"Destroy Me!" Two Words to Conquer Conflict and Pain

Right before my recent travels I felt a conflict arise with someone I held very dearly. It pained me greatly to feel dissonance rather than love. No matter what I tried I could not figure out how to resolve the conflict nor alleviate the pain. Then I remembered two things: the words from the spiritual teacher Matt Kahn, “Destroy Me,” and a visualization I was guided into where I allowed someone to “destroy me” and felt a great relief in response.

I believe Matt’s intention was to encourage us to have the courage to face our challenges head on and trust that will lead us to a greater victory. Trust builds with experience. I was lucky to have had a visualization where I experienced the benefits of surrender when feeling disharmony.



 
Almost two years ago in the fall of 2014 I was taking the level 2 Meditation Teacher Training at The Expanding Light Retreat Center in Northern California, where I was living at the time. Our instructor asked us to...

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Where is God?: A Yogic Perspective

Isn’t God more than a person? Doesn't God dwell within us? Isn't everything God? These are some of the questions I have been hearing from friends that I thought to address. There is much more that could be shared or elaborated on, but that is what future blogs are for. :)

 


On my second night at Ananda in 2004 my Yoga Teacher Training class was asked to define “God.” I furiously wrote a page about how I hate the idea of a man sitting in a chair in the heavens judging us and how religion has caused many wars. On the back of the page I wrote about how I prefer to believe in things like peace and love. We were then asked to share what we wrote. I sat quietly because I did not want to share anything negative. I listened, though, to how everyone in the group described the term “God” as concepts like peace and love. My eyes were completely opened to another way of looking at God. With a new understanding of the word God I thought there should be a new...

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Go On Alone

The words "Go On Alone" seem to be one of the themes coming up for me recently. I was just reminded one of Swami Kriyananda’s last requests for Crystal Clarity Publishers before he passed away was to put the book A Place Called Ananda back in print with the title Go On Alone: A Struggle Between Personal Integrity and Group Conformity. That concept can have many layers. The layer I have been focusing on is how to play your part as an individual to better support the collective whole.

In choir practice the other night our leader had us close our eyes while we sang. We were all amazed to hear how much better we sounded when we had to tune in more deeply on our own instead of just following the choir conductor. While sounding like one unified sound, you could also hear each part more poignantly.

I remember when I used to perform dance pieces without music and without the ability to see all the dancers at once. We only had our breath and attunement to the group rhythm that we had...

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A journey away from home

This journey displayed the universality of all paths to God but also my love for the path laid out by my Guru Paramhansa Yogananda and his disciple Swami Kriyananda. I was being sent to Los Angeles to help at the Conscious Life Expo Feb 11-13, 2011. It also felt like a good time after being gone for two years to return to Santa Barbara to thank the spiritual teachers I had studied with during the four years I lived there.

Right away upon arriving in Los Angeles, or what some people call Lala Land, I went straight to the Conscious Life Expo. With the Ananda LA staff, I entered through the beautiful hotel lobby being greeted by the sound of a wonderful violinist and an Egyptian queen and king on stilts. The beauty of this welcome was a little hidden behind the many people chit chatting, the extra chairs strewn around, and the flyers completely covering the pretty marble counter tops.


We made our way past even more flyers and people to our booth with a huge photo of Paramhansa...

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A journey away from home

This journey displayed the universality of all paths to God but also my love for the path laid out by my Guru Paramhansa Yogananda and his disciple Swami Kriyananda. I was being sent to Los Angeles to help at the Conscious Life Expo Feb 11-13, 2011. It also felt like a good time after being gone for two years to return to Santa Barbara to thank the spiritual teachers I had studied with during the four years I lived there.

Right away upon arriving in Los Angeles, or what some people call Lala Land, I went straight to the Conscious Life Expo. With the Ananda LA staff, I entered through the beautiful hotel lobby being greeted by the sound of a wonderful violinist and an Egyptian queen and king on stilts. The beauty of this welcome was a little hidden behind the many people chit chatting, the extra chairs strewn around, and the flyers completely covering the pretty marble counter tops.


We made our way past even more flyers and people to our booth with a huge photo of Paramhansa...

Continue Reading...

Eat, Pray, Love All in Italy

Elizabeth Gilbert, author of the book Eat, Pray, Love, did not have to leave Italy to find “eat,”” pray,” and “love.” As we all know, Italy is known for its spectacular sumptuous food. I especially love the variety of healthy food at the Ananda Assisi retreat center. Living at a spiritual retreat center makes it very easy to fulfill the “pray.” Being in a new relationship, I can more easily feel my heart filled with love. Italy is probably one of the most romanticized countries to dream of visiting. However, I did not write this blog to talk about Italy. Instead, I would like to share a couple more profound realizations related to “eat, pray, love.”

“Eat, pray, love” does not need to be mutually exclusive. When Ananda Assisi opened, they were trying to figure out how to create a diet that suited the Italian appetite and followed Paramhansa Yogananda’s dietary suggestions. Upon asking Swami...

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About this blog

Dear Great Soul,

With a flood of ideas coming to me over the last few months, I thought it would be fun to write them down and share them. It is a thrilling venture as writing has never been my forte in the past. Yet as I write this introduction, a half dozen other blogs are also spilling out of me.

During his final summer in U.S. in 2012, Swami Kriyananda--the founder of Ananda Sangha and direct disciple of Paramhansa Yogananda,--declared he wants all of us to be Swami Kriyanandas. I do not believe he meant for us to be exactly like him. He expressed this without judgement creating the space for the full expanse of our potential.

With Swami Kriyananda's passing last April (2013) I find it ever more important for us to actively continue his mission; to dive more deeply into the spiritual path and in turn to write, speak, and share his love, teachings, and devotion to Master.

For now I am calling this blog The Dance Into Divinity not just because I love the art form of dance, but...

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