How is your meditation follow going?

“How’s your meditation follow going?” I used to be requested this query by a devotee one morning after Sunday service at Ananda Sangha Delhi. I used to be 19 years outdated. I had solely just lately learn the Autobiography of a Yogi and located Ananda Sangha to be taught Kriya Yoga as taught by Paramhansa Yogananda.

My Struggles with Habits & Self-Management

I replied to the query with a pinch of embarrassment. “My follow goes superb however I’ve this foolish behavior of binge-watching motion pictures. I do know it’s dangerous however generally I can’t keep away from it. It’s an enormous distraction and is affecting my meditation.”

My fellow devotee consoled me and suggested me to not fear. “Watching a film on occasion is actually okay. Furthermore, damaging habits will fall away on their very own after a while,” she added.

It was past my understanding how a behavior might simply fall away by itself! But, that’s precisely what occurred. That behavior simply began to wither away. Patterns of habits that appeared compelling to me have been not engaging. I used to be amazed!

I had been occupied with fashionable self-help books since my teenagers. Each e book I learn confused the significance of willpower and self-control to beat private limitations. Naturally, I believed I needed to wage a battle towards my decrease tendencies and I at all times felt like a lone warrior surrounded by enemies with out satisfactory weaponry.

Kriya Yoga: My Interior Transformation

Now, for the primary time, I felt that I wasn’t combating alone. Identical to Arjuna had Krishna as his charioteer within the Bhagavad Gita, I had a Greater Energy serving to me to rise above limitations. It opened my eyes to the facility of Divine Grace.

These experiences have been intensified after I obtained Kriya Yoga initiation. My follow modified me (and continues to take action) from inside. Earlier than, I used to be making an attempt to repair myself from the surface and now, Kriya is fixing me from the within. I had beforehand struggled to interrupt freed from sure damaging habits with out a lot success however with common Kriya follow, these habits dropped like ripened fruit from a tree.

Tales of Lives Modified by Grace

I’m not the one one who has had such experiences. Many meditators and kriyabans (those that follow Kriya Yoga) discover that their lives are utterly modified to the purpose the place they hardly acknowledge their previous selves in any respect! A big a part of this internal transformation is the victory over self-limiting wishes and tendencies.

Paramhansa Yogananda had a pupil who had a dramatic expertise alongside these traces. He was an alcoholic. His dependancy however, he was decided to be taught and follow Kriya Yoga – however with somewhat twist. Since he couldn’t depart whiskey alone, he would do his kriyas with a drink in a single hand and his rudraksha beads within the different. This went on for fairly some time, till someday he not wanted that bottle anymore. He turned a non secular alcoholic and God’s bliss was the one intoxicant he wanted.

God doesn’t thoughts your faults, He minds your indifference!

We’d really feel spiritually discouraged, confronted with the myriad faults and tendencies we have now but to beat, however heed these phrases of Paramhansa Yogananda:

God doesn’t thoughts your faults, He minds your indifference!

We don’t want to fret about the entire issues we have to transcend and neither ought to we really feel responsible about previous dangerous actions. As a substitute, we will concentrate on this stuff – loving God and bringing His gentle into our lives by means of meditation and proper non secular dwelling.

I as soon as heard a narrative a couple of disciple of Paramhansa Yogananda. He had a pernicious behavior of consuming massive quantities of ice cream. He knew it was not good for him and wished to beat it. But, as with all different behavior, the urge to eat ice cream was overwhelming.

However the disciple got here up with a superb thought – the following time he had the urge, he would go forward and get the ice cream however preserve the photograph of his Guru proper in entrance of him. Then he would benefit from the ice cream whereas taking a look at his Guru — and whereas the Guru was taking a look at him! As you may think about, this didn’t go on for a really very long time.

After a couple of rounds of this experiment, the ice cream appeared to lose its tempting energy. What was earlier so engaging, now appeared somewhat foolish. Thus, he was in a position to break away from the maintain that the behavior had on him.

Attempting to Show My Worthiness

In my efforts to enhance, I’ve usually been deluded to suppose that I’ve to make myself worthy of God’s love and style. I’ve discovered that God’s grace is ever-present to assist us rise above delusion. Once we open to His grace by doing our non secular practices and being in tune with the Guru, we cooperate with that Divine Energy.

Changing into Receptive to the Divine Inside

In the end, I found that no progress is feasible with out God’s grace and that His grace isn’t reserved just for a selected few. We want solely to open the curtains if we wish the daylight of His grace in our lives. As soon as God’s gentle enters our consciousness, all darkness is banished perpetually.

You can’t drive sin out of the thoughts any greater than you may beat darkness out of a room with a stick. By focus on delusion, certainly, you could solely improve its maintain in your thoughts. Convey within the gentle of God, nonetheless, by means of deep meditation and devotion, and the darkness will vanish as if it had by no means been.  -Paramhansa Yogananda

Could all of us be ever extra receptive to His shining presence in each second, and in each atom of creation.