 
### SPIRITUAL TEACHINGS FOR OUR TIMES

By George O. Johnston

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Published by  
George O. Johnston at Smashwords  
© 2012-2018 by George O. Johnston

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This publication is a free ebook.

It may be reproduced or transmitted without written permission and may be shared with others free of charge.

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Revised by the author 2018
Table of Contents

Author's Note

Article One The Self and God

Article Two A Course in Yoga

Article Three Yoga in Detroit in the Sixties

Article Four Finding God within—the Path of Yoga

Article Five Yogacharya's Sayings and Way of Teaching

Article Six Patanjali's Yoga Sutras: Action ("Kriya") Yoga

Article Seven Meditation Techniques and Hatha Yoga Benefits

Article Eight Alternate Nostril and Bhramari Breathing

Article Nine Cultivating Intuition

Article Ten Happiness

Article Eleven Delusion, Ego, and Free Will

Article Twelve Pain and Suffering

Article Thirteen The Meaning of the Garden of Eden Story

Article Fourteen Channeling, Visitations, and New Teachings from Jesus

Article Fifteen Religion in Transition

Article Sixteen The Spiritual Return of Jesus

Article Seventeen Sin and Evil

Article Eighteen False Concepts in Conversations with God.

Article Nineteen Is A Course of Love Truth or Falsehood?

Article Twenty Is The Disappearance of the Universe a Valid Interpretation of ACIM?

George and Mary Ann Johnston, Website, Mary Ann's three books

Author's Note:

In this book you will find all of my articles on spiritual teachings, some of my poems, and reviews of metaphysical books. I am grateful for the teachings of Paramahansa Yogananda and Jesus, which have profoundly shaped my life and beliefs. Jesus has communicated with devotees ever since his resurrection and in our time has given "new teachings" to people who could receive and faithfully record them for the benefit of those who wish to read and contemplate them. These teachings of truth, hope and guidance for our times are priceless, and some of them are in this book. Please keep in mind that not all messages from the other side of the veil are true. Some are false and are intended to deceive. However, I have good reason to believe that the messages received by my wife, Mary Ann Johnston, Helen Schucman, Alexander Soltys Jones and a number of others are from Jesus and not some entity posing as Jesus. In our time, this great master is addressing misconceptions and false beliefs that have been held by the Church for about fifteen centuries and is introducing humanity to concepts that very few people would have understood when he walked the earth. And Yogananda also has corrected misconceptions, and misinterpretations of Jesus' words, spoken in Aramaic, and has brought to the West ancient teachings from the East.
Article One

The Self and God

The Nirvana Sutra

Just before he passed on, the Buddha spoke to a multitude in a discourse called the Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra, or simply the Nirvana Sutra, in which he explained that his earlier teachings about non-Self and emptiness were preliminary teachings designed to free one from associating transient phenomena with Reality, which is permanent and eternal. In this sutra, he tells his students that they needed to come to the realization that the body and its experiences of ever-changing phenomena are not real, and he is now giving them the ultimate truth: "the Self is Reality (tattva), the Self is permanent (nitya), the Self is virtue (guna), the Self is eternal (sasvata), the Self is stable (dhruva), the Self is peace (siva)." It is within us, but we are not aware of it.

Only by transcending thoughts and ordinary emotions, living a moral life, and meditating can the Self be seen. It is the realm of nirvana and shines within each person's soul.

For further information on the Nirvana Sutra and the Self (Atman):

www.nirvanasutra.net

Know Thy Self

The advice "Know thy Self" tells us what we should do if we want to know God. For, in knowing the higher Self, one knows God as the Infinite Love, Light, Peace, and Joy in whom all things are united as one. To realize the infinite Self is to experience God's omnipresence in the universe. The Self already is consciously united with God, and when one becomes enlightened and realizes the Self, one experiences God. By living the truths taught by those who know the Self, one becomes more aware of the Self, and the illusion of separation from God gradually disappears. In time, one experiences the infinite bliss and omnipresence of the Self and God.

What is the Self that seekers seek to know? One might say it is neither the physical body, the astral body of energies, feelings and thought, nor the causal body, which is of and beyond thought as we know it, because these vehicles are usually abandoned as one becomes more and more enlightened. Yet, the Self is one with everything—and that includes its bodies, as well as all of creation. The Self is the soul, in the highest sense of the word "soul." It is infinite, and lives forever in the eternal present beyond time. Still, it is one with everything existing in time and space, and is, therefore, omnipresent. The Self cannot be adequately described in human language because words can only hint at its glory. Nevertheless, enlightened masters have spoken of or written about the Self—using terms such as "unconditional love," "the light of God" and "divine bliss"—knowing that some people would understand what they meant. In fact, to the extent that we comprehend our oneness with everything, and the divine peace, love, light and joy within us, we do understand the Self.

What keeps us from knowing the Self in the fullness of its glory? The mortal self, or ego. "Ego" is a term that represents the mental processes that make us think we are separate from God. It is the ego that judges, compares, and keeps us in a state of fear, entranced with illusions of duality. It causes us to think we are a body and to be attached to possessions. It causes us to be angry when others do not agree with us. The ego has been with us for a very long time, but it does not exist forever. It can be removed from one's mind by spiritual practices, such as meditating on God, serving others unselfishly, contemplating the teachings of enlightened masters, and loving others unconditionally.

As one becomes less and less influenced by ego-consciousness, one becomes more and more filled with love and light. Wisdom increases, fear decreases, and one indulges less in defensive mental mechanisms, such as projecting one's own faults on others. By binding us to illusions, the ego keeps us ignorant of spiritual reality, but it cannot withstand the power of truth. By constant effort to live in truth and love and by following the inner, intuitive guidance of Spirit, its influence over us is weakened and eventually we are freed from its grip. The ego is the last thing to go before one is able to fully realize the Self. After it is gone, it is seen as an illusion, but until it is finally overcome, it keeps us from seeing everything as one, unified in God.

Enlightened masters, while on earth, experience the Self in ecstatic trances or in the nirvikalpa samadhi state. This is the state of consciousness of one who has advanced beyond the need to be immobile and in a trance in order to realize the Self as blissful, omnipresent consciousness, one with all that is. The teachings about the Self presented in this book are based on what enlightened beings have said about it. Keep in mind that we are made in the "image and likeness" of God, and the attributes of the Self are attributes of God.

The Self is divine love—unconditional, pure, and holy. In its ultimate grandeur and glory, this love is incomprehensible to the ordinary human being, for it is the power that runs the universe. But many of us know something about it because it is what we, in essence, are, and we glimpse its nature when our ego defenses are down and our hearts open up. Divine love is felt in the sacred heart, or heart chakra, a non-physical, spiritual center located in the dorsal spine. Through deep meditation, holiness and purity, one can enter the silent sanctuary of the sacred heart. There, in the pristine "Garden of Eden" of Spirit consciousness, undisturbed by human desires and body consciousness, a seeker who perseveres will someday realize the infinite nature of the Self.

Divine love is given without any strings attached, from one's very being. It is, by far, the greatest power we possess, although this truth seems strange to those who think of power only as a physical agency. Divine love creates things, changes situations, promotes harmony, engenders forgiveness, elevates consciousness, heals emotional wounds, energizes the body, resolves disputes, attracts people to each other, reveals God, and brings peace, contentment, better health, and joy into our lives.

The love that a soul expresses during its incarnation in a particular body attracts light to that soul. This light remains with the soul, energizes its body, and stays with the soul after the body dies. If one lives an unloving life, this light dims, but that soul can shine brightly again by living in love. The light of the soul heals, strengthens, and sustains the body. It is life force.

Each soul is unique, and its individuality may be experienced as the quality of divine love coming from a person. Just think: There are billions of human beings on earth alone, not to speak of the rest of the universe, and each soul is a unique expression of love, just as each of the countless snowflakes falling to earth from above is a unique expression of beauty! Those who are attuned to oneness experience God's individual expressions of love and beauty, not in a dualistic way, as sharply contrasted with each other, but as unified in oneness, as part of the One. In Messages from Jesus by Mary Ann Johnston, Jesus says, "The majority of mankind defines their selves as separate, instead of unified in reality in the eternal now. As individuals become more attuned to all as one, they will attract more and more individuals to this realization."

The ultimate experience of wholeness is oneness, or unity, with all that is. We can feel oneness with something—the sky, a rose, a friend—but, ultimately, wholeness means oneness with everything, with all that is. Such wholeness is the nature of God as the One. The Hindu scriptures speak of the One without a second. This is a way of speaking of God—such wholeness that nothing exists beyond it. In experiencing oneness with all that is, there is great peace and harmony. Everything is seen with eyes of love and in the light of the One. Even things we usually regard as evil or destructive are seen from this perspective. Good and evil are just opposites in the ongoing drama of duality, and opposites exist only in relation to each other. When the soul is liberated from the illusion of duality, opposites vanish. However, a liberated soul is able to participate in duality to awaken others.

God is infinite love, light and bliss—ever existing, creative and free—the uncaused cause of the universe. The Self is an individual expression of this love, light, bliss, immortality, creativity and freedom—an endowment that we become aware of when we awaken to our infinite wholeness. And, as part of God, the Self shares in God's omnipresence and omniscience. Each of us is a magnificent creation of God, one with God and every other soul. However, under the influence of ego, we identify with our physical body and our role here on earth, suffer from the pains, fears and limitations of this world, and are oblivious of our blissful omnipresence and perfection. No wonder enlightened beings advise us to know the Self!

The Self and God

The essence of our soul is the eternal Self—  
A pure reflection of God's love and light and joy,  
His supreme power and infinite intelligence.  
The Self is what we are, and it is one with God.

If we love God and strive to know and do His will,  
The nature of the Self and God will be revealed.  
Love's light will shine away our fear and guilt,  
And we will find God's joyful paradise within.

So we must strive to realize the Self and God,  
And talk with God and think of Him in all we do.  
Then we will know we're one with Him and loved by Him,  
And He will guide our footsteps everywhere we go.

O Spirit,

The beauty, life, and the intelligence  
In earth and universe tell us of Thee.  
They hint at Thy immensity and power and creativity.

The multitude of living species  
With complex codes in every cell  
—The means by which each animal and plant  
Can thrive and grow and reproduce its kind—  
Fill us with awe of such intelligence divine.

Vast, snow-capped mountains, ancient, towering trees,  
Shooting stars, northern lights, and whirling galaxies—  
They all reflect Thy mighty power and majesty.  
The sounds of thunder and of gentle, falling rain,  
The sunlit day and moonlit night,  
The brilliant autumn leaves, the winter's white,  
The verdant growth in spring and summer's lush delight  
Reveal Thy cyclic, rhythmic artistry.

And many other blessings of our earthly home—  
The ocean's roar, the gentle breeze,  
The rising wind and swaying trees,  
The changing shapes and textures of the clouds above;  
The varied colors, grace and majesty  
Of butterflies and blossoms,  
Birds in flight and stars at night;  
The blissful love that's felt  
When human ego vanishes and hearts unfold—  
All these suggest Thy nature.

For all that's good in Thy creation and humanity  
Comes from and is sustained by Thy creative love and light.  
Thou art Supreme Reality;  
Thy infinite, but veiled, intelligence in every soul  
Ensures our sure and certain progress,  
As through free choice, we stand, then fall,  
Then rise again; each time with lessons learned.

And when, in love and meditative stillness,  
Thou art revealed through faculties within the soul,  
We'll merge with Thee in silent, sweet communion.  
In boundless bliss, in oneness with Thy glory,  
The sorrows of the past will melt away.  
All will be seen as one in Thy transcendent sea of light,  
And, as Thou truly art, we'll know Thee on that day.
Article Two

A Course in Yoga

Yoga is the science of the sacred. It shows us how to experience the heavenly realities that saints and sages of various religious paths experienced and wrote about. The disciplines of yoga, if faithfully practiced, bring about the sacred experiences that give life and light to religion.

This article is part of a manual I wrote for a course in yoga that I taught for many years at a community college. It explains various aspects of a yogic life and some of the truths in the writings of enlightened yogis. I revised it and updated the information on nutrition in 2016.

The Science of Yoga

Thousands of years ago in ancient India the rishis (seers) sought to understand the mystery of life: the nature of the reality that underlies the physical world. They did not have the instruments of modern science, but were able to penetrate to spiritual realms beyond matter by fine-tuning the instrument of the mind. They developed practices that enabled them to eliminate the distraction of physical sensations and wandering thoughts, focus the mind steadily on a single thing, and mentally unite with it. In this way, they were able to perceive light and life energy (life force) permeating the physical world, and also the Source of this light and energy: the loving intelligence and vibratory power of Spirit.

These practices and also their ultimate purpose, union with Spirit, are called "Yoga" (from the Sanskrit word "yuj," "to unite"). As a system of practices, yoga includes techniques for relaxing the body, withdrawing the mind from sensations, and experiencing realities beyond the reach of the physical senses. When one is able to go deep within and focus the mind on Spirit, one can catch glimpses of one's true nature as pure, omnipresent consciousness (the Self) and in time unite with Spirit.

In Yoga Sutras, a profound exposition of the science of yoga, Patanjali, an enlightened sage of ancient India, wrote that the following eight limbs (branches or components) of yoga enable one to restrain the modifications of the mind. Through steadfast practice of these limbs, one is able to go beyond sensations, thoughts and emotions; dormant faculties of the soul are activated; and one begins to experience eternal realities. Ultimately, one becomes fully aware of one's true nature as the Self (the essence of the soul) and Spirit.

1) Moral conduct

2) Religious observances

3) Steady, comfortable posture

4) Control of life force

5) Withdrawal of the mind from the senses

6) Concentration (focusing the mind on one thing)

7) Meditation (unwavering concentration)

8) Oneness with the object of concentration

These eight aspects of yoga are often referred to as the "Eightfold Path of Yoga." They free one from the causes of earthly suffering and lead to enlightenment—blissful awareness of and union with one's higher, immortal nature and Spirit. One who is enlightened can assist devotees in following this path, and if a devotee is guided by Spirit to do so, he or she can introduce others to its principles and practices. The eight limbs purify the mind and expand awareness. They include various aspects of morality and self-discipline, study of spiritual truth, devotion and surrender to Spirit, and techniques for stilling the mind in meditation. Although the seventh limb, dhyana, is translated "meditation," for most people "meditation" simply means quieting the mind and concentrating on a spiritual thought or perception.

Prerequisites for Practicing Meditation or Postures

• Reasonably quiet surroundings

• An empty stomach

• Comfortable clothing

One does not have to be robust or athletic but limitations due to certain physical conditions, illnesses, or health issues should be discussed with a physician.

Benefits of Postures

The asanas (postures or poses) of hatha yoga (the path of physical, mental and spiritual well-being made possible by physical discipline) stretch and relax muscles and nerves, reduce tensions, and improve health. Thus, it becomes easier to sit still, rest the heart and lungs, and forget the body while practicing meditation. The asanas alleviate many spinal irregularities and tensions that cause back pain. They improve digestion and elimination. By relaxing the body and calming the mind, they help normalize bodily functions.

However, they do not strengthen the heart and circulatory system as much as sustained physical activity in which the heart beats faster and the body perspires. For this reason, vigorous physical exercise is beneficial for most people under the age of forty. Those who are older should get professional advice as to the kinds of physical activity that would be best for them.

Divine Love

Divine love is felt in the heart and is unconditional, freely given without necessarily expecting something in return. It is essential for happiness; without it, we feel deprived. It is cultivated in meditation and in relationships with others when we genuinely care for the other person above and beyond our own self-interest. As a power, divine love fills one with peace, joy, and harmony and drives away anger, fear, and gloom. It dissolves the conflicts, prejudices, and tensions between people that are barriers to true friendship. It heals wherever it goes.

Preparing the Way for Meditation

If we spend most of our free time absorbed in entertainment that fills us with material desires, excitement, and violent emotions, it becomes difficult to settle down and awaken the subtle forces of the soul in meditation. A hurried lifestyle where one activity crowds in upon another also agitates the mind, causing us to behave mechanically like robots, controlled by outer circumstances and restless habits of thought and action.

By contrast, if we set aside time each day to enjoy the beauty in nature and read devotional writings, or listen to uplifting music and sing devotional songs, we become more peaceful and loving. Such activities prepare the way for us to still the mind and awaken the heart in meditation.

Our Status as Egos

The ego is our lower nature. It is temporary and finite, like a graft on the soul, which in essence is perfect and immortal. As the ego, we identify with our physical body and are unaware of our indestructible infinitude. We put on the limitations of the body, owing to our identification with it, and suffer from pain, anger and worry due to actual or potential accidents, diseases, and poverty. Sometimes, through identification with the body, we become moody or proud. Our attachment to the body and other possessions makes us fear their loss.

Meditation frees us from spiritual ignorance and consequent suffering by restoring our omnipresent awareness as the regal soul. By practicing meditation, we begin to perceive our oneness with the hearts and minds of all. The grip of the ego is loosened, and the innate wisdom and love of the soul begin to manifest.

Basic Meditation Procedures

1) Sit with spine erect, holding body, neck, and head motionless.

2) Breathe slowly, relax and observe the flow of breath.

3) With the eyes closed or half opened, lift them gently and concentrate on the forehead just above the point between the eyebrows.

4) Refuse to think about worries, fears, desires, and problems. While observing the inflow and outflow of the breath, mentally repeat, over and over, a sacred word, phrase, sentence, or chant, and/or concentrate on a spiritual thought, image or perception. For example, in cadence with the breath, repeat the name of a holy being. Breathe slowly, and refocus the mind whenever it wanders.

Key Points for Successful Practice of Meditation

Sit up straight, with the chin level, the shoulders back, and the chest out; seated on the floor with legs crossed, or on a straight-back (armless) chair. Stay alert and do not passively let the mind go blank. Keep the eyes turned upward in order to bypass the subconscious mind and eventually attain superconsciousness—the highest form of consciousness. The superconscious mind directly experiences Spirit, through oneness with It. By practicing meditation procedures that enable you to concentrate and still the mind, dormant faculties of superconscious perception are awakened.

If one is extremely tense, practice of several postures and the corpse pose helps prepare one for the practice of meditation, in which deeper states of calmness and peace are achieved. After relaxing lying down, one should sit upright for meditation, in order to be fully alert and better able to control the mind. When the mind becomes still in deep meditation, a profound vibration of peace permeates one's entire being, sweeping away tensions, disharmonies, and conflicts.

Primary Purposes of Meditation

A yogi meditates to enjoy the peace, love, light, wisdom, and bliss of the soul and Spirit. As one's consciousness expands and becomes more and more permeated with these realities, one experiences the infinite power and glory of the omnipresent, higher Self (the essence of the soul) and Spirit. This blissful state of consciousness is known as Self-realization, and those who become established in this state are said to be fully enlightened or Self-realized.

Additional Benefits

From the beginning, one becomes happier and more productive because meditation develops mental calmness, concentration, intuition, empathy, mental efficiency, self-control, constructive attitudes, freedom from tension and inner conflicts, and physical and emotional well-being.

Subconscious Perceptions

Subconscious perceptions do not transcend earthly experience. They occur as ordinary dreams or as hypnotically-induced recall of past events.

Superconscious Perceptions

(Experienced in deep meditation; sometimes when dreaming or awake)

• Light—pure and uplifting; not from any material source

• Knowledge that comes from within (not through the senses or reason)

• Unity with cosmic life and intelligence

• Love and joy that far surpass ordinary emotions in depth of feeling and blissfulness

• Sights and sounds, of great beauty and power, that transcend earthly experience

The Mind as a Receiver and Transmitter

By deep concentration, an enlightened yogi can adjust the radio of his or her mind to tune out the static of distracting thoughts and sensations and receive the thoughts of another person in order to be of service to them. All thoughts are present as subtle vibrations in the ethers and affect the consciousness of humanity. Thoughts that are pure and loving are of great benefit to everyone.

Psychological Benefits of Meditation

By making one more aware of the higher Self within the soul, and its omnipresent, eternal nature, meditation helps one to overcome loneliness, fear, guilt, and a poor self-image. In essence, the soul is perfect, and as our awareness of the all-satisfying, infinite love and bliss within us increases, we find the perfect, unfading love and happiness that we seek in human affection. Pure, unconditional love is what we are and always will be, even though earthly illusions may veil our awareness of it. Love makes it possible for us to forgive ourselves and others. It is an uplifting, transforming power that attracts goodness and brings forth kindness, compassion and peace. It infuses relationships between friends, family members and couples with purity, harmony and joy.

When we taste the all-satisfying sweetness within the soul, we no longer walk in fear and dread on the pathway of life, for we know that, no matter what happens, the kingdom of love and joy is within. And, even if our loved ones are taken away, we know that, in some other way, we will find fulfillment.

A yogi contacts the all-accomplishing power of the soul, and knows that as the soul unfolds its true nature all human imperfections will be overcome. By realizing the greatness within your soul—its innate purity, love, and oneness with all other souls—feelings of unworthiness, guilt, or lack gradually melt away.

Physical and Ethereal Nourishment

In order for food to be utilized by the body, it must be digested (broken down into easily absorbed substances), and these substances, along with life energies in the food, absorbed into the blood stream and the cells, tissues and organs. Each cell is a living entity, nourished not only by the substances and energies from the food we eat, but by energies supplied by us as links between the ethereal realm of thought, power, and love and the material world of substances.

Our health, which is determined by the vitality of our cells, tissues and organs, depends on the flow of energy into the body from our consciousness operating through the brain, as well as energies and substances from the food we eat. Positive thoughts of good health and abundance flood the body with light and energy so that it functions more efficiently, with better health and less fatigue. Negative thoughts disrupt the functions of its cells, tissues and organs, and weaken their resistance to harmful microbes and infectious agents. Therefore, our thoughts influence the body in a very substantial way.

Our Thoughts Shape Our Future

The events in our life are shaped by the thoughts we habitually think. If we harbor thoughts of ill will or failure, these thoughts have the power to attract negative consequences in our life. Ill will magnetically attracts ill will from others, and negative thoughts block the power of good thoughts to attract real friends and success. The more we infuse our minds with thoughts of abundance, health, and friendship, the better our lives will become.

Asanas

Hold each posture for whatever length of time feels right. Try to be guided intuitively in your practice. Remember to inhale when bending backward and to exhale while bending forward. Always concentrate on what you feel as you perform each posture.

The seated poses and neck exercises may be practiced after eating. The plow pose limbers the upper part of the spine and relieves tension in the neck and shoulders. During pregnancy or if one has high blood pressure (hypertension) the upside-down postures (reverse pose, shoulder stand, plow) should be avoided or held only for a short period of time.

Backward-bending poses generally strengthen the back muscles and improve posture, breathing habits, and self-confidence. By alternating poses that bend the spine backward with ones that bend the spine forward, for example, the cobra with the yoga mudra, a harmonious balance of contrasting qualities, such as self-confidence and humility, is engendered. When learning the postures, you should relax after each one for about as long as you held it.

