“You shall know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
Yogananda
The ego has one primary drive: to pursue pleasure and avoid pain. Likewise, the soul is guided by a single purpose, and it is not happiness, but truth. When our behavior, thoughts, and emotions are driven by the pleasure principle, our lives are tossed about by the desire for ever-novel amusements. Truth stabilizes us and empowers us to live creatively and effectively. According to Yogananda, “Truth is exact correspondence to reality.” In the spirit of Yogananda we can say, “Reality is God.” Our goal is not merely to understand truth with the mind, but to surrender our personal will to reality, to God. In order to surrender, we must be willing to make friends with periods of pain because the power of truth will occasionally shake our world to the core. If we have the faith to surrender completely to the truth, the truth will set us free and pave the way for more bliss than we can imagine. When things get fuzzy, breathe and pray to be guided by the truth of God’s own intelligence. This is spiritual practice!
Can I dare to believe that
Reality is God?
This week’s reflections come to us from Isha Das’ book Living Grace: A Daily Companion for Meditation and Contemplation.
