A Definition of Freedom That May Surprise You

Paramahansa Yogananda in 1924 (Courtesy of Self-Realization Fellowship, Los Angeles, California)

In Journey to Self-realization, Paramahansa Yogananda, founder of Self-Realization Fellowship, wrote:

True freedom lies in doing what you should do when you ought to do it.

If that sounds like the opposite of freedom to you, you’re not alone. Yogananda noted that “many people think that whatever comes into their brains they may do—and believe that to be freedom.”

It’s not. Until you

The Perfect Joy of Surrender

This well-known story from The Little Flowers of St. Francis often elicits the reaction, “Whoa. Harsh!” Indeed, at first blush this narrative may seem counterintuitive and even nonsensical. But after some thought, profound insights often emerge.

St. Francis may be focused on Christ in this story, but I take a broader view that transcends any particular religious path or figure. I see it as an extreme but powerful lesson in the value of surrender. In the peace and beauty of unconditional surrender, suffering ceases to be suffering and instead becomes a gateway to transcendence.

Surrender is like an onion; you can keep peeling away layer after layer even when you think you have reached your goal. It is only when everything has been taken from you—materially, physically, mentally, emotionally—that you truly find out the depth of your surrender to God. If, as in St. Francis’ story, when there is nothing left for you to surrender except your final breath, yet you are able to hold on to the ever-new joy of Divine communion and genuinely express gratitude for whatever God is giving you (or taking away), then will you truly know the ultimate power and purity of surrender.

THE PERFECT JOY OF ST. FRANCIS

“The Stigmata of St. Francis.” a painting by Italian artist Giotto di Bondone, painted around 1295-1300 and housed in the Musée du Louvre in Paris.

One winter day St. Francis was coming to St. Mary of the Angels from Perugia with Brother Leo, and the bitter cold made them suffer keenly. St. Francis called to Brother Leo, who was walking a bit ahead of him, and he said: “Brother Leo, even if the Friars Minor in every country give a great example of holiness and integrity and good edification, nevertheless write down and note carefully that perfect joy is not in that.”

And when he had walked on a bit, St. Francis called him again, saying: “Brother Leo, even if a Friar Minor gives sight to the blind, heals the paralyzed, drives out devils, gives hearing back to

Praise Brings Peace

Calmly and joyously welcoming whatever life brings to you requires a major shift in understanding, perception, and attitude.

He who knows that enough is enough will always have enough.
Lao Tzu

Try this exercise: Think of the most difficult situation you have ever had to contend with. From the depths of your being, thank God for

The Doorway of Discontentment

Dan Millman

In his essay for Inspire Me Today, author Dan Millman shared a profound experience that continues to help him maintain his perspective during difficult times. It’s a beautiful lesson worth sharing.

Click here to read an excerpt from the  story Dan told me for my book, Sixty Seconds: One Moment Changes Everything.

YOUR DISCONTENT IS THE FIRST STEP TOWARD AWAKENING

In our day-to-day lives, most of our attention tends to focus on the realities of the conventional world: our relationships, perhaps raising children, going to school or work, addressing issues in the areas of health and finances.

At the same time, we each experience, from time to time or even persistently, that whispered voice of our heart or higher self, reminding us and calling us to look beyond the conventional world to a higher or transcendent reality.

Sometimes we experience a sudden wake-up call—a loss or change that forces us to consider what life is really about and what’s truly important. It shakes

Don’t Waste Time Counting Cars

In his posthumously published book, I Became My Heart, Leo Cocks tell stories of his experiences with Paramahansa Yogananda in the three years before the guru’s passing in 1952.

At one point, while Leo was living at Lake Shrine, a temple and spiritual sanctuary owned by Yogananda’s organization, Self-Realization Fellowship, he professed a desire to go for a car ride with Yogananda (who was called “Master’ by devotees).