Yoga improves one's physical appearance by cultivating attractive qualities of body and soul. Physical health improves, one becomes more poised and graceful, and one radiates peace, love, happiness, and vitality.

Life Force Follows Attention

In practicing each yoga posture, one should breathe slowly and concentrate on the parts of the body where one's attention is drawn. This sends healing life energy there. Always perform each posture with deep concentration.

Sources of Life Energy

The chief source of life energy is the will, operating through the brain, drawing on the etheric power that sustains life. But air (especially fresh air), food, and outdoor sunlight also are important sources. When we perform yoga postures, they distribute life force throughout the body, helping it to flow evenly, without interruption or blockage. For this reason, they give one a feeling of calmness and vitality. Tension interrupts the even flow of life force throughout invisible energy channels in the spiritual body, but yoga postures relax the nervous system and restore a balanced distribution of energy to all the body parts. Fatigue that is the result of stress can often be alleviated by practicing hatha yoga for 20-30 minutes each day.

Antidotes for Pride

Instead of judging and comparing people, send them loving thoughts. Realize that the true identity of every person—the Self—is perfect, and ultimately, no one is better than another. Judging ourselves as better than others blocks our awareness of the good in them. It is a feeble attempt to boost our own self-esteem by creating the false illusion that we are superior. It fails because it keeps us from knowing the true worth of everyone, ourselves as well as others.

Bending forward while kneeling, especially if the hands are placed, palms together, in front of the chest or forehead, also counteracts excessive pride. Bowing to others while focusing on the good in them, or revering an enlightened being causes us to feel humility and respect. It awakens devotion and drives away egotistical thoughts. Through humility and observation of the changing nature of human beliefs, we realize that the human mind is limited and is far from infallible. Thus we become less attached to our beliefs and are willing to consider other ones and seek the subtle, inner guidance of Spirit.

Devotion to a higher power enables us to progress spiritually. As we grow in love and wisdom, we expand from narrow self-interest to joyous awareness of our oneness with all.

A Yogi's Diet

Meat is a good source of certain minerals, B-complex vitamins, and protein but is generally avoided or eaten in small amounts by yogis. If consumed in large amounts, red meat tends to unbalance the system and may increase the risk of cancer, heart attack, high blood pressure and stroke. Moreover, excessive meat eating requires needless killing of animals. However, many people need some meat in order to be healthy and should not feel guilty eating it if they feel they need it. Yogis usually avoid beef and pork, but some eat fish or poultry from time to time.

In general, yogis eat plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, milk and its products, raw seeds and nuts, and cooked legumes (dry beans and peas).

Protein Foods

Eggs, fish, and cheese are good sources of the essential amino acids (protein constituents the body cannot synthesize but which are needed for good health and to replace worn out body cells). However, fruits and most vegetables contain few or none of these essential nutrients. By eating nuts and seeds (for example, almonds or pumpkin seeds) or whole grains, along with cooked legumes, one obtains substantial amounts of all of the essential amino acids.

If you have unpleasant symptoms after eating wheat, rye or barley, other grains may be eaten instead. Nuts and seeds should be thoroughly masticated; otherwise they should be freshly ground or purchased as nut butter.

Dietary Recommendations

If one wishes to eat foods, such as white bread, that are made with white flour, they should not be eaten in large amounts and thus crowd natural foods out of the diet. The same is true of candy, sugar and soft drinks, which in large amounts can be harmful. Foods fried at high temperatures in polyunsaturated oil also should be avoided.

Diet and Disease Prevention

By eating plenty of fresh fruits, fresh vegetables, and whole grains, instead of highly processed and refined foods, there is less risk of cancer, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease (hardening of arteries, heart attacks, and strokes). Fiber is abundantly supplied, as are vitamins and minerals (provided the diet is well-balanced). Disease of the colon, constipation, and osteoporosis are less likely, and one has greater vitality and resistance to infection.

Best Foods for Certain Types

Sour, oily, sweet, and salty foods may be beneficial for thin, restless people who are jumpy, garrulous, and prone to indigestion. However, oily, sweet, and salty foods should be limited by people who wish to lose weight. These people should eat plenty of leafy salad greens and cooked green vegetables.

Hot or warming spices, such as red or black pepper, ginger, cinnamon, and nutmeg, improve circulation and digestion and may be needed by people who have cold hands and feet, dislike cold weather, and are prone to indigestion. However, people who tend to be overheated, dislike hot weather, and have a fiery disposition may benefit from avoiding hot spices and limiting salt.

Indigestion

Foods that are not completely broken down in the digestive tract tend to putrefy or ferment, producing gas, and toxins that deplete one's energy and can cause headaches and long-term health problems. Although ancient grains and many varieties of corn, oats, and rice are healthy, many people suffer from indigestion and intestinal inflammation caused by gluten or fructan in wheat, barley and rye. Moreover, incompletely digested proteins can trigger food allergies and cause unpleasant, often severe, reactions in almost any part of the body. If eating certain foods, large quantities of foods, or combinations of foods eaten at the same meal causes you to have indigestion or fatigue or to be overweight, you should avoid doing this because it can lead to serious illness.

Improving Digestion

By seasoning foods with hot spices, the digestive fire is enkindled, and large meals are less likely to cause gas. Drinking one or two glasses of water (not iced) or a warm beverage with meals also improves digestion. However, raw foods, which can be very beneficial for and eaten in abundance by most people, may need to be limited to small portions if one has poor digestion.

Cooking destroys some of the vitamins in food but makes it easier to digest. By avoiding combinations of foods that do not digest well together, indigestion can often be prevented. Avoid eating fruit with cooked vegetables or legumes. The best time to eat fresh fruit is between meals.

The abdominal contraction exercise stimulates the digestive organs and may improve their functioning.

Regulating Appetite and Assimilation

Hasty, obsessive eating causes overweight and dietary disease. One's state of mind during eating may be as important as the food chosen, for it influences how much food is eaten and how well the body utilizes it. To regulate your appetite and enable your body to utilize food in a healthy manner:

a) Keep the mind engaged in worthwhile activities;

b) Exercise regularly, which helps convert food into lean tissue and regulates appetite in accordance with need;

c) Practice slow, deep breathing, outdoors if possible;

d) Do not eat while watching TV;

e) Bless and send loving energy into your food before eating it;

f) Eat in a loving, peaceful atmosphere and frame of mind;

g) Eat slowly, with appreciation and gratitude, chewing the food thoroughly.

Self-Control

By controlling physical desires and restraining the impulse to overindulge in food, drink, or sex, we develop great will power and strength of character. Our minds become stronger, and we are able to make intuitive, clear-minded choices as to what goals and activities to pursue. Instead of being influenced by desires for the temporary pleasures of physical indulgence, we are able to objectively evaluate possible courses of action and determine what activities are best for us and others in the long run.

Our ability to meditate improves because self-control brings peace and stability into our lives. No longer are we so disturbed by fear and anxiety, which plague and unsettle the minds of those who do not control themselves.

People who have developed self-control enjoy better health because they do not overstrain their capacity to digest food and drink and eliminate toxic residues left behind. They do not waste their vital energies in excesses of all kinds. However, they may easily become intolerant of those who are still under the sway of bad habits, and fail to see their good qualities. Therefore, while not condoning the faults of others, one should be compassionate.

Healing and Diet

If one is ill and has a fever, one should drink plenty of water; and red meat, fried foods, and foods one has difficulty digesting should be avoided. Bitter herbs may help the body to eliminate toxic wastes and stimulate the colon. Elimination of waste is assisted by keeping the colon active.

Natural Remedies and Disease Prevention

Other natural therapies that cleanse the system are used by yogis to improve health. One of the basic premises is that poorly digested or impure foods cause an accumulation of toxins in the blood stream and bodily tissues. Some yogis drink a properly prepared salt water solution before eating breakfast to cleanse the alimentary canal, and occasionally fast on fruit or vegetable juices for one to three days at a time or partially fast on fruits and/or raw vegetables to help the body to reject toxins and wastes. While fasting or partially fasting one should drink plenty of pure water. Exercise also purifies the body in addition to energizing and strengthening it.

Fasting

Although food is important and should be chosen wisely, the life energy flowing into the body through the brain is even more important. Some people have benefitted by abstaining from solid food for many days without ill effects—fasting on fruit juice and water, and strengthened and sustained by life energy. However, such fasting requires proper guidance. A beneficial routine for most people is to fast one day each week or three consecutive days each month.

The effects of fasting are as follows. The digestive organs are rested, and, guided by the life force, the body then sets about its work of actively cleansing itself, removing toxic substances and eliminating them via the lymph and blood stream, which in turn are cleansed by the kidneys, liver, lungs, colon and skin. By removing toxic wastes that accumulate in the tissues over a period of time fasting improves health.

In releasing toxins, fasting may cause one to experience weakness, nausea, or headache, due to their temporary accumulation in the blood. As soon as the organs of elimination can keep pace with the wastes being dumped into the lymph and blood, one begins to feel better. However, one may wish to assist this process by cleansing the colon, and by bathing to keep the pores open.

One of the major benefits of fasting is the clarity of mind and spiritual awareness it generates. Fasting for physical health should be limited to no more than three consecutive days, but fasting for spiritual purification can be of longer duration. A fast of more than three days for spiritual purification can have physical benefits for certain people.

Breaking a Fast

When breaking a fast of more than three days, it is important not to jump right back into eating three square meals a day. The digestive organs need to be gradually set into motion again, and one should not break a long fast by eating a large amount of food right away. A fast lasting more than three days should be broken by eating fruit first, then vegetables, preferably at separate meals.

Self-Expansion

As we give of ourselves to others in friendship and good will, we grow spiritually. We expand the horizons of our awareness beyond the desires and needs of our physical self to encompass the feelings, thoughts, and needs of others. Thus, we include the welfare of others in the expanded territory of our mind. This is the true meaning of magnanimity, or large-mindedness. Such expansion of awareness may require giving something away, but develops our capacity to give and receive love, attracts goodness from others, and brings us great happiness. The miser's heart is dry as dust, but by caring for others, the heart is purified and becomes an oasis of love and joy.

Moral Conduct Leads to Happiness

A parent's love for their child must be combined with wisdom. The child's future happiness depends on its self-control and ability to act in accord with spiritual laws governing conduct. If the child is taught to obey its parents and follow moral guidelines such as not stealing, lying, or desiring to hurt others, it will be able to live at peace with society and its own higher Self. Otherwise, there will be disharmony in the child's outer and inner life.

Parents, entrust your child's care to responsible persons and only when necessary. The child is given to you for care and guidance as representatives of the Father-Mother principle of the universe. Your wisdom and love must be combined for transforming the wayward tendencies of the child to act without thought or only out of self-interest. By channeling the child's thoughts into friendly concern for others, you will be instrumental in developing its strength of character so that, when the young bird leaves the nest, it will be able to soar in the skies of spiritual freedom, unhampered by materialistic or selfish weaknesses, with strong wings of self-control and love for all.

Inner Guidance We Can Trust

When we still the mind in meditation and remain inwardly calm afterwards while discharging our responsibilities in the world, we are more aware of the gentle suggestions of Spirit, as an inner voice or knowing, quietly telling us what is best for us and for the good of all. This guidance is intuition. It honors our freedom of choice and never compels us to do anything. In paying attention to it, working with it and following our inner feelings and conscience, we learn to distinguish intuitive guidance from imagination and voices that cannot be relied upon. Intuition and reason are both necessary, but intuition comes from a higher level of consciousness. If we seek and follow its guidance, Spirit will help us make wise decisions and obtain whatever we need in order to fulfill our purpose in life.

Making the Most of Life

If we become developed spiritually, we can be joyful and content even when confronted by difficulties. Whether alone or in the company of others, single or married, we can find happiness and fulfillment. By seeing the good in others and regarding all circumstances as golden opportunities for accomplishing something worthwhile, we can enjoy and make the most of life.

An Enlightened Yogi

An enlightened yogi—one who experiences the omnipresent light, vibratory sound, and intelligence of Spirit, the power who creates and sustains the universe—is inwardly blissful. Finding contentment within, he or she is calm and even-minded, neither overly excited by success and good fortune, nor overly dejected by failure and seeming loss. Such a yogi does not seek the pleasures of the world, but finds happiness in helping others attain enlightenment.

An enlightened yogi may occasionally suffer ill health, but is able to patiently endure whatever difficulties life may bring, with peaceful non-attachment to the body and material possessions.

Wisdom Springs from Experience of Truth

By practicing meditation techniques taught by enlightened beings, one may eventually be able to go beyond physical sensations, material desires, and discursive thinking into the stillness and silence of deep meditation and, by means of spiritual faculties of higher perception, experience the truth of realities that exist beyond the reach of the five senses. Through such experience one attains the highest wisdom.

Discussion vs Argument

In relationships with others, it is important to try to see the other person's viewpoint. If we calmly consider the other person's views without attachment to our own, it is easier to discuss differences of opinion rather than argue, we are more capable of unbiased, rational thinking and open to the guidance of intuition, and disputes are much more likely to be resolved.

Catering to the Senses Limits Us

As long as we seek happiness only in material acquisitions and enjoyments, it will elude us. This is because only unconditional love, peace, and other eternal realities, not the passing pleasures of the senses, can provide the happiness we inwardly crave. By restraining the senses, frequently taking a break from material pursuits to quiet the mind and enter the silence within, and dedicating our life to fulfilling our purpose here on earth as it is revealed to us through the guidance of Spirit, we find inner peace, contentment and joy.

Mind and Life Force Light the Temples of Bliss

By comparing a life devoted to Spirit with an ordinary life, one realizes that when one's mind and life force are constantly focused on material concerns and physical sensations, the heavenly bliss of Spirit is rarely if ever experienced. To experience this bliss, the mind should be focused on a spiritual goal and the life force directed into centers of light and consciousness in the brain and spine. Spiritual living and yoga meditation techniques make this possible. When life force is withdrawn from the sensory nerves during meditation, physical sensations cannot reach the mind. Then the mind is not easily distracted from focusing on a higher reality, and one's concentrated thought and life energy begin to remove blockages in one's spiritual centers in the brain and upper spine. These centers begin to function as the temples of bliss they were intended to be, and the light within them shines brighter.

Blocked Desire Causes Anger

As long as we are limited by the ego, or lower mind, we tend to get angry if something gets in the way of the satisfaction of our desires. We may not swear or cast about, but there usually is a mental and physiological reaction, which we term anger. Perhaps we just fume and develop high blood pressure or heart disease, which certainly does us no good. However, as we awaken spiritually and experience the joys of Spirit, we become increasingly detached from the material desires of the ego, thus developing immunity to frustration, the underlying cause of anger.

Brooding on Objects of Desire Can Spell Disaster

If one becomes engrossed in the material side of life, they develop strong likes and dislikes, and their anger when something prevents them from having what they want may lead to reckless behavior. The cascade of events is as follows:

a) One becomes attached to objects of pleasure, desiring them.

b) Obstructed desire makes one angry.

c) Anger causes loss of memory of one's higher nature and good intentions.

d) Happiness and peace of mind evaporate.

e) Good judgment is seriously impaired.

This cascade of ill happenings results from brooding on objects of sense pleasure and can spell disaster. Instead of getting angry, one should accept frustrations and disappointments, even one's own mistakes, as opportunities to learn lessons and thus make choices that lead to peace of mind and happiness.

Unselfish Action Brings Contentment and Peace

Those who leave the little self, or ego, behind and follow the guidance of Spirit come into the sphere of joyous neglect of personal motive, acting out of consideration of what is right, not "what is in it for me." By following their inner guidance and restraining the ego, unselfish habits of thought and action are developed. They grow spiritually and find contentment and peace.

Wisdom and Free Choice

Freedom of choice distinguishes us from robots. Without it our thoughts and actions would be determined by our experiences and internal programming. Without freedom of choice, every person would be like a machine or computer, with no freedom to act independently of laws of cause and effect. This freedom of will—to be an uncaused cause—is a spiritual quality. It transcends the cause and effect relationships explored by science.

In daily life, we can mindfully consider the results of different courses of action and, to the best of our ability, decide which course to follow, or be led by the desire for personal gain and sense pleasures. We are free to choose to passively succumb to harmful habits and cravings of the mind and body and thus suffer the consequences of wrong actions and disease, but great blessings come to those who choose instead to exert their will to think and act in accordance with wisdom, reason, and intuition. Instead of letting ourselves be controlled by habits and desires that cause pain and spiritual deprivation for us and others, we should use our free will to make decisions based on wisdom, sound reasoning and intuition, and make the effort to carry them out.

Principles of Success

To be a success in life, you should:

a) Think deeply about what kinds of work or way of life will accord with your spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical needs, abilities and purpose in life.

b) Choose goals and activities that contribute to the welfare of others.

c) Never stop putting forth continuous effort to achieve your goals unless impartial analysis indicates that you should change them.

Balanced Living

To live a balanced life is to bring spirituality into one's life. Through regular meditation, devotion to a supreme intelligence permeating creation, and wisdom, one's actions in the world become spiritualized; that is they become selfless, guided by Spirit, and thus lead to happiness and peace of mind. Not an idle visionary or skeptical pragmatist, one combines spirituality with practical, well-thought-out actions and strives for balanced success in every department of life: spiritual, mental and physical. Unattached to the results of actions, remaining even-minded and content in all circumstances, good or bad, one keeps on striving for success, with an undaunted determination and confidence that spring from within.

Perceiving the Forces that Motivate People

Through steadfast practice of the principles and meditation techniques of yoga, our awareness increases, and the motives of others are perceived through awareness of our oneness with them. Empathy reveals to us the emotions and desires that cause others to think and act as they do. And by studying the writings of enlightened teachers, we realize that life is a glorious battle between the soul and the ego, which sooner or later, depending on our willingness to follow the guidance of Spirit, the spiritual forces will win.

The Power of Love and Joy

Long-continued study and practice of yoga develop the ability to love friend and foe alike. By radiating kindness and good will to everyone we meet, we not only change them for the better, but we change ourselves. We become impervious to the negative attitudes and hostile feelings they may project at times, if we develop a strong, magnetic force of optimism and good cheer within ourselves. This inner power grows and becomes a permanent part of our personality as we return love for hate, cheer for gloom, and concern for indifference. Eventually, even the worst adversary softens if we feel respect and good will whenever we think of or meet that person. Always focus on the good in every soul, and you will uplift yourself as well as others.

Life's Many Expressions

The infinite consciousness in nature expresses itself in many ways. These manifestations can only be perceived by one who is in tune with Spirit. The waves of light that spread over the vast creation take the forms of life, beauty, and intelligence. They cause all objects to evolve toward greater expression of life. Thus plants spread leaves to the sun and open blossoms of beauty that draw living creatures to them. As time marches on, the animal kingdom becomes the vehicle of expression for ever-evolving life, and allows it greater opportunity for movement from place to place as well as sense faculties to perceive the material world. In its highest expression, in the human body, life not only perceives and thinks but, through superconscious faculties of the brain and spine, gives and receives unconditional love and has the ability to transcend earthly limitations and know itself.

The planets and stars in the sky, the meadows and forests all teem with life. In the case of inanimate objects, life expresses itself as magnetic power and other forms of energy. As planets collide and universes dissolve, life passes on into other galaxies and manifestations, ever expressing itself in terms of beauty and intelligence, which can be perceived by a developed yogi. Myriad forms of life fill the land and sea, dying and being created anew, while the intelligent power that infuses, shapes, and enlivens these forms is indestructible and never dies.

Life's Process

The lily blossom did not just appear.  
The lily had to grow—  
From bulb beneath the ground  
To stem and leaves—  
Then bud and blossom in the light and air  
To waft its sweet perfume  
And show its vibrant colors fair.

And when the beauty of the lily fades  
And petals fall,  
Its life retires into the bulb and waits  
Until its season for rebirth again does call.

So too, our spirit on this earth  
Does blossom and bring forth  
The beauty latent in it from our birth  
As we progress in love and wisdom, joy and mirth.
Article Three

Yoga in Detroit in the Sixties

In 1951, J. Oliver Black, or Yogacharya as he was called later on, began to conduct evening meditations and SRF Sunday morning services at the Detroit Institute of Arts. In 1970, he established Song of the Morning yoga retreat in the Pigeon River State Forest and continued to lead the SRF Detroit Center until 1975, when he moved to the retreat.

Around 1960, Mr. Black and an older member of the Detroit Center, Helen Swan, started the SRF Yoga Teachers Organization, to teach hatha yoga, and in 1976 it was renamed the Golden Lotus Yoga Teachers Association.

In 1962, I started attending Mr. Black's Thursday evening meditations and Sunday morning services at the Art Institute and soon after began to teach hatha yoga classes in the suburbs. I had learned how to do some of the postures from a book, Yoga for Americans by Indra Devi, and Helen Swan taught all of us how to perform them correctly with slow, controlled breathing and concentration. She showed us how to teach them to students and helped us organize classes at various locations in the Detroit suburbs. Eventually, about twenty-five hatha yoga teachers had classes in community centers and schools.

All the hatha yoga teachers had practiced meditation and its techniques. With Mr. Black's oversight, Helen Swan and the other yoga teachers were teaching traditional, time-honored hatha yoga postures to the general public. It wasn't until many years later that new ways of performing hatha yoga asanas were invented and popularized.

We were taught to always end our classes with savasana, lying on our backs with eyes closed, breathing slowly while concentrating on the different parts of the body from the toes to the head, and then enjoying peace and stillness for about ten minutes. Students would go home refreshed, energized, and relaxed. They would feel the profound benefits of calming the mind and nervous system by practicing each pose with deep concentration and by holding it while breathing slowly with the muscles and nerves stretched. The period of deep relaxation at the end of each class opened many students to an experience of deep peace and well-being that was new to them.

We would let students know about the meditations and services at the Detroit Art Institute, and some of them would feel drawn to learn more about the deeper aspects of yoga and would come to the SRF services there. In the 1960s, most people didn't even know what yoga was, but through the Yoga Teachers Organization in Detroit, many people experienced its benefits, especially those who came to the Art Institute and began to practice meditation. Over a period of about twenty-four years, Mr. Black led meditations and conducted Sunday services at the Art Institute, and thousands of people from Michigan, other states, and Canada came there to meditate, hear him speak and be with him.

In addition to training hatha yoga teachers and teaching classes to the public herself, Helen Swan also helped organize hatha yoga demonstrations where several teachers would demonstrate the postures to the public. At a few of these events, she included short, inspirational readings from the Bhagavad Gita or devotional music in addition to the postures. Yoga was something entirely new to the public, and people enjoyed the uplifting grace and beauty of these unique presentations.

