A Paramhansa Yogananda disciple for over 49 years shares practical wisdom from the Master’s teachings
- Asha on Relationships: a Six-Part Series.
- Jesus Brought a Promise of Truth and Grace — for Our Lives Today. Asha explains how Paramhansa Yogananda expanded Jesus’ promise for this dawning age of energy-awareness.
- The Gifts of the Avatar: Truth and Grace. Asha helps us understand the avatar and what he offers us.
- Can We Ever Fail Irredeemably on the Spiritual Path? Asha describes the very important role of our mistakes and weaknesses in the spiritual life.
- The Interplay of Light and Shadow in This World. Asha shares her thoughts on how we can align ourselves with the divine Light.
- The Light of Inner Freedom. Asha shares insights on attitudes that open us to the light of God within us.
- “Getting the Point” in the Spiritual Life. Asha explains how easy it is to go off the rails in our understanding of the path, and how to get back on track.
- Where Does Progress in the Spiritual Life Begin? Asha answers: should we endeavor to live very closely to the way the saints live?
- How Reincarnation Helps Us Make Sense of Our Daily Lives. Reincarnation is not only fun to speculate about; it can help us find deep meaning in the seemingly random events of this life.
- Learning to Play by the Right Rules. Asha reveals how we can shake off past mistakes and learn to be free in God.
- What Does It Mean to Pray Believing? Asha reveals how we develop the power of inner knowing.
- “Seek Ye First…” — Ah, Yes, But Where Do We Start? Asha explains what it means to seek God, and how to know what to do next.
- What Is It Like to Be a Master? (And to Be Our Own Best Self?) Asha testifies to the power that expresses through Self-realized souls (and potentially in us).
- On the Spiritual Path: The Innocence of Experience. Asha expounds on the innocence of good karma, and the innocence of inner freedom.
- God Does NOT Define Us By Our Mistakes and Weaknesses! Asha reveals the extreme importance of freeing our spiritual lives from pretense.
- Swami Kriyananda’s Consciousness — Nothing But Bliss. Asha reveals her thoughts on the nature of a master’s consciousness.
- What’s the Higher Meaning of the Crises in Our Lives? Asha reveals the encouraging message of the last days of Jesus’ life.
- What Are the Understandings That Qualify Us to Enter the Spiritual Life? Asha describes the prerequisites and how these attitudes can help us in troubled times.
- The “Inside Story” of the Missing Years of Jesus’ Life. Asha reveals what Paramhansa Yogananda said of the missing years, and their meaning for us today.
- Right Spiritual Action in Unsettled Times. Asha shares insights on how to act in the highest spiritual way in a troubled world.
- How to Live Without Fear. Asha shares her thoughts on Yin, Yang, male, female, and spiritual wholeness.
- The Problem of Consciousness — Cause for Alarm? — or Joy? Asha boldly confronts a great question in many people’s lives: should we think of reincarnation with horror or rejoicing?
- When We Live for God, His Liberating Help Is Just a Heartfelt Prayer Away. Asha describes an important aspect of the world mission of Paramhansa Yogananda: a revolutionary system of education based on kindness, compassion, and mercy.
- Cling Thou to Me — the Answer in Difficult Times. Asha tells how a great Western spiritual heroine lived the essence of the all true religions.
- What Happens When We Become God-Realized? Asha shares her thoughts on a powerful statement by Swami Kriyananda.
- The Best Way to Help the World — and Ourselves — Today. Asha shares insights for helping others and finding increasing inner freedom and attunement with the Divine.
- Do I REALLY Need a Guru? Asha addresses this critically important question.
- Who Will Lead Us Out of the Valley of the Shadow of Death? Asha explains Jesus’ saying, “I am the way, the truth, and the life…”
- Lessons From a Pilgrimage: Remembering to Remember. Asha reveals the lessons of a pilgrimage to Israel, and how to make a pilgrimage of our daily lives.
- Why Waste Time Worrying? We Are Held in God’s Hand. Asha reveals why worrying is a complete waste of time.
- How Can We Advance Rapidly Toward the Shining Goal? Asha reveals how we can make rapid progress by working realistically with ourselves.
- “The Word” Is AUM, the Silent Call of God. Asha reveals how God made creation by projecting the vibration of AUM, in which we can merge our consciousness and commune with Him.
