  | ||
 |
Love is a Magician
This talk was given by Swami Kriyananda at the dedication of the new Hansa temple at Ananda Village on May 18 1997.
The Romance of the Soul with God
It’s a joy for me to be back here at Ananda Village again and to see this lovely temple. You’ve done wonderful work getting it ready for this dedication.
Because it stirs me so, I haven’t been able to sing the song "Love Is a Magician" publicly until last night. I have wanted to, but I knew I would never get through it. Finally, Master gave me the key: He said, “Think of the joy of communion that follows the yearning.” In that joy I was able to get through.
The words of the song came to me in a superconscious state. Afterwards, I spent the next two hours writing them out. They express the romance of the soul with God, the long wandering through countless incarnations.
Someone asked me what I meant by the ending, “What a fool was I to turn away!” The turning away doesn’t necessarily mean rejecting God. It means putting Him on a shelf while you think of all the other little things that preoccupy your time. Finally, you end up realizing that another lifetime has gone by, and how little time you have actually given to God. You may say that you’ve been on the path for a number of years, but in those years, how many minutes have you fully given to God? “The minutes are more important than the years,” Master used to say.
The lovely thing about turning completely to God is that it seems so difficult until you finally do it. It’s like riding the surf: You get into it, and it takes you to the shore. They say that when you raise one hand to God, He reaches out with two to lift you up. Just a little bit of effort given to seeking Him, and God gives you the strength to do more. There are great forces of consciousness that we can call upon. If we call on God, not just halfheartedly, but with every fiber of our being, then we will be able to find Him. If, however, we call upon the wrong forces, they push us further into delusion. Master wrote in "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Explained" that many souls who were incarnated at the beginning of a “Day of Brahma,” will still be around at the end of that Day, wandering in delusion. It can take a long time getting out, just because we’ve turned away.
Interconnection of all Consciousness
I’ve been reading a fascinating book that I recommend to all of you, because it gives a deeper appreciation for the great unity of all life. The book is called "What the Animals Tell Me", by Sonya Fitzpatrick. It’s about the author’s conversations with animals. She communicates with them telepathically and they tell her things that the owners couldn’t possibly imagine that the pets know. The owners think that because the pets are dumb, they can’t be very conscious.
There’s the story, for example, of one little dog who was feeling very depressed, was not eating, and in general was having a tough time with life. He told the author that one of his complaints was that his owner had bought beautiful new food dishes for the other dogs in the house, but had not given him one, and he felt sad. You see, animals have a very definite sense of taste. The owner admitted that this had indeed happened and so bought the little dog a new dish, too.
It’s a fascinating book which goes beyond the delightful stories that are told. It shows the interconnection of all consciousness.
People who have had the experience of going out of their bodies have described the great web of consciousness and energy that interlaces the entire universe. This whole universe is tied together in a way that makes it almost like a living body, each one of us being like a little atom in that body.
We need to understand our relationship to the whole universe, and also how we can free ourselves from that relationship, because a web is not only something that gives strength; it can also bind. We need to get out of that bondage, and then from that divine state, feed the whole universe with our joy.
In his lovely poem, "The Light of Asia", Edwin Arnold writes of the moment when Buddha attained enlightenment. In that instant, a blessing went out over the entire world: A washerman washing his clothes suddenly felt more joy, and each person in the world was somehow touched by that blessing.
In the scriptures of India, it says that God created the universe that He might enjoy himself through many. But He doesn’t enjoy Himself when we suffer. He wants to enjoy Himself through all souls. But He can only do this when they’ve become awakened in Him. He wants us to come back to Him, and in Him we can then feed the universe with joy. In Him, we can fulfill His purpose for creation. In that fulfillment we will discover that all the experiences of all our incarnations have occurred in only an instant.
God's Presence in Your Life
We need to discover that none of it is real, that it’s all a dream. One of the most beautiful things Master said is recorded in his talk about Saint Anthony of the Desert. After sixteen years of praying intensely to Christ, suddenly Anthony was blessed with a vision of Jesus, and the demons and darkness vanished. Saint Anthony said, “Lord, where were you all these years that I was calling you?” Jesus replied, “Anthony, I was with you all the time.”
Then Master added, “Ah, I know that experience, when you suddenly wake up, remembering all those many lives you were seeking but not knowing what it was you were seeking. You thought that you would find joy in little things—in the love for one person, in trivial amusements—but finally, you discover what it’s all about, and the experience of fulfillment is so great.”
One time Master said to a disciple, “Only one little thought is keeping you from being free—that is, the thought that you’re not free.” Then the disciple asked, “If I said I was free, I wouldn’t be free, would I?” Master replied, “Oh, yes! But the thing is, you’ve answered your own question. You said, ‘I wouldn’t be.”
The problem is that we get our minds hypnotized with the thought that this thing or that thing is so important: that our bodies are important, or that our lives are so important. Certainly we cannot ignore the demands in our lives, and whatever our jobs are, we should do them well, with our hearts fully into it. But do everything as well as you can, and put your love for God into it.
Some devotees make the mistake of thinking only of their own relationship with God. Master said that God will not come to you until you include other people in your search, until you try to help others, to serve and bless them. Even if you are a hermit in the Himalayas, you should pray for others and bless others.
An interesting thing we discovered not long ago was a scientific study done on different healing prayer ministries of various churches and organizations. They concluded that the Ananda prayers were far more effective than the others. This is because of Master’s technique, and the fact that we strongly focus our consciousness, mind, and energy. Praying for others is an important service: to help others, and above all, to help them grow spiritually.