I'll never forget an event in Birmingham, Michigan, where a number of teachers performed the postures. Mr. Black and Helen were there, and after the presentation, the teachers stood up, and spontaneously, he went up to each of us in turn and, with palms placed together, pranamed to each of us. The public probably didn't realize it, but there was a feeling of bliss as he went up to each of us. Those early days with Yogacharya held many realizations of joy and bliss. Through Yogacharya and the teachings and living presence of the SRF gurus, many souls were drawn to God, and many lives were changed for the better.

Affirmation & Prayer

All that is good for me belongs to me.  
This is the will of God.  
With perfect faith in God,  
I declare that this good is mine.

I open the door of my heart, and peace, love, and joy are mine.  
I persevere, and material prosperity is mine.  
I honor God's laws, and healing is mine.

All that I need to achieve worthwhile goals comes to me—  
often in unforeseen ways—through my thoughts and actions.  
Loving thoughts bring the greatest blessings.

Thank You, O God, for showing us how to inherit  
the spiritual and material abundance that is rightfully ours.  
Thou art our Father-Mother, and we are Thy children,  
created in Thy image of perfection.
Article Four

Finding God within – the Path of Yoga

It is generally believed that yoga originated in India approximately five thousand years ago. Derived from a Sanskrit word that means to yoke, or join together, "yoga" signifies meditation and other practices that help you to experience your spiritual essence, or Self, as one with the Infinite Spirit, or God. The postures of hatha yoga, the path of physical discipline, are only a part of this practical science, which explains how to calm the mind and attain blissful states of consciousness. Yoga may be considered a science because, for thousands of years, its techniques have been observed to bring about certain bodily, mental, and spiritual states.

According to the teachings of ancient India, yoga consists of living a virtuous, disciplined, God-centered life and meditating deeply to know God. In order to relax and go deep in meditation, many yogis practice the postures and special breathing techniques, which open energy channels and centers of awareness (chakras), activating them to higher levels of functioning. Also part of the science of yoga is the repetition of mantras: sacred syllables and prayers (usually in Sanskrit) that are chanted mentally or verbally to attract certain blessings. The sage Patanjali, in the Yoga Sutras, a profound treatise on yoga, identified sixteen elements of yoga, organizing them into eight "limbs".

The first two limbs of yoga include principles of thought and action embraced by most religions. However, the goal of yoga is ecstatic communion and oneness with God, mystical aspects of religion experienced by saints and sages but generally overlooked by mainstream religion. Most denominations emphasize moral behavior, love, and belief as ways to please God and earn a place in heaven in the afterlife, but say little about the exalted states of consciousness that can be reached through love and meditation while here on earth.

As one goes deep into meditation, breathing and thinking slow down and may even cease. An inner world of beauty, ineffable peace, and holy, unifying light is revealed to the yogi. By regular practice of devotional meditation, physical and mental problems are often overcome or alleviated by the healing power of Spirit. One becomes more content, loving, and joyful.

If you wish to practice meditation, books and teachers can help. But, if you long to know God—the blissful, all-knowing, loving, infinite, creative power and intelligence that is the essence of everything—God may lead you to a Self-realized guru. Such a guru is able to enter the breathless state and experience the glory of the soul in union with God. Whether in a physical body or as divine, omnipresent consciousness after passing on, he or she can help a disciple to also experience (realize) the Self as one with God, although the disciple may need additional lifetimes to accomplish this. Keep in mind that some "gurus" haven't yet perfected themselves and still have human weaknesses to overcome, but a Self-realized guru is holy, loving and pure.

The Eight Limbs of Yoga

1. MORAL CONDUCT

\- Non-violence in thought, word, and deed  
\- Truthfulness  
\- Not stealing what is rightfully another's  
\- Sexual restraint   
\- Giving up greed

2. OBSERVANCES

\- Purity of mind and body  
\- Contentment  
\- Self-discipline  
\- Study of Self (or Truth)  
\- Devotional surrender to God

3. POSTURE (FOR MEDITATION)

4. CONTROL OF BREATH AND LIFE FORCE (PRANAYAMA)

5. WITHDRAWAL (INTERIORIZATION) OF AWARENESS

6. CONCENTRATION ON ONE THING (SUCH AS AUM)

7. MEDITATION (UNWAVERING CONCENTRATION)

8. SAMADHI (ONENESS WITH THE OBJECT OF MEDITATION)

The first four limbs discipline, strengthen, and purify the mind and body. The last four serve mainly to awaken one to awareness of divine realities.

When each of the sixteen individual elements is perfected, one attains certain physical, mental and spiritual benefits, described by Patanjali in his Yoga Sutras.

It is important to note that the last four limbs would today be regarded by most people as stages of meditation, and what is called meditation would be considered very deep meditation, a state of unwavering concentration. As one goes deep within through regular practice of meditation, the body and mind become calm, and eventually one may be able to enter the silence of the soul. Then the chakras awaken in a profound way, and one experiences divine beauty, love, and light.

Sitting still in a comfortable posture helps in calming the mind, and the breathing techniques (pranayama) harmonize and regulate the flow of life force in one's physical and spiritual being. They greatly facilitate withdrawing the mind from sensory distractions and one-pointed concentration. By regular practice of concentration, meditation, and samadhi, a yogi's consciousness is transformed. Eventually, the yogi experiences all things—the Self, all beings, all creation—as one, in the eternal, unifying light and love of God.

The Yogi

The yogi learns to tame the wayward mind,  
Which closes up the portals of the soul  
And blindly clings to matter with attachment,  
Forsaking diamonds for a lump of coal.

Through disciplines that free the soul from darkness,  
And truth, which leads the mind away from sin,  
The yogi opens inner doors to heaven  
And lets the light of love and goodness in.

In silent meditation, seeking God within,  
In loving service, doing what is right,  
In time—like Buddha, Christ, and Babaji—  
The yogi merges in God's light.

Article Five

Yogacharya's Sayings and Way of Teaching

When devotees were with Yogacharya, they became energized and uplifted in his magnetism and joy. I remember a time in the 1960s when a few of us in the Detroit area were waiting for him to arrive at a restaurant for a yoga teachers meeting. I didn't feel very energetic, but as soon as he came into the room, I felt energized—alert and wide awake. He was the life of the party, so to speak, and his enthusiasm and exuberant laughter were contagious.

Yogacharya liked to teach in humorous parables. He would teach spiritual truth in ways that were entertaining and unforgettable. I remember his story of a dog with a bone in its mouth that saw another bone and went after it. (He would imitate the dog ready to pounce on the other bone.) Then, in going after the second bone, the dog dropped the first bone from its mouth and didn't get the second bone either. (Yogacharya would laugh, bursting with hilarity, and everyone would be caught up in his joy and laugh too.)

Even if you didn't get the point of his story, his delightful way of telling it and the faces he would make would get you laughing. His parable of the dog with a bone in its mouth referred to people who have been led by God to a spiritual path that is right for them, but instead of practicing the teachings they have been led to, they keep on looking for new teachings and perhaps take up other practices and follow other teachers. Of course, people need to keep looking until they find the right path and a teacher meant for them, but some people, having found what they need, let go of the teachings they have found and keep on looking for new paths to follow.

One of Yogacharya's sayings was, "Your needs keep you on the path and your wants take you off the path." By "wants" he meant earthly desires. He liked to poke fun at the worldly life lived by many. He would pretend to be standing by the side of a road watching travelers go by, and then he would say, "I fear you will not reach Mecca, O Nomad; the road you are following leads to Turkestan!" He would be full of merriment, and everyone would laugh with him.

Yogacharya sometimes quoted a familiar saying that points out how straight and narrow a true spiritual path is. This saying, "The path is like a razor's edge," originated with the Katha Upanishad in India, where Yama, the God of Death, speaks these words, "Approach the wise and learn. The path is like the sharp edge of a razor, so the wise say—difficult to tread and easy to fall from." Yogacharya also added, "You slide off the razor's edge into a tub of iodine!" How's that for getting your attention and giving you fair warning?

Yogacharya wanted us to study and practice the SRF teachings about meditation and how to succeed in life by being loyal, honest, dedicated, etc. In his informal talks and by his own example, he encouraged us to seek all-round development—to be practical, self-confident and materially successful, as well as spiritual, humble and wise. He taught us to focus on the good in life, to be joyful and to avoid negativity.

Excerpts from Angels Among Us by Betty Howard:

"Just to be around [Yogacharya] was to experience spiritual inspiration and illumination. He radiated peace, divine love and spiritual strength. Often a group of us from Chicago would travel to his Sunday service in Detroit. En route you'd find us talking about all sorts of things. Somehow when we'd reach Detroit, we'd find him talking about the same things we had talked about in the car, whether it was about Dale Carnegie, or George Washington Carver, or whatever. It just seemed there wasn't a thought that missed him.

"One day I brought a friend who was a devout Catholic. Although I didn't know it, she had decided in her own mind that if this was a man of God, she would feel great bliss just being in his presence. After the service ended, and we all gathered around for fellowship with him, there she was. She hadn't felt the bliss; she just didn't know what to think. Suddenly, as we were standing there, she did feel it. As she later described it, "A great all-encompassing feeling of bliss dawned on me." He reached out his hand to her arm and asked, "How's that?" She has never forgotten this great spiritual moment and to this day believes and knows that he was, indeed, a man of God.

"Yogacharya believed everyone knew right from wrong, so he allowed everyone to go their own way; he never tried to change their natural bent, but he guided them on their chosen route."

Next, Betty shares her personal relationship with Yogacharya, "After I had been attending services for about a month, and during one of my meditations, I heard a voice within saying, as clearly as I hear a physical voice ... 'Yogacharya is your guru.' Now I was not really seeking a guru, since I'm not Indian. In fact, I did not really know what a guru was in the correct sense of the word, but I have since learned that a guru is one who knows God and can show the devotee the way.

"I felt a divine presence within my consciousness wherever I was, Detroit, California, even in Chicago. I felt this great presence within me, leading me and teaching me every step of the way, even more in Chicago than in Detroit. I found myself getting mixed up with my great love for the man and my ever greater love for the presence that I felt when I did not see him. I felt a great drive to know God better. Somehow, everywhere I went I felt a presence was coming through people, books, and my everyday experiences. These experiences all showed me the next step up the spiritual ladder.

"[Yogacharya] never tried to fit [devotees] into a philosophy of life as he saw it. He listened and observed, and through parables he caused them to take stock of themselves. He showed them how to build their self-esteem, and live life to manifest their full potential, fulfill their heart's desire and become what they set their mind to become, be it marriage, business, or just to live life harmoniously. He accomplished this for those who lived at his retreat by putting them in positions where they would grow best. He called daily life 'the cement mixer,' and so by the involvement of devotees and residents with each other, the edges were made smooth. They would find out what worked and what didn't work. He gave everyone that opportunity to find out.

"Yogacharya one day looked into my eyes and in a very serious tone of voice he said to me, 'Humility is the key to power, just remember that.' I had got that message firmly planted in my consciousness from the many times he kept hammering away at my ego.

"One day a woman came to dinner. He must have known she had a great desire to marry. There were about twelve people at the table, and during the conversation he went on a great tirade about people wanting to marry and how they lived life like a slob, left everything around, never cleaned up after themselves, etc. This woman who hardly knew him knew he was talking to her. After the meal, she became so irritated that she nearly left then and there. But his loving and sweet ways following his 'tirade' made her soon forget her anger. She later told me the story and how she went home and started clearing away the table and making so many changes in her lifestyle that one day her younger brother asked, 'What happened to you at that yoga camp?'"

As you can see from what Betty Howard wrote about him, Yogacharya had a profound influence on many people and helped them grow spiritually. And he often used short, informal sayings to teach important truths. These sayings would stick in your mind and guide you. He used them to teach spiritual principles and to remind us to get rid of bad habits. Here is one of these sayings: "It's a great life if you don't weaken."

When you think about this simple statement, you find a lot of meaning in it. If you live in harmony with God's laws that govern physical health and mental and spiritual well-being, you will find happiness and joy. To be happy, you need to be strong within and not let bad habits push you around. If you weaken and give in to harmful desires, you pay for it. And if you say or do things that don't serve a good purpose, or dwell on impure thoughts and fantasies, your lower nature takes over and life is a burden. But, if you align and harmonize your thoughts and actions with the will of God and are wise and loving in what you think, say and do, divine power and inner happiness come into your life. Your will grows stronger ... you avoid actions that create bad karma ... you attract the best things in life ... you radiate peace and joy ... people like you ... and life is great.

"It's a great life if you don't weaken" also means that to enjoy life you need to stay positive no matter what happens. To stay positive and not let things get you down takes inner strength. Yogacharya had the mental power to be positive and joyful at will. Nothing could disturb his bubble of joy. If others were inclined to be too serious he would lift their spirits and brighten their day with his optimism and humor. He was very practical and worldly-wise, well aware of the failings of humankind in this imperfect world, but at the same time, held on to his inner joy and did not let anything get him down. When people came to him with problems, he would lift them up.

Here's another saying he liked, "A chain is only as strong as its weakest link."

This saying, as Yogacharya used it, refers to the weakest link in one's character. A chain breaks when its weakest link breaks. If we have any mental or spiritual weaknesses or deficiencies, and we all do, we are vulnerable. Satan knows what our weakest links are and tempts us with wrong thoughts and desires so we will act unwisely and without love, create negative karma, and keep on reincarnating. However, if we find a guru and a spiritual path that teach us to meditate and rise above wrong thoughts and desires, and if we keep on keeping on, we develop inner strength. Still, on this earth plane, temptation can trip up anyone, so we have to be vigilant. Even great masters have to be careful to resist temptation. If we do stumble, we should pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and continue on.

Another of Yogacharya's sayings was, "We evolve through suffering." If we try to find happiness in physical pleasures, while being oblivious of the love and bliss of God, we feel empty inside: unfulfilled. And if we are selfish and misbehave, we suffer all the more. Sooner or later, we realize that without God consciousness we can never be happy, and we begin to retrace our footsteps back to God.

Yogacharya also said, "Nature can be pretty rough with you."

He often spoke of the rough and tumble world of ordinary, daily life as the cement mixer, where egos clash and people learn lessons the hard way. If we don't use wisdom, then hard knocks, pain and suffering teach us.

Regarding pain and suffering, Yogacharya said, "Whatever happens to you is your own fault. Don't blame anyone, not even God." He was speaking of bad karma, of course, and we create karmic suffering as a consequence of bad habits and unloving thoughts and actions. By reaping what we sow, we eventually get the message and stop doing the things that cause us to suffer.

Yogacharya also had sayings about thinking versus inner knowing. He often said, "The intellect is the helper but it is also the bar." This means that, although logical, rational thinking can show you the benefits of meditation, seeking God, and using intuition, thinking blocks deep communion with God and often blocks intuition. In pointing out that logical, rational thinking falls short of intuition, he said, "Don't try to figure it out; it will drive you crazy." The intellect, or thinking mind, has only limited, incomplete information on which to base its conclusions. So, instead of always trying to figure things out, we should seek intuitive knowledge and guidance from the infinite, all-knowing intelligence of God as omnipresent Spirit, which guides us through inner, intuitive feelings and promptings. Logical thinking should not be abandoned, but should be guided by Spirit. We should always pay attention to inner feelings and promptings if they seem to be coming from Spirit.

Someone told me that once, when Yogacharya was driving down the road at a fast clip, he suddenly slammed his foot on the brake pedal and brought his car to a screeching halt. At that moment, a large animal—I think it was a deer—crossed the road right in front of the car. He didn't see the deer coming, but had received an intuitive prompting to hit the brakes. Any devotee who strives to know and do the will of God can cultivate intuition by learning to distinguish inner promptings that are from Spirit from those that are from a different source and by following the former.

By performing God-uniting actions, a yogi lives in the presence of God and expresses unconditional love in everyday life. Thus, a yogi is warned of many dangers and is protected from much harm, including painful karmic consequences of past wrong actions. To those who love much, much is forgiven.

Here is the last verse of a poem, The Chambered Nautilus, by Oliver Wendell Holmes. Yogacharya often recited this verse. It speaks of the soul's progress.

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,  
As the swift seasons roll!  
Leave thy low-vaulted past!  
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,  
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,  
Till thou at length art free,  
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!
Article Six

Patanjali's Yoga Sutras: Action ("Kriya") Yoga

Patanjali's Yoga Sutras is a brilliant exposition of the philosophical principles, deep truths, and disciplines of yoga. It organizes the disciplines into eight "limbs," or categories, of yoga practice. Specific meditation techniques are not given; only kinds of techniques and disciplines are discussed. Many of its sutras (aphorisms) comment on these practices. This timeless treatise by an enlightened yogi addresses the universal human condition of apparent separation from God (avidya, not knowing the Supreme Reality) and shows us how to overcome the mental tendencies and illusions that keep us in this condition.

Like tree limbs, which emerge in sequence, the first disciplines come first. As they develop, mature and bear fruit, the next ones are practiced. For example, yama (moral conduct) prepares one to practice niyama (purity, contentment, austerity, study of the Self, surrender to God). Patanjali calls the last three elements of niyama "kriya yoga" ("kriya" means action). Marshall Govindan takes the position that these three elements of kriya (or action) yoga constitute the whole of Patanjali's yoga. However, all eight limbs are discussed in great detail in verses 2.30 through 3.8 of the Sutras and provide a far more complete description of yoga.

In verse 2.1, Patanjali says: "Kriya yoga consists of tapas (austerity, self-discipline), svadhyaya (self-study), and Ishvara pranidhana (devotional surrender to God)." (Note: The words in parentheses are commonly accepted translations of the Sanskrit terms.) In the "eight-limbed" path, the kriya yoga practices of niyama precede asana (meditation posture), pranayama (control of breath and life force), pratyahara (withdrawal of the senses from their objects), dharana (concentration), dhyana (uninterrupted, deep concentration), and samadhi (oneness with the object of meditation). For this reason, "kriya yoga" is sometimes interpreted "preliminary yoga." However, the first of the eight limbs, yama, consists of five abstentions (don'ts), and the five elements of niyama are observances (dos), so the kriya yoga practices of niyama can also be interpreted "action yoga," which implies doing something.

The following comments from Govindan's book on the Sutras contradict Yogananda and other enlightened yogis, who concur that the yoga of Patanjali is the "eight-limbed" path.

Foreword (xiv, xv) by G. Feuerstein: "... while Patanjali's teaching has become virtually equated with eight-limbed yoga (ashtanga yoga), he himself called his path that of action yoga (kriya yoga) in pada 2.1." "The aphorisms in the Yoga Sutras dealing specifically with the eight limbs appear to have been quoted by Patanjali or subsequently added to his text. There is no real satisfactory explanation for why Patanjali used the label kriya yoga for his teachings."

Introduction Part 2 (xxiii) by M. Govindan: "Feuerstein has pointed out, however, that Patanjali's yoga was not the "ashtanga" or "eight-limbed" yoga, described in verses 2.28 to 3.8, as has been commonly thought by most translators. Textual analysis has revealed that these verses were merely quoted from another unknown source."

On the contrary, Patanjali never called his path that of action (or kriya) yoga; not in verse 2.1 (pada 2.1), nor in any other verse, nor did he say it consisted of anything other than ashtanga yoga. And if he had quoted the verses pertaining to ashtanga yoga, it would indicate that he agreed with them.

In Chapter Three of The Holy Science by Swami Sri Yukteswar a yoga teaching that includes the practices of ashtanga yoga is presented, but it is somewhat different from that of the Yoga Sutras and appears to represent a different school of yoga. This illustrates that the principles, truths and practices of yoga are universal and can be discovered by yogis independently of each other. Of course, two different people would never perceive, categorize or explain these principles, truths and practices in exactly the same way, so unless verses 2.28 to 3.8 of the Sutras were compiled from various sources, they are the unique creation of a single person. That person appears to be Patanjali because there is perfect agreement and harmony between these verses and the other verses in the Sutras.

With regard to the idea that Patanjali's yoga was not the eight-limbed path but only kriya yoga and that verses 2.28 to 3.8 were either quoted by him or added to his text later on, the following points should be considered. If Patanjali had quoted these verses it would mean that he agreed with what they say. One of them, verse 2:29, states that yoga consists of eight limbs, and other verses discuss each of the practices of kriya yoga, treating them as elements of the second limb. Moreover, apart from the verses about ashtanga yoga, which according to Govindan and Feuerstein, did not come from Patanjali, there are only two verses in the Yoga Sutras about kriya yoga. If Patanjali's path was kriya yoga and the verses pertaining to ashtanga yoga were added to his text later on, we would expect him to have devoted more than two verses to describing and commenting on his path.

As mentioned before, kriya yoga consists of tapas, svadhyaya and Ishvara pranidana. The austerities or self-disciplines of tapas involve rising above bodily desires and enduring pain or discomfort, by means of determination and will; "svadhyaya" means deep study of the nature of the Self; and Ishvara pranidhana includes both devotion to God and acceptance of God's will.

Verses 1.23, 2.2, and 2.45 of the Sutras tell us that Ishvara pranidhana and kriya yoga lead to samadhi. Through devotional surrender to God one rises above the influence of ego, harmful desires, and illusions, which darken the mind and keep one from knowing God. The heart's natural love shines forth and illumines one's inner life. One follows the guidance of Spirit and practices the moral disciplines of yama with greater resolve. Not only do the blessings of yama come into one's life, but in addition, the first two stages of niyama naturally arise: one's thoughts and body become more pure and one finds contentment within. Through devotional surrender to God, one eventually becomes totally absorbed in God. Nevertheless, according to the Yoga Sutras, limbs three through seven, practiced along with the first two limbs, also lead to samadhi, and all eight limbs constitute yoga. (The seventh limb of yoga, "dhyana," is usually translated as "meditation," but in modern, everyday usage "meditation" is often taken to mean all or several of the limbs that follow niyama: assuming a suitable posture, controlling breath and life force, withdrawing awareness from objects of the senses, calming and focusing the mind, deep concentration on a particular aspect of God, and fully uniting with God in blissful oneness.)

In verses 3.16 to 3.54, verses that Govindan and Feuerstein attribute to him, Patanjali comments on various functions of samyama, which consists of dharana, dhyana, and samadhi. Inasmuch as his teachings included these final, culminating limbs of ashtanga yoga, to be complete his teachings must also have included the five disciplines that precede samyama and facilitate its practice: moral conduct, observances (purity of mind and body, contentment, austerity, Self-study, devotional surrender to God), steady posture for meditation, control of breath and life force, and withdrawal of the mind from the cause of sensations.

Because Patanjali never said his path was kriya yoga and because the verses about ashtanga yoga describe what are generally considered to be essential components of yoga and fit in with his teachings in other parts of the Sutras, it seems highly unlikely that his path was kriya yoga rather than ashtanga yoga, and that these verses were quoted by him or later on added to his text. They are an integral part of his masterful treatise, perfectly in accord with the other aphorisms in the Sutras, and appear to be his own teachings.

