a young man who visited Ananda Village in the summer of 2008. For the sake of privacy, his online name is used here. Bhasbuto was born in Montevideo, Uruguay. At the age of 15 he received a gift from his father: Autobiography of a Yogi. His family later moved to Canada, where he lives now. Bhasbuto was 21, and a student of computer science in Quebec at the time of writing.

_________

Community! Reality has probably made most people degrade their definition of a “community” to a place were a bunch of people live together. Where, after all, can you find a true community in a deeper sense? A place where like-minded people live and work together in harmony and friendship toward the achieving of a specific goal or set of goals? The words “harmony” and “friendship” make it impossible for someone accustomed to the modern world to imagine such a place… yet, I witnessed first-hand the answer to that question: Ananda Village, that is where!
…
“Hello, great souls!”: that is how Swami Kriyananda greeted the community. It says it all.
I have already given hints here and there about what people is like in Ananda Village. However, a book wouldn’t be enough to describe it all: all of them are characteristically themselves; yet, that’s what they have in common: they are great souls.
People who live at Ananda Village (and many who visit it) share two common goals: to find God and to help others find Him. However, as I’ve remarked, they are all characteristically themselves: the variety is great, and it shows more because they are (again) great souls. People of the community live in harmony and joy, follow a spiritual discipline and revere all saints, in particular the direct Ananda line of gurus: Jesus Christ, Babaji, Lahiri Mahasaya, Sri Yukteswar, and Paramhansa Yogananda.
…
Nothing could have prepared me for what followed. The inner garden of Crystal Hermitage was just the most wonderful and beautiful place, even more so than the view I had contemplated a few moments ago; partly because of its real beauty, partly because of the wonderfully “beautiful” vibrations. Lakshman’s remark, “you can feel the angels roaming through the place” says it all, you actually can! The garden, the moon-shaped pool; all of it was indescribably beautiful: like a piece of an astral heaven brought to Earth.
…
After the purification ceremony of the Sunday Service, we started to chant and sing. I cannot describe the difference between these chants and those I had endured at the Catholic mass I had attended to! Here, everybody sang with such devotion that the power of the chants became almost palpable! My heart was so thrilled that my voice got shaky with emotion quite a few times, and an occasional tear managed to make its way down my cheek, those rebel tears I hurriedly hid!
…
Amanda then took me by the wrist and led me through the tables, until I saw a table longer than the rest and, sitting in the middle, wearing a blue t-shirt, Swami Kriyananda himself! As soon as I saw him, I froze where I stood: it was as though I had been stopped by an invisible force field that now was holding all of my members still! Amanda, apparently not noticing this, went up to him to get his attention. I advanced a few steps hurriedly to get into earshot of him, and then he looked to me, waved his hand and greeted me with his deep, kind, joyful voice: “Hi!”
…
That evening I called Lakshman, Swami Kriyananda’s secretary, and asked him for news about my appointment with Swamiji.
“I asked Swami about it this afternoon,” he said, “and it didn’t work for him to see you either today or tomorrow; he often leaves these things to the last available day.” My heart jumped a little: I had only two days left already!
“He remembers you, though,” Lakshman went on, “he remembers greeting you at the lunch. He also told me he would like to talk to you. So, I’m sure you’ll get the appointment. It will have to be on Thursday or Friday, but it will happen. I will ask him again tomorrow and let you know.”
That being said, I thanked him and hung the phone, relieved greatly by his reassurance, but still somewhat nervous. A little worried, I headed to the Healing Prayers class.
…
Lakshman then led me into the house and through that little door with the “private” sign which I had looked at so avidly four days before! He guided me through the private quarters (a veritable maze if I ever saw one) to a large room of which I couldn’t see much (I was still in a corridor) and said: “Swamiji, here is Hezequiel.” I approached the door and saw the dear figure of Swamiji sitting there, looking at me and smiling. Lakshman then retired.
That’s how, the 4th September of 2008, I finally achieved my goal of meeting Swami Kriyananda, thanks to the help of Divine Mother and many dear friends.
…
The first question I asked Swami Kriyananda was, “I want to know… what is God’s will for me?”
After a brief pause, he said: “God’s will is that you find Him. But as for what to do right now; tell me, what is what you want to do in life?”
“What I want to do in life? What does that mean exactly?”
“What is your goal in life?”
I chuckled and looked away. “Well, this may sound repetitive but it’s true…” I looked at him again and said, with all my heart: “I want to find God and to help others find Him.”
Opening his arms in a warm, inviting gesture, he responded, “Then why don’t you come to live among people who share your goals?”
…
As Nabha took me to the Sacramento Airport, he said to me: “It was a really big blessing that you could spend so much time with Swami in such a short stay.” What else could I do? I agreed wholeheartedly!
…
Now, a week and a half after I landed in Montréal, I can see from a perspective the blessing that this visit to Ananda Village was for me. Most of all, I am overwhelmed with gratefulness: gratefulness to my Divine Mother who, always mindful of Her children, took the time to grant my prayer to the letter: “Let me take the most advantage of this week,” I prayed to her. Lovingly, she gave me all I asked, and more!

