Living Grace

When Jesus told us, “Pick up your cross and follow me” he was not encouraging us to walk a masochistic path. Whenever we can avoid unnecessary suffering, we should do so. However, some suffering is absolutely unavoidable, and if we do not courageously embrace it, it...

Did you ever notice where thoughts come from? Of course, some thoughts are merely recycled thoughts which possess no freshness or power. Then there are those thoughts that come to us seemingly out of nowhere which hit us like a bolt of lightning. These thoughts...

Yogananda tells us, “Think of God always.” At one level, he is telling us to stay awake, to be consciously focused. Such focus is crucial because what we concentrate on concentrates on us; whatever we attend to attends to us; whatever we gaze into gazes into us. Both...

The more we mature on the spiritual path, the more we realize the role that paradox plays in our evolution. Here is the paradox: God wants to give us all of heaven, all the goodness our souls aspire to experience, yet our capacity to receive depends not on a grandiose...

Monday: This week, I am using stories from the Book of Genesis as reflection points. These stories do not belong exclusively to Jews or Christians, but to the whole world. While these narratives might not be historical from a strictly scientific perspective, they...

We all get stuck in habitual patterns that do not serve us in a positive way. The yoga literature refers to these habitual patterns as samskaras, compulsive feelings, thoughts, and behaviors that seem to control our lives. To a lesser or greater extent, we are all...