Prayer to the One in All

Thou art the light of infinite oneness.  
Enlighten me so I may see  
that Thou and I and all are one.
Article Seven

Meditation Techniques and Hatha Yoga Benefits

Meditation

In meditation one practices techniques to relax, withdraw attention from the world, and concentrate on God in stillness and silence within, but many people have tensions and health problems that distract and limit them when they try to do this. However, regular practice of traditional hatha yoga poses can relax tensions, energize your whole being and improve your health, helping you withdraw your attention from outer sensations and wandering thoughts when you practice meditation techniques to enter the inner silence.

To meditate, begin by sitting on a chair or cushion with your spine erect and your eyes closed, your hands resting, palms upturned, on your thighs. Sit perfectly still and relax. While breathing through your nose slowly and deeply, focus on the inflow and outflow of the breath. In cadence with your breathing, mentally say to yourself, "I am not the body" [in breath], "not even mortal mind" [out breath], "I am eternal Spirit" [in breath], "I am love divine" [out breath]. Practice this for a few minutes.

Then continue to breathe slowly and deeply with your eyes closed, but with each exhalation, sigh out the breath through your mouth making a long, drawn-out sound of "aum." This humming sound does not need to be loud. Next, inhale through the nose and hold the breath, feeling peace. Then exhale slowly through the nose while making the sound in your throat and concentrating on it. Feel it vibrating within you. For at least five minutes, continue to inhale and hold the breath, make the sound while exhaling, and concentrate on what you feel and hear. Then mentally chant "aum" and, as you meditate on this sacred syllable, listen for a similar spiritual sound. Keep your eyes closed and listen with full attention. The spoken sound is an approximation of the spiritual sound. If you can hear the spiritual sound, meditate on it, and it will expand your awareness.

Gently lift your gaze with your eyes still closed and concentrate on the forehead just above the midpoint between the eyebrows. With peaceful non-attachment, let go of mental tensions, fears, worries and cares and simply witness the flow of breath. As you concentrate on the breath and on the forehead with your eyes closed and turned upward, you may wish to meditate with love on a divine being or a saint, visualizing them and/or repeating their name over and over. You can also meditate on a spiritual thought or "aum." If you see divine light while gazing upward, focus on this light.

In a quiet place where you will not be disturbed, try to meditate every day, at first for at least ten minutes and as you gain self-mastery for much longer. If your mind wanders and you begin to think of material concerns or desires, keep your eyes uplifted and, as you exhale, make the humming sound and concentrate on it. If you wish, pray or talk with God. Try to go deep. In deep silence and stillness, one may experience divine peace, love, light, wisdom and bliss. Even if you do not go as deep as you wish, meditate and seek God to the best of your ability and you will become more peaceful, more intuitive and perceptive, happier, and more aware of God's presence in your life.

Hatha Yoga

The postures of hatha yoga, the path of physical discipline, are very helpful in achieving optimal well-being. Because they dispel restlessness, tension, and fatigue, they allow the organism to right itself, to restore order and balance among its various functions.

Thus, one who learns to do the postures with concentration and breath-control can enjoy deep relaxation, open up new channels of energy from within, and harmonize the functions of the involuntary organs. Better sleep and more normal blood pressure, digestion, and elimination are just a few of the physical benefits gained by practice of hatha yoga postures.

In addition, the mind is cleared of obstacles: worry, fear, inattention, complexes, frustrations, lack of self-confidence, and so on. The mind heals itself when given the opportunity, and there is no better approach to inner harmony than the practice of yoga.

Success in hatha yoga does not depend on learning to perform a great number of postures but on deepening your concentration and perfecting your technique. Practice each posture carefully, with full concentration and awareness of its inner content, and you will begin to awaken in a new way. Your mind will become clearer, your body healthier, and your spirit more peaceful.

Perform each movement slowly. If a posture causes discomfort in the head, chest, or abdomen, or pain in any part of the body, discontinue practicing it. Relax after each posture for about as long as you held the posture. This allows the heart and lungs to rest, the mind to become calm.

Set up a time to practice, in a quiet place where you can concentrate, and practice as often as you can. The muscles and ligaments must be stretched very gradually, a little more each day over a period of several weeks, and should never be forced. When your body becomes limber, you will be able to hold each posture with ease. Individual restrictions due to age, high blood pressure, arthritis, hernia, surgery, or pregnancy should be discussed with a physician.
Article Eight

Alternate Nostril and Bhramari Breathing

Bhramari (Bee) Breathing

Steps

1. Sit up straight and close your eyes. Breathe normally and relax the whole body.

2. Your mouth should be closed, your jaw relaxed, and your upper and lower teeth slightly separated.

3. Close your ears by pressing with your thumbs on the tragus and gently rest your little fingers at the edge of the eyelids. Your other fingers should rest lightly on your forehead.

4. Take a slow, deep breath through both nostrils.

5. Then exhale slowly through the nose, making a continuous humming sound from the throat. Feel the sound vibration in the head. The sound should be deep, steady and smooth. Concentrate on the continuous drone and the vibration that the sound produces. This drone is similar to the humming sound of a bee.

Bhramari breathing can be practiced any time, but preferably on an empty stomach and several times a day if you wish. It is especially beneficial if you feel stressed or anxious, and it helps still the mind in meditation. You can also practice bhramari breathing while lying on your back.

• Soothes and calms the mind

• Relieves tension and anxiety

• Helps to reduce high blood pressure

• Beneficial for Insomnia

• Improves concentration

• Builds self-confidence

Precautions

Bhramari breathing should be practiced only if it is comfortable for you and should never be forced. If you feel dizzy or uncomfortable, stop practicing it and go back to normal breathing.

Alternate Nostril Breathing (Nadi Shodhana)

Alternate nostril breathing is a form of pranayama—control of life force (life energy) by means of breathing techniques—and has many physical, mental and spiritual benefits. It is safe to do it provided you follow these instructions carefully, but if you have heart or lung problems, you should check with your doctor first. Begin by sitting upright with your eyes closed and relax. With the palm of the right hand facing you, the thumb and the ring and little fingers extended, and the other fingers bent toward the palm, press your right nostril with the thumb and inhale through your left nostril. Press the left nostril with your ring and little fingers and hold the breath. Then lift your thumb from the nose, exhale through your right nostril and pause. Next, inhale through your right nostril, press it with the thumb and hold the breath. Then lift the ring and little fingers, exhale through the left nostril, and pause before inhaling through it to begin a new round. Keep doing rounds like this for about five minutes taking a break part way through if you need to. After each exhalation, pause and then inhale through the nostril you just exhaled through. Practice two or three times a day, preferably in a quiet place and at least three hours after eating. If you wish, support your arm with a firm cushion.

The next step is to practice as above, beginning and ending each round with the left nostril and pausing after each exhalation, but timing the in-breath, retention, and out-breath. Inhale while mentally counting to 4, retain the breath to the count of 4, and exhale to the count of 4, then pause before you inhale again. Practice complete rounds for about five minutes, two or three times a day, for about a week. If this is comfortable, practice daily for another week or so inhaling to 4, holding the breath to 8, exhaling to 8, and pausing before inhaling again, provided you experience no discomfort doing this.

Gradually extend the count to 4-12-8 and later on to 4-16-8 if this is comfortable and practice every day. Do not hold the breath to the point of discomfort, or try to hasten the benefits of alternate nostril breathing by practicing for more than 5-10 minutes per session. This could be harmful. If you feel good and experience no adverse effects practicing at 4-16-8 for several weeks, increase the duration of each session if you wish provided you continue to feel good and experience no discomfort. This alternate nostril breathing technique, nadi shodhana, either practiced by itself or with bhramari breathing, may be used to draw the mind inward in meditation. It purifies the nadis (life energy channels) and

• Helps one to breathe smoothly and deeply

• Calms the mind, relieves stress and improves health

• Increases the flow of life energy in the nadis and chakras

• Balances the flow of energy in the ida and pingala nadis on each side of the spine

• Relaxes the nerves and improves digestion and other involuntary functions

• Awakens dormant, spiritual faculties in the head and spine

• Improves concentration and meditation

Nadi Shodhana and Bhramari Breathing Combined

The following technique combines nadi shodhana (alternate nostril breathing) with bhramari (bee) breathing. By practicing these two techniques together as one, they reinforce each other in their ability to purify the channels (nadis) and spinning vortexes (chakras) of life energy in our spiritual body. Gradually blockages and conscious and unconscious thought patterns that restrict and cause imbalances in the flow of life-sustaining, healing energies within us are removed. Dormant faculties of higher awareness in our major chakras in the head and spine begin to function, we become free of many limitations and more loving, our health improves, and we are able to go deeper when we meditate.

In a quiet place where you can be alone, sit upright, close your eyes and relax. Your mouth should be closed, your jaw relaxed, and your upper and lower teeth slightly separated. Rest your forefingers gently at the edge of your eyelids, your middle fingers at each side of the nose, your thumbs on the tragus of each ear, the ring fingers on the face just above the upper lip, and the little fingers just below the lower lip. Close the right nostril with your middle finger and inhale through your left nostril. Press your left nostril with your left middle finger and hold the breath. Then lift your right middle finger from the nose, press the tragus of each ear with your thumbs, and exhale through your right nostril. As you exhale make a continuous humming sound from the throat and concentrate on the sound as it reverberates in the head. Try to make it steady and smooth.

Next, reverse the process. Lift your thumbs slightly so they no longer close the ears, inhale through your right nostril, then press it with the right middle finger and hold the breath, then lift the left middle finger from the nose, press the tragus of each ear with your thumbs, and exhale through the left nostril. As you exhale make a continuous humming sound from the throat and concentrate on the sound as it reverberates in the head. For about five minutes, continue to inhale, retain the breath, and make the sound as you exhale. After exhaling, always inhale through the nostril you just exhaled through. Alternate between the left and the right nostrils, take a break whenever you need to, and end with exhalation through the left nostril.

The in-breath should always be to the (mental) count of 4, and the retention to the count of 4 or 6, gradually increasing it over a period of weeks or months to 12 or 16. For the out-breath, just make the long humming sound. As you become accustomed to this technique, pause after each exhalation. When holding the breath, instead of always counting to regulate its duration, only count occasionally, and you will be able to focus more fully on the peace that can be felt when you are not inhaling or exhaling and the breath is still. Practice two or three times a day, preferably at least three hours after eating, and if you wish, support your arms with a firm cushion. While performing the technique, lift the eyes gently and concentrate on the forehead just above the midpoint between the eyebrows. If you see a beautiful light, concentrate on it, and it may grow brighter.

Practice every day and gradually increase the duration of each session to 10-15 minutes. Blockages in the energy channels should be removed slowly, and trying to rush this purification process hoping to get quick results can be harmful. Also, you should not use this technique if it causes you discomfort, but if you are comfortable with it, it can bring you many blessings.

O Spirit,  
Thou art Infinite Glory.  
All the earth is made in Thy image.  
I bow to Thee.

What Thou has fashioned  
In the hills and fields,  
In the earth and sky  
Reflect Thy beauty.

May we treasure most the works of Thine  
And fashion ours to fit Thy perfect plan.  
May beauty reign, may love prevail,  
May goodness be  
In all we think and do.

Thou art the Source of every good,  
The wellspring of our fondest dreams,  
And when we merge with Thee  
In blissful unity  
We'll live in peace and joy  
And love and light  
Eternally.

Article Nine

Cultivating Intuition

A life lived without even a trace of inner, intuitive guidance is perhaps impossible. But to live without routinely making decisions based on intuition is certainly possible and brings error and tragedy to humanity. Such a way of living is shallow, for unless our choices are guided by the inner promptings of Spirit, we are like robots, programmed by personal desires, the often-mistaken conclusions of the rational mind, and the teachings of others.

As children, we learn from our parents, peers, and instructors. Then, as we mature, we usually evaluate their beliefs and actions in the light of both reason and intuition. If we are wise, intuition and love will play a large part in the choices we make about what to believe and what to do with our lives. Those who are motivated mainly by self-interest and care little about the needs of others will not be fully open to the guidance of intuition. They will chase after material acquisitions, often disregarding the voice of conscience, to obtain the things they desire.

To rise to the challenge of living in direct contact with the guidance of Spirit makes a person whole. We must embrace more of ourselves than our ability to think, desire, and follow the advice of others. Everyone has the capacity to be guided by Spirit. Whether the power of intuition is thought of as an inherent capacity of the soul or as coming from beyond the soul makes little difference, as long as we recognize that it is divine and is instantly accessible to those who have developed the ability to be guided by it.

Spirit is the living force within intuition. Through our inner, intuitive feelings and messages, Spirit is showing us how and when to do things. It is giving us knowledge that logic and reason cannot come up with. How do we access this power within ourselves? By recognizing that it actually exists and by using it.

If we think the power of intuitive knowledge and guidance does not exist for us or if we are afraid to use it, we limit our access to it. As soon as we realize it produces amazing results and is available to all, perhaps by noticing how it works in the lives of those who are routinely guided by Spirit, we open the door to utilizing it ourselves. Those who limit themselves by relying too much on reason and logic to make decisions, not trusting the inner promptings of Spirit, will find that if they practice paying attention to and acting in accord with the intuitive feelings and insights that arise in them they will make better decisions, more quickly and with fewer mistakes, than by trying to reason everything out. Thus, they will develop confidence in using intuition. Through experience, they will learn to tell the difference between true, intuitive feelings and the false promptings of blind impulses, which also arise from within.

The process of cultivating intuition takes a certain amount of faith that we are created in the "image and likeness of God" and can be directly in tune with the will of God. Then, as we practice speaking and acting in accord with the knowledge and guidance that arise within us we learn to distinguish true from false inner promptings. The latter occur as desires, impulses, and doubts that spring from the domain of the ego: the matter-bound lower mind, which rebels at the higher authority of Spirit.

Often the lower mind makes one skeptical or fearful of being guided by Spirit. Such doubts and fears confuse the beginner aspirant and stifle spiritual progress. Common sense and clear observation tell us that many people make decisions and are guided in a way that transcends the knowledge gained through sense experience. All one has to do is follow their example and have confidence that one can do what they have done. With practice and self-discipline, anyone can learn to distinguish between the blind desires and impulses of their lower nature and true spiritual guidance.

Two of the most important prerequisites for cultivating intuition are honesty and surrender to higher purpose. If we truly wish to do God's will in every aspect of our lives, and if we are honest with ourselves, we will recognize the doubts, fears, negative tendencies, and rationalizations of the lower mind for what they are. We will not allow them to hold us back, and we will be open to the subtle, inner feelings and thoughts that guide us to do the right thing in every instance. We will not resist the inner promptings of Spirit when they urge us to take risks or do things we don't want to do, such as something that might be embarrassing.

So, always be honest with yourself and do not deny the voice of God within you as you walk your spiritual path. Sometimes the way may not be clear, and you may not be certain if you really are following the guidance of Spirit. Just keep on doing your best to surrender to God's wisdom even if you do not know where it is leading you. As you continue to use your intuition more and more in every department of life, you will understand better how it functions, what it is teaching you, and how to work with it. But you will become adept in using this divine gift only if you sincerely desire to do God's will all the time and do not cling to false preconceptions, negative tendencies, and fears that stand in your way.

Through quieting the restless mind in meditation, one becomes more peaceful and calm. Then, it is easier to clearly observe the thoughts that flow through one's mind. By meditating regularly, one develops the ability to discern the difference between thoughts that come from Spirit and those generated by one's own thinking process. Of course, the former can be trusted, while the latter can be wrong. This does not mean that reasoning is to be avoided. It should be fully utilized, along with intuition. The head and heart, the mind and Spirit, should work together in harmony.

Reason is inherently limited because it reaches conclusions based on human observations, which can be inadequate or incorrect, but there is nothing wrong with using it, as long as we recognize its limitations. Intuitive knowledge and guidance come from an Infinite Source, so they naturally take precedence over the conclusions of the thinking mind. We cannot function without reason, nor can we be whole and fulfilled without intuition.

By appreciating the value of intuition, learning to recognize its presence, and using it in conjunction with reason, just as you use both legs in tandem for walking, you will be guided to say and do the right things as you live your life. You may occasionally confuse reason or blind impulse with intuition, especially when you are distracted or in a hurry, but your mistakes will become less and less frequent if you are dedicated to doing God's will.

By always searching for the will of God and attuning your will to God's, you will fulfill your divine potential. Spirit will challenge your courage and resolve, but will never mislead you. It may not answer all your questions, but will give you what you need. If you earnestly seek and willingly follow the guidance of Spirit, you will rise above the negative influence of the ego, and you will become more loving, wise and joyful.

The Owl and the Flower

A little flower stood by the wayside.  
Along came a wise old owl.  
The owl said to the flower:  
"How do you do it? You look so innocent and pure.  
"Did you study Plato or practice austerities  
to become what you are?  
Did you go to finishing school  
to discover how to be beautiful?"

Amazed, the little flower said,  
"I don't know. I guess I just grew up  
the way I was supposed to."

The little flower smiled,  
and the owl shook his ruffled head.  
"Sure beats me," he said.
Article Ten

Happiness

What is happiness? It is a state of being in which a person feels peace, joy and contentment, an ideal state that everyone, consciously or unconsciously, yearns for. The quest for happiness, not only for ourselves but also for others, should motivate our actions, yet few know the nature of true and enduring happiness and how it can be attained. Why is it so elusive and difficult to hold on to? Because it is a lofty state of consciousness and is easily obscured or extinguished by the intrusion of worries, cares, frustrations, anger, hate and other negative emotions. Happiness is, for most of us, a fragile flower, highly esteemed, which only keeps its freshness and beauty for a time, then fades with the arrival of pain, fear, worry, loss, or strife.

In order to enjoy happiness most of the time, we must cultivate a state of mind in which it can grow and flourish without being destroyed by passing moods and personal difficulties. This is a great challenge for each of us, but we can learn to enrich the soil of our consciousness so that the flower of happiness will take root and be able to grow and endure. Happiness needs to be nourished by constructive thoughts and feelings, for example, gratitude, respect for others, and appreciation of the beauty in God's creation. It must be protected from destructive and debilitating thoughts and emotions that cause it to wither and die.

If we want to be happy, we must cultivate self-control, non-attachment and strength of character, in order to be able to stay positive when things don't turn out as we wish and so that we can resist the temptation of unhealthy, excessive or immoral desires. Through wisdom and inner strength we can conquer bad habits and avoid becoming attached to physical pleasures and possessions. If all we seek in life are things that give us physical pleasure, we will feel unfulfilled because sense pleasures are temporary, followed by renewed cravings, and cannot satisfy our deepest needs.

To be happy as individuals and as groups of people we need to live in harmony with universal principles of moral conduct. Otherwise, we will be haunted by guilt and remorse, not to mention all the other misery-making consequences of unloving attitudes and actions. There is no way to attain lasting happiness except by cultivating unselfish, constructive habits of thought and action. People who try to accumulate wealth or personal advantage at the cost of the well-being of others are only fooling themselves. They may succeed in their games, but their materialistic, self-centered attitudes will prevent them from being able to enjoy life's finest pleasures and joys. Peace of mind, meaningful relationships, and spiritual joys will pass them by, and they will never be content as long as they continue to seek happiness in material possessions and sense pleasures.

The key to attaining lasting happiness is divine, unconditional love. To be happy, we need to live in divine love—love that has no boundaries and is freely extended to all. Such love heals discord within ourselves, counteracts fear and other happiness-destroying emotions, and bestows peace of mind, contentment, joy, and harmony. It automatically produces moral behavior and brings us closer to God. With love, all things are possible, forgiveness flows easily, and emotional wounds are healed. As love lights up the soul, we both radiate and receive divine blessings, and the happiness we feel grows stronger and more enduring.

Now, along with living a disciplined, moral, constructive life and dwelling in love, what else is required in order to be happy? For almost everyone except those rare beings who have transcended material needs and are sustained by God, food and shelter are essential. And for oneself and one's family, education, knowledge of events in the world and a supportive environment that provides for physical and emotional well-being are very important. Happiness depends not only on moral and spiritual behavior, but also on whatever we require in order to fulfill our purpose here on earth, and to obtain these things for ourselves and our family most of us have to work. Food, shelter, and whatever we need in order to do what God wants us to do will be required if we are to be happy, and we will have to do our part in manifesting these things.

You may wonder if these requirements are enough. If we practice self-control and live with love in our hearts, and if the needs we and our family members have are provided for, will we be happy? The answer depends on the degree of our spiritual and emotional development. Abundant, unalloyed happiness is difficult for most of us to obtain and retain because whenever negative thoughts and feelings arise, if we hold on to them our inner peace, joy and contentment disappear. So to have happiness that lasts we should work constantly on improving ourselves, weeding out negative tendencies from our heart and mind, replacing them with thoughts that are positive, constructive and loving, and then acting in accord with these thoughts. The more we develop ourselves spiritually, the less we will be bothered by negative thoughts and emotions and the greater will be the happiness that we attain.

True happiness is far better than the oscillating state of consciousness that many people think of as happiness. What many call happiness is a restless state in which one is constantly focused on fulfilling material desires and avoiding painful circumstances. However, catering too much to physical desires increases our sensitivity to discomfort and pain, and strong attachments to objects of sense pleasure invariably give rise to fear of not getting or losing them and frustration if this happens. If one's mind is focused on attaining sense pleasures, one is somewhat happy when these desires are being satisfied, but the rest of the time is often frustrated or despondent. Unless our happiness is primarily of a spiritual nature, dark emotions periodically gain the upper hand and drive out peace, contentment, and joy. The only way to become established in a truly happy state of mind is to go beyond the plane of the senses with its alternating waves of pleasure and temporary satisfaction; pain or discomfort; frustration, anger, worry, fear, and boredom, gloom, or despair. Through spiritual growth we can rise above these alternating waves of ordinary human consciousness and find happiness within.

The highest happiness is gained by meditating deeply and then living and working with love in our hearts, not motivated by selfish pursuits that exclude the welfare of others but for the good of all. When your life is an expression of the love and divinity within your soul, when you act out of the intuitive guidance of the Spirit within you rather than giving in to blind desires, you find that life takes on a new dimension, and you begin to realize your higher nature, the Self. You set aside the little self (the ego) in order to find the omnipresent, blissful Self. The realization of your Self—immortal spirit, at one with God—is the highest, the most enduring and joyful kind of happiness there is.

Celebrate the Self

The Self came forth from God, as Spirit, free and strong,  
Then souls lost sight of divine light; now for this gift we long.

The Self and God are one and shine eternally.  
And when we purify the soul, their light within we'll see.

As blissful love divine, immortal consciousness  
The Self has power to know all things and all creation bless.

