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Ananda Sangha of Portland
January 306 Dwapara (2006)
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In This Newsletter
Articles & Letters
Lead Article: Seeing Through Fresh Eyes
Come Celebrate with Us--An Open HouseNew Year's Message (by Yogananda)
The Paths of Yoga (by Kriyananda)
News, Events and Schedules
Dear
Friends,
Happy and Blessed New Year!
One of the most endearing and uplifting qualities God expresses through Paramhansa Yogananda and his disciple Swami Kriyananda is seeing everything with fresh eyes. Never have I seen written or heard expressed a jaded view of life. Nor have I seen recurring events trivialized or made trite. The most mundane events are full of wonder and glory when seen through the eyes of inspiration and love.
Listening to people talk, the New Year is reduced to drinking and hang-over remedies, fanciful and unrealistic affirmations of superficial changes that no one really expects to fulfill, and becoming subconscious in front of a TV football game gorging on snack foods and sodas. And in all this, there is a certain “magic” and Spirit can be seen playing out these dramas and activities.
Yet Yogananda saw the changing of the year as a time for genuinely taking stock of life, introspecting, releasing non-productive tendencies and “sowing the good you did in the past on fresh soil.” It is a perfect time for recalibrating our lives, adjusting our trajectories, releasing disappointments and hurtful tendencies. It is a time for exploring new possibilities, resting briefly in the strengths and victories of the past celebrating the opportunity to reach once again towards the light of genuine fulfillment.
In science classes, I once learned a tenet that has shown itself to be true about life in general – you cannot know both the velocity and the location of a moving object at the same time. Most of the time we spend focused on the speed aspect of our lives, moving ever faster and perhaps more efficiently. However, if we do not know where we are, how can we know that our movement is taking us towards or away from the true goals of our lives?
The turn of the year is an ideal time for pausing in the great onrush of life. The shortened days, the deep cold, the quiet rhythms of nature all encourage us to relax inward into our own central reality. Longer daily meditations, journaling and introspection, more quiet time and reading inspiring books, give our souls a chance to grow and begin to lead us forward again.
This coming year promises to be active yet again, with unknown personal and social challenges. Let’s use this quiet time to build our reserves of peace, inner strength, God contact, joy, and love—that we meet all that life offers in a victorious manner, and find ourselves at the end of the year closer to our true goal – realization of our oneness with God.
Blessings and love to each of you,
eric and ingrid
Come Celebrate with Us: An Open House
“Each difficulty met on the path of life is a test to show you how far you have progressed. Recognize each experience as such. Look at it impersonally, and walk through it triumphantly. The strength and the wisdom are within you.”
Paramhansa Yogananda
Congratulations to everyone of the more than 150 souls who have had a hand in the remodel of the Ananda Portland Mandir over the last 21 months. We are in the final stages of the reconstruction and the result is not only exquisitely beautiful, but also filled with so much self-offering that all who come in or pass by are touched. Several folks have simply burst into tears upon entering the sanctuary.
“How you do one thing is how you do everything.” While this maxim is not literally true, perhaps, it reflects the fact that our priorities and attitudes are reflected in everything we do. It is always insightful to observe where our priorities lie.
When we put our spiritual lives and our deepest aspirations foremost in our lives, everything else reflects that essential point of reference.
Our Mandir is an outward expression of our inner temple, a place we go to deepen our relationship with Spirit, to awaken devotion, draw inspiration, and share satsang (literally, fellowship in truth).
We have just spent the last 21 months going through the building and grounds, room by room, space by space, infusing it with our attention, love, care, and friendship. In most cases, those spaces needed radical remodeling as well, to reflect back what we find inside from our relationship to the path of Self-realization.
As usual, the project has taken on a life of its own, and the last 9 months have been huge in terms of the amount of effort required to accomplish the transformation. Everyone who has made a self-offering, in any way, has not only been changed but has also built their own love and devotion into the very fabric of the building. It can be felt just passing by.