- Can We Become Free In This Lifetime? Asha reveals her not-crazy-making way of thinking about the possibility of becoming a jivanmukta this time around.
- What Does It Mean to Be Born Again? Asha shares insights on reincarnation and its role in the journey to Self-realization.
- The Healing Message of Reincarnation. Asha shares the hope-inspiring meaning of reincarnation.
- Learning to Live in Perfect Inner Simplicity Before God. How can we be inwardly childlike and simple before God while managing our lives in an increasingly complex world? Asha shares her thoughts.
- First Step to Spiritual Growth: Accepting Ourselves Exactly as We Are. Asha explains why there can be no progress toward ultimate happiness until we are willing to work with ourselves honestly and sincerely.
- Where Shall We Find the Courage to Overcome Our Tests? Asha shares inspiration for facing our hardest trials with faith.
- Crossing the Gap Between Our High Aspirations and Our Present Realities. Should we be crushed by the enormous chasm between our present realities and our shining goal? Asha suggests ways to cope.
- The Spiritual Path Is Very Simple. Our lives may seem impossibly complex at times, but just beneath the surface our eternal relationship with God is utterly simple.
- Our Relationship with God: Personal or Impersonal? Asha talks about the subtle interplay of personal and impersonal attitudes in our relationship with God and Guru.
- Be of Good Cheer: I have Conquered the World. Asha explains the inner message of Easter.
- The Power to Find Joy in Our Severest Tests. Asha shares insights into the lives of those who have found great joy and victory over suffering.
- Where Does Our True Security Come From? Asha reveals with engaging stories and deep wisdom why our only real security is God.
- Heroic Love Can Be Ours. Asha reveals how our greatest challenges can always be overcome by meeting them with an equal measure of love.
- All We Ever Really Have Is Our Consciousness. How can we find greater happiness and success at every moment of our lives? Asha helps us discover the keys.
- The Spiritual Life Is Much Simpler than We Image. Asha reveals why it is we who make the path more complicated than it has to be.
- Just As We Are — God Loves Us Unconditionally, Always. Asha reveals the nature of God’s eternal love for us.
- Finding the “Portable Paradise” of God’s Presence Within. Asha encourages us to find God” joy and healing love in all circumstances.
- Who Are the True Christians? Asha shares a fresh understanding of Christ’s role in our redemption.
- What Will Religion Look Like in the Age of Energy-Awareness? Asha foretells an age when religion will be more adaptable to humanity’s inward need to know God.
- The Guru’s Role in the Spiritual Life. Asha reveals why we need a fully realized soul to free us from the veils of delusion.
- Happiness Comes by Attunement to Truth. Asha explains why happiness and spiritual progress come by attuning ourselves to a higher vibration.
- Self-Acceptance: Key to Spiritual Progress. How should we relate to God? Does He expect more of us than we can manage?
- Little Children Before God — The Definition of a Disciple. Asha reveals how the great ones relate to their masters.
- How Artistic Creativity Can Bring Us Spiritual Healing. Asha explains why Paramhansa Yogananda and his direct disciple Swami Kriyananda encouraged and urged us to exercise our creativity through the arts.
- What Jesus Really Taught, and What It Means for Us as Disciples. Asha reveals what Jesus meant when he used the pronoun “I,” and why it is the key to understanding his original teachings.
- How to Be an Instrument for Divine Light in this World. Asha explains how the light of God manifests through us in three stages.
- Keys to Spiritual Progress — Understanding Where We Are and Where We’re Going. Asha shares insights for working with ourselves as we are, and how to keep moving toward our highest goal.
- The Devil Made Me Do It — Truer Than We Thought? Asha reveals the true meaning of the devil.
- Jesus’ Message of Redemption. Asha explains Jesus’ mission, and why we can only grow spiritually by starting where we are.
- Art & Creativity As a Spiritual Practice. Asha shares important thoughts on the central role of creativity in our spiritual lives.
- What Are the Qualities of the Mother Aspect of God? Asha explains how the image of God as evolved over millennia: from Judge to Father to loving Mother.
- How Can We Grow Spiritually? Asha suggests how we can come closer to God most rapidly by working with ourselves exactly as we are.
