Teaching on Meditation, Yoga, Worship, Prayer and all Aspects of Spiritual Life
Guided Meditation
This guided meditation takes you through one of the most traditional methods of meditation using both concentration on the breath as well as the sacred syllable Om. Those attending this meditation were both beginners and long time practitioners. All were uplifted by the blessed effects.
Gentle Hatha Yoga
This one hour session of Gentle Hatha Yoga will guide you through positions (asanas) that are uniquely suited to achieve an easy but profound union between the body and the higher mind, being taught by one of the most famous instructors of the Hawaiian Islands. Those attending ranged in age from 15 to 75 (or older if the truth be told).
A Meditator’s Guide for Reducing Stress
Choose any Name of God you wish; such as Om, Rama, Krishna, Jesus, Buddha.
Sit upright as comfortably as you can, gently close your eyes.
Make the mind cool and still. Do not allow your meditation to become your opponent.
Approach meditation as a real friend, allowing adequate time to become best friends.
Dealing with the habits and tendencies which interfere with the practice of Yoga.
The student who tries to practice Yama-Niyama brings with him the momentum of all kinds of tendencies from previous lives, and in spite of his resolve, the undesirable habits and tendencies in which he has indulged assert themselves strongly and force him to act, feel and think in ways which go against his ideals. What is he to do under these circumstances?
The Lord, Who is in all things, is NOT in all thoughts
In our "modern" times, the fast-food approach to spirituality and religion is a most sought for commodity. This mind-set, technically referred to as Neo-Advaita, is in traditional scripture referred to as pramada - spiritual death. Although the Gita's fundamental philosophy declares that the Atman does not ever die, the human capacity to reveal and awaken the consciousness of the Atman can be crippled unto death.
The Spiritual Enemy Within - Pramada
The Sage Sanat Sujata is indicating that the presence of pramada brings about a spiritual death. Thus the spiritual madness that at first manifests as indifference, inattention and negligence becomes deadly because it is directed towards God. This is not to be defined as forgetfulness of the Self, unless one admits to a willful and belligerent forgetfulness.
Wisdom of Mahatma Gandhi on Prayer and Faith in God
“If we had attained the full vision of Truth, we would no longer be mere seekers,
but have become one with God, for truth is God...
Prayer has saved my life. Without it I should have been a lunatic long ago.”
Performing the highest form of worship
Your daily worship should remain dynamic in the sense that it will change as your spiritual progress proceeds. Thus, your prayers will change to conform to the aspirations of your mind and heart.
The important thing is to stay focused on the prayerful supplications, and that the physical offerings are only vehicles that carry the prayer to God. The finer and more beautiful the offerings are, the greater they should reflect the virtues you are seeking.
Traditional Meditation and Spiritual Life
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This lecture on the traditional methods of meditation and spiritual practice in the East was given at a University in the United States. It covers not only meditation practices but all aspects of successful spiritual practices.
A Smile, the Highest Operation of Grace
There is so much that can be said about a smile; indeed the exaltation it brings is indispensable even for saints. Saint Francis de Sales once said: “A saint who is sad, is a sad saint!” Indeed, smiling opens the heart and lets your light shine. Scientists claim that it encourages good health; it reduces stress, increases the endorphin flow (the inner happy chemicals in the blood) and it is contagious.
Metanoia, part 2 - Changing our mind to Higher Life from "The Mark" by Maurice Nicoll
It is not sorrow or repenting in any ordinary sense that brings about a change of mind. Man may sorrow, but not to the point of metanoia. Yet there is a special kind of suffering that leads to metanoia and it is of this suffering that Paul speaks when he contrasts it with the ordinary suffering of life: 'For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation . . . ; but the sorrow of the world worketh death' (II Corinthians vii.10).
From "The Bhagavad Gita - God Talks With Arjuna" by Paramhansa Yogananda
Every man has the power to resist the influence of sense-identified, habit-bound existence. This power of renunciation does not involve any loss to the devotee, but gives him the opportunity to remove and forsake all those things that retard his spiritual progress.
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From the Philosophy of Gorakhnath
Mahayogis thus point out how the Ultimate Reality and the Ultimate Ideal of our life presents Himself every moment in the constitution of our body and is within our easy reach.
From the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
Master: “This second view is held in the Devi Purana. According to it, Kali Herself has become Krishna; but what difference does it make? God is infinite, and infinite are the ways to find Him.”
