Step 2 Yoga Wisdom: Restoration Through Divine Grace

In this talk, we explore Step 2 of the 12 Steps of Recovery, 'We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity,' through the ancient teachings of yoga. True sanity, in yoga philosophy, means returning to our true Divine Self. Drawing from the timeless teachings of Paramhansa Yogananda and Swami Kriyananda, we dive into the eight aspects of the Divine, the nature of the 'Spiritual Warrior,' and how cultivating an authentic relationship with a Higher Power can restore our inner wholeness. Please note: This talk is for educational and spiritual purposes and does not replace professional medical or psychological care.

Transcript

So today we're focusing on the second principle with yoga and the 12 steps. Last week we talked about surrender. And from that place, The next step is in the 12 step community is that we come to believe that a power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity. So in yoga, When we're talking about sanity, What we're talking about is our true self. So we move from the false identity of a limited self. Yogananda described the ego as the soul identifying with the physical body, With the personality in the material realm. So our experiences as a human being in this journey of remembering who we are, And that is the journey of awakening. The ego is awakening, Right? So the egoic aspect of the soul is on a journey of remembering. And in the second step, The principle of restoration. So again, In the 12-step community, It said, We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. And inherent in that is the principle, The premise, That we're returning to something that already exists within us. And that's really the teaching of yoga. It's restoration, That the journey of the spiritual life is to come back home to the Divine Self. So talking about, You know, Kind of as we go through this, What are the things that are meaningful? Well, One of the things that's meaningful is what is a higher power, Right? And how do we cultivate a relationship with that? Part of what we look at is where we're standing in the journey. So for some of you watching this, You may be very clear about what God is for you. You might have a clear spiritual path. It might be this spiritual path. So then it's a little easier to take the next step toward the journey of restoration, Of returning. If you aren't quite there, What I can offer you are some things that Yogananda taught about cultivating a relationship with God, With the divine, And finding your way that is authentic for you, Right? So, Yogananda talks about eight aspects of the divine. That's very often referred to, I probably talk about them, And if not every talk, Many talks, Because they're so tangible and practical. So those are qualities that we literally, What he said is this is a manifestation of divinity, And when we encounter it, We are encountering the divine. So the quality of light, Love, Joy, Peace, Calmness, Wisdom, You sound, Which would be vibration. And power, Divine power. I can feel a little tickle right here. I'll teach you a technique of yoga nandas that's helpful, Which is you tense the entire neck and throat. This comes from energization. So I'm just tensing, And that will bring energy and prana right in there. So with the eight aspects, If you're kind of journeying towards what is the divine, Part of what we look at is something bigger than ourselves. So in the spiritual journey, That might begin with, Oftentimes it begins with a book. You read a book or you hear something and you resonate with that. And within the book are teachings. So you begin to study and explore teachings. And all of this is done with a reference back to yourself. And what you're listening for when we talk about sound or vibration, You're listening for an inner resonance. Something that Yogananda said about truth, Because our soul nature is already intact, We resonate with these divine qualities when we encounter them. We know the truth when we encounter it. Now the truth might be challenging, Right? You might hear truth and not feel ready for it, But on some level you will feel the knowing of it. And that's a beautiful thing. So all of these qualities, The quality of light, There is a way in which you can be reading something and feel the light in it. Swamiji talked about when he was in college, He could tell from things that he was reading, They had this divine light in them. And he proposed this to his professor to say, You know, Rather than evaluating the style of the writer, Why not evaluate the vibration? I don't think he used that word, But he specifically was talking about that quality of light that he felt with particular authors. He said that the professor didn't get it and did not go along with that premise, But he knew it was right. And later when he found Yogananda, It was proved true that he had intuited that, He had experienced it. Biography of a yogi and then it tells a beautiful story of how he read that book and was so profoundly changed by it that he got on a bus the next day and went across the country from