- Intuition Is Simple — the Intellect Is Complex. Asha explains why we must first calm our hearts if we want to know what God wants of us.
- The Meaning of the Resurrection. Asha explains the mystical meaning of the resurrection for our own spiritual lives.
- Faith Is a Call to Prayer; Prayer Is a Call to Faith. Asha explains the meaning of Jesus’ words, “Ask, and it shall be given…”
- We Are Children of the Light. Asha explains the meaning of the redemption. Where does suffering come from? What role does it play in our salvation?
- The Church of Love and the Church of Law. Should we follow the rules or cultivate God’s presence in our hearts? Asha answers.
- Does Satan Exist? A Spiritual View. Asha explains the subtle spiritual meaning of Satan.
- What’s the Best Way to Achieve Our Liberation? Asha explains the compassion in a dire-sounding passage from the Bhagavad Gita.
- A Wordless Yearning for Redemption. Asha tells how Christ comes in response to the boundless yearning of our hearts for God’s bliss.
- Many Are the Pathways to Truth. Asha explains how we can work with our own nature as we learn to live increasingly at the center of our being.
- How to Understand Your Karma. In the end, all our joys and sorrows must be resolved in a Big Zero. Does this mean that we shouldn’t savor the joys of this life?
- Why Offer God Anything, When He Has Everything? Asha explains how we should come before God, with all our limitations.
- God’s Relentless Pursuit of His Devotee. Asha explains how liberation comes, and how we can keep moving toward our freedom.
- The Seeker’s Choice: to Become a Hermit, or Live Spiritually Where We Are. Asha explains how we can reconcile our karma with our high spiritual aspirations.
- We Are Always Alone with God. Asha talks about that which we can and cannot change in our search for the ultimate happiness.
- The Path from Suffering to Happiness. Asha talks about the need for suffering, and how we can find ever-increasing happiness.
- Does the Son of God Live Within Us? Asha explains how we too, like Jesus, are Sons of God, and how we can realize that deepest truth of our existence.
- What Was Yogananda Really Like? Asha describes the Yogananda that we don’t really get to know in his great book Autobiography of a Yogi.
- Is Reincarnation Real? What Can We Do About It? Asha reveals why traditional theologies make no sense if they dismiss reincarnation.
- Did God Create Us or Did He Become Us? Asha reveals the answer: we have never been separate from God; we just need to improve our knowing.
- Christ Enters Jerusalem — the Inner Meaning of the Story. Asha clarifies the dual meaning of a keystone event in the life and mission of Jesus Christ.
- Reincarnation — Keystone of the Spiritual Life. Asha explains why reincarnation is a bedrock feature of Jesus’ teachings, and why it urgently needs to be brought back into Christianity today.
- Christ’s Teachings Are for the Individual Seeker. Asha explains Christ’s frightening promise.
- Karma and Happiness: Life’s Only Real Answer. Asha reveals how we can face our karma and find happiness in the midst of our life’s struggles.
- The Light Shining in Darkness: Down-to-Earth Reflections. Asha meditates on the famous Bible verse and its meaning for our daily lives.
- Coping with Tragedy: The Spiritual Meaning of 9/11. Asha talks about the spiritual meaning of the tragic events in our lives.
- “Getting the Point” in the Spiritual Life. Asha explains the importance of intuition and experience on the spiritual path.
- Working With Our Present Reality as We Aspire to Self-Realization. Asha talks about achieving balance in our spiritual life.
- Did God Create or Become the World? Asha tells why the answer is extremely relevant at the earthy, day-to-day level of our spiritual lives.
- How Do We Prove Our Faith? Asha talks about the nature of faith: what it is, and how we can make our faith stronger.
- Destiny, Political and Divine: Who Is Actually Running This World? Asha shares a spiritual view of the 2016 elections.
- To Know True Joy: The Challenge of Jesus’ Last Days. Asha explains the inner meaning of the final chapter of Jesus’ life.
- Outward Service or Inner Attunement? Asha talks about Ananda and SRF, and why we need to keep our inner attunement fresh every day.
- Activity or Inner Communion: Finding Your Path. Asha explains the deeper meaning of the Bible story of Mary and Martha.
- What Is the Best Way to Worship? Asha talks about the true meaning of worship, with reference to the woman of Samaria, the Bhagavad Gita, and Sri Ramakrishna.