Few realize the Self, the truth of what they are.  
Most live in fear, in strife and pain; from bliss, they've traveled far.

When we grow tired of earthly pleasure-seeking here  
We'll seek the peace and joy within, and love will replace fear.

For love is what we are; not senses, thought and dread.  
Love is our true identity, and it should reign instead.

If you would know the Self, forget the body shell  
And meditate in love and peace; in blissful oneness dwell.

O, celebrate the Self. It's greater than you think.  
It reaches to the stars above. With God it is your link.
Article Eleven

Delusion, Ego, and Free Will

Maya, Avidya, and Their Consequences

Maya is a fundamental concept in Hindu and Buddhist teachings. It is the universal power—often characterized as a goddess—that draws our attention away from awareness of Eternal Reality toward sense experience and causes us to perceive the world as reality. Maya keeps us from experiencing the Self and God even though the world is not eternal, and not real in the way that the Self and God are. When one awakens in God, it is seen as an illusion, like a dream. The world is often spoken of as maya, for it has the power to delude those who get caught up in its attractions and keep them from awakening for a long time.

Avidya is delusion caused by this power in the perceptions and thoughts of individuals. The word "avidya" literally means "not-knowledge," or ignorance, and also means "false knowledge" based on sense experiences and concepts derived from them. Such "knowledge" is considered false because it takes the place of true knowledge, which is direct experience of God and the Self. The Self is the immortal essence of one's soul, created by God in God's "image and likeness." In his Yoga Sutras, a timeless treatise on yoga, the ancient avatar Patanjali says that avidya is taking the non-eternal for the eternal, the impure for the pure, the evil for the good, and the not-Self for the Self.

What is not generally understood is how maya or avidya can cause human beings to become so entranced by the world that they do not experience Eternal Reality. Maya is said to have a mysterious power that causes us to slip into a delusive state of consciousness, caught up in attachment to sense pleasures and aversion to pain. However, the way in which we become deluded by the influence of maya can be explained as follows.

The human mind, working with input from the physical senses, creates spiritual ignorance and delusion if we allow ourselves to become preoccupied with likes and dislikes, attached to and craving things that cause pleasure and opposed to or hating things that cause pain. By judging some things as good and others as bad or evil, mentally accepting the former and rejecting the latter, the first humans, symbolized by Adam and Eve, began to perceive division and separation in the world instead of seeing all things united as one. This was the beginning of maya, or delusion, for in reality all things are united as one. God is infinite love and oneness and embraces all things as one, even things we perceive as evil. Because all things exist in the infinite oneness and love of God, they are united as one.

Oneness is a quality not only of God but also of the Self, which is the image of God, so the more our human progenitors perceived separation instead of oneness, the less awareness of the Self and God they had. Their ability to commune with God was greatly diminished, and as their awareness of the Self vanished, so did their knowledge of their true identity, and they began to identify with their body. They became attached to material things as a source of pleasure and began to fear bodily injury, pain, loss of possessions and death. Since they no longer experienced divine reality, they began to perceive sensory experience as reality. For eons, humanity as a whole has remained asleep, mistaking "dreams" for reality.

The delusive perceptions, avidya, of the fallen mind cause great suffering on the earth plane. Because almost all of us do not experience the bliss, love and omniscient consciousness of our immortal Self, and its unity with all things and God, we are only aware of what we perceive through our physical senses and limited mortal mind. In the absence of divine consciousness, we have little peace, joy and contentment, and pain is felt much more intensely.

Moreover, we conceive of the universe as real, even though it is not real in the way that God is real. For the universe is like a cosmic motion picture projected from—manifested by—the creative light of God the Holy Spirit. If we allow ourselves to become caught up in the seeming reality of the "motion picture," we become oblivious of the pure light and love of God and do not experience all things as unified in oneness. No longer aware of our identity as the blissful, omnipresent Self, one with God, we identify instead with our limited, mortal body and mind. In spiritual teachings this false identity is called the ego, and until we rise above the ego's materialistic influence and become conscious of the Self and God, we suffer from fear, pain, and spiritual deprivation.

The ego seeks satisfaction in sense pleasures because it is unaware of the supreme happiness found in the inner peace, bliss, love and light of the omnipresent Self and God. It causes almost everyone to become engrossed in the world of matter, trying to find fulfillment in sense pleasures—entertainment, eating and sex, for example—because, cut off from divine realities, it knows of nothing better. In seeking such pleasures, people often develop habits and addictions that destroy health and mental well-being. To find the highest happiness one must look for it in the only place it can be found: in the Self and God. For genuine, lasting happiness cannot exist in a body and mind divorced from the soul and Spirit.

Just as a snowball rolling down a snow-covered slope picks up layer after layer of additional snow, the ego—which initially was but a thin layer of dualistic perception veiling our awareness of the Self—grows thicker and thicker over time as long as we let selfish, materialistic impulses guide us. Sooner or later every one of us will make the effort to eliminate the thoughts, desires and tendencies of the ego and awaken to the blissful, omnipresent consciousness within us. By living in love and meditating on God we can reverse our descent into delusion and replace false knowledge with direct experience of Truth and Eternal Reality. When we return to awareness of our native state of love, oneness and joy by thinking and acting in ways that dispel delusion, we will have found supreme and lasting happiness. And we will have gained the wisdom to remain above the influence of desires, aversions, and dualistic thinking, thus to dwell forever in the blissful, sweet consciousness of our eternal Self and God.

Free Will

In the beginning, human beings were highly developed spiritually, and pain was far less intense than it is now. It served a good purpose by warning them of bodily injury and harmful things to avoid for their physical safety and health. But when they forgot they were one with God and all creation, became engrossed in the pleasures of the five senses and fell from their original purity and perfection, pain became far more intense. But it still serves its original purpose by showing us what to avoid, and because it is worse if it is experienced dualistically instead of being seen as part of the oneness of all things, and causes great suffering for those who seek happiness only in physical pleasure and indulge in unhealthy ways of living, it prods us to look for happiness beyond the realm of the senses.

Just as pain and suffering are steps in our journey to infinite bliss and perfection, the experience of evil is a phase in our development as we learn to make wise choices. God created us as divine, immortal beings with free will. Without freedom of choice, our actions would have been governed by the laws of cause and effect, and we would not have been divine. In order to be truly free, made in the image of God, we had to be free to do whatever we wanted to do—to choose to follow God's advice or not to follow it. Some souls disregarded God's warning and made foolish choices. As a result, they experienced separation from God and lost awareness of the love at the core of their being. That is how evil came into the world.

But evil came out of something that was good: our creation as free-will beings. And as we learn to resist evil promptings and inclinations, we will return to the Eden of blissful God consciousness that was known in the beginning.

If we follow the advice of enlightened beings, we can be calm and even-minded during the ups and downs in life and will know how to be happy and stay out of trouble. Their wisdom combined with God's guiding "voice" within us will help us decide what movies to watch, what books to read, what foods to eat and so on. Life is full of pure and impure, helpful and harmful, things, which we can choose either to avoid or to experience, so we need to make wise choices. Mahavatar Babaji, in speaking with the guru of Paramahansa Yogananda, said:

"Everything on earth is of mixed character, like a mingling of sand and sugar. Be like the wise ant that seizes only the sugar, and leaves the sand untouched."
Article Twelve

Pain and Suffering

My response to an anonymous posting blaming God for the  
pain and suffering in our world

Your question reflects the thoughts of those who want to know how a God of love could be the creator of a world in which we experience pain and suffer because of ignorance, selfishness, greed and anger. The answer is: God did not create this outcome—human beings did—and when we reunite with God, our suffering will be gone and we will be glad God created us. God gave us freedom to think and do whatever we chose to think and do, and many of us made, and continue to make, poor choices. We chose thoughts and actions that took us away from blissful experiences of beauty, love, peace and harmony, and created physical and emotional pain and suffering instead.

The suffering that occurred on earth as a result of the choices made by humans was horrendous. I agree with you that we find ourselves in a hazardous world, but humans, not God, made the choices that transformed our planet from a "heaven on earth" into a "hell on earth." Read the entire section in Messages from Jesus that your quote is from, and you will see that humans magnified pain and suffering by judging them as separate from the blissful unity of all there is. By our judgments we created, and still continue to create, the idea of separation. This false concept caused us to lose our awareness that everything is united in blissful unity, which many consider to be the essence of God.

You might reply that, by creating a world, and humans endowed with the ability to destroy its perfection if they chose wrong thoughts and actions, God is responsible for our pain and suffering. But consider the good inherent in what God created. Eventually, people will learn—perhaps through much suffering—to avoid the actions that cause pain: selfishness, overeating, hate, greed, attachments, laziness, and so on. Unconditional love for all will grow stronger, and people will learn to follow their inner guidance, thus avoiding much of the pain they now experience. Over time, a new humanity will be born, free from hate, prejudice, fear, guilt, and all the other dismal traits that for eons—like mud covering diamonds—have kept most of us from being aware of the love within us and the oneness of everything. All we need to do is remove the mud, and the diamonds will sparkle in the light.

Think of this: in time human beings will have learned, deep in their souls, what to avoid and what to concentrate on. They will have gained control of their thoughts and minds, and the love that is in each person will blaze forth. Love is the greatest power there is. It brings harmony, engenders health, resolves disputes, and changes situations. In short, we will manifest our true nature as divine beings, creating only good by utilizing the wisdom, love and power latent within us, and experiencing the beauty and bliss we had forgotten long ago.
Article Thirteen

The Meaning of the Garden of Eden Story

The biblical story of Adam and Eve, who represent the first human beings, is an allegory of the fall of mankind and remains a mystery until we understand its hidden symbolism. The symbolic meaning of some of the following expressions is indicated by the words in parentheses and enables us to understand the part of the story where Adam and Eve are tempted.

After God has created Adam, He tells him he may freely "eat from any tree" (enjoy any sense) in the "garden" (the body) but must not eat from "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil," which is in the middle of the garden, and according to Eve, "must not touch it," or he will "die" (lose his spiritual life—awareness of his bliss, spiritual power and immortality). However, the "serpent" (temptation) tells Eve, "You will not die, for God knows that when you eat from it (eat fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden) your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." Eve yields to temptation and eats some of the fruit, assuming it will make one wise, and also gives some to Adam and he eats it. Suddenly they realize that they are naked and sew fig leaves together to make themselves aprons (Genesis 3).

But they were naked before eating the fruit and felt no shame. Why did eating the fruit cause them to feel naked and want to cover their body?

Eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil caused the first human beings to lose their original, heavenly state of consciousness (Eden) and become almost totally subject to the limitations of the physical body. They felt guilty and ashamed, for they had disobeyed God's warning and as a result suffered a great loss. This part of the allegory can be explained in terms of the ancient scriptures of India, as follows.

A tree with its roots, trunk and limbs turned upside down resembles the structure of the nervous system of the human body, and the "tree of life" in the allegory represents the spiritual counterpart of the physical nervous system, the body's energy channels (nadis). The roots of a tree symbolize these channels in the brain through which life energy flows into centers of consciousness in the head and spine, and throughout the physical body, enlivening it; the trunk represents energy channels in the spine; and the limbs that extend from the trunk represent afferent and efferent energy channels and nerves. Nerves contain neurons, and each individual neuron has a tree-like structure.

The trees in the garden that God said Adam could eat from symbolize sensory neurons with their branching extensions, but the tree in the middle of the garden (body), which was to be left alone, signifies the neurons that receive sex sensations. When the first humans "ate the fruit" of this tree (stimulated their sex nerves), the powerful kundalini energy, which enlivened their faculties of divine awareness in the "tree of life" (the spiritual counterpart of the physical nervous system), was diverted from these faculties and channeled into the physical tree in the middle of the body. Their awareness of God and of His "image" in them as the love, light, intelligence and powers of the immortal soul was almost completely lost, and they experienced sex sensations. Because they felt guilt and shame for what they had done, they felt naked and wanted to cover their sex organs.

Moreover, they "knew good and evil." This means that our progenitors judged the things they liked as "good" and the things they disliked as "bad" or "evil." God is omnipresent, indivisible Spirit in which all things, even those perceived as evil, are united as one, but by judging and mentally rejecting things they disliked they began to perceive separation. This caused them to lose awareness of God—the omnipresent, unifying Spirit in everything—and the soul. By judging things they disliked instead of accepting everything as one, their awareness of God, the soul, and the power of the soul to manifest material things and to experience divine love and oneness was greatly diminished.

Thus the heavenly state of consciousness of the first humans—the paradise of Eden—was lost, and they looked to the body and material possessions for happiness and security. However, in the absence of the love, unity and joy of God, happiness and security can never be found. Instead, fear, greed and hate increased, their bodies became denser, their world changed to reflect their matter-bound consciousness, and pain, sorrow, fear and death became all too familiar to them. This was a tremendous loss, for in their original state of consciousness, their spiritual faculties were functioning, and they could manifest whatever they wanted by the divine power within them. The fall of the first human beings took place long ago, and all on earth are subject to the legacy of dualistic thinking and evil that resulted.

However, in reading the first part of Genesis 3:22, one gets the impression that to know good and evil is godly, for it is usually translated in the present tense: And Jehovah God said, "The man is become as one of us, knowing good and evil..." But Clarke's Commentary on the Bible says that "is" should have been translated "was" and suggests that something like the following would be correct: And Jehovah God said, "The man, who was like one of us, is now fallen [knowing both good and evil]... "This makes sense because it was before they fell and knew good and evil that Adam and Eve were like God, and they fell, knowing good and evil, because they began to lose awareness of God and judged things they disliked as bad or evil, for example, pain, which served the purpose of alerting them to what they should avoid.

Words cannot adequately describe God but they can point us in the right direction, and we can think of God as bliss, love, oneness, and light; as the one Supreme Consciousness, infinite and eternal, beyond time and space; and as the omnipresent, intelligent power that creates and pervades the cosmos. However, by coming to know good and evil, human beings lost their awareness of the wondrous powers, blessings and glory of God, omnipresent everywhere and within themselves, in the soul.

Although the Fall would have caused our progenitors—and ourselves by inheriting their traits and way of life—to experience guilt and fear and no longer know the innocence, peace and other divine qualities each of us received when we were created, we should realize that at the core of our being we are still divine, for the essence of every soul, the Self, is perfect and unchanging. When we transcend the lower, mortal self, which in spiritual writings is called the ego, we will realize we are the vast, eternal Self. Our consciousness will merge with the infinite consciousness of God, and through loving intentions we will extend God's perfect creation, rather than desecrating it by seeking only to fulfill personal desires and by fighting with each other. We just need to follow God's guidance, practice meditation and moderation, and love and forgive ourselves and others. Thus the desires of the physical body will be tamed and transmuted, our soul's descent into spiritual ignorance and delusion will be reversed, and we will regain awareness of our immortality and oneness with God.

Note: Paramahansa Yogananda discusses the Garden of Eden allegory in much greater detail in God Talks With Arjuna: The Bhagavad Gita (pages 28-29, 446, 930-932), published by Self-Realization Fellowship. The statement that the perception of separation from God came about when people began to judge certain things as good or evil is based on Jesus' teaching about judgment in Mary Ann Johnston's book Messages from Jesus.

O poor and hungry of the world,  
Unkindly treated and oppressed,  
Who, thus, despise the fortunate,  
With love and light may you be blessed.

And you who counsel them with lies,  
Who, filled with anger, hate, and spite,  
Do urge them on to kill;  
We send you love and light.

May mercy and forgiveness rule,  
For only love can end the violence and fear  
That all on earth have helped create  
In distant past and near.

Though mortal enemies now cause us pain,  
We've done the same to others in lives past.  
Help us, O God—by seeing Thee in all—  
To end the dismal cycle, else it last
Article Fourteen

Channeling, Visitations and New Teachings from Jesus

The terms "channeling" and "mediumship" have almost the same meaning. In the past, people who contacted departed family members and beings in other realms were called mediums. Then, starting in the nineteen seventies, many books were written that contained information from such beings about life after death, metaphysics, and prophesied events, for example, earth changes. Psychics who received this information began to be called "channels," and the process of receiving it was called "channeling."

Usually, a channel either consciously communicates with a spirit but is unable to see it, or becomes a passive vessel, often unconscious, so that a spirit can use their vocal cords to speak or their hands to record messages. In either case, some channeled messages are true, some contain lies and are intended to deceive, and many are from spirits who have access to certain kinds of knowledge but are not infallible. Unlike the process of receiving information from a divine being who appears in a sublime, supernal vision or visitation, in channeling the source of the information is invisible to the channel, and it is often very difficult, if not impossible, for either the one who receives the information or the one who reads it to determine if the being is really who it says it is and if it knows and can be trusted to tell the truth.

Only through clear spiritual insight and sound reasoning can one ascertain the nature of an invisible being and the value of what it says. While some messages do not contradict the teachings of enlightened masters and appear to be true, others can be very difficult to evaluate. In false channelings, truth and fiction are often mixed together and the fiction is presented with such skill that it looks like truth. For these reasons and others, channeling and channeled writings should be approached with care, and unless one has good reason to accept or reject a channeled message, one should suspend judgment and not integrate it into one's belief system.

Messages received by gifted people who are able to see and converse with great masters such as Jesus and Mother Mary are much easier to evaluate. The master may appear in a beautiful ethereal form or as light, and a person blessed with such a glorious visitation is often transported into a dimension of higher awareness. The person may feel great love and bliss. Such a visitation is a divine blessing, and messages received in an exalted state of consciousness should be believed, provided the recipient is telling the truth and not exaggerating what was experienced. The process that most people refer to as "channeling" is very different. One simply receives thoughts or mentally hears a voice from a source that is invisible to them, or is in a semi-conscious or unconscious state and their body is used to speak or record messages. Nevertheless, legitimate messages are often conveyed in this way.

In his book God Talks With Arjuna: The Bhagavad Gita, pages 990-993, Paramahansa Yogananda cautions us not to seek guidance from mediums who contact astral entities while in a passive trance state. He wants us to realize that most beings in the astral world are not qualified to give reliable information and some of them purposely try to mislead us, whereas a realized master—appointed by God to help mankind—presents his divine message and testimony while on earth and, after leaving his physical form behind, does not have any afterthoughts requiring revelation by psychics and mediums. He predicted—and it happened—that after he passed on, many trance mediums would claim to be receiving new teachings from him. He said that all such claims would be false.

It would be a mistake, however, to conclude from this that all channeled material is from astral spirits and is false or of little value. Some very useful information has been channeled by trance mediums, for example, Edgar Cayce. And, even though great masters do not channel teachings through ordinary trance mediums after passing on, Jesus, Mother Mary and other great ones have given messages—of truth, inspiration, practical value, and hope—to certain people for humanity.

In the last forty years, through messages he has given to people who could work with him, Jesus has been correcting misinterpretations of his teachings, as well as misconceptions regarding him that arose in the early Christian church, and also addressing problems that confront us today, such as the danger of weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, earth changes, and the degradation of the environment due to pollution.

It is reasonable to assume that 2,000 years after completing his mission on earth Jesus would want to correct misconceptions regarding him and his teachings and address problems that pertain to our modern, technological era. Moreover, for several decades he has been giving us profound teachings about non-judgment, divine love and oneness that are not in the Bible. It makes perfect sense that now, in an age of greater spiritual awareness, Jesus would give higher teachings to those who are able to understand them, through messengers who are able to receive his words. Perhaps these teachings were given to his close disciples, but they would not have been understood by the masses and were not embraced or taught by the Church. Today, Christians would think of them as new teachings.

One should always be discerning when reading information that has been channeled, for it may have come from an astral spirit posing as an enlightened being. If someone receives teachings from the other side of the veil, it is best if they are fully conscious and can tell what kind of being they are communicating with. In communicating with or reading the words of an enlightened being, one's consciousness usually is elevated. This is a sign that what they are receiving or reading comes from a divine source and is truth.

Article Fifteen

Religion in Transition

Religions have come a long way. In centuries past, some of them accepted slavery and torture of heretics, but as humanity evolved and people realized that such practices were wrong, religions changed for the better. It is through an increase in spiritual awareness that change comes to religion. Only through the love and wisdom that come from communing with God are clergy and laity able to understand deep truths and interpret scripture correctly.

Most religions no longer hold that scientific thought is the work of the devil and that they have the right to use force to convert unbelievers. Today, many people are past the stage of judging those who do not believe as they do and fantasizing about their destruction. They try to live in love, without condemnation, and some even appreciate the unique expressions of devotion and spiritual wisdom found in religions other than their own. And yet, there still are clerics and lay members in some religions who have attitudes, beliefs and customs that are as narrow and bigoted as those prevalent in Europe and America in the past. Some of these people trust false doctrines that harden the heart and close the mind, so that past injuries are dwelt upon instead of being forgiven, and the teachings of other religions are condemned as evil. They don't realize that many of the beliefs they consider true are based on misinterpretations and inaccurate translations of scripture. Even today, "religious" fanatics are waging war to impose their beliefs on others. But the winds of change keep blowing, stirring up the dust of faulty logic, mistaken beliefs, and unloving attitudes.

Biblical passages about the "only begotten Son of God" and Christ's words, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life..." have led many Christians to conclude that Jesus is the only Son of God and that Christianity is the only true religion. But these passages refer to the Christ Consciousness. This loving, omnipresent intelligence and oneness is the spiritual emanation (Son) of the Father. It is not limited to Jesus, and it manifests in all who become truly enlightened, or God-realized. It is the very essence of our nature as spiritual beings, created in the image and likeness of God. The great yogi and God-realized master, Paramahansa Yogananda, explains in his writings that, when Jesus spoke of the Son of God, he meant the universal Christ Consciousness, with which he identified. He knew he was the prophesied Christ, for he had realized his true identity as omnipresent Spirit.

In Messages from Jesus by Mary Ann Johnston, Jesus says: "The term 'Christ Consciousness' is more recent than of old and yet is a good expression of the meaning of 'the only begotten Son of God.' The term 'Christ' goes back farther than biblical times. Krishna, as a Christ, lived three thousands of earth's years before me. There were others before and since, all highly evolved, fully realized beings. Dogma has distorted the true meaning of Christ, limiting God, once again, to only one Christ. God cannot be limited." (Third Edition, 2009, p. 33)

Another important truth that needs to be more widely accepted concerns prophecy. Many people believe that prophecies are either true or false and that those that are true will inevitably come to pass. However, in the Bible and in life, this is not always the case. Sometimes a legitimate prophecy predicts events that later are averted or modified. The Lord told Jonah to preach to the people of Ninevah and tell them that, because they had sinned, the great city would be overthrown. The people and the king took Jonah's prophecy to heart, began to pray and fast, and repented of their evildoing. God saw the change in them and Ninevah was not overthrown. Many other disasters have been averted because people changed their ways. Because we have been created in the image and likeness of God, we are endowed with free will—the ability to rise above the influence of environment and habit—and can change for the better. By making a determined effort to improve ourselves, we change the nature of the future that unfolds before us.