Last month I took my 3 year old daughter Caitlin on a 5 day backpacking trip in Yosemite with our friend’s 3rd and 4th grade class. While we were there, I had enough challenges to qualify, in my mind, as a karmic bomb. For those of you saying already “What were you thinking?!”, part of the reason we went was to give my wife an opportunity to take a seclusion at home.

I’ll spare you the gruesome details of 4 soiled pants the first day as we hiked in, but needless to say, by the afternoon my frustration level was incredibly high. To top it off, we missed the turn and ended up at the wrong lake, putting us literally at our wit’s end, and had to continue hiking longer than anticipated. Thankfully we finally arrived with fortuitous help from one of the others.

The next 2 days were much better, filled with glorious hiking, but on the 4th day, I discovered that my tri-metal bangle was missing - it must have been stripped off my arm on one of the many times that I took my backpack off, and could be anywhere at all in the Cathedral Lakes area. This was quite a blow, as they are quite expensive to replace, and offer great protection and strength to those that wear them.

That evening we all had dinner on an incredible vista, and I was able to raise my energy enough to lead the children in singing. It was an incredible experience. Afterwards, I was walking back down to my camp praying to Yogananda about my bangle when I was swarmed by some yellowjackets and was stung in the neck. Incredibly frustrated, I turned around to head back up to get some help, when they stung me yet again.

Why? O God, why? Back in our tent I began to despair more deeply, imagining every sound outside to be a bear ready to rip open our tent. I decided to meditate, and to try to get to the bottom of whatever was going on.

Sometimes in life there are things that happen that we truly cannot explain, and that come to us for karmic reasons, good or bad. I remembered an Ananda minister that was hit by a karmic bomb, and how beautifully he handled it. I expected him to be quite miserable about his seemingly unfair circumstances, but he continued to live his life in the same uplifted manner. I decided that I would try to do the same.

The next day was my birthday, and I did not want to waste it in being miserable and frustrated. I just wanted my devotion back without this downward spiraling despair. I counted my blessings that Caitlin was having a wonderful week, and had done some serious rock climbing without any injury. She was alive and thriving, and who knows how karma works - perhaps something immediate was mitigated, or perhaps it was just the biggest week of tests in my life.

In meditation I gave all these events up to God, and then inwardly faced my greatest fears, bringing me to a sort of ground zero of my life. That was the week of Fanny Mae and AIG, so there was much economic foreboding in my mental background. I decided that no matter what happens, I could still love God, and that was the most important thing of my life. No matter what tests come, I am inwardly resolving to cling to devotion, to serving God and Master in all that I do.

We had a wonderful hike out, and I was even able to laugh as we passed all the spots where Caitlin needed changing on the way up. I clung to the rebirth of my devotion as a life line, and would not have found this new depth without going through those trials.