- What Really Matters on the Spiritual Path? Asha explains why rigid rules and extreme austerities fail to capture the essence of our relationship with God.
- How to Stay Safely on the Spiritual Path. The path is long and filled with challenges; how can we walk safely at the center of the path?
- Where Can We Find the Answers We Are Seeking? Asha tells us where we can find a higher power of healing, guidance, and happiness.
- Resurrection for Every Soul. Asha explains the meaning of Mary Magdalene’s love for our spiritual lives.
- The Highest Relationship Between the Devotee and God. Asha explains the expanded meaning of the story of Jesus and the bleeding woman who touched his robe.
- “Be Ye Therefore Perfect.” — How Can We Understand Christ’s Challenge?. Asha explains what Christ’s greatest challenge means for us in each moment of our lives.
- Indispensable Qualities for Knowing God. Asha reveals attitudes and qualities of consciousness that enable us to know God in our daily lives.
- Do We Create Happiness, Or Does It Exist Already? Asha explains the path to happiness and freedom for suffering in a new age of energy-awareness.
- Understanding the Spiritual Path, Its Trials and Rewards. Asha explains the essential role that right attitude plays, and the importance of cultivating an intimate relationship with God.
- The Message of Jesus’ Life. Nayaswami Asha reveals the meaning of the lineage of Moses and Jesus, and what it means for our inner lives.
- Growing Into a Greater Self — Let God Change You. Asha reveals Yogananda’s teachings about the process of growing into our birthright of oneness with God.
- Who Was Yogananda in His Former Lives? Asha talks about Yogananda’s mission to unite East and West.
- When Desires End – the Method of Finding Freedom. Asha tells stories that shed light on the process of finding perfect contentment in God.
- How to Deal Expertly With Your Karma. When suffering comes, there is a way to stay in God’s light, even as the karmic storms howl around us.
- The Path of the Devotee Leads From Law to Love. In the beginning of our search, we follow the law; later, we discover that the answer, always, is love
- Love vs Wisdom on the Spiritual Path. Asha shares insights on the strange interrelation of these two very necessary qualities in the spiritual life.
- What Does It Mean to Love Divinely? Asha talks about Catholic saints and the path of expanding the heart by praying for others.
- Attuning Ourselves to God Through Sacred Sounds. “The only duty that has been given to man is to listen to the inner sounds,’ said Lahiri Mahasaya. We can merge our consciousness with God by singing sacred music, and by listening to the AUM or sacred Amen in the stillness of meditation.
- Living in the Presence of Divine Love. Asha tells how she experienced the presence of Christ in the Holy Land in an unexpected way.
- The Path of Divine Ascension. Nayaswami Asha talks about Christ’s message of light and redemption.
- To Find What You’ve Always Been Seeking, Look to Your Innermost Self. Asha talks about a paradox of the spiritual path: that when we find ourselves by becoming nothing.
- Is It Our Spiritual Responsibility to Help Make a Perfect World? Asha clarifies our spiritual duty in this world of suffering.
- The Quickest Way Back to God. Asha describes our quandary: lost in desires, the surest path that will take us back to our true home is selfless service and love.
- When Are We Ready to Receive God? Spiritual maturity is when we can accept reality on its own terms.
- Paramhansa Yogananda’s Message of Religious Unity. Yogananda showed people how they can experience God for themselves. And knowing Him, they will recognize that He is the same in all religions.
- Defending Yoga in America — The Tapasya of Ananda. Swami Kriyananda helped yoga maintain its original purity, at the cost of great personal sacrifice.
- Does God Want Us to Beat Ourselves Up Over Our Mistakes? God forgives us even before we fall into error.
- “Who do you think I am?” How we should answer Christ’s question. Our salvation comes by realizing the God who is Christ.
- Children of God’s Light. Asha explains how we can live in the world with the constant awareness of God.
- Fear and Humility — Incompatible Opposites. Every great master has come on earth to teach us a simple lesson: that when we give up the ego, we become perfectly secure and fearless in the consciousness of God.
- The Oneness of All Religions. Yogananda offered the world a solution to religious strife: a more radical one than superficial coexistence and ecumenism.