The Revelation of Saint John, the last book in the Bible, is a powerful and prophetic masterpiece of symbolism. Yet, it is not so much about prophecy as it is a symbolic description of the changes that take place in us as we grow spiritually. Nevertheless, its images and allegories also represent events in history and the times that are just ahead. They portray—in terms of changes in the soul and in the world—the downfall of evil and the coming of truth and love.

In John's vision, the battle of Armageddon may be interpreted as symbolizing the last battle in the internal struggle within oneself between selfish, materialistic tendencies (the "kings of the earth") and one's higher Self, prior to enlightenment. It can also be seen as a struggle for supremacy, as a new age is being born, between those who exercise material power in unloving ways and those who stand for goodness and truth. The kind of upheavals that are symbolized by this great battle and also by the destruction of Babylon might be necessary for an age dominated by greed, fear and war to be transformed into one of sharing, love and peace. However, we should keep in mind that, as in the Book of Jonah, prophecies are usually predictions based on conditions existing at the time the prophecy is delivered, and if these conditions change substantially the prophecy may be altered. In the case of Ninevah, prophecy was a spur to righteous action, which in turn changed the course of events. How events will unfold in our time will depend on how we respond as individuals and nations to the conditions that confront us. Already, disasters that were prophesied to occur before the year 2000 have been averted or, perhaps, postponed and lessened because of the prayers, right actions, and unconditional love of many here on earth and the blessings of loving souls who live in realms beyond this planet.

We live at a time of spiritual awakening for those who are willing to embrace a greater reality. As people awaken, they rely more and more on the inner guidance of Spirit to show them what to do. Some have dedicated their lives to helping people or healing our planet or doing God's will in other ways. Many are striving to realize God through meditation. Through inner experiences and intuitive knowing, people are able to understand scriptural truths that cannot be grasped by intellect alone. Some are bringing us new understandings of biblical teachings. Our decisions—as individuals, religions, and nations—either to progress or to cling to the past and resist change will affect the way that God's plans for humanity unfold. We are heading toward a new kind of civilization.

Perhaps the aspect of religious thinking most in need of change is the concept of eternal damnation. It is unthinkable that God, whose very nature is unconditional love, would torture souls forever for disobeying Him. The Bible is full of references to God's "vengeance," but God is love and His so-called vengeance should be thought of as His karmic law that—like seeds that sprout later on—sinful actions if not forgiven cause one to experience in the future something similar to the harm one has done to others. The concept of eternal damnation is contradicted by the divine knowledge within oneself that a loving God would not cause His children to suffer never-ending pain for wrong actions. A human father or mother would never do this, much less a God of infinite love. Concepts that were considered necessary in ages past to frighten people into going to church or following moral principles should be abandoned.

As clergy and lay people awaken in light and love, they will have a deeper understanding of the truths that were exemplified and taught by their own prophets or Christ. Then they will behold these same truths in the teachings of enlightened beings of all faiths. Thus will heaven come to earth, and a new age be born.

Eternal Life in God

We are the offspring of our Father's loving will.  
He waits for us to find His perfect image in us, in the soul.  
And when we find it—our true essence—we will know divinity,  
And we will be with God throughout eternity.

Christ came to earth to manifest the Father's love  
And tell us of the paradise of happiness within.  
When we abandon vengeance and rise above the Fall  
We'll find the love and peace we lost, and unity with all.

Religion in Transition

Some see our holy books,  
our covenants, both old and new,  
as perfect, free from human limitation.  
But scholars know these books to be  
both human and divine  
and that translations of key words  
are sometimes far from certain.

Moreover, some religious teachings are  
approximations of the truth.  
As mankind grows in wisdom  
these teachings often change.

Old-time religion saw a wrathful God  
and evil, guilt and sin.  
It dwelt on retribution  
and what a fix we're in.

Now, many see with eyes of soul  
and know a loving God.  
they emulate the lives of saints  
and tread the paths they trod.

And through deep meditation,  
self-discipline and love,  
they open inner portals  
that lead to heaven above.

For God is known by higher consciousness alone  
and heard and felt and seen  
in the beauty of Creation  
and in stillness deep within.

And just behind this world exist  
God's holy light and sound,  
and hidden truth in timeless realms  
where love and bliss abound.
Article Sixteen

The Spiritual Return of Jesus

"Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken: and then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory" (Matthew 24:29-30).

In his book The Second Coming of Christ, Paramahansa Yogananda interprets the return of Jesus in the above passage as Jesus appearing to individuals in a spiritual form, not in a physical body (Volume II, pp. 1312-1314). He sees the Second Coming of Christ as the awakening of each individual soul, in the course of its spiritual development, to unity with God as the Christ Consciousness, the omnipresent, guiding intelligence in creation. First, one experiences the Christ Consciousness; then one can merge with it. Thereafter, the soul is able to ascend to oneness with God as the Supreme Being, the ultimate Source of all that ever was and will be.

In commenting on Matthew 24, Yogananda says that those who become sufficiently developed spiritually will be able to "see the embodied Christ Consciousness (Jesus) coming out of the ethereal clouds of the darkness of closed eyes into the Christ Light of the spiritual eye, his form radiant with luminous heavenly power and great glory."

The spiritual eye is the sixth chakra, the astral organ of spiritual sight. By deep, devotional meditation, with the eyes turned upward and one's concentration focused at or just above the midpoint between the eyebrows, it is possible to see the Christ Light of the spiritual eye. Yogananda speaks of this wondrous light in his writings. He says that being born again means seeing the light of the spiritual eye (the single eye spoken of by Christ) and through this light experiencing the Christ Consciousness (the kingdom of God that Jesus said is within).

As in the above prophecy of Jesus, many prophecies speak of changes that are part of a long-awaited process for the purification and regeneration of the earth, its life forms and humanity. They speak of new opportunities for spiritual growth, which have become available to us in our time. They advise us that, in order to take advantage of these opportunities and cope with what is coming, we need to open our hearts and minds. They tell us we should make every effort to participate in the spiritual transformation that is taking place and that God and divine beings are with us to help us every step of the way.

In Messages from Jesus* by Mary Ann Johnston, many important matters are discussed by Jesus. With regard to his return, he says, speaking of the author, that although many like her have already experienced his return, when he returns for all of mankind, "all shall know....

"Be wary of all those who claim to be Christ. For unless this Christ comes with the highest heavens and all of nature rejoicing he will not be truth. I will come, in Christ Consciousness, for all people everywhere, with the glory of the heavens and earth, and all on earth shall know" (Third Edition, 2009, pp. 46-47).

*In 2002, Jesus and four other masters appeared to Mary Ann in ethereal light and form, and told her they would help her write books sharing her experiences and their messages. She has done this, and her writings are described at the end of this book. We are greatly blessed by the words of truth and guidance Jesus is giving us at this prophesied, turbulent time when many will awaken, "every eye [single eye] will see him," (Revelation 1:7) "and all on earth shall know" ( _Messages from Jesus_ ).

Our Divine Destiny

Our Father waits for us to reunite with Him,  
So let us talk with Him and hear His guiding voice.  
And when we do His will and triumph over sin,  
We'll find the happiness and peace we seek, within.

Although with mortal sight we cannot see God's light,  
It shines in us and may be seen with divine sight.  
When living energy flows upward in our spine,  
With "single eye" of soul we'll see God's light sublime.

God is our friend, our guide, our comfort, and our bliss.  
And when we know we all are one, and one with Him,  
We'll know His love and light and peace and joy divine.  
Then Earth transformed, renewed and pure again, will shine.
Article Seventeen

Sin and Evil

Many years ago, I attended a church service for which my wife, Mary Ann, had been invited to give a homily. As part of her talk, she read some of the inspiring messages she had received from Jesus for her book Messages from Jesus. Here is one of them: "My life and death—this sacrifice—offers perfection for all time, a release of all karmic debt, forgiveness of sin known and unknown, for those who listen to the truth and live in love" (Third Edition, 2009, p.177). After the service, a young man, referring to what had been said about sin, told me that his church didn't believe in sin. I assumed that he and other members of his church no longer accepted traditional attitudes about sin, overlaid with concepts of guilt, condemnation and vengeance, so I told him that in Mary Ann's book Jesus gives the word "sin" a definite meaning, free of the judgmental concepts people often associate with it.

My comments did not seem to satisfy the man, who appeared to believe that sin doesn't even exist and that the word should not be used. Much later, it occurred to me that perhaps he had studied A Course in Miracles, in which, from a higher perspective, evil, sin and guilt are seen as illusory and unreal. For, in the state of consciousness that the Course points us toward, God is real, and the world that we perceive with our senses and mortal mind is an illusion.

In Messages from Jesus, Jesus clarifies the meaning of sin and other pivotal concepts found in religious and spiritual teachings. On page 175, Jesus says, "Sin is the human conception of the action and the result of wrongdoing. Karma is what you receive as a result of good or sinful action." Wrongdoing is generally thought of as action that violates spiritual or moral principles.

In Messages, Jesus does not himself judge anything as bad. He simply tells us what helps or hinders our spiritual growth. But humans often conceive of sin and sinners in judgmental, or even vengeful, ways. Many people regard sin as hateful and want to see sinners "pay" for their actions, perhaps even by suffering in hell. This way of thinking and feeling is a sin for it is unloving and unforgiving, and making no effort to free the mind from such thoughts and feelings keeps us from advancing to a higher level of consciousness.

Throughout Messages from Jesus, Jesus encourages us to live in oneness and love, without judgment. He helps us to understand that we should see everything from a higher perspective and learn to love all actions and all people. He says, "To find the divinity in all things as one, you must go beyond judgments and comparisons, and acknowledge the possibility that all is unified in love as one, even the perceived evil. And, in this spiritual growth, you will catch glimpses into the real world, where only ever-expanding love prevails" (p. 125). Keep in mind that this does not translate into doing away with familial and legal restrictions on immoral or criminal behavior; it concerns our state of consciousness and attitudes.

In the chapter "War," Jesus says, "Evil, as you understand it, is a term for mankind's desecration of free will in your physical and creative faculties of thought, feeling and action" (p. 122). "Evil," therefore, applies to thoughts, feelings and actions that are immoral and unloving. Although occurrences that cause pain and suffering are often regarded as evil, we should realize that they might actually be beneficial in unforeseen ways. For example, sometimes it takes overwhelming pain and misfortune for a person to give up an unhealthy or destructive way of living. If a smoker gets lung cancer, it would be a mistake to think of the illness as evil. Diseases and other misfortunes are often karmic, caused by wrong actions in the past, and as such they eventually teach us to avoid the actions that bring them about. We shouldn't think of them as evil, for they help us to change for the better.

Likewise, we misapply the term "evil" when we regard calamities that strike large numbers of people, such as earthquakes and natural disasters, as evil. In responding to a question about evil in relation to earth changes, Jesus said, "Do you remember, I told you what you perceive as evil is often not what you perceive it to be? .... All of creation is in cycles, including mankind and Mother Earth. The cycles are constantly cleansing and rebuilding, just like breathing out and breathing in is cleansing for your physical body. It is not evil. It is natural and full of God's love." (p. 122-123)

Sin and evil should be avoided if we wish to be happy, because they afflict the body and mind, retard our spiritual growth and awareness and cut us off from the peace, love, and joy of Spirit. Moreover, most people feel the pangs of guilt and remorse if they act in a way their conscience tells them is wrong. And unless we are able to forgive ourselves and others for wrong actions, we will have to experience sometime in the future the consequences of our misdeeds or something similar. However, through love and wisdom we can learn to forgive our own and others' misdeeds. If we do this and firmly resolve not to repeat the same actions again, the karmic link of cause and effect will be broken. Like poisonous seeds that have been roasted and cannot sprout, our past wrong actions will no longer be able to produce painful karmic consequences. By living in love and forsaking sin, one can learn to forgive the errors of the past and gradually become free of self-condemnation and guilt. In Messages from Jesus, Jesus says, "If people truly forgave their selves and others, they would be so full of light it would feel as if the weight of the world was lifted from them. They would simply sin no more." (p. 39)

Healing Affirmation

Thy healing light is divinely present  
In every particle of my being.  
I am healthy ...  
I am whole ...  
In body, mind and soul.
Article Eighteen

False Concepts in Conversations with God

The Conversations with God (CwG) books are transcripts of actual, mental conversations between the author and a spirit claiming to be God. These books challenge traditional Christian theology and present alternative metaphysical concepts. However, the purpose of this article is to discuss only the basic premises—the foundational ideas, or core concepts—of the CwG books. These concepts are spelled out for the reader in Book 1. Many wonderful ideas for a better world are presented in Books 2 and 3, and there is much food for thought in each of the CwG books, but only the foundational ideas are discussed here.

Early in Book 1, we are told that, in order for anything to exist, it must have an opposite; that, in order for God (the unseen) to exist and also to know Itself, there has to be something that is not God (the visible creation). Without relativity and relationship—made possible by God's creation of the visible, physical world—God can neither exist nor know Itself except conceptually. These ideas are presented on pages 22-26 (First Hardcover Edition, 1996).

Relativity and relationship belong to the physical world. They are aspects of our experience of the world in terms of opposites, or dualities, and contrasts: cold and hot, far and near, pleasure and pain, good and bad, the observer and the observed, for example. We judge something as cold or far in relation to their opposites, hot or near. Cold and hot, or far and near are not absolutes; they exist only as perceptions in relation to, or relative to, each other. God as the eternal, unchanging Supreme Reality that existed before the world was created is the Absolute. The world we see with mortal eyes and senses and think of as reality is but illusory perception.

God is beyond even our grandest concepts of "Him," and in order to really know Him, one has to experience Him as infinite love and oneness, beyond duality. This happens when, through His grace, generally after lifetimes of selfless service and seeking, one merges with God (perhaps in deep meditation) and experiences God as the Absolute, the Supreme Reality. But this state of consciousness, which far surpasses our dualistic experiences in the physical realm, is not discussed in "Conversations." Those saints and mystics who have experienced oneness with God as the Absolute, beyond duality, tell us that this state of consciousness is so glorious it cannot be adequately described in terms of human concepts. Enlightened masters, such as Jesus, teach that to regain our lost paradise of blissful oneness with the universal Christ and the Father—the kingdom of God—is the ultimate destiny of every human being. But awareness of our oneness with God only comes when consciousness is developed and purified. Through virtue and self-discipline, living in unconditional love, study of spiritual truth, and deep meditation, one shakes off earthly attachments, ego, judgmental attitudes, hate, fear and anger, and draws ever closer to blissful oneness with God.

There is a sharp contrast between teachings that have come to us from enlightened beings, and the core teachings in Conversations with God! The latter completely reverse the teachings of enlightened beings by telling us that God's existence depends on the existence of the physical universe (rather than the existence of the universe depending on God's existence), and that God and souls can know themselves in a real and meaningful way only in terms of human experiences of relativities and dualities in the physical world (when, in fact, the reality of God and souls can be truly known only by transcending physicality, relativity and duality). On pages 22-23, the god of "Conversations" says that God longed to know what it felt like to be magnificent and, for this reason, created souls to experience Him in relative terms. For only through our human experience of Him as magnificent could He experience His magnificence.

As an example of the process of God knowing Himself through humans, the god of "Conversations" says, on pages 25-27, that the only way God could know Himself experientially as the Creator was to create sufficient parts of Himself (souls endowed with free choice) and, through their creative actions in the physical world, experience His own nature as Creator. But, even if it were true that God longed to experience Himself through the experiences of humans, wouldn't one or two of us have been sufficient in order for Him to have this experience?

"Conversations" says that, without the world and the relative, dualistic, physical experiences of souls, God was limited to conceptual knowing. Conceptual knowing is imperfect and incomplete. A concept is just a symbol of something and falls far short of the actual experience of the object, feeling, or reality that it symbolizes. However, contrary to what CwG would have us believe, God's knowing is not and never was conceptual. Enlightened masters tell us that knowing, in God's realm, is direct; it is perfect because it is direct experience in which—as yoga teaches when speaking of the state of oneness in deep meditation—the knower, the process of knowing, and the object known become one. Through oneness with something, you know all about it. In the supreme state of oneness, one does not use words or mental images—symbols—to know; one knows by being one with that which is known. Dualistic experiences are subject to the limited scope of the human mind and senses; God's knowing is all encompassing and infinite.

The self-proclaimed god of CwG spins a web of stories and philosophical sophistry that gives supreme importance to the physical creation and the limited perceptions of human beings for supposedly enabling God to exist and to know Himself. None of the saints, mystics and masters of various cultures and times have said that God needed a physical world in order to exist, and human perceptions of Him so that He could know Himself. What they have said is that only in the state of oneness beyond our perceptions of physicality, relativity, and duality can we know God as He truly is. And in our time some of them have also said that, eons ago, humans freely chose to think and act in ways that caused them to lose their awareness of unity with God and all things, and as a consequence they and the physical world they lived in fell from their original glory and perfection (symbolized in the Garden of Eden allegory). They lost the ability to know God directly and had to use concepts instead. However, as we reconnect with God by living in love and oneness, our minds and our world will be restored to their original perfection.

Another core concept in "Conversations" that needs to be evaluated is the idea that, without its opposite, love could not exist as something that could be experienced (p. 24). According to CwG, God created fear as the absolute opposite of love, so love could be experienced. However, teachings received from Jesus in our time tell us that love has neither opposites nor comparisons. In other words, love is not something that is relative to something else. This makes sense, because divine love comes from God, not from the physical plane. It is the nature of what we are as spirit and simply needs to be called forth by removing psychological obstructions, such as fear, which keep it from our awareness.

Love is far more than sympathy or human attraction; it encompasses and embraces everything. CwG acknowledges the supremacy of love and even says love is the only true reality; it is absolute, and is all there is (p. 56). How then, can love be experienced as an opposite? According to CwG, the love we experience on earth is not real love; it is an imitation of real love, which we accept as real because it seems real (p. 57).

However, even if human love is sometimes an imitation, we do experience real love on earth in varying degrees when the heart is open. Fear does not help one to experience it; fear only gets in the way. Fear shuts down the higher functions of the heart, which enable us to experience blissful, joyous, divine love. Yet, when we give and receive love, the heart is open and fear is gone. The most wonderful ("one-full") experiences on earth are of love, bliss, oneness, and divine light. Experiences of divine realities far transcend experiences of the physical world. Physical relativities and dualities simply cannot compare with, and do not help us, to experience divine realities. To experience divine love, we need to step aside from fears, comparisons and judgments. This opens the way for love to enter in. However it only comes when the time is right. Perhaps guilt, fear, and other psychological obstructions still remain—buried deep in the subconscious mind—to be patiently dissolved through meditation, forgiveness, and wisdom.

The god of "Conversations" speaks of love as the sum total of all feelings. He says that the soul can experience perfect love only by experiencing every human feeling, namely, fear, hatred, anger, etc.; and that the purpose of the human soul is to experience all human emotions so that it can be all of them. He says that accomplishing this takes many lifetimes (p. 83-84).

It is true that humans have been incarnating over and over for many lifetimes, experiencing fear, anger, hatred, lust, vengeance, greed, and so on, as well as wars, personal vendettas, and endless miseries, caused by destructive emotions and selfish desires. But is experiencing every human feeling the purpose of the soul, a task we were sent here to accomplish? Certainly, we need to be conscious of our negative thoughts and emotions and not shrink from recognizing them, but we should refuse to act them out. Our purpose in coming here was to experience the divinity in each other and in God's creation by living in love and oneness, and to create only good by acting in accord with the will of God. Fear, greed, anger, and all the other negative emotions cause us to reincarnate over and over until we learn to tame them with wisdom and replace them with love. They are not ingredients that, by being mixed together, create love. Instead, they keep us from accepting, expressing and experiencing love.

By telling us that we need to experience all aspects of life on earth, including desires and unloving emotions that cause pain and suffering for ourselves and others, and keep us from living in peace and joy, the god of "Conversations" clearly demonstrates he isn't interested in our spiritual welfare. There is not, and never was, a need to explore the endless caverns of human experience in order to experience love. In order to experience divine love, we need to give up the thoughts, feelings, and desires of the ego, which block awareness of our oneness with each other and God and keep us from feeling love. Love is our inmost essence, and by leaving selfish thoughts, feelings, and desires behind, we rise above the habits and compulsions of our lower nature, and love begins to manifest in our life. The god of "Conversations" wants to put one over on us by telling us we need to experience every human feeling.

I've only mentioned a few of the core concepts in the CwG books intended to mislead people and hinder them from making the effort to get rid of habits and compulsions that keep them earthbound. There are many other false teachings in these books. And, of course, there also are many true teachings. It is as if the god that presented these concepts wants us to keep on reincarnating over and over, pursuing earthly desires and objectives, but also does not want us to become so obsessed with fear, greed, hostility, and vengeance that we destroy our physical forms and the earth as well. So, not only do we find many falsehoods in Conversations with God, but also much that is true, especially in the books that came out after Book 1. And, keep in mind that not many people would read these books unless, in addition to untruth, they also contained truth and inspiration. By telling us many things that are true, they give the impression that they really might be conversations with God, in which case even the falsehoods would be accepted as true. Their teachings are presented with great skill, intelligence, and cunning. When I first started reading the CwG books, some of the teachings didn't quite add up but, like most of us, I didn't take time to carefully examine and analyze everything. Then, several years later, I decided to study the teachings more closely and discovered inconsistencies and distortions of truth, such as those I'm discussing here.

These books tell us we are continuously creating the Self by the choices we make on the earth plane (p. 113), but Self-realized masters tell us the Self was created by God, that it was perfect right from the start and still is perfect, even though the ego keeps us from experiencing the Self and knowing this. When we experience the Self, we will know what it is, that it has never changed and has always been the same. So, attaining Self-realization is not a process of creating the Self; it is remembering who we are.

The Conversations with God books make a pretense of guiding us toward Self-realization, but actually do the opposite. Instead of telling us how to rise above earthly thoughts and desires in order to focus our mind on Spirit, they point us in the direction of body-consciousness. Instead of explaining that the Self and God are realized by learning to concentrate on divine realities—peace, love and light, for instance—beyond the relativities and dualities of the physical world, they say that the Self and God are created by our experiences of our actions in this world in terms of relativity and duality. They make a true statement that our purpose is to live our highest conception of ourselves and that our highest purpose is to realize the Self (p. 129), but then tell us that our mind, not God, creates the Self, and that the Self is experienced not by becoming aware of the soul's perfection and oneness with God but through physical experiences (p. 196). They even encourage us to explore and enjoy all aspects of the physical realm. They say that, when we have had enough sex or any of the other pleasures of earthly life, we will desire a higher life and will naturally renounce these pleasures, in order to pursue a higher goal, a greater version of life. But the relative world of dualities and physical pleasures can be a trap. People have been seeking physical pleasures for eons, yet rarely have they renounced them and become Self-realized. And those who accomplished this did so by making a colossal, superhuman effort to rise above the influence of dualities and body-consciousness.