News of my loss spread, and last week at choir rehearsal, I was presented with money from a large group of people that was more than half the cost of a new bangle. I was overwhelmed. How can I thank all of you enough? I felt that this was my personal karma to overcome by myself, but as me dear friend reminded me, “We all help each other with all our karmas!” What an incredible blessing it is to live in spiritual community.

The question of karma is always fascinating, and I can truly say from experience now that everything - everything - can make us stronger so that we may continue the search for God with more depth, with more devotion, and with more determination.

Years ago I was giving a tour of Ananda Village when a woman on the tour asked me if Ananda had formed a “Women’s Liberation Group” here.

“Oh yes!” I replied. “We meet once a week!”

She was pleased and went on to ask: “And what are the topics of discussion at your meetings?”

The answer was surprising to her: “We don’t discuss anything. It’s a group of women who like to pray, chant, and meditate together; in this way we try to find our final liberation or union with our Divine Mother.” (I figured I’d better throw something feminine into this conversation).

Later her question made me think seriously about what it really does mean to be a woman in a spiritual sense? Obviously this woman had another kind of “women’s liberation” in mind, when she asked her questions. But male or female, we are all souls, striving for freedom, for liberation from the bondage of human birth and death, from attachments, and from all suffering. Our goal is oneness with our Creator, the Great Spirit which is beyond duality, male and female, or opposites of any type. This is the end of all human and spiritual evolution.

A basic urge in everyone, male or female, is based on an innate sense of incompleteness. Our lives are often directed by our striving to find that completeness or try to fulfill what we perceive as our needs! We often misplace these needs by thinking that we will become whole or complete through relationships, career, power, money, marriage, family, and so on.

Finding satisfaction through anything of this world may feel fabulous, for a time; but sooner or later, its temporary satisfaction gives way to yet another unsatisfied need. “Human desires, ever-fed, are never satisfied.” The key to happiness is found within you, not outside of you! Thus, the final liberation we are truly seeking has nothing to do with our sex, because our essential nature is the soul, beyond all duality. Perfect happiness lies in striving to liberate ourselves from attachments to all ideas about ourselves. It comes in finding out who and what we really are!

However, to balance all these thoughts, if you have chosen to take on a female body in this lifetime, this fact has various spiritual implications which cannot and should not be ignored. It is important to use one’s feminine strengths in a positive, beneficial way—in a way which will hasten one’s spiritual evolution!

Here are a few of these strengths:

1) OPENNESS — In our culture today, women are much more likely to be spiritual seekers. We are not quite as protective of old ways. We like to embrace the flow of change all around us and seek new ways of growth. Openness is the first and most important attitude anyone must have to be a seeker of truth. Without the attitudes of flexibility and willingness to embrace change, very little spiritual progress is possible. However, the opposite side of the coin is the possibility of becoming too open or mentally scattered and unable to focus our energy when needed.

2) SENSITIVITY TO ENVIRONMENT, INSPIRING OTHERS — Women are generally very sensitive to beauty or the lack of it and very sensitive to vibrations of people and places. Women are often the main forces for the inspiration and upliftment of society, preservers of beauty, music, and the arts. They feel drawn to enjoy and protect nature and our planet. It has been said that the healing of Mother Earth, if it comes, will probably be spearheaded by women. Over-sensitivity can be a real drawback for a woman, too. Learning about appropriate boundaries and shielding may be necessary. Let us use our feminine sensitivity to enhance our receptive, listening nature and turn it towards listening for Divine Mother’s voice, in the inner silence of our souls.

3) SERVICEFULNESS — This quality seems to come naturally to most women. It is a compassionate desire to nourish and protect, to give, love, and serve, easily putting one’s self last, putting one’s own needs on indefinite hold. The dangerous side of this quality is “doormat” consciousness, an attitude all too easy for many women to take. We must be strong and centered in our serviceful attitudes, and learn how to keep the balance of self-nourishment when needed, or else the “well will run dry!”