New York to California to meet Yogananda. He just read it and thought, I've got to meet this man, This yogi, This guru. And when Yogananda asked him how he liked the book, Swamiji just expressed, Really, I don't know that he had words to express how moved he was by it and how important it was to him. And Yogananda said, It's because my vibration is in that book. And that is a yoga teaching. And so this is part of sound or vibration, The movement of energy that we can feel and recognize. So. . . Part of what we look at in the principle of restoration is that we're already whole. And when we're talking about surrender, And I was talking about this last week, Usually what's brought us to a place of surrender is often a feeling of brokenness. It's a feeling of defeat, A feeling of failure. It's a difficult place. The spiritual practice of surrender has is empowering, Uplifting, And inspiring. And I won't say more about that because that's in the other talk. But what I want to mention here is we build upon that to say, Okay, We've surrendered to our way of doing things in this particular moment, With this particular event. Usually it's, You know, Something that brought us to that. In the yoga practice, In the spiritual practice, We continue with these principles. So we don't just practice them one time. We're continually practicing this idea that a power greater than myself can and will guide me back to self-realization, To the knowing that I'm whole and I'm not broken. I might be challenged. Life might feel difficult. I might be facing something that does feel bigger than what I have to bring to it. The second step is saying, You know, It's a whisper, A nudge, A reminder to look for something greater than your own self to meet this challenge. That is the path and the practice of spiritual warrior. One of our affirmations in the yoga postures of spiritual warrior is I attune my will to the source of all power. And what we're practicing there is the understanding that the spiritual warrior draws grace and draws the resources of divinity, Which connects with their own highest self to move through life and fulfill their highest aspirations. They're not trying to do this on their own. And that's so much of, So very early on in the journey, We surrender our way of doing it and we begin to seek support grace to take the next step. So the eight aspects are a way that you can relate to the divine and begin to look in your life and notice Nobody said, Right? That's what I'd like to do with the practice of the eight aspects, To say, How do I see these? How do I experience them? I think I was mentioning last time, I don't try to do all eight every day, But I might pick one. So wisdom, You know, Wisdom is coming to me in this moment to talk a little bit about There's a power with wisdom and in yoga we talk about it as jnana. Jnana yoga is the path of discrimination. So it's a deep listening and penetrating reality to the truth behind what is happening. There's an expression in Ananda, Many of us use, And it's the same wording with a different intonation. So the wording, Why is this happening? We can say with great frustration, Great upset, Great concern. In the practice of jnana yoga, We would say the same words with a sense of dispassion, A sense of deep curiosity and wanting to know. Why is this happening? And that is a question that guides us toward wisdom. So intuition and divine understanding, It's our birthright. And it is a practice to know how to tune into that and how to experience that. Next week we'll be talking about attunement. So this is the building blocks to move toward that because what am I attuning to? Well, It's a knowledge and understanding a reality that's bigger than my egoic understanding. It's bigger than my physical body. It's bigger than my personality. It's bigger than material circumstances I find myself in. There's a quote from I believe it's the New Testament. It's the Bible. In this moment, I can't remember if it's the New or Old Testament. It talks about a peace. Which passeth all understanding. And it's speaking to an experience, One of these divine qualities that isn't linked to an outside circumstance. It passeth. It goes beyond what we can understand. These moments of grace where we touch our highest self, Where we touch these higher realities, And they're especially powerful when it's obvious to us that it isn't because of what's happening in my life. It's not the moment. Situation. That's not why I feel joy. It's not why I feel peace. And sometimes those moments, When they come to us, It can really, I mean, I will say this for myself, It really does feel like a very special present from the Divine for me to say, Keep going. Keep going because our culture is so tied to the body and the personality and the external events. This plus this equals this. When we talk about physical health, There is this very limited understanding of health. Health in the yoga practice is more than the body. Feeling good is wonderful, Right? It's very helpful So part of our yoga practice is to take care of the body but always to understand that