Yogananda’s precept in the Energization Exercises “tense with will, then relax and feel” is actually a precept for life in general. We have just “tensed with will” and it is now time to “relax and feel” the blessings that flow from such extraordinary effort.
We will be celebrating the substantial completion of this project with an Open House on the weekend of February 3, 4, 5. Jyotish and Devi Novak, the spiritual directors of Ananda Worldwide, Vidura and Durga Smallen, managers of Ananda Communities worldwide (and active supporters in this project), along with colony leaders and friends from Ananda all over, will be attending this event. We are also inviting the general public to come and see this “miracle made by many hands.”
We invite you to come share the joy of this weekend. Let us take some time to relax and feel together and share the fruit of this path of Self-realization.
Details are appearing on our website: www.anandaportland.org. We look forward to sharing this with you!
All love and appreciation go out to Swami Kriyananda for his guidance, support, encouragement and love, and to Paramhansa Yogananda for this path of Self-realization.
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Attention all singers! At the end of March a group of Ananda singers and musicians from California will be joining us to perform Kriyananda’s Christ Lives! Oratorio. If you would like to participate in this performance, we will be starting practices on Tuesday nights in late January. Please talk with Satyaki right away to get a parts tape!
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A special thank you to everyone who helped make Christmas an extra special time: Anna Bredahl who coordinated both the Christmas Eve & Christmas Day Services, Sandy Pagano for the Christmas party and mandir decorations, Satyaki & the choir for creating vibrations of peace and joy, Hollis Kaplan for creating a wonderful tree-trimming feast and many others who go unnamed working behind the scenes who perform countless tasks to share God’s love.
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In January Eric & Satyaki will be traveling to Rhode Island to help complete construction on staff housing. They will join many others from around Ananda for a special work-week.
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Friday Nights at Ananda--Spend Friday evenings with Ananda and start your weekend on a spiritual note! Every Friday has a different activity. See the schedule below under Classes and Activities.
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Meditation Training—Our next Meditation for Starters class is January 12 & Jan 24, 7:30-9pm; $40 (including materials). Our next Developing an Inner Life: Learn to Meditate (4 Tuesdays) class will begin Jan 17, 7-9pm; $150 (including materials). New Free Seminars! Watch for The Path of Kriya Yoga with Eric Glazzard Jan 18; Creativity on Demand with Satyaki, Feb 2.
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Also look for new dates for these free seminars. These seminars are a great way to introduce a friend to Ananda. Intro to Yoga Philosophy Jan 31 & Mar 7; Healing the Body of Pain & Tension Jan 12 & Mar 2; Turbocharging Your Energy Feb 9; and Breaking the Cycle of Stress Jan 17.
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Learn Yogananda Energization Exercises! Join David Ramsden Thu Jan 26, $40 (includes materials)
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All Invited! Join Eric & Ingrid Sunday Jan 22 after service and explore the coming year of activities and new adventures.
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Treasures
Along the Path! Receive Swami Kriyananda’s wisdom and guidance every month
from Treasures Along the Path. In January, our “gem” will be “Attitudes of the
Disciple.” On the spiritual path, it is often said that, “attitude is
everything.” This talk, essential for all devotees, tells you why!
All proceeds from Treasures Along the Path go to help Ananda’s work in India. You can choose Cassette, CD, or MP3 format. For information or to join, call Melody at Ananda Village (530) 478-7656 or email
treasures@ananda.org. -
Pilgrimage to Ananda India Fall 2006—Please join Asha & David Praver, and Durga & Vidura Smallen, on a sacred pilgrimage to India in the fall of 2006. We’ll briefly visit with Swami Kriyananda at Ananda India, then journey on to places mentioned in the Autobiography of a Yogi: Varanasi, Kolkata, where Master lived with his family, Puri, and Rishikesh, the traditional starting point of all Himalayan pilgrimages. We’ll also visit Badrinath, the center of Babaji’s Himalayas, and many other sacred sites.
