What Really Are the Rules?

After going to a musical the other night I was reminded of the transformational opening I felt from going to a dance concert a few months ago. A dance company by one of my past dance teachers was performing in San Francisco. I had respected this instructor so much that I did not feel to do any research on what I was getting into when I bought a ticket for this show.

Living the quiet meditative village life in the hills of the Sierra Nevadas in California, just a trip to San Francisco felt like a blur of energy swarming around me. As I walked into the lobby of the dance theater I was asked, "Do you want to dance?" My answer was enthusiastically, "Of course!" They were teaching people a version of an electric slide in funk style.

At the beginning of the performance the announcer came out and proclaimed it is a requirement of all audience members to shout during the performance. The first dancer entered the stage with huge platform shows, bright colored clothes, and a huge afro. Much of the performance was like watching a funk dance party. At the end they invited the audience to join their party on stage and do the funk electric slide. This was quite a shift in energy from my quiet village life.

Old Faithful Geyser, Yellowstone

It was late when I returned to my hotel room, which looked more like the corner of a room. I set up my travel altar and sat on the lime green bed to meditate. As soon as I began to meditate, a fountain the size of Niagara Falls of spiritual writing ideas started exploding out of me. The force of energy was so strong I had no choice but to grab my ipad and write for the next three hours. For most of my life I have wanted to open up that channel of writing. For about a year I had a very strong desire to start a blog but had not brought that into fruition.

Afterwards I was quite bewildered how something that felt spiritual could transpire from an event with a very different energy than calm silence. In meditation we try to focus our energy up our spine to the point between the eyebrows, the seat of highest consciousness. From there we tend to get our highest form of knowledge, inspiration, and intuition. On the contrary a show like the funk one could be said to portray energy going outwards in all directions. This led me to the question, what really are the rules of where our inspiration comes from? Through this investigation, I gathered three main ideas this dance performance provoked.

Despite how we may describe the direction of energy presented from this program, I believe this group is one of the most talented and creative dance troupes. It takes immense ability to execute those challenging dance moves as seamlessly as they did. They really stepped out of the normal bounds in what they put together and communicated through their acting. It is often recommended to inhabit environments that exhibit the qualities or skills you would like to possess. This performance inspired the magnetism of aspiring towards a high level of talent and creative excellence.

I am recalling a story of Asha Praver's, Director of Ananda Palo Alto, in which she counseled a friend at a dead end to ride her bike everyday as a solution. Miraculously, after two weeks her friend was a whole different person; much happier and able to come up with solutions to her problems. Just as Asha's frend enjoyed bicycling, this dance performance was very fun and energetic for me. Sometimes a distraction from your regular routine and tensions is all you need to clear space for new ideas to reveal themselves. Being around or participating in activities of high energy helps move and shift energy. Often when we create a shift in one area it affects all other areas of our life.

What I found most inspiring from these dancers was their absolute freedom of movement. Every single cell of their bodies was engaged in cooperating and supporting the activity at hand. There was no fear masking what they were trying to accomplish. Their magnetism of freedom may have been what opened up the creative writing channel within me.

Thus when you feel inspired to move in a certain direction and nothing is transpiring, surround yourself with the abilities of other talented people, with the creativity of others, with something different, something fun, something energetic, someone completely secure in what they do...

A journey away from home

Originally written March 2011

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 Yogananda. Many people came by just to look at his photo. One woman came by, bowed her head to us and, while pointing at Yogananda's photo, said, "This is the real deal, unlike anything else here."

I got a brief opportunity to walk through a few booths before Swami Kriyananda was giving a talk. One woman had me sit on a charcoal pad saying it would take care of all my physical and emotional troubles. Then another lady put audio headphones on my head to share a visualization created to erase the karma of the past five days. There were the magnetic bracelets that could balance you out or a necklace made from lava rock. You could get a photo of your aura taken and wear the photo pinned on your shirt all day. Or you could have someone draw your soul. Of course there were essential oils, crystals, and many other healing devices. I remembered trying many of these inventions in the past only to find temporary superficial changes.

