Blue Lotus

Inspirational Messages

January 31, 2021

Return To Wholeness

Paula Whang-Ramos

"Now, instruction in yoga, in accord with an established tradition, begins."
~The Yoga Sutras 1.1

Yoga is an ancient, universal way of living in harmony with the force for good that flows through all of life, including us. The Yoga Sutras provide universal teachings to expand our consciousness and daily life choices to live in this essential Wholeness. These ancient teachings offer guidance for spiritually conscious living with the dignity of Wholeness that enlivens us, and the clarity to navigate our lives in the divine grace that carries us.

As I listened into this first verse of The Yoga Sutras, I heard its powerful and humbling reminder that the opportunity to intentionally live in this Force for good is available within us now, even though we have not yet reached herd immunity from COVID. The promise of Wholeness to inspire our right action during daily challenges is available within us now, even though educational systems remain in flux. The divine power to creatively and responsibly support the highest good in ourselves and all, is available within us now, even though external resources may seem limited.

However, for us to realize these spiritual Truths, we have to stop waiting for someone or some change to rescue us from our own lives. We stop waiting for life to settle down and realize that we need to settle our reactive minds first. We choose to consciously redirect our attention, awareness, time, and energy toward the conscious study of Wholeness and our place in it. We study spiritual texts that point us to the direct experience of this divine presence that indwells us all. And then, we live these teachings in the laboratory of our daily lives, so we can directly experience our own inner Truth that waits to be heard by us. The fruit of this journey is peace, clarity, courage, and love revealed from within us, and available to guide us through these ever-changing times. Right here, right now, could you use more peace, clarity, courage, and love in your life? Are you ready to learn and live into the Wholeness that waits for your return?

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.

January 24, 2021

Heard Unity, Herd Unity

Paula Whang-Ramos

"Life itself is the spiritual path that everyone is traveling, whether they realize it or not. Greet all as fellow travelers."
~ Yogacharya Ellen Grace O'Brian, 12/01/2014

With the increased availability of COVID-19 vaccines, I have been contemplating "herd immunity". Herd immunity was used to treat epidemic diseases such as measles, mumps, polio, and chicken pox. Data from those viruses show that if enough people become immune to these deadly diseases through inoculation, surviving the disease, or exposure to other environmental factors that boost immunity, then the entire community can become immune as well. The benefit of this intervention is that it also protects community members too vulnerable to receive a vaccine or risk exposure. As we make choices to enhance our own immunity, we may enhance the well-being of others as well.

This week, I heard unity and it inspired me to contemplate "herd unity" as a remedy to the widespread imbalance within and around us, as we drifted from our highest good and wholeness consciousness. What would happen if we actively chose to inoculate ourselves from distracting, unhealthy thoughts that fail to honor these sacred lives with which we have been blessed?

Instead, what would happen if every day, we took a dose of the active reclamation of divine power to think, speak and act in more spiritually conscious ways for the highest good of all, not just ourselves? How might the quality and dignity of our own lives be enhanced if we lived more deeply in the Oneness consciousness? How might our deeper consciousness enhance the quality and dignity of all life? If enough of us actively practiced herd unity, what could happen in our families, communities, country, and world? Join me in establishing herd unity and let's live into this divine possibility.

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.

January 17, 2021

Remain and Return In Truth

Paula Whang-Ramos

"Suspending the driver’s license of the senses takes courage. We become used to the familiar places they take us, and
we imagine we will suffer if we do not follow their lead. But when the soul leads the journey, the senses follow along.
New vistas of freedom and joy open up before us."
~ Yogacharya Ellen Grace O'Brian, 01/14/2021

"Don't drift." This was Yogacharya O'Brian's guidance to us 4 months ago. Today, these 2 powerful little words are even more relevant. The ongoing events in our daily life and in our country provide many opportunities for our attention to drift into our sensory, mental, and emotional reactions to ever-changing circumstances. If we do not turn the course of this tide, we are at further risk of drifting into the suffering that arises when we blame people, circumstances, and other sources outside ourselves for our inner unhappiness, confusion, and frustration.

"Don't drift." Inherent in Yogacharya's caution, I also hear the remedy for drift. Remain and return. Remain inwardly grounded in the Source of peace, love, and wholeness that indwells us all. Return to this inner wisdom and clarity to mature our spiritual awareness and personal response-ability for our own lives. Remain grounded in the clear vision of Wholeness that flows through and around us all the time, everywhere, no matter what is happening in our minds and our lives. And return, again and again, to this inner Source when we wander too far into our minds and the world.

