It takes a long time to learn how to pray just for the sake of praying and not for anything else, not for our own selfish desires. The reason that we obtain little satisfaction from our prayers is that they are not really sincere attempts to touch God. When we begin...
In 1971, Michael Grosso had an extraordinary experience in Greenwich Village, New York, that led him to realize he needed to balance his overly intellectual life with music. Michael had just spent the last several years obtaining a Ph.D. in philosophy from Columbia...
In the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu, with its verdant landscapes nestled amid swaying coconut palms and fragrant jasmine vines, lies a quaint village steeped in timeless charm and rustic allure. This is the setting in which the family home of Sri Gurudev Swami...
Huddled inside my heaviest winter coat at the edge of a pond, I watched as my coffee steam merged with misty clouds of my breath. At dawn the cranberry bog in coastal Massachusetts was an expanse of frozen sand and wiry tangles of russet vines; old snow scudded across...
It is said that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, but what if that journey encompasses not only miles but also centuries of profound wisdom, timeless traditions, and a tapestry of influences that have shaped our spiritual heritage? In this...
God or Infinite Consciousness is That through which our own egos move. Unfortunately, the ego tends to overlook the fact that its capacity to function is from that Source, and instead it comes up with the notion that I am doing everything by myself. But it would be a...
Do we still believe that the sun travels across the sky while we stand stationary on a flat piece of earth? No, these once held beliefs were dispelled long ago. But how many other things do we accept as true simply because our limited senses tell us so, or that is...
We all need teachers in life; not everything can be learned from a book. According to Hindu tradition, there are four main teachers: Mata, Pita, Guru, Deva: Mother, Father, Guru and God. The mother is the baby’s first guru; she is everything to the baby: unconditional...
People sometimes ask me, “What has been accomplished by my practice of Yoga all these years? I haven’t realized God. I haven’t had any noticeable spiritual experience.” I don’t know what experience they want. They haven’t levitated up from the floor at least a few...
It seems like any birthday that ushers us into a new decade brings with it a whole spectrum of feelings, and that is what happened for me recently. Turning 70 gave rise to that culturally influenced feeling, “OMG! I’m getting old.” But I’m grateful that I also...
What is Yoga? In simple words: to remain with ease and peace. You might wonder what that ease is. I am talking about that ease, which you disturbed and then called yourself dis‑eased. Even to become a diseased person you should have had ease before, is it not so? If...
On September 8, 2023, we celebrate the 136th Jayanthi (Birth Anniversary) of Sri Swami Sivananda, the Guru of Sri Swami Satchidananda. In honor of this occasion, we offer this video during which Swami Satchidananda is asked to explain this well-known teaching of his...
I know it sounds hard, but we must remember that when we go through, or see, suffering it is not the Immortal Self that suffers. Who is the sufferer then? It is the mind that goes through all the changes—the little ego, guided by vasanas, wrong thinking, and...
The Chinese sage, Chuang-Tzu, once had a dream in which he was a butterfly. When he woke up, he didn’t know for sure if before, he had been a man dreaming he was a butterfly, or if now, he was a butterfly dreaming he was a man. Likewise, we are all caught in a dream...
Let us know that in Truth you are the Divine Image, the image of God. Somehow the veil of the ego prevents you from realizing this. Just remove that veil. It is that veil that is the basis for all these mental dramas. It creates all kinds of problems, troubles,...
The essential teaching and goal of Yoga is to make the mind calm. “Yoga chitta vritti nirodha,” says the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. That means that Yoga is the calming of the waves created in the chitta, the mind by keeping the mind balanced under all conditions. In...