The last several weeks’ Sunday Service topics have include “how devotees fall (spiritually)” and “how devotees rise!” Now we come to the central point: here AND now. There’s no “time” like the present, which makes it a great gift (indeed, a “present’). The very essence of the eternal dharma (teachings) is that outwardly all is flux but inwardly and in … Read More
Sermons
Sunday, June 15, 2025 How Devotees Rise with Murali Venkatrao
Bad moods are self-perpetuating. The trick, Swami Kriyananda writes, is to refuse to accept negativity as your reality. Even when in throes of fear, anger, melancholy, or grief, insist on seeing yourself as something greater. There is a deep spiritual reason why one should try to do this. The Bhagavad Gita says that the real cause of all suffering is … Read More
Sermons
Why Do Devotees Fall? with Asha Nayaswami June 8, 2025
Asha is one of the spiritual directors at Ananda Palo Alto, an author and a popular speaker. She travels internationally sharing the teachings of Paramhansa Yogananda and Swami Kriyananda.
Sermons
June 1, 2025 | The Inner Kingdom with Nayaswami Hriman
We spend virtually all of our waking hours and lives engaged with the outer world. But did you know there is a larger, more interesting, more powerful INNER world? While not the same as science suggests, it is nonetheless telling that science describes its own version of an inner world of powerful micro-sized particles, energy packets, gravity, nuclear forces and … Read More
Sermons
Sunday, May 4, 2025 – “A saint is a sinner who never gave up!” with Rick Johnston
Swami Kriyananda’s humorous song The Philosopher and the Boatman begins with the lyrics “The way to perfection is narrow and steep. The bypaths are many, the pitfalls are deep. By theory alone, many think to arrive. Here’s one who could teach them—if he were alive!” With a deft ear for dialog, and good-natured poking at the philosopher’s puffed-up sense of … Read More
Sermons
Easter Sunday Service | Resurrection for Every Soul!
Easter Sunday celebrates the eternal promise that awaits our souls as children of God. Paramhansa Yogananda came to the West to give us a new dispensation showing that coin of our soul’s redemption has been exchanged for calm acceptance and joy, leaving behind us the previous emphasis on sorrow and suffering. While self-effort and self-offering constitute a necessary step to … Read More