true health Ultimately is the realization of our divine self and living in that energy Yogananda, There's a beautiful I came across this recently what Yogananda says about health and I was thinking of it in terms of the talk today Because what is wholeness? What is sanity? What are we returning to? So Yogananda says, Good health is a buoyant, Glowing sense of vitality. Good health is a buoyant, Glowing sense of vitality. That's independent of what might be happening in our body. There's a beautiful. . . Letter about Swami Kriyananda and Asha's book and I believe it's as we knew him. And so someone was with him taking him to the doctor. I believe they were going to have a dentist appointment and he needed to fill out a medical questionnaire and it was very lengthy and asked many questions. Have you ever had cancer? Yes. Have you ever had a hip replacement? Yes. Do you have diabetes? Yes. Do you have a heart condition? Yes. Have you had heart surgery? Yes. Like arthritis? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes, Yes, Yes. At the very bottom, How would you rate your overall health? Swamiji said, Excellent. And that is really what we're talking about. He lived in this deeper understanding. He was not removed from the reality of his physical body. Which encountered many, Many challenges. So he did and spoke of this, And Asha speaks of this in her books, Great tapasya, You know, For the work. So it played out in his body, But he never lived in that reality. He was conscious of it, He tended to it as it was needed to be tended to, But he always lived in this higher self reality this higher understanding this inner wholeness and that's the principle of the second step and that's the principle of Drawing grace to you to help you with whatever it is. You're experiencing some years ago I was in a difficult time and it's always interesting to me that I don't remember what it was I have crystal clarity of this moment talk about where I was profoundly struggling with something. So much so that I went into prayer and deeply asked God if it could be removed because the challenge felt like too much for me. Whatever it was, It was a great burden on my consciousness. And so I thought, Okay, I'm going to go to God and just, I really felt like a pleading, Right? Like, Please, Can you take this? Is it possible? Could you take this? And I felt in that moment, And inner understanding. So the best way I can describe it is it and It felt like a divine voice within. I didn't hear any audible sound of it, But I felt and heard the message. And the message in response to, God, Can you take this from me, Was no. But I can give you the grace to endure it. And I felt in that moment that I could say yes to the grace and I'd be okay. That what I was facing, I had to face. It wouldn't be taken from me. I could recognize, And this comes back to wisdom, I could recognize, Well, If I have the grace to endure it, Then that's all I need. And it was all I needed. It still was a moment, Right? It was a moment of saying, Am I going to receive the grace? Am I going to say, Okay, Please give me the grace? I welcome that. And it was also a real deep lesson for me about working with life. Of just recognizing that the divine is ever available to us. Yogananda said that as we build our relationship with God, Part of what we're building is a practice of deep sincerity. So one of his famous things that he said about the divine, And he often referred to God as divine mother, He said divine mother cannot resist a sincere prayer. So part of what we're cultivating in asking for restoration, Asking for divine grace to help us get there. Is a practice of, Yogananda called it a divine romance, Of showing up, Of practicing our sadhana. So sadhana is spiritual practice. In our yoga tradition, Ananda yoga, Meditation is the pinnacle of that. It's yoga postures, Chanting, Affirmations, Seva, Which is selfless service. There are many, Pranayama, All these different tools that we're practicing them with the intention of deepening our experience of the divine. So they're not just boxes that we tick off. Oh, Did my pranayama, Did my yoga postures, Okay, Did my meditation. That's not the intention. The intention is with every practice to be inviting God in. With every practice to be asking for help expanding to experience these qualities. And also there is a offering of the self that I'm not determining what the experience will be. So that's a practice of trusting the divine. Right of trusting that I'm in practice, I'm. . . Coming to the mat if it's yoga postures or to my pillow or chair if it's meditation or practicing the breathing techniques, But I'm doing it as a pathway to open a door to a higher reality and a higher understanding. And with that intention, There's a freedom that comes along with it. And part of the freedom is freedom from judgment. I was talking recently with a group about something Swamiji said in terms of spiritual progress. It's very easy to judge ourselves. And as Swamiji said, If you're evaluating your spiritual progress, If you're trying to evaluate it, And he followed