The Pravers and Smallens have been leading pilgrimages to India since 1989, developing close friendships with members of Master’s family. Their experience smoothes the way for an uplifting, heart-opening experience that will change your life. For more information, call Marilyn Holm, (650) 559-9893, or write to pilgrimage@ananda.org. -
News
from Nirmala at Ananda India--"We just finished an incredible weekend here
in Gurgaon. We did a free lecture Friday night with about 100 people here in
our temple on Meditation and the Path of Kriya Yoga.
"The school across the street invited us to use their garden for meditation and yoga! They want the children to see people practicing spirituality and asked us to use their facility any time we would like to. What a boon!"
by Paramhansa Yogananda
The
New Year has come to greet you with new hopes, new determination, new
will-to-achieve, new activities. In the Temple of the New Year renew your
reverence for the unlimited hidden power of God within you. The trails of trials
and the yawning chasms of woe have been left behind in the dark night of the
past–now you are entering the daylight of a new-born hope of the New Year. Cast
off the coil of the decayed thoughts of the past years; be reincarnated into
vital living of the New Year.
Every regret for shattered hopes of success must be transformed into the joy of new achievements during the New Year. Old sorrows and disappointments must be buried beneath the sepulcher of the past year. Those dark bandits of discouragement must not remain any longer to steal the wealth of your desire to succeed.
Every day in the New Year must become an altar for the God of new living, new achievements in wisdom, and new joy. Every day in the New Year must bring hope and cheer to yourself and all humanity.
Take all the salvaged treasures of good experiences from the sea of past experience and use them to buy new accomplishments in the New Year. In the garden of the New Year culture the seeds of well-planned new activities until they grow into fragrant flowering plants of diverse successes. Let every day in the New Year become a step upward on the ladder of your Self-Realization. Make every day of the New Year a better day than the previous one for greater effort to succeed in business, family happiness, and increasing the ever-new joy-contact of God in meditation. The old year has gone, but the New Year is full of treasures for you to use.
Bury the bad habit of failure in the tomb of the old year and reincarnate your life energy in the vitality of the New Year. May the New Year spread the example and message of your renewed life and renewed power unto all Creation.
In the Garden of the New Year (by Yogananda)
The echo of the sorrow and laughter of last year
Has died away.
Now the encouraging, hope-imparting song-voice of the New Year
Is resounding through us..
To remodel our life in a new way
As we enter the portal of the New Year.
All weeds of worries of the past year must be left behind
And never brought back.
The seeds of all joys and achievements, all hopes,
All good habits and thoughts, all noble desires,
We must garner from the forsaken garden of the past year
And sow them on the soil of new effort
Of every day in the New Year,
Watering those good seeds of last year’s experiences
Until our life becomes a fragrant garden
Of rare flowering qualities.
Each New Year comes
To awaken our habit-driven Spirit
To make new effort
Until the Eternal Freedom
Is usurped from the hands
Of ever-pursuing Karma.
Let us all, hand-in-hand,
With ever-enlivened, unending, united mind,
Walk and dance forward
Until we reach the Home of complete fulfillment
From whence we return no more.
from The Art & Science of Raja Yoga by Swami Kriyananda
Yoga, literally, means “union.” This union can be understood on different levels: philosophically, as that of the relative, limited self with the absolute Self; religiously, as that of the individual soul with the Infinite Spirit; psychologically, as the integration of the personality—a state wherein a person no longer lives at cross-purposes with himself; emotionally, as the stilling of the waves of likes and dislikes, permitting one to remain in all circumstances complete in himself.