- Why Did Swami Kriyananda Rewrite Yogananda’s First Book? Yogananda held tremendous hopes for The Science of Religion. Why did Swami Kriyananda feel that it was important to rewrite it?
- How Long Will It Take Us To Be One With God? Asha suggests that we embrace the urgency of the spiritual path, but be practical in our efforts on the journey.
- The Search for Happiness Ends Inside. The arc of our karma is inescapable, but we can influence the quality of the journey tremendously by living more in God.
- To Free Yourself, First Be Yourself! Asha explains why God wants us to be open and childlike in our relationship with Him.
- Are Great Masters Above Human Feelings? Asha tells how she reconciled Swami Kriyananda’s impersonal consciousness with his sensitive human heart.
- God’s Play, and the Way of Escape from Endless Cycles of Pain and Pleasure. Asha talks about how we can live honestly, accepting our present reality while seeking the gateway to a higher understanding.
- The Light Within Us That Never Dies. The master pays no attention to the darkness in us; his sole concern is increasing the light.
- The Freedom to Love: Expanding Awareness on the Spiritual Path. What is the power that enables us to give ourselves completely to God without reservation?
- Finding God — Soul and Science. Asha finds the inspiration hidden in a simple sentence of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras.
- The Virgin Birth — Merely Symbolic, or Does It Express a Deep Truth? This world is very different from the true divine reality.
- Atheism Versus Self-realization — What Should Our Position Be? Should we combat atheism or concentrate on our own God-realization?
- Mistakes on the Spiritual Path — How to Lighten the Load. We have no choice but to accept that mistakes are the necessary prelude to progress on the path.
- The Love that Satisfies Our Restless Hearts. Nayaswami Asha reveals how God calls us through the restless yearnings of our hearts.
- The Joy that Forever Satisfies All Desires. Asha elaborates on a chant that contains a complete and wonderful description of the path to liberation.
- Mother of Us All. Yogananda brought the West a new dispensation from God: a path of intimacy, in which we can welcome God in our hearts as the Universal Mother.
- How can we change and become more inspired and spiritual?. Asha describes the ins and outs of spiritual growth, and how God’s natural laws lead us gradually back to Him.
- “I want only Thee, Lord” — or do I really? Asha helps understand the balance between self-acceptance and high aspiration.
- The Prodigal Son — Lessons for Us All. The famous Bible story has a powerful message with important ramifications.
- The secret of spiritual growth: start where you are. People constantly complain, “I’m not good enough. I’m unworthy.” But even if it’s true, what choice do we have but to work with ourselves exactly as we are. In fact, this is what pleases God greatly.
- Let us accept ourselves and grow at our own pace. A 45-year disciple of Paramhansa Yogananda suggests that we be compassionate with ourselves and grow spiritually at our own most natural speed.
- Is God in the details of our lives? Paramhansa Yogananda said that God accepts us exactly as we are, and that He wants to be involved in the tiniest details of our lives, guiding and loving.
- Compassion for our present truth is the doorway to further progress. Yogananda taught that we should think of spiritual progress as a long-distance race, not a sprint.
- How Swami Kriyananda taught me to cook — and so much more. Paramhansa Yogananda taught that spiritual awakening is a precious gift that must be protected from the gnawing mice of doubts and other people’s opinions.
- The high promise hiding behind the harsh reality of this world. Paramhansa Yogananda said that we are guests in this world. A bad guests grabs part of the world for himself. Freedom comes in recognizing our true role.
- Being spiritual doesn’t mean we have to suppress our feelings. Paramhansa Yogananda urged people to be honest with their feelings, because spiritual progress requires that we work with ourselves exactly as we are.
- When life stops giving you what you desire, learn to get what you truly want. It’s a baffling paradox: God wants us to live with full will power, yet with complete surrender to His will.
- America’s Importance and Spiritual Destiny. The Founding Fathers created a world-shaking new model of individual freedom. Paramhansa Yogananda brought a complementary world-changing movement of inner freedom
- Do you have the courage to come to God exactly as you are, with all your faults? To do so is the first requirement on the spiritual path, and the surest path to happiness.
- The Story of How Ananda Evolved from a Hippie Dream to a Global Spiritual Work. Paramhansa Yogananda wanted his work to be spread as broadly as possible; Ananda has blazed a path to show others how they can be part of his global mission.