4) FEELINGS, EMOTIONS — Women often go by “heart” rather than the intellect; there is both great strength in this and also some pitfalls. Balance is always a desirable goal. Emotions can cut two ways: offered to God first, they become purified in the form of devotion and divine unconditional love for all. Constantly projected elsewhere (outside ourselves), emotions may easily slip into destructive anger and fear or emotional illnesses of many types—this is most often caused by thwarted desires and destructive emotions or wishing things to be different than they are, and not having sufficient energy to change them.

5) THE ABILITY TO LOVE DEEPLY — Feeling deep, passionate love is a blessing, but passion or mother love can all too easily become “smother” love, unless we know how to use and transmute it to its highest and best expressions; human love must be kept in balance with reason and purified in the Spirit. You are Divine Mother’s beloved daughter. Tune in to that love first and then offer it to those closest to you and to the world around you. Be a channel for God’s healing love into this world—it needs it very much!

6) BODILY FUNCTIONS, HORMONES — The moon rhythms offer us times of great spiritual growth and depth; menstruation is a natural time to be more inward, to meditate more deeply. Catch these times whenever you can. Pregnancy, motherhood, menopause, all the phases of a woman’s life have deep spiritual implications. No human love can match that of a mother’s love for her child. But again, that sword cuts both ways. Love is all the sweeter when it is transmuted into divine love.

7) SISTERHOOD — Most women find that their relationships to other women are an incredibly nourishing and helpful aspect of their lives. Men rarely seem to find the depth of friendship with other men that seem to come to women so easily. We just seem to be naturally supportive of each other. The strength of a group of women who set out to do something together can be awesome! Spiritual friendships among women are a blessing almost beyond expression. A group of women who regularly pray, chant, and meditate together can uplift the environment around them with great clarity and efficiency.

8) HAVING FUN — Playfulness and just plain having fun are wonderful goals in themselves; it goes with the thought that it’s not so much what you do but how you do it. Women often create businesses to have fun. Sure money is a factor, but why not have fun making it? The happy laughter of women having fun together has a power often envied and rarely fully understood by the opposite sex, who sometimes seem prefer to be very SERIOUS, especially in business or financial matters. Lighten up and help others to do the same, male or female. The goal and destiny of all life is JOY! You will find that divine joy is all around you if you first seek it at its source, in the silence of your own soul.

9) POWERS OF ENDURANCE — A woman may lack the physical strength of a man, but she can often keep going or overcome pain and suffering in a manner which would destroy a man quickly; it’s that amazing ability to keep on putting out energy no matter how you feel. Apply the strength and power of feminine endurance to your spiritual path. Never give up! Never say “I have failed!” Just say: “I have not yet succeeded!” and keep on going. A woman can find that perfect balance of being both a spiritual warrior and a nourishing, loving mother, simultaneously.

10) A CREATIVE SPIRIT — Creativity is a basic factor in a woman’s life. After all, she has the power within her to create life! But creativity of the highest type is not biological; neither is it necessarily artistic. It is more like the ability to be resourceful, to make something from nothing, to find solutions in the face of great challenges, to stay cheerful and creative when the chips are down. Even so, it is probably true that every woman needs an artistic creative outlet of some sort. Be creative in finding that creative outlet in yourself and don’t think that this is a frivolous need. It is an essential feminine principle! God is our creator—creativity is our nature.

11) INTUITIVENESS — Perhaps the greatest of all feminine strengths! Intuition might be defined as a knowledge or certainty which comes to us through our sixth sense, beyond the usual five sensory inputs. We just know! Developing intuition is best done through regular, daily meditation. First, practice your meditation techniques, and then sit in the silence, in an open or receptive state. It is then that our intuitive powers are developed best. This doesn’t mean that guidance comes immediately, within a meditation session. It can, and often does, come later. But inner guidance does come, more and more perfectly and strongly with every meditation.

A final suggestion: don’t get too hung up about being a woman. It is just the type of “house” you are living in right now. Among women there are so many different types and temperaments, that it is difficult to make any really general statements about what a woman should do or not do, be or not be. Fall in love with the Divine, in whatever form that takes for you—and let the great power of your own spirituality lead you to your highest potential in this lifetime—as a woman, surely, but primarily as a Soul, a beloved child of God.