While walking over to the room where Swami was speaking, I passed many signs leading to a guy who gazes at you and takes all of your problems away. Finally I found Swamiji. It felt so comforting to see his face. His gaze made me forget about all of my problems. The first thing he said was, "I am not here to give you a quick fix." And then I was lost in the deep joy of watching him share spiritual teachings with the audience.

While in LA I visited the former Bodhi Tree book store which sold products of all spiritual paths. On the same token the gift shop at Michael Beckwith's church, Agape, also sells everyone's teachings. I walked down the hall at the church and found the main sanctuary. Everything, the chairs, the carpet, the walls, were that plum agape color. On the walls surrounding the whole room were large ethereal paintings representing many different religions. The hall was huge with maybe a thousand chairs. The janitor stopped his work to find out how long I have been going to the temple.  It took a while to get him to understand that I go to a different type of temple 8 hours away. His voice echoed in the empty hall while he asked with big eyes if thousands of people attend those services like they do here.  I smiled inwardly and responded "Yes, worldwide there are thousands." His main source of inspiration appeared to be the numbers of attendees. My draw to Ananda has been based on the inward feeling in the heart.

In Santa Barbara the first stop was a class with the Buddhist teacher who first taught me meditation. Everything he taught that day matched the same principles I have learned at Ananda. As he spoke I could look around him at the photo of his guru and felt his guru smiling at me. After the class I got a chance to speak to the teacher. As soon as he found out I am living at Ananda Village he pulled me aside to express what a joy it is to fully live your life for God regardless of your path.

There is also a Swami living in Santa Barbara whom I studied with while living there. I got to stay with him in India as well. At the time I knew nothing about how to act around a Swami. I finally got up the courage to ask a question and he replied, "I have a lot to teach you." Those were the last words we spoke.

He was leading a full moon meditation about an hour from where my previous meeting was. I had to rush the drive over there to make it on time. The Swami had not arrived yet when I got there. I quickly found the bathroom down the hall away from all the people. There was a knock on the door just as I was finishing. I opened the door and there was the Swami. In a half whisper he said the nickname I used to go by, "Tali" as if I was a long lost dream reappearing in front of him. I pranamed him and then moved out of the way so he could use the bathroom as he had a long drive as well.

I found a seat on a floor cushion near the front. Once again the teachings he spoke seemed to agree with Ananda's teachings. And the photo of his guru sitting next to him was smiling at me just like the Buddhist one did. A simple, calm, happy smile.

After about three hours of talking, meditating, and answering questions he said he would bless those who were still there. He would eye each individual to have them come up. He looked at me and said "Tali." Once I knelt in front of him he took a moment to meditate. He looked as if he was channeling a message with his divine powers. Right before giving me the blessing he asked, "Your official name is Avital now?" He pronounced my name correctly which many people do not do even after hearing my name a few times. I had this underlying feeling that was his way of acknowledging and accepting the path I am on. Many students of Swami Kriyananda put their trust in him to choose their spiritual name. When I asked Swami Kriyananda, he suggested I go by my full name Avital instead of my nickname Tali. That felt like getting the blessing of a spiritual name from my spiritual path.

During his talk he had let everyone know he was doing an introduction in a couple days to Kriya Yoga, one of the most powerful meditation techniques. Then he added he is the only person to give Kriya in the U.S. the way the Guru Lahiri Mahasaya taught it.

I lingered to the very end to soak up as much time in the presence of this great man as possible. After everyone was gone he approached me and asked me "What?" Without realizing it beforehand I actually did have a question. All of a sudden I asked him about his statement that he is the only person giving Kriya in U.S. He replied he is the only person he knows of giving it like it was done in the Himalayas. I asked about what Yogananda taught at SRF. He said that was a watered down version of it. Then he walked away as if to give me a chance to think about what he said.

Always wanting the best, it would normally be in my nature to want to get the rest of the Kriya Yoga techniques from this master of yoga. However, that, in a way, would be a betrayal to my guru. When I took discipleship with my guru I put my trust in his wisdom and support being all that I need. Whether or not I had a watered down version of the technique, there is a power much greater than the technique itself. I always felt once I established a relationship with my guru and brought that sense of devotion into my meditation practice, much more transformation began to happen in myself and my life. (Since then I have discovered our techniques may appear to be watered down only because we spread out teaching the techniques over time rather than teaching it all at once.)