It is this last level that serves as the classical definition of yoga by the ancient sage Patanjali. Patanjali’s profound Yoga Sutras, or aphorisms, have been looked upon for millennia as yoga’s definitive scripture. He wrote: “Yogas chitta vritti nirodh”—”Yoga is the neutralization of the waves of feeling.” Chitta (feeling) has been variously translated as “mind-stuff,” “consciousness,” “subconsciousness,” “the lower mind.” In a series of classes on Patanjali’s Yoga Aphorisms many years ago, Paramhansa Yogananda pointed out that those waves in the mind which produce delusion and bondage are primarily the likes and dislikes, the biased feelings of the heart. Vritti (vortices) literally means, “whirlpools”—the whirling eddies that interfere with life’s smoothly flowing stream, sucking into a purely private orbit whatever one likes, making one so preoccupied with egoistic selections and rejections that he is no longer consciously a part of the stream. Thoughts pass through the minds even of enlightened sages whenever they wish them to, though they subside easily because of the sages’ nonattachment to them. Other functions of the mind, too, such as memory, idea-association, and analysis, the sage can perform far better than the average person. It is not as if he ceased completely to function as a human being after achieving enlightenment. What cease for him are the waves, or eddies, of selfish likes and dislikes of attachment. Entering thereby into the sacred lifestream of Pranava, or AUM, he merges consciously into the silent, infinite ocean of Spirit.
Yoga is the neutralization of ego-directed feelings, because once these become stilled, the yogi realizes that he is, and that he has always been, one with the Infinite—that his awareness of this reality was limited only by his infatuation with limitation.
The different paths of yoga, then, must be understood in the light of how they help to bring about this neutralization of the waves of feeling. Merely to whip oneself into a lather of devotional excitement does not constitute bhakti yoga (the attainment of yoga by the path of devotion). Merely to work hard, even in a good cause, is not truly karma yoga (yoga attainment by the path of action). Merely to study and philosophize intellectually is not the path of gyana yoga (the path of wisdom). All these paths must be followed with a firm awareness of the goal of all yoga practices: Yogas chitta vritti nirodh.
This is, moreover, the true goal of all seeking. The reason Patanjali’s aphorisms are accepted as a universal scripture is that he was dealing with universal spiritual truths, not with sectarian practices. Every truth seeker, regardless of his religion, eventually reaches the same state of divine calmness that is yoga…
Raja yoga views human nature as a kingdom composed of many psychological tendencies and physical attributes, all of which require considerate attention. A king cannot afford to favor one class of his subjects at the expense of all others, lest dissatisfaction among the rest sow seeds of rebellion. Man, similarly, progresses most smoothly when all aspects of his nature are developed harmoniously. The raja yogi, or kingly yogi, therefore, is enjoined to rule his inner kingdom wisely and with moderation, developing all aspects of his nature in a balanced, integrated way. Since it is the soul which is the true ruler of man’s inner kingdom, the development of soul-consciousness, by daily meditation, forms the principal activity of raja yoga. But even meditation, if one-sided, can result in imbalances. The raja yogi is therefore encouraged to develop all sides of his nature—always, however, with a view to neutralizing the waves of his likes and dislikes, and not, by egoistic self-expression, to creating ever-new eddies of selfish involvement.
The Art & Science of Raja Yoga Intensive: A Course in Self-Realization
Twice a year we offer a 14 class in-depth course in The Art & Science of Raja Yoga—A Course in Self-Realization. This class is a combination of study and personal application. Through the practice of meditation, yoga postures, pranayam and the eight-fold path as described by Patanjali you will explore the Art & Science of “Knowing God”. The class is an important component of preparing for Kriya Yoga initiation. The next course starts Tuesday February 7 and meets weekly through April 25 (including 2 special Saturday sessions).
Tuesdays
Feb 7—Apr 25 (plus 2 Saturdays), $575 (materials extra)
Taught by Eric & Ingrid Glazzard
Satsang with Sadhana Devi--"Affirmations for Personal Change"
Sadhana Devi, long-time meditator, mother, teacher, & minister, has been a student and teacher of yogic philosophy for 25 years. Tonight, we’ll first meditate together, then share an informal talk and a fun-filled question and answer session. Donations Welcome.
Friday January 27, 7-9pm, donation at the door
Finding Your Focus
Start the new year by clarifying your real life's priorities and learning how to focus your energies in that direction. We'll begin with uncovering what we personally and individually find meaningful by exploring our aspirations and experiences and the qualities that make them fulfilling. We'll then look at how we can dynamically bring those qualities into our work, our leisure activities, and our inner lives.
