Tag Archives: Paramahansa Yogananda

We’d Like A Second Helping If You Please

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Traditional-Family-Meal_large We'd like a second helping if you pleaseIn the month before the 2014 Encampment of the New Message from God, I spent a good bit of time going through my journals, pondering the efforts I made between the 2012 Encampment and the present, and pondering the results of those efforts. Specifically, I had a certain concern as to whether my efforts were adequate.

We’d like a second helping if you please

I feel that there some readers wondering, “What do you mean, Douglas?” For one thing, Steps to Knowledge could be completed in one year. It took me about four years. I was not the most diligent student. For another thing, I don’t claim to be very accomplished in building and balancing what the New Message calls the four pillars (health, relationships, work/providership and spiritual development). For yet another thing, I wonder whether my blogging and advocacy efforts are reaching enough people, or the right people.

I’ve already figured out that Marshall Vian Summers is indifferent to an “I’m sorry” speech from me. I believe he’s more interested in a “This is what happened in the arena” speech. Members of the Society, and other attendees, also expressed kind words of encouragement of my efforts. It is as if my world is requesting more of the efforts I’ve been making over the past two years. It is as if my world is requesting that I deepen my study of Steps to Knowledge. It is as if my world is requesting that I strengthen and balance the four pillars. It is as if my world is requesting that I respond more readily to the prompts and restraints of Knowledge. It is as if my world is requesting that I share more of the New Message with more of the world.

The 20th-century Indian spiritual teacher Paramahansa Yogananda (1893-1952) is reported to have said, “Every sincere effort is registered in the Divine consciousness.” I take comfort in those words. I also take comfort in my world saying to me, “We’d like a second helping if you please.”

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Welcome to Mystery of Ascension! We are students and advocates of the the New Message from God. We are members of a worldwide community. We seek to assist the world in successfully navigating difficult times ahead. We seek to assist the world in successfully emerging into a greater community of intelligent life. You will also find some poetry. Find out more about us here. Contact us here.

And Where Are These “Few” To Be Found?

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I say of the holy people who are in the land, “They are the noble ones in whom is all my delight.” (David in Psalm 16:3, New International Version (NIV))

“Yet I reserve seven thousand in Israel—all whose knees have not bowed down to Baal and whose mouths have not kissed him.” (God speaking to Elijah in I Kings 19:18, NIV)

When Jesus heard this [from the Roman centurion], he was amazed and said to those following him, “Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 8:10-11, NIV)

I say that those who find the road that leads to life, like nuggets of precious gold, are where you find them.  I say those who find the true path come in all shapes, sizes and colors.  I say there must be fifty ways for saints to become saints.  I have only written of Christian saints up to now, as that is my faith tradition.  But studying Steps to Knowledge is enlarging my opinions:

“Life is kind to you, for it offers not only the reward but the way to the reward. If it were left up to you, it would be cruel indeed, for you would have to attempt every single possibility that you could conceive of, and then you would have the possibilities that others have conceived of and even the opportunities to reach Knowledge that others have used successfully but which may not in fact work well for you. In your brief span of time in the world, how can you accomplish all of these and still maintain your vitality? How can you maintain your encouragement for Knowledge when so many ways will disappoint you?” (Steps to Knowledge, Step 38, “God knows the way to Knowledge.”)

I studied this particular step in September of 2011, and as I did, I heard a voice in my mind’s ear, asking “Aren’t there any Muslims who have reached Knowledge?”  I thought there must be.  While there is no official sainthood in Islam like there is in Catholicism, people such as Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi, (author of the poem “The Animal Soul“) Shams Tabrizi (Rumi’s teacher and close friend), and Kabir (already introduced here, and whose presence hovers over this thread).

I have been impressed with Paramahansa Yogananda and his spiritual upline. I’m not literate with Buddhist saints, but I believe they’re out there.  I say, and I say it again, those who find the road that leads to life, like nuggets of precious gold, are where you find them.

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Welcome to Mystery of Ascension! We are students and advocates of the the New Message from God. We are members of a worldwide community. We seek to assist the world in successfully navigating difficult times ahead. We seek to assist the world in successfully emerging into a greater community of intelligent life. You will also find some poetry. Find out more about us here. Contact us here.