I went back to my car to leave. Whenever I start my car, my Ananda music automatically starts playing. And with that I felt at home again. And I was very ready to go home but I had one more stop on this journey planned and needed the rest it would provide.

There is another community started by someone who was at SRF with Swami Kriyananda. I was excited thinking I would feel at home there. The people there are very sweet. They spoke of their love for their community just as Ananda members do for Ananda. Yet it was more different from Ananda than I expected. By this point I was really ready to put some ruby slippers on, click my heels together three times, and recite "there is no place like home."

The beauty of this journey was to see many other wonderful true paths that have a great impact on its participants. It was great to see how much appreciation there is for so many paths. And magnificent to see that one's path is chosen by what vibrates within their heart.

Our True Potential for Healing

What I find most inspiring in Paramhansa Yogananda’s book How to Achieve Glowing Health and Vitality is the understanding of our potential for truly healing ourselves. This book accurately reflects the path I have traveled in facing my own health challenges. We can feel caught – victims of the pain we experience or of the prognoses of doctors.

I was told I would be on medications for the rest of my life, that there was nothing I could do about it. The turning point for me came when an energy healer at Ananda Village in Northern California told me just the opposite.  My initial doubt dissolved when I met someone who  had actually healed herself from the condition that challenged me.

The door opened to my own potential for healing. Yogananda explained, “No disease is incurable. Some diseases are beyond the reach of medicines, which by their nature are limited, The medicine is non-curative – so doctors call the disease incurable! But the power of the Infinite is unlimited and can heal all disease.”

When I started to meditate regularly and to invite God into the process, I weaned myself naturally from allopathic medicine. I have since heard many other stories of natural healing. In his book Aum: The Melody of Love, Joseph Bharat Cornell describes how Nayaswami Sadhana Devi handled a kidney stone attack. I have heard from women who have given birth that the pain of kidney stones is even worse than that of labor. During her intense pain Nayaswami Sadhana Devi chanted the high vibration word AUM while focusing on the area of her body in pain. While she was chanting AUM, the pain would disappear; when she stopped she would feel the pain again. After she had chanted deeply for two hours the pain went away completely.

A friend shared a story of falling and spraining her wrist.  She had been hiking with her young son. They were far from any city and daylight was disappearing. She knew she would have to find a way to drive home. She remembered the idea from the Energization Exercises of tensing and relaxing a muscle while imagining drawing in the life force of God. With full focus she tensed and relaxed the muscles around her wrist for 5-10 minutes. The pain was gone and she was able to drive home safely.

There are also stories of people finding healing from chronic conditions. A woman named Evy MacDonald was confined to a wheelchair because of ALS; she had been given six months to live. She decided to accept the situation and offer it to God. She asked for forgiveness and utilized positive affirmations. Not only did she regain full functioning of her body and heal from the disease but she also felt herself constantly filled with joy. In one of his talks Swami Kriyananda explains that healing techniques will not work if you are not happy.

We see the same principle in How to Achieve Glowing Health and Vitality – the key word is, I believe, “Glowing”.  Swami often spoke of saints like St. Francis who even when very sick were in bliss. Swami himself often expressed joy and expansiveness in the midst of his many physical challenges. Even though we can not always control what happens with the body, the opportunity always exists for us to feel our soul happiness.

To be inspired to discover your full healing potential and to learn the physical, energetic, mental/emotional, and spiritual healing techniques for realizing that potential, please join the online course How to Achieve Glowing Health and Vitality.

Take Two: Shooting Videos with Swami Kriyananda

January 13th, 2011  -  Originally posted on the blog A Place Called Ananda 

Behind the scenes: (right to left) Swami Kriyananda talking about The Time Tunnel, Bryan McSweeney filming, and Avital Miller directing 

Last June I initiated a project to film short video clips of Swami Kriyananda while he was at Ananda Village, promoting a few of his books from Crystal Clarity Publishers.

This project kept getting postponed, possibly so I could learn a few lessons along the way. The original shooting date was postponed due to the uncertainty of Swami’s health. We left the new date open-ended to see how Swami would feel each day.