Thursdays January 19 & 26, 7:30-9pm, $30, taught by Satyaki Brockschmidt
Stress Reduction Workshop
Leave your stress behind this new year! Today's workshop will begin with a discussion of the origins of stress, why stress can’t be ‘managed’ and how to actually reverse the stress response in our bodies. Today’s workshop includes guided yoga practice, a light lunch, and real techniques to create calmness in your life.
Saturday, January 28, 9:30am-2:30pm, $95 includes materials and a light lunch; Pre-Registration Required by January 24
Spiritualizing Relationships
“The secret of friendship is...to see in friendship a window to infinity.” — Swami Kriyananda. Relationships are some of the most fulfilling or most painful experiences in life. Understanding relationships properly can allow them to be a deeply satisfying part of life. These informal classes will explore this topic and provide insight and appreciation for relationships of all types.
Wednesdays February 8 & 15, 7;30-9pm, $35, taught by Ingrid and Eric Glazzard
Men's and Women's Retreats
Refresh your body and mind, and uplift your spirit. Join us this winter for a weekend retreat at Manzanita on the coast. You’ll enjoy friendship, inspiring group sadhanas, and quiet time amidst the backdrop of the ocean. Please Register early!! We only have 10 spaces available at each retreat which will fill quickly! (View from retreat house shown here.)
Men’s Retreat: February 17-19 (led by Eric & Satyaki)
Women’s Retreat: March 10-12 (led by Ingrid & Iswari)
$250 for a bed in a shared room; $200 for floor space in a shared room
Other Friday Night Events (7-9pm, donations welcome)
January 13, silent meditation
January 20, guided meditation
Before studying scriptures, calm and steady yourself, then take two or three lines and meditate several minutes on them. Then when the meaning becomes one with yourself, close the book and go about your business. Do not hurriedly go through any book of deep spiritual nature. For if you study such a book only intellectually, you will be falsely satisfied and will not want to realize the truth in it because you became apparently satisfied by intellectually knowing it. The way of studying scriptures by realization will awaken new inspiration in you. You have listened about spiritual recipes long enough. That will not satisfy you. You must try to digest them yourself. One hour of regular meditation is more than one month of theoretical study of scriptures. In meditation direct knowledge is received.
Weekly Postures Schedule at the Mandir
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Monday |
10:00-11:15am |
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Tuesday |
5:45-7:00pm |
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Wednesday |
No classes in January; watch for specialty classes starting in February |
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Thursday |
5:45-7:00pm |
5 Paramhansa Yogananda
8 Steven Balogh
13 Bill Peterkin
14 Ansuya Negi
18 Era Lewis
24 Betsy Minthorn
Blessings to all these great souls! If you’re missing from our list, please let us know.
"The gift of kind words is more precious than any present bought, then wrapped in cheery token, only, of your friendship." --Swami Kriyananda, from Do It Now!
Feb 1
Therapeutic Yoga class begins (4 classes)
Feb 1
A Course on Pranayam begins (4 classes)
Feb 2
Free Seminar--Creativity on Demand
Feb 4
Open House with Jyotish & Devi
Feb 7
Art & Science of Raja Yoga Intensive beings (14 classes)
Feb 7
Meditation for Starters (evening class)
Feb 8
Spiritualizing Relationships class begins (2 classes)
Feb 9
Free Seminar--Turbocharge Your Energy
Feb 10
Kirtan and Meditation
Feb 16
Solving Stress (evening class)
Feb 17
Women's Satsang
Feb 17-19
Men's Retreat
Feb 21
Developing an Inner Life--Learn to Meditate begins (4 classes)
Feb 24
Guided Meditation
Mar 3
Yogananda Mahasamadhi Commemoration
Mar 8
Yoga for Relaxation begins (3 classes)
Mar 10
Men's Satsang
Mar 10-12
Women's Retreat
Mar 24
Christ Lives! Oratorio Concert
Watch for details on these events in upcoming newsletters.
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