Remain and return. Do you hear the inner call to begin or deepen your daily meditation and spiritual practices to more easily discern the divine intelligence and clarity needed to navigate through today? Beyond the mind's limited thinking and emotional reactivity is the soul's wisdom, waiting to be heard by us and to guide us through these perilous times in the power and dignity of our essential wholeness. But don't take my word for it. Begin or deepen your daily meditation and spiritual practices today, and experience soul freedom for your Self. Remain and return in Truth.

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.

January 10, 2021

Grown-Up Gratitude

Paula Whang-Ramos

"Gratitude is not a feeling; it is an attitude. We can practice it regardless of how we feel.
When we cultivate gratitude irrespective of conditions, we magnetize our awareness for good and contribute to peace."
~ Yogacharya Ellen Grace O'Brian, 01/07/2021

As I prayed into our country's events over the past week, the spiritual practice of gratitude arose in my heart. I realize that gratitude may seem an unlikely, maybe even inappropriate quality to arise...but it did. It may even seem that cultivating a gratitude practice is too much for the mind to comprehend. And to that, I say, good, because we need more than a smart mind to compassionately process and intelligently navigate through the issues our country faces. We need to open into a deeper divine power, presence, and wisdom that can hold space for our grief and guide us through these challenging times. It is from this divine Wholeness that the inspiration of gratitude emerged.

As a spiritual practice, gratitude is more than a feeling that increases when we get what we want, and that dissipates when we are denied our desires. As a spiritual practice, gratitude is the intentional choice, over and over again, to realize how Wholeness continues to express, restore, and bless life, even during incredible change. In this tradition of Kriya Yoga, we can be grateful for the spiritual teachers and these ancient teachings to help us heal, live, and eventually thrive through the rough growing edges in our country right now. We can be grateful for our daily meditation practice to help us return and directly experience the inner peace that remains unthreatened by anything.

And from this deeper gratitude can emerge the courage to be compassion in the presence of grief, to be peace in the presence of agitation, and to be love in the presence of hate. We can be grateful for spiritual eyes to see that every moment is still a holy opportunity to turn the individual waves of self-serving unconsciousness toward the ocean of divine wholeness that enlivens, joins, and blesses us all. Do you have spiritual ears to hear how Life calls for us to be the spiritual grown-ups that we took birth for? As we enter this new year, will you join me in gratefully accepting responsibility for living, magnetizing, and freely sharing this deeper view of life?

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.

January 3, 2021

Yogananda's New Year's Wish For Us

Paula Whang-Ramos

"This is my New Year's wish for you: that you all reach the land beyond your dreams, where there is peace and joy eternal.

May you realize the fulfillment of whatever strong good wish you release in the ether."
~ Paramahansa Yogananda, 01/01/1938, The Divine Romance (1997), pg.308

New Year’s blessings to all. We welcome 2021 with the hope for more peace, healing, unity, and joy than we experienced last year. When I contemplate this empowering inspiration from Paramahansa Yogananda, a beloved Spiritual Teacher in our tradition of Kriya Yoga, I hear him invite us to do more than hope. I hear Yogananda’s call to listen deep within our soul and grow our lives into the wholeness and dignity that we truly are.

I hear the call to stop perpetuating our own self-imposed suffering by looking outside ourselves for inner peace, wisdom, and joy. Because one thing we learned from 2020 is that we cannot obtain lasting peace, happiness, wholeness from our ever-changing thoughts, words, actions, bodies, situations, experiences, or opinions from the masses.

Instead, Yogananda calls us to set our sights higher into inner divinely guided pathways that offer a much deeper fulfillment of lives worthy of our soul integrity. Spiritual wisdom from the East and the West offer beautiful soul qualities that can guide our lives in 2021: patience, kindness, humility, generosity, forgiveness, inner strength, hope, unconditional love, fearlessness, purity of heart, wisdom, compassion for all life, gentleness, inner calmness, and inner radiance (Christian Bible 1Corinthians 13:4-8, Bhagavad Gita 16:1-3).

As we step into 2021, imagine what your life could be like if it was defined by these qualities. Meditate and listen deeply into one or two of these soul qualities and let them serve as your spiritual companions this year. Learn and live them. From the inside out, let them stretch, guide, grow and heal you. Let this be the year that we realize the peace, love, wholeness, and joy that indwells us – overflowing into every aspect of our lives, our families, our country, and our world.

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.

“If anything disturbs your peace, practice having faith that divine grace is already actively at work restoring wholeness and well-being.

Then make any necessary adjustments in harmony with that insight.”
Yogacharya Ellen Grace O'Brian, Spiritual Director, Center for Spiritual Enlightenment

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