In order to realize the Self and God, it is important to control one's thoughts and exercise restraint in enjoying the pleasures of eating, entertainment, sex, and all the other earthly activities that otherwise take over a person's life and leave little time for devotional communion with God. If we just wait passively for these desires to dissipate, it may never happen. By making a determined effort to spend more time in spiritual activities, such as meditation, we can succeed in living a truly higher life... one of love and spiritual progress.

On pages 100-103, we are told that, instead of resisting desires that do not serve us, we should look at them, understanding and accepting them, then step aside from them, and they will disappear. However, looking at our desires in this way hardly ever makes them disappear. You might step aside from them—putting them out of your awareness momentarily—but, like a magnetic imprint in your mind that is still there, they come right back into your awareness. Also, thinking about sex, food, or anything else that you desire usually increases your desire.

The same is true for destructive habits of thinking, such as nursing grievances and condemning or criticizing people. Just looking at destructive habits of thinking, while understanding and accepting them, doesn't make them disappear.

After telling us how to deal with desires that do not serve us, "Conversations" mentions something that does work (p. 104). It is simply to turn toward God and away from temptation. Turning toward God gives one inner strength and motivation to naturally and successfully renounce (turn away from) desires one wants to get rid of. If a desire comes to tempt you, don't think about it, trying to understand it; or concentrate on it, trying to see through it; just say No, and turn to God. If it resists, persist until it's dismissed.

On page 29, "Conversations" says that only in the realm of the Absolute can something exist without its opposite and that the realm of the Absolute did not suffice for either God or ourselves, for in the Absolute there is no experience, only knowing. However, as previously mentioned God's knowing, unlike ordinary, human knowing, is not conceptual and limited. The realm of the Absolute is the realm of God as unchanging, ever-new bliss—a state of consciousness beyond earthly dualities, physical pleasures, pain and suffering. In this infinite realm, God knows by being one with that which is known. This kind of knowing is experiential in the highest sense of the word and is the kind of knowing we had before we lost awareness of our oneness with God. What does not suffice for either God or us is our ignorance of God and the Self, which was created by God out of God's own divine substance, and our bondage to the wheel of reincarnation, which persists until our earthly karma and desires are overcome by right action, divine love and wisdom.

"Conversations" then goes on to equate God the Father with conceptual knowing and God the Son with dualistic experiencing. It says that God the Son is the acting out of "all that the Father knows of Itself," for one can only be that which one has experienced (p. 30). This is an attempt to make dualistic, earthly experience seem more important than the infinite love and bliss that is God and which God knows by direct experience. It even implies that the Father and Son cannot exist, in other words, be, without earthly experience.

In terms of linear cause and effect, common sense tells us the existence (being) of the Creator (Father) comes first, before the existence (being) of the Creation (the physical world and souls) and experiences of acting out the Father's concepts of Himself. The experiences, according to CwG, are the Son, and being comes after this. CwG says that being is the Holy Spirit—the disembodied memory of the Son's experience on the physical plane (p. 30). What CwG says is untrue. God the Father is being (God has to exist, in other words, be, in order to create), God the Son is the reflection of the loving intelligence of the Father omnipresent in Creation, not the acting out of concepts, and God the Holy Spirit is the divine light and vibratory power of the Father that manifested and sustains Creation, not a memory of earthly experiences. The Father and the Son, as well as the Holy Spirit, have being, for to exist is to be.

The state of being of God the Father is often considered to be the supreme state of being, and the physical creation as not true being. CwG agrees with this in saying that love is the only true reality; it is absolute, and is all there is (p. 56). Therefore, in saying that "being is achieved only after experience" (p. 30), CwG contradicts itself. CwG is full of contradictory statements like this. It presents contradictory ideas as though they were perfectly compatible. It agrees with many of its reader's beliefs, but presents contradictory ideas that help to support the basic idea it wants us to accept: that physical experiences are more important than God the Father. It tries to make us believe that returning to this world is more important than returning to the Father, and entices us to keep on being reborn in human embodiment, as we have been doing for, perhaps, many thousands of lifetimes, drawn here by unfulfilled physical desires and karma.

The god of "Conversations" makes an interesting statement in Book 3 (copyright 1998, p. 185) by telling us that he is the source of A Course in Miracles, a book first published in 1976, whose teachings and mental exercises help those who study and practice them, to overcome the influence of the relativities and illusions of the world, to "listen" to the voice of the Holy Spirit, and to experience the light of Christ within. Since the Course directly contradicts the core message of "Conversations," that divinity can only be experienced in terms of relativities and illusions, one wonders why the god of "Conversations" would try to take credit for it. Perhaps, because A Course in Miracles is very difficult to understand, the readers of "Conversations" might not read the "Course" or might not notice the contradictions.

Also, in Book 3, Paramahansa Yogananda is mentioned as an example of a highly evolved being, a master who lived in peace and serenity most of his life, and brought peace and serenity to others (pp. 132, 324). This is certainly true. However, Yogananda taught people to discover the peace, love, and joy of the soul through meditation. By self-discipline, devotion, breath control, and stilling the mind in deep meditation, one is able to experience the light, love and bliss of Spirit. The purpose of deep, daily meditation is to realize God by transcending the dualities and relativities of the illusory, phenomenal world. The cosmic, delusive influence of relativity, duality and perceived separation from God is called maya in the ancient scriptures of India, and Yogananda's teachings show us how to overcome maya and penetrate its illusions. In his Autobiography of a Yogi (Chapter 30, "The Law of Miracles") and in many other writings, he discusses maya, which causes us to become and remain engrossed in the pleasures of the world lifetime after lifetime. Though Conversations with God professes to show us the way to enlightenment and freedom, its teachings block the way. It talks about meditation and God, and even says that our reality is love, but in telling us that God and love can only be experienced in terms of relativity and duality, it contradicts the Course, Yogananda, and all others who have experienced and become one with God and love.

A Course in Miracles teaches that love is all encompassing and, as such, can have no opposite. "Conversations" says that, in order for love to exist, its opposite has to exist (p. 24) and even tells us that, in order to experience love, the soul has to experience all emotions—feelings perceived as evil as well as those perceived as good—so it can "be all of it" (pp. 83, 84). But we already are love. The reason we experience so little of the blissful love that we are is that, long ago, after God created us, we began to be influenced by dualities within the earth plane and developed likes and dislikes. Instead of remembering the oneness of all things, we began to perceive pain and suffering as separate from the things we liked. This inability to be at one with all aspects of creation led to a perceived separation from, and diminished ability to commune with, The Divine. And the chasm grew ever wider (Messages from Jesus, by Mary Ann Johnston, Third Edition, 2009, p. 166). By judging and mentally casting off the things they disliked, humanity increasingly lost awareness of the oneness of all things and perceived separation from God, for through oneness and love we are consciously united with God. As a result, spiritual awareness decreased, desires for sense pleasures and material things increased, and greed, guilt, fear, and great suffering came about.

Experiencing all emotions so we can be love, and experiencing all actions so we can know which ones to choose (pp. 83, 84) is a path pursued by those who have not yet found a spiritual path and still have to learn the hard way how to behave. Most people who study spiritual teachings are at a stage in their spiritual growth where they already know that hate, greed, excessive fear and anger, and actions that harm yourself or others should be avoided. And if they seek the supreme peace, bliss, oneness, love and light of God, these people are ready for devoted practice of the teachings of Jesus, Yogananda, and others who have attained these blessings by merging in the eternal, infinite consciousness of God. Through the teachings, love and life of great masters, we are guided and inspired to purify ourselves of negative thoughts, learn to love all, do God's will, and commune with God in silence.

The god of "Conversations" tells us he is not the Supreme Being. He says that, as we now understand God, he is God, but that, even as we are his children, he is the child of another (Book 1, p. 197). However, he talks so eloquently with such utter confidence and seeming authority and says so much that is true about the foibles and failings of humankind that many are inclined to believe everything he says. The god of "Conversations" is not to be trusted, but the God of Love is our Eternal Father, Mother, and Friend.

The dualistic dance of life continues  
As long as likes and dislikes dominate the mind.  
But when we realize our blissful essence  
Eternal love and unity we find.

For we are made of God's immortal substance;  
God's love and light are our reality.  
We need but to experience our being,  
The joyful, stainless Self, forever free.
Article Nineteen

Is A Course of Love Truth or Falsehood?

A Course of Love (ACOL) claims to be a continuation of A Course in Miracles (ACIM). It was heard inwardly and written down, as was ACIM, and in both cases the "voice" claimed to be from Jesus. However, the literary style of ACOL, though similar to that of ACIM, is not the same and appears to be an attempt to mimic it. In addition, the teachings in ACOL contradict core teachings in ACIM that have helped and still are helping many to purify their minds of earthly illusions and the limiting beliefs of the ego, so they can receive the blessings of the Holy Spirit. If people believed what is written in ACOL, the spiritual help they would otherwise receive from the teachings and practices in ACIM would be nullified. The purpose of this article is to shed light on some of the fundamental differences between the two teachings.

The following page and section numbers refer to ACOL:  
Combined Volume.

P. 280-282:

In 1.1, 7, 12, ACOL says that now—at this point in learning this course—the ego has been separated from the reader's personal self, and the reader's "remembrance of the Christ-Self has abolished the ego-self... "In other words, it claims the reader has now realized the Christ.

P. 340-341:

ACOL says if you try to help others who are suffering you may lose your inner peace, that you should minister to those in illusion only if your unity (oneness) with Jesus Christ is accomplished and if, without being in unity, you try to help others leave illusions behind and return to unity, it will not work (20.14-15). This is not true. If you seek and follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit within you when trying to help others, you will not lose your inner peace, and it is always helpful to recommend the teachings of ACIM to those who are receptive and ready.

If ACIM has benefited you, you can mention this to all who would be open to hearing what you have to say. By sharing with love and a desire to help others, our love increases, for we receive what we give. This is a divine principle, and those who live in love and in harmony with God's laws help others. A Course in Miracles speaks of the laws of God, which have not changed. ACOL tells us that the time of Christ is now upon us, that new laws are now in effect, and that we no longer need the help and guidance of the Holy Spirit. There is no evidence of this. The time of Christ may be fast approaching, but the Holy Spirit is still with us. And when we listen to and follow His gentle guidance, He leads us to the Christ... the wisdom, love and light within... the truth of what we are.

P. 559-560:

These sections contain many false statements in an attempt to convince the reader that, in order to realize the one Self, one has to unite with oneness by separating from oneness.

In 11.5, ACOL tells us, "It is only in relationship that the oneness of the self separates from oneness and so knows oneness." What could this possibly mean? If oneness is oneness, it could not separate from oneness.

ACOL also says, "God is the oneness and the separation." How could God be the oneness and the separation? ACIM teaches that God is real, separation is illusion, and reality cannot be part real and part illusion.

Furthermore, in 11.5-6, ACOL says that, without relationship between separate selves, personal selves of form, God would not know "He" existed, and God would not know God. This is not true. The illusion of separate selves was not needed for God to know Himself and His existence. God is omniscient. He knows He exists and what He is through direct knowing of His reality, unlike human thinking, which depends on words and images in the mind that almost always represent physical perceptions, which are the mind's interpretation of sensations caused by energy currents coming from sensory nerves in the body. When we think of something, even something spiritual, we almost always use words and images that are normally used to represent physical perceptions, which are illusions, not reality. God is reality and through direct knowing knows Himself and His existence.

In 11.3-5, ACOL also tells us that God, the self of form, and the One Self (the Christ) within the self of form, are capable of being either the observer or the observed only through the means of separate relationships joining in union and, in 11.6, that what is separate and joined in relationship is All because it is all that is knowable. To say that what is separate and joined in relationship is everything implies that, without separate selves of form (separate selves in physical bodies) joining in relationships, nothing else (which includes God and the Self) could have existed. The message of ACOL is that the existence of God and the Self was made possible by man. It is the opposite of what Jesus teaches in ACIM. In ACIM, Jesus tells us that God is our Author (Creator). He encourages us to set aside the false concept that we can create what we are, Chapter 3, VII (4), and to affirm that we are as God created us.

The Self—the Higher Self, or Son—is one's reality. We may not be aware of the Self, but it is what we really are. The Self is blissful, loving, omnipresent consciousness, one with the Supreme Consciousness, God, and is changeless, ever as God created It. It already is elevated, in other words, is of Spirit, not flesh, and has no form. It is eternal, although individual souls under the influence of the ego identify with the body—the mortal, physical form they inhabit for a time—and thus do not experience their eternal reality.

God is the Supreme Blissful Reality beyond form, and it is our relationship with the Holy Spirit, whom God created to guide us home, and with those who are united with this loving aspect of God, that enables us to transcend form and become aware of our eternal reality as the Self.

ACOL is an attempt to persuade us that we needed to separate from oneness and relate to each other as individuals with bodily form in order to know God and the Christ, and for God and the Christ to exist. This is the antithesis of truths that Jesus and others who have known God and the Christ have taught down through the ages.

The paradise of Eden was a perfect world in which the first humans, symbolized by Adam and Eve, were in an exalted state of consciousness and experienced oneness with each other and God. They already were in relationship with each other and God and did not need to separate from oneness. God and Christ already existed, and they could commune with God, and perceive God in the life, beauty and intelligence of nature as one. They experienced diversity, the individual characteristics of each other and different things, but were also aware of the oneness of everything.

They could have remained in this paradise and after a short time become fully united with the Father while still retaining their individuality, but they misconceived and did not appreciate the gift of their creation as individual souls, like individual rays of light issuing forth from One Light, and the opportunity of experiencing the perfect world of Eden. They did not understand the purpose of their new existence and did not want it, so they mentally rejected it. Thus they separated themselves in thought, though not in reality, from God's creation and from God, and fell from the heaven of harmonious unity with their Creator. They tried to compensate for this loss by finding pleasure in the imperfect world that resulted, but failed. Eventually, illusions almost totally replaced their awareness of God and of God's creation. Today, our human consciousness and the world we perceive are a legacy of the fall of mankind in Eden.

The oneness and glory beheld by the Son in Eden before He fell into delusion may have been what Jesus meant by "what is true in earth" when he said, "Think not you made the world. Illusions, yes! But what is true in earth and Heaven is beyond your naming" (ACIM Workbook, Lesson 184: 8).

Most of the teachings in ACOL make little or no sense, especially those presented toward the end of the book, and they contradict timeless truths, not only those set forth by Jesus in A Course in Miracles, but those that were written about by Christian mystics and great masters who experienced, and therefore knew, the peace, omnipresent awareness and love of the Christ Consciousness.

The Christ Consciousness—the Christ, or Son—is omnipresent throughout the universe, and our awareness of It develops by degrees. The more we lift our consciousness above the level of sensory experience, the primary domain of the ego, and focus on that which is observable by the highest faculties of the soul, the more we unite with the Christ Consciousness.

Christ Consciousness is an extension of God, not as ACOL says, "the awareness of existence through relationship" (p. 560, 11.7). Christ Consciousness is in the Christ Light that exists just behind the world we perceive with our physical senses. It is the pure reflection in creation of the loving intelligence of God. It has existed since the beginning of time and is omniscient, changeless and without form. It is the Christ Mind, the Son of God, who manifested in Jesus and in time will manifest in every human being.

This is the way Jesus describes Christ Consciousness in Conversations with Christ by Alexander Soltys Jones. It is what enlightened beings have sometimes said, but often do not say, because words give an incomplete idea of higher truths, which need to be experienced in order to be known. Paramahansa Yogananda, an enlightened master, described Christ Consciousness using almost the same words. Yogananda had realized the Self as this divine consciousness, or awareness, omnipresent throughout creation.

ACOL is filled with false statements about the nature of God and the Christ. It was transmitted to the receiver from December, 1998 through October, 2001 and claimed that the time of the Holy Spirit (the Voice for God) had come to an end. It would be a grievous error to accept its false teachings, which contradict the very essence of Jesus's teachings in ACIM, and give up listening to and following the Voice for God just because a spirit pretending to be Jesus said we were in the time of the Christ and no longer needed to listen to the Voice for God. It is now 2018, about eighteen years since ACOL was received, and while many souls are waking up, there is no indication that many have entered the state of Christ Consciousness, the omnipresent, loving intelligence in the Light of God just behind the world we see with our physical eyes. Moreover, in the ACIM Workbook Epilogue, Jesus says that the Course is a beginning, not an end, that there is no more need of specific lessons and that, after one completes the Course, the Voice of the Holy Spirit will be their guide and comfort as they continue on their journey homeward to God.

When I bought ACOL, I looked forward to learning more about the nature of the Self but found that many statements about the Self, God, and Christ Consciousness were vague, and I had to struggle to try to determine what they meant. However, by reading certain sections over and over, the meaning of these statements became clear, and I realized they were not true and I had been trying to make sense out of false teachings that could not have come from Jesus. In fact, many of them are the opposite of the teachings of Jesus and others who achieved God-realization—who had consciously united with (become one with) the Christ and the Father.

In ACIM, Jesus says that God the Father created us (the Self, or Son) in His likeness and our reality is formless. He tells us the body is an illusion; that it can make things, but does not create because to create is to create that which is real, and only Spirit can do this. ACOL reverses this and tries to convince the reader that we are beings of form (physical beings) and that through our relationships with other beings of form we create the Self, which is our reality. It even tells us that, unless we first existed as beings of form, God would not exist.

ACOL is full of false claims and deceptive arguments designed to negate Jesus' teachings in ACIM. Here are some more of its falsehoods, contrasted with truths in ACIM.

P. 559-561:

In 11.3 the physical self is called the "self of form" but in 12.3 it is called the "Self." Then, in 12.2-4, the Christ Consciousness is referred to as the "One Self" surrounding the space of the body. These and many other concepts in ACOL are not clearly expressed. This may have been intentional, to keep the reader from realizing that they contradict basic truths in ACIM.

ACOL claims that in order to share in unity and relationship we had to perceive separation from oneness (11.2). It would have us believe this because it wants us to accept the idea that, by separating from oneness, we could unite the world of form with the world of Spirit and, by combining form (the body) with the formless (Spirit), create who we are. However, we are the formless (reality), which is eternal, we are not form (illusion), which perishes, and in ACIM, Jesus says that reality cannot be combined with illusion. When we know reality, illusion disappears.

As mentioned, the first humans already were in unity and relationship. They were individual selves, had physical bodies and the power to materialize bodies, and they experienced oneness. Eden was a glorious state of consciousness, a happy dream.

These perfect selves could have enjoyed and learned from their experiences as individual souls in a world of beauty, love and light, and later, without losing their individuality, could have fully merged with each other and God as one. However, they misconceived the gift of existing as individual selves. They interpreted it as separation, and many thought of it as rejection. These and other judgments caused their consciousness to fall, and instead of paradise, they perceived a bleak world of their own imagining, which obscured the "happy dream" God had given them. They tried to find happiness in earthly pleasures, but without awareness of the soul and Spirit, earthly illusions simply increased the illusion of separation. They felt guilt and fear, and in time, their awareness of the peace, love, oneness, joy, wisdom, and power of the soul and Spirit were almost totally replaced with cravings for sense pleasures, greed, false beliefs, and other evils that arose in their illusory world. They became almost totally cut off from communion with God and descended into darkness and misery. God did not banish His children from their happy dream; they banished themselves.

There was never any need for us to perceive separation from God, and in reality, this never happened. In illusions, the happy dream of Eden was forgotten, but the Self still exists, and through unconditional love, we can make our relationships holy, experience the "real world," and return to the Father.

If we contemplate the teachings in ACIM and sincerely seek and follow the Voice of the Holy Spirit, who patiently waits for us to truly want to be guided by Him, we can regain paradise and return to our Creator. We will know when we are in the time of the Christ, for we will feel our consciousness expanding in the infinite love and omnipresent awareness of our immortal Self, the Christ.

In 11.6, ACOL says, "Only what exists in relationship knows that it exists." In context, it is telling us that separate selves of form (11.2-3), or bodies, can know they exist only by existing in relationship.

This contradicts a fundamental teaching in ACIM, that bodies and separation are both illusions (not real) and the Self (which is real and does exist) is without form. Therefore, relationship between separate selves of form is an illusion and does not represent the existence of what we are: the immortal, formless Self. Moreover, you know that you exist by experiencing what you are, not by experiencing relationship between your body and other bodies separate from each other. A "holy relationship" will help you to experience the love that you are and thus know that you exist, but this knowledge comes through direct experience of the Self when your relationship with another being is on the level of Spirit and transcends relationship on the level of physical form.

We are mind (consciousness), and when we awaken in the light and love of the Christ Mind (Christ Consciousness), we transcend the illusion of separation. Realizing our unity with each other in the oneness of the Christ Consciousness, we become aware that the body and separation are illusion (not real) and we are one.

In 12.3-4, ACOL claims that Christ Consciousness—the One Self (the Son)—is all that is, and then, on page 644 (37.22-24), says that "God the Father" exists only as an idea created by Jesus. This reverses the truth that God has always existed and, as Jesus tells us, is his Father (Source).

ACOL also says that the One Self loves Its Self, there is nothing else to love, and the One Self is the All. However, Jesus, who is one with the Christ Consciousness, loves the Father and, in ACIM, tells us that union with the Father is the goal of our journey.

The falsehoods in ACOL that have been mentioned are an attempt to convince the reader that bodies, separation, relationship between bodies joining in union, and materiality are real, and that God (the Father, who created the Son) exists only as an expression of the Son (Christ Consciousness), and that the Son could not have existed without separate physical bodies joined in relationship (11.2, 5-7). This is the opposite of the ACIM teaching that only God and God's creations are real and that the body and the world we see with the body's eyes are dreams that will disappear when we wake up and know God (who is beyond time and space and has always existed) and the Son (who is formless Spirit and was created by God).

P. 576-578:

In 16.10, ACOL says fear is a response to a feeling, not a feeling. In 16.14, it goes on to say that consciousness does not include either love or fear. This is nonsense. Fear is a feeling, which we experience as an emotional response to a perceived threat. And, although fear is illusion, it is part of consciousness (ego-consciousness, not Christ Consciousness), and Christ Consciousness is the loving consciousness that leads to the Father. Keep in mind that the term "consciousness" is usually defined as awareness (of anything, whether illusion or reality) but in ACIM Jesus uses "consciousness" and "perception" to refer to awareness of that which is illusion (unreal) and "knowledge" to refer to awareness of that which is real. Loving thoughts are an exception. They may be perceived in the world but are eternal and are its only reality, Chapter 11, VII (2).

