Self-Expansion
Expansion of consciousness is the essence of all aspiration. Paramhansa Yogananda stated that “A comfortable life is not a victorious life.” While conflict is forever part of the human experience, what is important is NOT what we believe or stand up for, it’s that we DO stand up for something greater than ourselves.
Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. put it this way: “If a man has not discovered something that he will die for, he isn’t fit to live.” Now that seems extreme to most people, but how else to explain all the millions who have died for one cause or another, just or unjust? Jesus put it this way, spiritually speaking, “Whosoever finds their life, will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.”
As we emerge from the closet of the Covid pandemic, what will you stand up for? With whom will you associate in a cause greater than yourself?
Affirmation – Self-Expansion
I feel myself in the flowing brooks, in the flight of birds, in the raging wind upon the mountains, in the gentle dance of flowers in a breeze. Renouncing my little, egoic self, I expand with my great, soul-Self everywhere!
Prayer
Beloved Spirit in all that is! Help me in my own nothingness to find myself one with all that is.
Visualization by Paramhansa Yogananda
Help yourself in the forms of others.
Recognizing the God-love burning in all heart lamps, you will see and feel only God-love flowing through everybody and everything. Every time you meet a receptive human being, demonstrate by actions; and then make him feel your interest in his physical, mental and spiritual welfare. Never neglect to do whatever you can for yourself in the forms of others. To know the Spirit, you must become the Spirit and find yourself as manifested through the bodies and minds of others. Make the bubble of ego one with the ocean of Spirit. Make it big, so big that you can behold all the bubbles of living beings floating in it. Break the boundaries of the small selfishness and include in boundless unselfishness all living beings, universes–everything ever created in the past , existing in the present, and to be created in the future.