that by saying, Recommend it. I don't recommend that you do. If you're evaluating it, Evaluate it in terms of decades. Because in a decade, You can see change. But we tend, I can say for myself and certainly with others I work with, There's a tendency toward trying to evaluate it in a day or a week or a month. So he said in a decade, Or if that feels too long, A year or two. And the intention there is that when we stretch it out, When we give ourselves space to let this take hold in us, To begin to have the experience of grace coming into our life, There is a certain point where we realize it's working. Where we feel like, As I was preparing for the talk today, There were certain moments that came to mind where I had the realization I didn't do it. Whatever it was that I was trying to do, It wasn't my power that allowed me to do that. One of the most powerful prayers for me in this practice is the St. Francis prayer of, Make me a channel of thy peace. And that prayer not only aligned me vibrationally with a saint, But it also gave me a pathway of how to relate to challenges. More than that, What I discovered later is it literally was putting me in this flow of energy and grace that on a daily basis I couldn't see any difference. I didn't notice any difference in what I was doing. I'd been having difficulty with an individual in my life and I felt completely daunted and overwhelmed by it. And someone recommended that I think of this person and say the St. Francis prayer. So I'll say the prayer. Lord, Make me a channel of thy peace. That where there is hatred, I may bring love. That where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness. That where there is error, I may bring truth. That where there is discord, I may bring harmony. That where there is doubt, I may bring faith, That where there is despair, I may bring hope. That where there are shadows, I may bring light. Where there is sadness. I may bring joy. Lord, Grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted, To understand than to be understood, To love than to be loved. For it is by self-forgetting that one finds, It is by forgiving that one is forgiven, It is by dying that one awakens to eternal life. Amen. And that prayer changed the relationship and the dynamic of the relationship that about a month in, I don't really know how long it was that I said this prayer every day, I had an encounter with this individual after I'd been practicing this. And it was a moment where their behavior was such, Which was the pattern between us, That felt really hurtful. And I was just about to engage, I could just feel it. I could feel that I got hooked, We might say, Immediately. And just before, I could feel the energy rise, And I was about to speak, And I could hear those words of St. Francis in my mind. I could hear them, That, Grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted, To understand than to be understood, To love than to be loved. And in that moment, All I felt was that grace and I really didn't know what was happening because it was so surprising but I very quickly was able to extricate myself from the conversation and the other person didn't mind at all and they just they were in a in a place right where And I left with feeling a profound sense of God's grace and an understanding of the power of these practices. That even though it doesn't seem like anything's happening, And I don't feel like I'm making any progress, And I'm not sure that I'm doing it well enough, Like breadcrumbs along the way, I have found that just when I need it, There's an encouraging experience. That says, You're doing okay, Right? And more than that or equal to that was the understanding in that moment, The feeling I had for this individual wasn't mine. It really wasn't mine. I felt absolutely triggered by what they were saying. I was so ready. I didn't want to engage, So I was trying to stop doing with them. But then suddenly I had this grace and this energy. I knew it was God. I knew that I was feeling in that moment what God feels for them, Which was perfect love. It was really perfect love, Perfect understanding, Absolutely no judgment, And I realized that I had been trying to solve it on a human level. I'd been trying to understand their perspective. I thought if I could understand them, Then I'd find harmony in the relationship. I had gone about it every possible way I could. And that's why a dear friend, A spiritual friend, Said I would pray. And I'd pray this prayer, Which is basically, Help me to be perfect. Well, Really what it is, Is help me tune in to a higher power, Understanding, Help me to receive this grace and be a channel for the grace. And I've continued to experience through the practice and lifestyle of yoga, And that's what Yogananda said to us, We become channels of divine grace. One of his famous quotes is, The channel is blessed by that which flows through it. So these prayers, These practices, This intention, We return to a state of higher understanding of our own true self, And we become blessed in the process and practice. Wishing you a beautiful day, Great souls.