Paramahansa Yogananda...

                                                              (Not a Photo of Paramahansa Yoganada)


I was in High School, in my old hometown of Salinas, when in my psychology class a "hippy" handed me his copy of Herman Hesse's novel Siddhartha. Pat Mata was soon to become my best friend... I devoured that book like a hungry man would devour the finest meal: and everything suddenly and radically changed...

With a new clarity, the world about me took on a radiance I had not considered possible. Yes, the country was neck-deep in an immoral war in Southeast Asia: students were being beaten and killed: blacks, browns, and Native Americans were protesting and creating revolutionary paradigms: and gurus from India were inspiring a spiritual insurrection... Ram Dass published his immortal book Be Here Now... Neem Karoli Baba's face imprinted in countless hearts... Swami Satchidananda, the guru of Woodstock fame, had us standing on our heads and meditating at UC Santa Cruz... My Mom was hoping that I would join the Army, but instead I was studying Mahatma Gandhi -- I filed as a Conscientious Objector, and pondered Canada or prison... My hair grew down to the middle of my back and I walked everywhere barefoot... Krishna Consciousness chanting and recipes and George Harrison's My Sweet Lord was sort of the hippy summit... and I was climbing...

​I don't remember if I skipped school or just happened to go to the Library (source for unending miracles)... Loving to read biographies, I slow-scanned the shelves... picking up a book here and there and putting them back with no idea as to the goal of my search... Nearing the end of the last shelf, I was in the "Y" section... leaning down, a book caught my eye: Autobiography of a Yogi... pulling it out of the tightly packed books, for the very first time I gazed at the face of my guru... I more than devoured this book! It's so hard to believe, but for fifty years now that book (in numerous editions) has been in my hands, in my day-pack, or first on my book shelf... And so it still is...

​It was with sacred intention that I continued and lived my yoga: oneness with the Divine is the immanent / transcendental goal and fundamental reality (the only real Reality)... I could become a Franciscan and Catholic Worker because God is Loving... I could quit my job and cook soup in my home for folks on the street... I could start a CW House and California Non-profit... I could organize several versions of a Soup Kitchen: open shelters, start summer camps for farm worker kids, get volunteer doctors and nurses to staff a free health care clinic, work with California State University, Monterey Bay to organize a community garden employing homeless folks, invite college students from across the country to come to Salinas and volunteer in an Immersion Program because God is Loving...

​While I do offer you my profound encouragement to get a copy of Autobiography of a Yogi for the delight of your heart and soul: I have learned that techniques of meditation, while useful, are only and at best, a reflection of what is already yours: perfect beauty and perfect love-possibilities... it is all about unfolding the real Reality in your life: by the Works of Mercy, Peace, and Justice (best summarized by the word compassion)... it is all about understanding that this unfolding is the most ordinary thing in the world -- it is exactly in the ordinary moments of the ordinary day that the revolution and evolution of consciousness occurs... You gotta want it, you gotta serve it, and you gotta set it free!

It is now about ten years since I left my heart in Salinas... only to be resurrected in River Falls, Wisconsin... and Paramahansa Yogananda is here as well... what I most miss about my vocation days is the great gift of having lived in intentional community: I loved having a "clutter" of folks hanging around, eating together, working together, reading together, praying together and loving and, of course, hurting one another... but always beginning again... and living the dream of Dorothy Day's eternal wisdom-laugh: Beginnings are always exciting...

​I'll conclude with some words of Yogananda... but first, I know that a lot of folks live day-to-day with doubt or with troubling realizations of the many idiocies of religions: nevertheless, if it matters to you at all what I write, I affirm that we are all completely enveloped by the love-without-limits that is best described as Divine Mother... Now here are the words of my guru: Saints of all religions have attained God-realization through the simple concept of the Cosmic Beloved. Because the Absolute is "without qualities" and "inconceivable," human thought and yearning have ever personalized It as the Universal Mother... "taking refuge" in God, and "flinging oneself on the Divine Compassion" are really paths of the highest knowledge... (Autobiography of a Yogi)

And finally, as to the above photo, meditation (loving attention placed in one's heart) is the core teaching and practice of yoga and really, of all mystic paths: it is all about tuning one's entire being to the wave energy of the Universe... it is all about what Ram Dass wrote: Be Love Now... She is becoming love, I want that as well, maybe you, too?