Every morning I awoke and wondered if this was going to be the day. Nothing happened. Then Swami moved to Los Angeles in August 2010, and it was agreed they could do the filming of the video clips in LA without me being present. In my mind I let go of doing the project.

While attending a book marketing convention in Fall of 2010, I found out that short video clips are a cutting edge medium to market books. This convention lit a fire under me. Since no one in LA had as yet filmed the video clips, I contacted Swami and got a concrete date set for the video shoot.

I realized that in order to make the project happen, I needed to be more enthusiastic, take more initiative, and be physically present during the filming. This realization brought me to the first of several lessons I learned from working with Swami Kriyananda on this project:

Lesson 1: A project can only move along with energy. You have to really believe in something and put energy into it. And the person with the energy of inspiration should be present to launch the project.

Yet another lesson was awaiting me upon my arrival in LA. Swami had fallen and gone to the hospital that morning. (Luckily there was no serious injury.) Then Ananda LA’s management team had an important meeting that took precedence over the scheduled filming.

Every morning, once again, I awoke to see if I would be meeting with Swami. I extended my LA visit to the last possible moment. I had to keep my faith in the project and trust it would happen. Swami finally called to meet with me my last evening in LA.

Lesson 2: Give up being a type-A Virgo personality, be patient, and go with the flow.

When I arrived for the meeting Swami had just woken up from a nap after not being able to sleep for months. Instead of telling me he was not awake enough to shoot the videos, he asked me in a joking manner if he looked good enough to be on film.

Swami thought he might be more awake after we had some tea. During tea, we spent a couple minutes discussing the project, and he said he would like to do the filming. Then he quickly switched the topics and told me his story of coming onto the spiritual path.

There was so much wisdom and beauty in Swami’s words; you would never have known he was tired. He spoke with such depth, it sounded as if the whole world was inside of him. Swami displayed the ability to disconnect from what is happening with his physical body.

(I remembered a story about Swami. He was so sick he could barely breathe. Someone had come over to talk to him. Despite his caregiver’s advice, he got up and had a discussion with this man as if nothing was wrong. As soon as the man left, he crawled right back into bed. Once more, he was barely breathing.)

Swami emphasized certain points in our conversation, yet I had no idea what they had to do with me. For instance, he talked about different languages and the order they put their words in. I thought, “I don’t write the books, I just sell them. What does all this grammar matter to me?”

However, I trust that there is nothing irrelevant in what Swami does or says. Thus I reflected on the meaning behind everything he said.

The perspective from which Swami explained how he came onto the spiritual path is similar to my own. The knowledge he shared with me has already been useful in how I present this path to others.

The other points he made involved skills I may need to develop and possible future directions for my life. I cannot help but notice that while writing this blog I am already trying to use some of the tips Swami offered during our conversation.

He did not directly tell me what things I need to work on. He allowed me to figure things out on my own.

It was very sweet to see how he really wanted to do the filming of the videos that evening, but his staff and I agreed it was not the best time. I realized that instead of telling me what should happen, he coaxed me to figure it out on my own by asking if he looked well enough for filming.

Thus, we have Lesson 3: Swami gave me a living example of the lesson he teaches in his book The Art of Supportive Leadership: “A wise leader convinces by sound reason, or by magnetism of his own conviction, but not by the mere outward authority of his position or past experience.”

I thought it would be about three months until I could meet with Swami again. However, I got lucky and only had to wait a month and a half.  The day before I was planning on going to LA for the Oratorio Concert in Dec 2010, I discovered that Swami had an opening in his schedule on the following day. I immediately packed and drove the seven and a half hours from Nevada City, California to LA.

Finally, everything went according to schedule. There was even an audience watching the filming.

Swami had once again just arisen from his afternoon nap, yet he immediately concentrated all of his energy on the video shoot. He hit every nail on the head and perfectly expressed what I thought needed to be shared. He made quick jokes between some of the clips and told a story at the end to entertain his live audience. We recorded short promo clips for twelve books without Swami needing a break.

During the process of recording the clips, Swami challenged my approach to eliciting the information from him that I felt should be presented in the videos. He did this in a way that would normally have pulled me off of my center.