Here is an excerpt that tells how Leo’s desire was granted:

I was thinking I would finally get my ride with Master. I would just be there with him and enjoy his presence. So we got in the car and headed for the Lake. I waited for him to bless me and tell me some stories. But he didn’t do that. He was looking at a newspaper! Then he would put the paper down and see a car coming. Then he would ask me, “What kind of car is that?” Now when I was a kid, I was pretty interested in cars. I used to go down to the showrooms and see the new models and all of that stuff. I’d tell Master what kind of car it was and then I’d sit quietly again. Then he’d do the same thing!

Another car came and another. It seemed like he did that six, eight, ten times! And finally it came to the point where I realized, “Well, I’m not going to be able to meditate and just be with him like I thought I would. I might just as well relax.” I thought I would start to figure out what kind of car it was as it approached. That way, Master wouldn’t have to wait for the answer. I stopped trying to meditate and started watching the approaching cars. Right at that point, he reached

The One Thing You Need to Know to Overcome Perfectionism

Erin Dougherty

This excellent post by life coach Erin Dougherty cuts right to the heart of the compulsion to be perfect. I first gained insight into this subject by reading a wonderful and eye-opening book that explained the link between procrastination and perfectionism.

Here is the sentence in Erin’s essay that jumped out at me:

I never realized that perfectionism was an attempt to avoid all rejection, all criticism and all failure.

I’ve seen this fear control the lives of so many people I know and care about. Instead of making things happen and living a life of choice, they end up letting things happen and living a life of chance. The fear of criticism and failure is where dreams go to die. It makes me profoundly sad to know that decades from now, on their deathbed, so many people will experience the soul-crushing pain of regret at never having summoned the courage to follow their heart and chase after their dreams.

May Erin’s essay serve as a clarion call to procrastinators everywhere: Surrender to the indomitable spirit within you that ceaselessly whispers, You can do this . . . you must do this . . . there is greatness within you!

by Erin Dougherty

“You’re imperfect and you’re wired for struggle but you are worthy of love and belonging.” ~Brene Brown

There’s nothing perfect about me and I’m ok with that…now. This wasn’t the case for most of my life, though. In fact, I’ve been a perfectionist for almost 30 years. I’m not counting the first five years of my life when I was free to be as messy and magical as I wanted.

In third grade I asked my mom to buy me a stack of lined notebooks and colored pens. I spent hours neatly labeling each notebook by class, date and assignment deadlines. If I made one mistake like a jagged cursive letter or a misspelling, I’d rip out the page and begin again on a fresh sheet.

This was tiring but it was also a compulsion. Everything had to be

All Things Are Possible

In the book, The Practice of the Presence of God, the priest who interviewed Brother Lawrence, a kitchen worker in a seventeenth-century Paris monastery, recorded that Brother Lawrence told him:

That all things are possible to him who believes; that they are less difficult to him who hopes; that they are more easy to him who loves, and still more easy to him who perseveres in the practice of these three virtues.

At the core of this teaching is the liberation and joy that come with surrender. And the more you love and trust God the easier it will be for you to surrender, which will generate a virtuous circle: By relinquishing control, you become more trusting, which frees

One Desire Only

In the book, The Practice of the Presence of God, the priest who interviewed Brother Lawrence, a kitchen worker in a seventeenth-century Paris monastery, wrote:

That in his trouble of mind he had consulted nobody, but knowing only by the light of faith that God was present, he contented himself with direction all his actions to Him, i.e., doing them with a desire to please Him, let what would come of it.

I’ve never worked in the kitchen of a Paris monastery (to the best of my knowledge anyway) but I have come to the same conclusion: When you live to please God instead of anyone or anything else, including your

The Logic of Surrendering to Divine Will

Lots of people are repelled by the idea of surrendering to Divine Will because they believe that doing so means that they will be relinquishing their free will and diminishing their capacity to reason and act. Just the opposite is true. Essentially, surrendering means attuning your will with Divine Will, which strengthens your resolve to live purposefully and reinforces your capacity to do, to achieve, to become. What you are actually surrendering is your self-centeredness and the belief that you are alone and unprotected in an uncaring, unforgiving world. Surrendering is nothing more than a homecoming, a recognition that your will aligns with Divine Will as naturally as a child’s hand fits into its mother’s.