- Find God in the Small Moments of Your Life. Yogananda gave us prayers for invoking God’s help in every possible human situation.
- What Can We Do to Keep God in Our Heart (with all Our Imperfections)? Yogananda urged people to live in the moment, improving daily, otherwise our imperfections and past mistakes may threaten to overwhelm us.
- What Does “Obedience” Mean in Yogananda’s Teachings? People often have trouble accepting the need for “cooperative obedience” on the spiritual path. But whether we think of obedience or attunement, growth comes by sacrificing the ego on the spiritual path.
- Act in this World While Living in the Spirit. Paramhansa Yogananda and his great disciple Swami Kriyananda taught us how to commune with Spirit and retain that awareness while acting in the world.
- What Does It Mean to “Miss the Point” on the Spiritual Path? Patanjali’s cryptic admonishment carries an important lesson.
- Why Not Choose Happiness Now? Yogananda taught that the whole world is looking for more happiness, and to escape sorrow. The path is simple. It needs only our determination, and time.
- Inward Path or Outward Path? Meditation or Work? Swami Kriyananda taught as Yogananda did, that the spiritual path for this age is intense activity for God, plus meditation.
- Spiritual Essentials for Knowing God. Yogananda was kind and loving. Yet he called us to make an extreme sacrifice. In essence, however, the “method” is quite simple.
- Mother Is In Charge. The spiritual path is simple. We are complex. When, having exhausted all other resources, we cry for the Mother’s help, She responds unfailingly.
- The Difficult Path of Opening Our Hearts to God. The path of Self-realization is entirely about becoming increasingly receptive, open, and exposed before the all-seeing eyes of God.
- Finding God in All Simplicity. Swami Kriyananda became very simple in the way he presented the teachings in the last years of his life. And simplicity is where we, too, can find God.
- Finding Our Life’s True Purpose. Paramhansa Yogananda taught, like other liberated masters, that the purpose of life is to expand our awareness inwardly and achieve oneness with God.
- What Shall We Do With Our Lives? The secret of life is very simple — but of course, that doesn’t mean it’s easy.
- Help! Help! — When Human Strength Is Not Enough. Human powers ultimately fail us; then we realize that we need a help that only the masters can provide.
- Churches Small and Large – Where Hearts Seek God. Can churches keep their spirit as they grow? The answer depends on whether the members remember why the church exists.
- Where Is True Happiness? Swami Kriyananda and his great guru Paramhansa Yogananda taught that lasting happiness is found only within.
- Secrets of Using the Ego as a Tool to Find Freedom. Yogananda revealed how we can use the ego as a tool to help us find freedom from the ego’s wiles. The answer lies in deep honesty.
- A Practical Religion. The story of Ananda shows how we can make our religion practical, based on using magnetism and energy to know God and do His will.
- On the Spiritual Path, How Can We Work With Our Feelings? We need deep feelings to love God and be real with Him; yet emotions create “static” that prevent us from knowing our inner oneness with God.
- The Meaning of Life is Simpler Than We Imagine. Paramhansa Yogananda taught methods for knowing the Christ who lives always within us.
- Should Yogis Be Activists? Yogis have an unparalleled opportunity to uplift the world’s consciousness, by their loyalty to divine principles.
- God’s Call Within. The world will always disappoint us. Masters such as Christ and Yogananda offer us a sure path to the only true satisfaction, within.
- Swami Kriyananda: Two Very Different Kinds of Music. Most music stimulates emotional longings, which it leaves unfulfilled. Another kind of music is soul-satisfying because it comes from soulful sources.
- Yogananda and “Tough Love.” Finding the greatest love demands that we sarifice personal loves and emotions. “You must be hard as steel against sensitivity,” Paramhansa Yogananda said.
- You Are the Pure Gold of the Divine. In the West, religious teachers (and evolutionary biologists) tell us we are sinners and no better than our animal nature. The East has a very different viewpoint.
- The Teacher’s Kindness, The Teacher’s Discipline. Swami Kriyananda was always very kind. But kindness sometimes required that he be strict.
- How to Face Life’s Unavoidable Changes. Nothing is more certain than change. How can we face life’s changes adroitly, wisely, in the moment?