Yogananda's Example
Live positively. Master’s life was a wonderful example of that kind of living. When people read his autobiography, they often form the opinion of him being very sweet and humble. He was indeed the sweetest human being I’ve ever met, as well as very humble, and respectful of all others, but also he was very powerful. Some people say to me, “How wonderful it must have been to live with him.” Yes, it was wonderful, but it wasn’t easy. It was, rather, a great challenge—you couldn’t let down, you couldn’t waste time.
One time I was playing chess with Bernard, and Master asked for him. Somebody said, “He’s playing chess.” Master said disgustedly, “Chess!”
When you hear his voice on the recordings, saying, “I, Paramhansa Yogananda, am praying with you,” you can feel the great power there. That’s the kind of power that we need, and that’s the kind of power he sought to instill in us.
With that power, however, there must not be ruthlessness. Master said that the spiritual path is like running a race and doing stunts along the way. So you’re supposed to be humble, yet powerful, but not with an aggressive or imposing power over others. Be completely respectful of others’ realities, and, without tension, put the power into what you do.
God's Blessings
I’ll never forget an incident that occurred when I’d been at Mount Washington only two or three months. Before lunch I used to put my food aside, sit down to meditate from 12:00 to 12:30, and then go eat at 12:30. One day at about 12:29, I suddenly felt this great joy, and thought, “This joy is so wonderful, and it’s so perfectly natural! I know that I couldn’t possibly ever lose this joy again . . . but it is lunch time now.” So I got up, and went to eat. What a fool I was! I lost that special experience of divine joy. I should have remained in my meditation, deepened the experience, and forgotten about lunch.
You see, every now and then the clouds clear and you get a little touch of the Divine. When you get it, hang onto it for dear life. I don’t mean to grip it with tension, but go deeper into it. When you get into your soul consciousness in meditation, it seems so completely natural. Patanjali described that state as smritti, or memory. You remember who you really are; you remember what your reality truly is. These are little blessings that are given to you which can become great blessings if you hang onto them.
When you don’t “hang on,” it can be like when leaving Los Angeles in a car for New York City. A few hundred miles into the trip you may see a bill-board advertising something in New York, but you’ll have to go a long way before you see another billboard advertising New York again. It’s only as you get fairly close to New York that the billboards become more and more frequent, until finally that’s just about all you do see.
The same thing is true, you might say, with the billboards of ecstasy—the inner lights and experiences. As you meditate, you might get a little glimpse of ecstasy, but it may be a long time before it comes again.
It’s also true, however, that many people at the beginning of the spiritual path have more experiences than they’ll get for many years later, because the soul and God are saying, “This is what you can hope to experience if you persist on your path. This is what your potential is.” Unfortunately, these people may think that experiences come easily and take them for granted.
There was a woman who came to a class of Master’s in Massachusetts. She inwardly saw the thousand- petaled lotus and was able to see through the walls of the room into other rooms. She had an experience of great ecstasy. However, it came to her so easily that she never came back. She probably thought, “Well, that was nice,” and then allowed other things to absorb her attentions. Before she knew it, she’d lost it, and lost even the memory of it.
It is important to hang onto these inner experiences, or soon it will seem unreal again. You want joy because you are joy, because you’ve known joy in the past. So every time you feel a touch of God’s presence, hold it in deep respect and awe. Hold it as the most precious thing that you could possibly have, and try to build on it.
Master said that whenever a little bubble of joy bursts onto your consciousness, work to keep expanding it. Let it fill your entire being. The whole path of the soul is this looking for what we have always wanted. But then we think, “It’s too far for me to reach, too difficult.” Then we look around in other directions, trying to fill the wastebasket of our mind with useless things. Instead, empty the mind in meditation, hold it up to God, and it becomes a chalice of the Divine. Let your mind become a chalice. Let your heart become a chalice, because more than anything else, it’s the heart that needs to be won and that needs to be given to God.
God's Love
Love is the only thing this life is all about—not just love of people, or of things, or of any one point in space, but simply love itself. One practice that will help you to experience this is to keep in mind the thought that God has always loved us. As Jesus said, “Anthony, I was always with you.” God is always with us, and He’s waiting for us to turn our attentions to Him. When we do, He helps us. When God knows that we really mean business, that we really want only Him, then He fills us with His presence.
I think that’s why this song “Love Is a Magician” is so very deeply meaningful to me, because it’s the story of every soul. It’s the story of this soul in its reaching out for what it could never have, until it knew where to look, and then its understanding that that love was with us all the time. We just had to go within. When we listen, then we know: love is here.
Love Is a Magician
Love is all I know:
Sunrays on the snow
Of a winter long
In darkness, without song.
Oh, my heart’s afire,
Burning all desire:
Only you remain,
And life again.
Too long I did stray,
Flung lifetimes away,
Imagin’d You did not care.
I know now your smile
Was mine all the while;
I listen’d, and love was there.
I can’t breathe for love!
All the stars above
Call to me: “Come home!
Life’s waves all end in foam.”
Only love can heal
All the pain I feel.
What a fool was I
To turn away!
For information and reservations:
info@ananda.it Tel: +39 0742-81.36.20 Fax: +39 0742-81.35.36
Ananda is located in the tranquil hills of Umbria, Italy on “Strada Statale 444” between Assisi and Gualdo Tadino. It is the largest retreat center in Europe for Yogananda’s teachings.
Ananda Associazione • Via Montecchio, 61 • I-06025 Nocera Umbra (PG) • ITALY