If you subscribe to the ancient wisdom that a supreme, loving intelligence governs all of existence, then it follows that you are being guided with infinite wisdom and inexhaustible love at all times. And that means that life is unfolding in a way that has your best interests in mind. Therefore, every situation you are presented with is a gift, an opportunity for you to learn and grow and move closer to realizing your potential.

Ultimately, surrendering to God, to life, to the Universe, or whatever you wish to call it, puts you on the fast track to living the best life you can possibly live. Of course, implicit in that statement is the expectation that you are

No Striving Required

So many spiritual seekers these days are determined to reach enlightenment. Yet if they continue to strive for it, enlightenment will remain forever out of their reach. Enlightenment is achieved not through striving but through surrender. Enlightenment then becomes a natural consequence of devotion.

Dr. David R. Hawkins summarized this concept beautifully in his book, Dissolving the Ego, Realizing the Self:

Out of an unrestricted

Holding On to the Side of the Pool

Ten days before Christmas, my friend Jecenia was stopped on the freeway on her way to work, waiting behind a line of cars at an exit, when a careless driver plowed into her at full speed. For two months, she spent much of her time in bed, resting and recuperating. Many of her friends stopped by to visit, including Dave, who offered to give her an astrological reading. When Dave mentioned during the reading that she was living with a heart full of fear, she immediately knew he was right. So she challenged herself to use this down time to figure out why she had chosen to live in fear and how she could overcome it. As soon as she began exploring her inner terrain, one insight after another came tumbling out of her thoughts, and faster than you can say, “No more suffering,” she liberated herself from the prison of fear. Here’s are some of the thoughts she shared with me:

I realized that I had let fear be my king, and I bowed down to it. I wasn’t allowing myself to be me; I was letting fear completely own me. I’m a kind and loving person, why would I do that to myself? I had been living my life like I was holding on to the side of the pool, afraid

If You Worry, You’ll Be Weary

Are you such a worrywart that you’re exhausted from all the worrying you do? If so, you’re burning up a whole lot of emotional energy for nothing. In fact, worse than nothing. Worrying saps your life force, ages you, and weakens your immune system. If you are not actively trying to abolish your worry habit, then at some level you value being consumed with worry and fear more than you value being happy and healthy.

Fretting about what could go wrong is a self-fulfilling prophecy that needlessly produces suffering. To make maters worse, worry bumps you out of the present moment, stripping you of your capacity to feel peaceful and loving. Worrying never helps and always hurts; it ruins good times, intensifies

The Intuitive Art of Wooing Nature

Fighting your suffering disrupts the flow of life. Surrender to your suffering and the gates of understanding swing open.

Suffering is magnificent music—the moment you give ear to it. But you never listen to it: you always have a different, private, stubborn music and melody in your ear which you will not relinquish and with which the music of suffering will not harmonize.
Hermann Hesse

No matter how deeply you are wounded, there are great

Are You Sentencing Yourself to Continuous Frustration?

Surrendering to God floods your heart with peace and invigorates your weary spirit. With humility and gratitude, you place your goals in God’s hands.

It constantly happens that the Lord permits a soul to fall so that it may grow humbler.
Saint Teresa of Avila

You boldly and confidently move forward, trusting that

The Pretense of Perfection

While you discern that life is unfolding perfectly as you walk your spiritual path, you do not make the egotistical, spiritually arrogant assumption that you yourself are perfect.

There is no worse sickness for the soul, o you who are proud, than this pretense of perfection.
Rumi

On a soul level, of course, you are indeed perfect, but your spiritual development in the physical world requires

Behold, Service Was Joy!

Service to others is an effect, not a cause. It flows naturally out of your devotion and surrender to God.

Compassion is the seed that grows into the giving tree of selfless service.
Unknown

Acting selflessly is paradoxically a selfish path because it is a