P. 616:

After saying, in 29.5-7, that wholeness and separation are merged in the reader's new reality—which is impossible because, according to ACIM, separation is an illusion and disappears when brought to reality—ACOL goes on to tell the reader that they are always the creator of their reality (29.8). This goes against Jesus' warning in ACIM, Chapter 3, VII (4), not to believe you can create yourself. He says you can perceive that you can do this but you cannot make it true because God is your Creator. In VII (5), he says the belief that we can self-create denies the Fatherhood of God and is the "devil" because it reinforces the illusion of separation from God.

From statements on pages 553 (10.12), 559 (11.2-3, 5-6) and 561 (12.2-4) in ACOL one can see that the spirit that conceived ACOL wants the reader to believe the body is an essential part of Christ Consciousness—the One Self, the Christ (page 580, 17.4)—and is reality. This is the opposite of what ACIM wants us to realize, that the body is not real but is an illusion, and that illusions cannot be combined with truth—the oneness, love and light of God that exist beyond illusion. The body is what caused human beings to forget God and reality in the beginning.

Students of ACIM would lose the benefits of its teachings if they read and believed what ACOL says. If they believed, as it claimed (about eighteen years ago, when it was received), that the time of the Holy Spirit had ended, and the reader was consciously united with the Christ and no longer needed to be guided by the Holy Spirit, they would cease to listen for and follow the "Voice" of the Holy Spirit, which as Jesus repeatedly tells us in ACIM, enables us to overcome the influence of the ego and unite with the Christ. The Christ, the Son, is the reflected light, love, and oneness of God; omnipresent and omniscient—our immortal being, our true identity—and we need the help of the Holy Spirit so we can consciously unite with the Christ.

As mentioned, ACOL wants the reader to believe that the body is part of the reality of the Christ. This is an attempt to negate Jesus' teaching, clearly stated in ACIM, that the illusion of the body blocks our awareness of God (Chapter 18, VIII 1-2 and IX 3). Most people are strongly attached to the body, with their minds focused on food, entertainment, physical pleasure and worldly concerns, spending little or no time contemplating, worshipping or thinking about God. Very few people are aware that God is within them as divine love and light. Instead, they think of themselves as the body and therefore feel separated from God.

They keep trying to fill the void by seeking happiness in the pleasures of the body, which never works because without experiencing the love of God, one cannot be truly happy and satisfied. As long as one remains focused on the body, thinking it is their reality, the illusion of separation continues.

If people believed what ACOL teaches, they would think they had already achieved union with the Christ. Instead of contemplating and living the truths in ACIM and following the "Voice" of the Holy Spirit, they would think all they had to do was let the Christ take care of them. Many would not even give material help or spiritual counsel to those in need of it, because ACOL said this was not their responsibility and could cause them to lose their inner peace. Unsubstantiated and often enticing statements that contradict those of Jesus in ACIM would keep them from knowing Spirit, and they would continue to experience separation from the Self and God.

The ego, fearful of its demise, is intent on replacing God with illusion, Reality with unreality, and Truth with falsehood. It wants us to cling to the idea that the body is an essential part of reality and is what we are. It wants us to believe we create our reality through relationships with each other in physical bodies, when in truth our reality already exists, is Spirit, and only needs to be discovered. It was the ego in the mind of a smooth-talking, crafty spirit that conceived ACOL, in an attempt to keep souls from attaining liberation through the teachings in ACIM and the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

Note: In addition to some of Jesus' teachings in A Course in Miracles and Conversations With Christ, this article also includes spiritual concepts from God Talks With Arjuna: The Bhavagad Gita by Paramahansa Yogananda, Love Without End by Glenda Green, Messages from Jesus by Mary Ann Johnston, and The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ by Levi.
Article Twenty

Is The Disappearance of the Universe a Valid  
Interpretation of A Course in Miracles?

In 1992, two beings appeared to Gary Renard, told him they were ascended masters, and over a period of years, gave him their interpretation of A Course in Miracles, later to be published in his book The Disappearance of the Universe. The Course is a profound work, almost 1,300 pages, poetically expressed and difficult to understand, which was spiritually dictated by Jesus to a psychologist, Helen Schucman. It enables a person who studies and practices its teachings and mental exercises to gradually eliminate the ego.

In spiritual teachings, the ego is one's false sense of identity, of who and what one really is. It is like a collection of related thoughts that arises from and includes the basic, underlying thought that we are separate from God. It keeps one oblivious of the fact that they are standing in the presence of God. It causes us to believe we are limited, mortal beings, instead of unlimited, eternal Spirit, one with God.

From the ego arise guilt, fear, attachment to the body, selfishness and suffering. God and our true identity, the immortal Self, are blocked from our awareness. The purpose of the Course is to dissolve the ego and its false ideas so that we can directly experience God, God's extension as Spirit (also spoken of as the collective Son, the Self, or Christ), and Heaven. The Course contains many powerful declarations about the nature of God, Spirit, and their creations, and the truth that the seemingly separate Sons of God are divine, created in the image and likeness of God. These declarations help to dissolve the ego and its illusions and lead us toward direct knowledge of our reality as Spirit.

In the Course, Jesus speaks of God as being transcendental, beyond form and duality, in other words, beyond the world, or universe, as we perceive it. In order to dispel our illusions and heal our minds, God created the Holy Spirit to work with us in the world, guiding and inspiring us through the "inner voice" and through divine messengers. The Holy Spirit leads us out of darkness into the light and love of the Christ. When all our illusions are gone, we are filled with love and light, and realize our eternal oneness with God.

The Course teaches that the world is not real. This makes sense if we think of "reality" in terms of the glorious, transcendental reality of God as the Absolute, beyond form and duality. This kind of reality is very different from the reality we ascribe to the world as it is experienced with the physical senses, brain, and ordinary thought processes. Truly enlightened beings, who through oneness with the Christ Mind are able to experience the blissful, eternal reality of God, Spirit, and Heaven, teach that the world, as seen with the body's eyes and the thoughts of the ego, is an illusion, although some of them speak of it as having existence. By this they mean that the illusion of it exists.

Arten and Pursah—the two beings who interpreted the Course for The Disappearance of the Universe—say that, before the illusion of the world arose, there was only God and the Christ Mind (a glorious extension of God, wholly identified with God, Its Creator). Then, a very small aspect of the Christ Mind wondered what it might be like to be on its own, in other words, apart from the rest of Spirit. From the creative power of this thought arose the ego and the actual experience of being separate from God. They go on to say that this tiny aspect of the Christ Mind came to accept the ego as part of itself and the ego's thoughts as its own. Next, feeling guilt for having separated itself from God, it made the universe and bodies as a "hiding place" to escape imagined punishment for what it had done, and, dividing itself into many individual minds, it entered these bodies. Since they were under the influence of the ego's physically oriented, false concepts, these minds had lost their awareness of being one with their Creator and, thus, identified themselves with the physical body and its limitations. According to Arten and Pursah, this is how humanity came into being. The entire scenario (Disappearance, Chapter 4) took place in thought only—not in reality, as reality is understood in the context of the Course—hence it is an illusion.

Arten and Pursah's teachings about why and how the universe and human bodies were made are not found in the Course. The Course says that the Sons of God made a world of their own imagining, but does not give any details about the sequence of events or try to put into words the nature of the "substance" from which the world was made. However, some enlightened masters have taught that the universe and bodies were created by God or an aspect of God and that humans, or at least many of them, having been given the gift of free will to think and act as they chose, began to misperceive the world, imagined themselves as separate from each other and God, and fell from grace. Some sacred writings mention that God is still creating and explain the nature of the Fall. Though different masters describe the Creation from different perspectives, they all concur with the teaching of the Course that the world is unreal, in the sense that we perceive it in terms of dualities (opposites), relativity and change. From their own, personal experience during exalted states of awareness, enlightened beings are familiar with the glorious, eternal, unchanging reality of God, Spirit, and the highest heaven—the Heaven spoken of in the Course—and they teach that, in contrast, the world, as we experience it, is an illusion and not real. They usually speak of it as a cosmic motion picture or dream projected onto the screen of human consciousness, which is unlike God, Spirit, or the highest heaven, or even the divine light that is the substance of this cosmic dream. In addition, each person's experience of the world is subjective, colored by the nature and content of that person's mind. Even time is an illusion, for, as Jesus and the masters tell us, only the eternal present is real.

Through explanations, affirmations and mental exercises, the Course helps us to change our concepts and the way we think about the world. It helps us to forgive all perceived injustices and sins, thereby releasing ourselves and others from guilt and condemnation, with which we have made the world into a place of fear and attack. Also, it makes us more aware of the voice of the Holy Spirit. As we replace thoughts of evil, sin, and guilt with thoughts of forgiveness, love, gratitude and peace and let the Holy Spirit guide us, we begin to see divine beauty in the world and all beings and eventually are able to perceive everything in the oneness, light, and love of God. With a transformed and illumined mind, we see the world in a new light. From the beauty of this "forgiven world," it is but a small step into the ultimate reality of God. This is a sacred path to enlightenment.

The world goes on. Souls come and go.  
Delusion haunts them for a time ...  
Then, leaving little joys for greater,  
Some choose to soar in lofty flight,  
Like mighty eagles, in the light.

There are other sacred teachings, which do not deny the reality of the world but lead one to enlightenment simply by helping one to affirm and eventually experience the presence of God in the world. Although some of them regard the world as an illusion or dream manifested by God, these paths do not deny the existence of the world, but simply teach us to see beauty and divinity in nature and in every soul. Many of the writings of saints and sages, from Hindu, Christian, Muslim and other traditions, encourage us to focus on the good in life. By so doing, we become more aware of the beauty in nature and the goodness in human hearts. We learn to embrace all that is, with love, seeing God in all. Thus, God becomes a living presence in our lives. Even though the world is not real in the way that God is real, and is an illusion, nevertheless, it is part of God as the One, and the presence of God is reflected in it.

The path of seeing God in the world appears to contradict the Course's teaching that the world is unreal. Yet, even a dream or a movie—though an illusion and, in a sense, unreal—can reflect beauty, love, and truth, and many have found God by seeing the good in the world. In the Course, Jesus helps us to experience the world with the light of Christ shining on it in our minds—what he calls the forgiven, or real, world. But before we do this we begin by denying the reality of sin and evil, and the world as most of us experience it, in order to remove feelings—such as guilt, unworthiness, and fear—that keep us from freely expressing and accepting love. As we shed unconscious guilt and a host of other deeply rooted illusions that block awareness of the goodness and divinity in the world, it becomes much easier for us to meaningfully affirm and eventually experience the presence of God, Spirit, and Heaven just behind the ever-changing phenomena experienced by the body.

O Friend,  
If you still harbor thoughts of sin and guilt,  
renounce these foolish fantasies,  
for mortal eyes see not the truth.  
God sees us perfect in Eternity,  
and, as God sees us, we must truly be.

In Messages from Jesus by Mary Ann Johnston, Jesus speaks of love and tells us how, by living in love, we can experience God in everything. He explains that love leads to awareness of our oneness with God and all creation and says that God embraces all things, even our illusions. Once we are fully realized, in other words, fully enlightened, we experience the presence of God, as the One, in all things, and all things in the One. This truth is found in the mystical teachings of many religions, for example, the Bhagavad Gita, other scriptures of India, and the writings of such Christian saints as Teresa of Avila. Although God, experienced as the Absolute beyond name and form, is apart from the world, God, experienced as the One, includes everything. In The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna by Swami Nikhilananda (1942, p. 328), Sri Ramakrishna is quoted as saying: "The phenomenal world belongs to that very Reality to which the Absolute belongs; again, the Absolute belongs to that very Reality to which the phenomenal world belongs. He who is realized as God has also become the world and its living beings."

As mentioned previously, Arten and Pursah say that the universe was made—in thought, not in reality—by the collective Mind of human beings (a very small aspect of the Christ Mind conjoined with the ego) before it divided itself and entered human bodies. In the Course, Jesus says that we did not make the world, only illusions; that what is true in earth and Heaven is beyond our naming (Workbook, p. 346). This invalidates what Arten and Pursah claim and, further, it means that the world is more than illusion! Jesus doesn't say what it is that is true in earth and Heaven, but he goes on to talk about the unity within the world, "the one Identity which all things share," which ties in with what he says in Messages from Jesus (Third Edition, 2009, pp. 125-126, 229): that God, as infinite love and oneness, embraces diversity and is in the world as the unifying essence of everything. The subtle truth in these teachings of Jesus is that things in the world or in Heaven not only can be distinguished from each other, but also are unified in oneness. Arten and Pursah say that only one thing exists, namely God, and God is without variety or distinctions (p. 124). For example, because God is one, God cannot be the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Arten and Pursah introduce teachings like this in Disappearance and use them to explicitly contradict other teachings and the experiences of fully enlightened beings, such as Ramakrishna. The Course, however, does not put down other paths to God, and, as Jesus tells us in Introduction to Clarification of Terms, a universal theology is impossible. The Course simply helps us to realize God and the eternal Self by denying the reality of the world we see with the body's eyes and affirming the reality of that which is unchanging and eternal.

According to Anandamayi Ma, a great saint of India (1896-1982), just as denying the reality of the world is a valid path for some, worshiping God in form is a valid approach for others. For example, some people attain enlightenment by constantly thinking of God in the form of a fully realized, or Christed, being. She also says that, in the supreme state of oneness, the Self experiences God in all forms—in plants, animals, water, human beings, even in a grain of sand. The One is in the many and the many are in the One (The Essential Sri Anandamayi Ma, World Wisdom, 2007, pp. 115-130). In India, spiritual teachers often have their disciples affirm the unreality of "this" and "that" to help them find the one Reality that underlies our experience of the many. Then, after attaining enlightenment, the disciple realizes that The One has become the many and is present in everything and everyone.

In the Course, when Jesus speaks of the world, he usually means the world as we perceive it with the physical senses and lower, or ego-oriented, mind. But, he also speaks of the world as perceived by divine vision in the light of Christ, which he refers to as the "real" or "forgiven" world. With the help of the Holy Spirit, the ego's thought system is exposed and shined away by the light of the Christ through study and practice of the Course. Some of its teachings and affirmations help us to give up the ego's belief in sin, condemnation and death, which we project onto and see in the world; others bring forth our innate spiritual awareness, and we begin to perceive peace, holiness and love in the world. The world is like a cosmic motion picture—perceived as occurring in time and space and materialized by invisible, divine light—giving rise to every conceivable experience and manifesting events that are related to the kinds of thoughts we think as individuals and as groups of people. The intelligence within the world is beyond human comprehension: every galaxy, substance, and living thing unique, interrelated with everything else, and playing a part in the wondrous cosmic drama.

In sharp contrast, Arten and Pursah teach that the world is insignificant, totally unreal, and entirely the result of the ego's negative thoughts. They do not accurately represent the Course, for it not only teaches that the darkness we perceive in the world is our own darkness projected onto it, it also teaches that, by beholding peace, beauty, innocence, and love in the world, we transform it into the real world. The many statements and affirmations in the Course that speak of the real world of peace, beauty, light, and holiness are not even mentioned in Disappearance. Arten and Pursah make it appear as if the world is empty of divinity, whereas, according to the Course, although the world is nothing in itself, our thoughts give it meaning (Workbook, Part I, Lesson 132), and loving thoughts reveal the light of heaven shining on it (Workbook, Part II, Lesson 265). Only the ego and its unloving, delusive thoughts are empty of divinity. Yet even these are part of the all-embracing reality of God as the One, although for the purposes of the Course and from the perspective of God as the Absolute, they are unreal and need to be denied. For what the ego thinks it knows, working with the bodily organs of perception, veils from our awareness the holy, unifying light and love of God.

In Messages from Jesus, Jesus says, "All realms, heavens and creation abide in oneness with God—of pure love, absent of vengeance. Through your prayers and goodness, this omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent God of love may intervene in all matters of unlimited, universal creation. Think of it as one world—in which you, God, and all creation exist as one—embracing all of humankind's misconceptions, delusions, evil tendencies, love and terrorism. When you can see the One, you will experience all as divine love." In another part of the book, Jesus also says, "There is no fixed reality except for the light of God. Everything is all one, including time. This oneness dwells as the light of God, the only reality. In this oneness and light you dwell—with free will, by the grace of God—to increase the light of your soul through loving actions and to vanquish your darkness."

To say we know the truth for sure  
One has to overlook this truth:  
As humans grow in wisdom  
Religious teachings change.

The ancient rite of killing animals  
To wipe out human sin  
Is now seen as a relic of the past,  
Of ages steeped in darkness.

And as we grow in love and wisdom  
We realize that misdeeds can no more change  
The essence of the soul  
Than clouds the sun.

We need to see our concepts  
And opinions, not as black or white,  
But rather shades of grey  
Or, better yet, degrees of light.

For just behind the flux of mortal sight,  
Exists a constant, shining bright:  
The Light of God—Reality—  
The Truth of all that is and ever will be.

George and Mary Ann Johnston

George Johnston graduated from Yale University in 1956, where he majored in philosophy hoping to find truth. Then in 1962, he started to practice meditation and to read the spiritual writings of Paramahansa Yogananda. Through attunement with Yogananda, meditation and the teachings of yoga, which are rooted in experience of God, he found what he was seeking and more. He found practices and truths that lead to better health, inner contentment and spiritual fulfillment and began to teach the sacred science of yoga, lead meditations, and teach hatha yoga poses, which he has done for over fifty years. George and his wife, Mary Ann, lived at Song of the Morning Retreat from 2001 until 2016, when they moved to Onekama, Michigan.

In 2002, accompanied by four other masters, Jesus appeared to Mary Ann in ethereal light and form and, while mentally conversing with her, told her she should write books. Over a period of several years, Jesus answered her questions and gave her many messages for humanity, including profound truths about God and the divine kingdom of peace, love, wisdom, and joy within the soul. Two thousand years ago he hinted at some of these truths, using symbols and metaphor. Now, as we enter an age of greater spiritual awareness, we are ready for a deeper understanding of truth and are blessed that new teachings from Jesus, the writings of Yogananda, and the divine presence of Babaji and other masters who are here on earth have been given to us to open our hearts and minds and guide us. Mary Ann has written three books, sharing her experiences, and messages of truth, hope, and guidance from Jesus and other masters for a rapidly changing world.

Christians will be amazed and blessed when they realize that, in our time, Jesus is giving us new teachings through those who are able to hear his words and publish them for others.

To contact George or Mary Ann, order books, or read free excerpts from them

Click here: http://www.maryann-george.com

Mary Ann's books, in paperback and kindle, are also available on Amazon.com

### Messages from Jesus

This book is primarily a dialogue between the author and Jesus, in which Jesus answers many questions and addresses our needs as physical, social and spiritual beings. He discusses the purpose of his life, death and resurrection, the nature of a true master, and how we can attain God-realization.

Jesus also discusses the challenges we face today—problems that didn't exist two thousand years ago and now threaten humanity—for example, weapons of mass destruction and the degradation of the environment due to pollution. He tells us how humanity can create a better world and gives us hope. He corrects misunderstandings of his teachings, such as the conception that he is the only Son of God, discusses life after death and reincarnation, and presents concepts, such as oneness, that we can more easily grasp at the present time. Even the most profound truths are conveyed simply and with great clarity.

Together, Jesus and Mary Ann discuss unconditional love and forgiveness, sin and karma, meditation, living in the presence of God, healing, and many other matters that pertain to our spiritual growth, beliefs, physical health, and happiness. Every chapter of Messages from Jesus reflects Jesus' great wisdom and love.

### That Heaven

"In 2005, in a near death experience during a heart attack, I visited the heaven I speak of in this book. It was the most profound experience of my life, different from other out-of-body experiences I have had in that my unity with God was complete. I was not an observer separate from God, but was fully united with God. Ego was gone, and my soul had returned to its Source. Upon my return to earth, the longing to go back clung to me like a newborn babe to its mother.

"But this book is not only about passing from this world into another. It is also about realizing God's presence in the here and now. And it is about lifting oneself above the limitations of dogmatic theology. If my beliefs had been constrained by external authority, there would have been little room for spiritual growth.

"My wish is that what I have written will help you to acknowledge and more fully experience your own spirituality, be more aware of and embrace the presence of God in your life, activate divine energies within yourself, and increase the light in your soul. If you deeply contemplate the truths in this book, they will take on deeper meaning for you and help to relight your memory of Oneness in God."—Mary Ann

### Sustained by Faith

Mary Ann's autobiography is a moving account of a difficult life lived with faith, love, and perseverance. It demonstrates how inner knowing, loving communion with God, and the help of a divine teacher can enable us to grow spiritually and meet life's challenges with courage. Her story begins with the extraordinary circumstances of her infancy and being given away by her grandmother at the age of two. Then, three years later, Jesus appeared to her as a radiant, ethereal being, and she came to know him as her personal friend, a relationship that continues to this day.

After a carefree childhood, Mary Ann entered a dark phase in her life. She tells us about her first marriage and how her faith in God and the spiritual comfort she received from Jesus sustained her during many years of abuse, which finally ended with her husband's suicide. Later on, she describes her experiences as a spiritual healer, working in rehabilitation facilities as an occupational therapist.

In 1998, Mary Ann had a profound spiritual awakening, brought on by a sudden kundalini energy surge, which physically and cognitively disabled her for many months. However, the awakening enhanced her creativity and awareness of God. Often, she felt as if she were experiencing life in a new way—through the mind of her soul—and she began to write poetry describing the blissful feelings, visions, and realizations she was having.

Several months later, Jesus urged Mary Ann to visit Song of the Morning Retreat in Michigan, founded on the spiritual teachings of Paramahansa Yogananda, who lived and taught in the United States during the twentieth century. She describes many of her experiences there, including two visitations from Yogananda, and tells how she and George met, grew in love and married. Her narrative ends with a description of her life as an author, living with George in their home in the newly-developed Clear Light Community deep in the forest at Song of the Morning Retreat.

To Mary Ann on her birthday:

Dearest Mary Ann,  
You are a joy to me, A radiant flower  
And kind and sweet.

The fragrance of your love embraces me  
And everyone you greet.  
It draws God's blessings to you every day  
And cheers you on in every way.

May goodness fill your life  
And meet your every need,  
For when you left to serve on earth,  
The angels cried, "Godspeed."

Mary Ann,  
I will love you til bacon is taken for cheese,  
And strong men faint at the sound of a sneeze,  
Till lollipops float like balloons in a breeze,  
And a pint is a gallon and "thank you" is "please."

I'll love you til birds wear hats and earmuffs,  
And camels sport bow-ties and chipmunks take snuff,  
Till the clouds in the sky say "hello" and "good bye,"  
And turkeys eat lobster and apricots fly.  
Love, George

Note:

The unique and heart-warming illustrations in this book are by Lorne Dekun.

Many thanks to Lorne, and to Judy for permission to use them

###
