July 2018

Meditation & Yoga Center:
CSE south county meditation center

Blue Lotus

7-29-2018

Open To Grace

Paula Whang-Ramos

"We can provoke the presence of grace in our lives by being receptive to it...
Can we open to how grace might reveal itself to us?"
~ Yogacharya Ellen Grace O'Brian

Grace is the power, presence, and wisdom of the Source of life that always indwells and infuses Itself within us and every situation, circumstance, and relationship. To live a yogic life is to learn to open into the ways that grace holds, guides and loves us right now, through those circumstances that we can influence and especially through those that we cannot. Grace silently carries us through life's growing edges and unexpected changes, as the courage of acceptance, the depth of inner peace, and the inspiration of wisdom. Our practice of meditation helps us become inwardly focused, so we can slow down and be receptive to grace within and around us. When we stop following the busy mind and instead be receptive to grace, then we can walk through life changes carried in the divine peace, love and wisdom that we all yearn for now.

Join us at Blue Lotus Center. Learn ancient, time-tested spiritual practices to help us live from our essential wholeness. Study, meditate, and grow with others devoted to thriving in peace, love and wisdom. Make this the year that we affirm and skillfully live in peace - in our minds, our hearts, our families, our community and our world. Blue Lotus Meditation & Yoga Center welcomes sincere seekers from all backgrounds.

07-22-2018

Positive change thru Kriya Yoga

Paula Whang-Ramos

"Utopia must spring in the private bosom before it can flower in civic virtue, inner reforms

leading naturally to outer ones. A man who has reformed himself will reform thousands."
~ Paramahansa Yogananda, Autobiography of a Yogi (Ch. 49)

More than 70 years ago, Paramahansa Yogananda knew that lasting change in our families, our communities, our country and our world - begins within every one of us. Yogananda dedicated his life to living and sharing Kriya Yoga, a path for sincere seekers to reclaim and to live from the divine power, presence and wisdom that indwells us all. He offered a scientific technology for spiritual living to help us mature beyond our stories of limitation that can become uncomfortably comfortable for us to wear as our identity. Instead, Yogananda calls us to be spiritual grown-ups by teaching us how to allow Infinite spiritual power, presence and wisdom to overflow from within us, so we can be the change we want to see in our hearts, in our lives, in our families and in the world - in this lifetime.

Join us this Wednesday at BLC as we conclude our 5-week spiritual book study of Autobiography of a Yogi. In the final chapters of this spiritual classic, Yogananda offers insight into many universal spiritual questions and inspirational guidance for our own spiritual reform. Study with us at BLC, one of the many meditation outreach centers that are living manifestations of Yogananda's vision to support our lives in peace, love and wisdom. Blue Lotus Meditation & Yoga Center welcomes sincere seekers from all backgrounds.

7-15-2018

Daily Practice: The Way to Peace

Paula Whang-Ramos

"Release error thinking and return to the soul's peace, love, and wisdom in this moment.

There are many moments when we can make this adjustment. This is sadhana."
~ Yogacharya Ellen Grace O'Brian

In the yoga tradition, sadhana is our daily spiritual practice, which includes daily meditation. In the stillness of meditation, we can directly experience the peace, love and wholeness that we are and that the Source of life is. Sadhana also includes spiritual practices that help us return again and again to these indwelling soul qualities during our daily life experiences. Each moment of our life is an opportunity to live into the soul's peace, love and wisdom during good times, and to return to the soul's peace during challenging times. In this way, sadhana helps us live in peace on and off our meditation cushion!

Join us at Blue Lotus Center. Learn ancient, time-tested spiritual practices to help us live from our essential wholeness. Study, meditate, and grow with others devoted to thriving in peace, love and wisdom. Make this the year that we affirm and skillfully live in peace - in our minds, our hearts, our families, our community and our world. Blue Lotus Meditation & Yoga Center welcomes sincere seekers from all backgrounds.

7-8-2018

The Gifts of Spiritual Teachers

Paula Whang-Ramos

"...guide them to understand that the highest yogic attainments are not barred to the family man. Even in the world, the yogi that faithfully

discharges his responsibilities, without personal motive or attachment, treads the sure path of enlightenment."
~ Babaji

In this week's readings of Autobiography of a Yogi, we are invited into the intimate relationships of spiritual teachers and their students, who themselves mature into spiritual teachers. Babaji, the elder teacher offers his guidance and blessing to Lahiri Mahasaya to freely offer the ancient teachings of Kriya Yoga to sincere seekers from all backgrounds, incomes, cultures, spiritual traditions and genders.

Today, we continue to receive the transformative benefits of Babaji's blessing and Lahiri's manifestation of it. Lahiri Mahasaya was himself a family man with a wife, children and a government job. He was a living example that a "householder" could also live as a yogi, one who consciously lives in the Source of peace, love and wholeness that indwells us all. And, the generous freedom with which Babaji and Lahiri shared these teachings allows us to learn and live in Wholeness at CSE and BLC today.

Join us at Blue Lotus Center this week as we continue our exploration into the lives of Paramahansa Yogananda and the teachers in this teaching tradition. Listen into heart opening stories and inspirational messages to support our awakening into the peace, love and wholeness that we seek today. Study, meditate, and grow with others devoted to thriving in peace, love and wholeness. Make this the year that we affirm and skillfully live in peace - in our minds, our hearts, our families, our community and our world. Blue Lotus Meditation & Yoga Center welcomes sincere seekers from all backgrounds.

7-1-2018

Spiritual Courage, Spiritual Integrity

Paula Whang-Ramos

"Self-discipline includes the courage to take a stand for what we know is right for us to have, or do, or be -
then the commitment to follow through, to do what we need to do."
~Yogacharya Ellen Grace O'Brian

When we witness highly disturbing news stories or experience challenging personal circumstances, it can be difficult to stop the wave of negative emotions and thoughts that may overwhelm us. We have genuine concern for others and yet we may feel too upset to know how to respond. It takes courage to refrain from boarding the "ain't it awful" train of thought that fails to serve the highest good of any of us.

A greater service we can offer others and ourselves is to realize these moments of perceived powerlessness as opportunities to sharpen our own inner clarity, courage and consciousness. We have the power to use these difficult situations, and our reactions to them, as inner calls to deepen our daily spiritual practice, so we can return into the divine wisdom that waits to be heard and followed by us. It takes commitment, again and again, to disembark the train of collective UNconsciousness fueled by fear. And, when we do, then the wisdom guided intelligence and an open-hearted integrity that we are, can inwardly guide and inspire us into being the grounded, constructive change we want to see in the world right now.

Join us at Blue Lotus Center this Tuesday and Wednesday. Study, meditate, and grow with others devoted to thriving in peace, love and wholeness. Make this the year that we affirm and skillfully live in peace - in our minds, our hearts, our families, our community and our world. Blue Lotus Meditation & Yoga Center welcomes sincere seekers from all backgrounds.