In these turbulent times, we should attune ourselves to the love which resides in the deepest, divine part of us, to empower us to see the divinity in all things, says Nayaswami Asha Praver
When my brother and I were very small, he was a terrible tease. I remember riding in the back of the car, and something happened that was probably his fault, but I couldn’t prove it, and my mother turned and spoke to me very sternly. I remember that I didn’t like it―you know how it feels when someone hurts your feelings, and whether you’re two years old or a hundred, it feels the same. My mother hurt my feelings, and I remember how i disliked that awful feeling. There was nothing much I could do about it. There was no external remedy, because when you’re a child you don’t have any power to change your circumstances. The adults can pick you up and move you around, and you can’t do very much on your own.
I remember how I curled up on the floor in the back of the car with my ear to the hump that those old cars had, and how I listened to the tires humming on the road. And I remember knowing very clearly that I existed simultaneously on a level that was beyond the reach of any pain. I’m not talking about a psychological state but something very different. I believe it was a carried-over memory from past lives.
I knew that satchidananda―“ever-existing, ever-conscious, ever-new bliss”―was there, and I remember thinking that I just had to move farther and farther back from this world and I would eventually find it, which I did. I didn’t go into an ecstatic state, but I found that on that deep inner level, the pain no longer existed. Masters tell us about this inner experience―in that state, this world goes away. It’s still there, but we realise that we exist on a level that is far beyond it. And all we’re doing here in this world is practising to be able to deepen that experience.
Purity of heart is an essential quality for finding our oneness with God. Purity of heart is not finally about exerting enough will power to be able to have the right attitude. Purity is about recognising that none of this world has anything to do with us, and that it will never be permanent but will always be changing, and that there is a permanent place someplace else where we can live. When there is pure love in our hearts, we can ask for everything and there’s no presumption involved. Because once there is true love, there is no separation. God is always saying to us, “I would give you everything. You only need to ask.”
It’s only the impurity of our hearts that makes us think that God doesn’t want to give to us, and that our friends don’t love us, and that our teacher is reluctant, and that we’ve displeased him. That’s the impurity. It’s not that we’ve actually done anything wrong. The only thing we’ve done wrong is that we don’t know how much we are loved. And when we come to the door of the Divine Mother, she welcomes every single one of us. This is how we need to feel with God and Guru.
In these turbulent times, people are asking, “What can I do?” And the answer is very simple: “Love.” I don’t mean that we should love with sentimentality and emotionalism. I mean that we should attune ourselves to that love which resides in the deepest, divine part of us, and that empowers us to see the divinity in all things. That is the purity that we are looking for, that never doubts our connection with God, and God’s connection with us. And through that love, we can know our unity with everyone.
Nayaswami Asha Praver, a disciple of Paramhansa Yogananda and a Kriya Yogi, who studied personally with Swami Kriyananda for more than 40 years, is a spiritual director of Ananda Sangha of Palo Alto, serving the San Francisco Bay Area, including the Peninsula, Silicon Valley, San Jose.