Because I assume that everything Swami does has a message, I was willing to look at what I needed to change rather than get upset. I discovered that by changing how I prompted Swami for each video, his reactions changed. I kept altering my method of delivery until I got the desired results.

Because I trust Swami is a true channel for the Divine, I tried to discover what the lesson was instead of reacting emotionally. It struck me that I needed to apply this same approach to other situations besides that one with Swami. Every situation is a gift from God handed to us on a silver platter, for us to learn and grow.

Watch the Videos

   The Essence of Self-Realization

   The Time Tunnel

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 Kriyananda­­ what food to serve, he explained the guests would not be concerned with the food if they feel spiritually nourished. After all, Jesus Christ did say, “Man shall not live by bread alone.” And in the book How to Achieve Glowing Health and Vitality, Yogananda shared, "Life and strength do not depend solely on food or exercise, but are sustained from the powers within.” Why not eat the divine nectar of God through prayer and our love for God; through bringing spiritual practices into our life? 

Being inspired by a talk Swami Kriyananda delivered titled, “How Do We Really Heal,” I wanted to continue to share his message by leading a webinar with the same title. The only challenge was I did not feel I could share the most important point he makes through my own knowing; that love is the most important and powerful component of healing. Swami is not talking about human love, but rather a universal, unconditional, and divine love. In How to Achieve Glowing Health and Vitality, Yogananda described, “God cannot change his law arbitrarily just by the bribery of special ceremonies, blind prayer, or partiality. He can be moved only by the law and by love. Love is law.”

I really felt I needed to share the healing power of love from my own experience instead of repeating the words of another. I left the prayer to God to reveal that inner knowing before leading a webinar.

In the meantime, I departed California to go on pilgrimage to Assisi, Italy, the home of St. Francis. Growing up Jewish, I never researched a lot about St. Francis. Yet he was the only saint I always secretly held a certain fondness for in my heart. Often I heard stories of his challenges of poverty, hunger, cold, sickness, and political disdain. Somehow I only tuned in to the emphasis on the sternness of renunciation and strength of will to overcome those challenges.

One of the last stops on the tour was the Porziuncola, one of the most known temples of St. Francis. I was lucky enough to get a seat inside the temple so I could sit and meditate. I was overcome by a sweet warmth that filled me with great comfort and the feeling of home. Knowing I was hogging one of the few seats in the temple, after about an hour I finally pried myself away. As I walked around the outside of the temple with my hand dragging along the wall, I was starting to come back into my conscious mind. Instantaneously the realization came to me that it must not have been a challenge at all for St. Francis and his followers to withstand the challenges they did. They were so caught up by their love for God that those things probably barely even touched them. 

Later I saw a painting of a female’s naked body pierced with arrows and blood dripping down. But her face expressed a whole different story. Unidentified with her body, her face was looking up into the light of God with only love and purity glowing on her face.

When we reach the state of fully living in God’s love, nothing can touch us. Whatever may happen to our body, our spirits can feel fully nourished by God. When the connection with God runs deep, nothing can get in the way of that. While I cannot say I constantly live in that state, I feel God gave me a glimpse of what the power of love for God looks like. While I write these stories from delicious, spiritual, and romantic Italy, I believe “eat, pray, love” can exist in all of our hearts anywhere in the world.

Other Resources:

"How Do We Really Heal?" Webinar. Click here to watch the recording.

A devotional video of The Life of St. Francis with narration and songs by Swami Kriyananda:

Click here to learn more about Ananda Assisi and come visit.

Book Recommendations:

How to Achieve Glowing Health and Vitality by Paramhansa Yogananda

Loved and Protected, stories of miracles and answered prayers by Asha Praver

Love Perfected, Life Divine, my favorite book written by Swami Kriyananda Inspired by Marie Corelli’s book, The Life Everlasting. Swami retells the dramatic story of a woman’s discovery of her twin soul—a discovery that propels her to undertake an arduous and perilous climb to the loftiest heights of spiritual awakening. Fueled by her love, the heroine must overcome harrowing challenges before she realizes the goal of her yearning in union with God.