(not necessarily in that order)
What a joy it was having lunch with Chika, who serves on the staff of Ananda New Delhi and just completed the month-long Living Discipleship program at the Meditation Retreat.
Originally from Japan, Chika is one of our key music people in India. I’m so glad we had a chance to get to know her better and exchange thoughts and ideas about the music, before she returns to the other side of the world on Saturday!
A definition of satsang that I like is: “the act of gathering with like-minded, uplifting people, especially those on a spiritual path.”
So, today was most definitely a day filled with satsang — from start to finish.
First off was the monthly staff meeting of our Ananda Worldwide outreach ministries. Led by Jyotish and Devi, it’s always deeply inspiring to hear the reports from the various departments.
Next was our weekly music team meeting — always fun, but today was particularly interesting as we explored new directions for our YouTube presence.
There was time in the afternoon to actually get some of my own work done, but the evening was spent at the Ananda Meditation Retreat — sharing about Ananda Music with the current Living Discipleship group.
A satisfying day filled to the brim with one joyous satsang after another.
Today we spent a glorious morning with the twenty or so great souls who are participating in the Living Discipleship program at the Ananda Meditation Retreat.
It was our first time back — both to the location and to teaching at the program — since March 2020. In fact, we were poised to go up and present our class when the word came down that everything (pretty much in the world) was cancelled!
So, it was great to be there and it was also a little surreal to think back and remember how so much changed at that time…virtually overnight.
Spent another evening with the Living Discipleship program sharing Swami Kriyananda’s songs for children — a fun and powerful experience, as always! When I got home and started writing tonight’s blog post, I spontaneously decided to write out one phrase from each of the songs we sang.
Looking at the random selection of lyrics I’m struck by how these words are like the verbal equivalent of nutrient-dense foods. What a blessing for children to absorb such wisdom wrapped up in joyful melodies!
Sing out a blessing to ev’ryone!
Just live in joy, be free inside.
Let me feel Thy strength in me. Give me joy to share.
God is our dearest treasure.
Guide me, Lord, throughout this day; in all I do, in all I say.
All the world is my friend when I learn how to share my love.
Move, all you mountains that stand in my way, nothing can stop my progress!
Thank You, God, for your love.💕
Our Living Discipleship music classes have been centered around the idea of Music as a Spiritual Tool, focusing tonight on the “tool” of the Music Antidotes. Keep reading to learn more about what, exactly, the music antidotes are…
“Around 1998 or 1999, Swami Kriyananda had the interesting insight that many of his songs, on a vibrational level, were “antidotes” to specific negative emotions. He then went through his book, Secrets of Emotional Healing, and prescribed a song to about two-thirds of the entries. On the surface, some of the prescriptions don’t seem to make sense. When you tune into the vibrations of the song, however, you can feel those vibrations transforming the specific emotion and lifting its energy to a higher level of consciousness, thereby raising you out of that emotion altogether.”
Here are the four songs we listened to in tonight’s class; we all experienced shifts in our energy, but I encourage you to listen and test it out for yourself!
Song: Peace
Negative emotion: Anxiety
Secrets of Emotional Healing – Day 2:
The secret of overcoming anxiety is to do your best in the present, without attachment to the outcome, knowing that whatever is yours by right must come to you sooner or later, and that all else, even if acquired, will prove evanescent.
Song: The Secret of Laughter
Negative emotion: Depression
Secrets of Emotional Healing – Day 3: The secret of overcoming depression is useful activity, devoted selflessly to helping others.
Song: Dare to Be Different
Negative emotion: Discouragement
Secrets of Emotional Healing – Day 7: The secret to overcoming discouragementis not to brood: instead, act! Uplift your heart’s feelings. Stand upright; inhale, and with the inhalation draw courage upward from your heart to your forehead; then exhale, and cast out of yourself all mental weakness and negativity.
Song: When You Come From Napoli
Negative emotion: Mental Dullness
Secrets of Emotional Healing – Day18: The secret of overcoming mental dullness is to train yourself to say “Yes!” instantly, whenever your impulse is to grumble, or to cry, “No!” Welcome life in all its variety and challenges. Like the petals of a daisy, keep your heart open to life’s experiences. Overcome within you the tendency to rejection and withdrawal.
We spent the evening with yet another amazing group of Living Disciples…singing and laughing and going deep into a number of our children’s songs (all composed by Swami Kriyananda).
Just for fun I’m listing my favorite two lines from each song that we sang. It’s a fairly random selection of phrases from a variety of simple children’s songs and yet…these simple lyrics are filled to the brim with enough wisdom and truth to last a lifetime!
Sing in the meadows and ev’rywhere:
Sing out a blessing to ev’ryone!
All the world is my friend
When I learn how to share my love…
Teach me all my friends to bless,
Hold them in Thy light.
Move, all you mountains that stand in my way,
Nothing can stop my progress!
Lightly I fly when I live in laughter,
Lightly I fly when my heart sings.
Serve Him with thought, with hand and limb;
Love Him without any reason.
All the world should be dancing,
For God made us all!
What a gift for children to have their consciousness filled with thoughts like these throughout their childhood.
Parting truly is “such sweet sorrow”.
Yes, so many people were here for the 50th that it was hard to get too sad when they all left, because they were mostly all leaving at once!
But twenty great souls stayed on to do the month-long Living Discipleship program, and Ramesha and I had the privilege of working with them several times over the course of the month… getting to know them better in the process.
Now the majority of them have left as well, with those who live at other Ananda communities in the States mostly hopping in their cars and taking off for home. It would have been nice to say a final good-bye, but since we’re more than likely to see them one or more times in the course of the year, it doesn’t feel too heart-wrenching.
It’s a completely different story with those who are returning to India. For one thing, there’s still a freshness to these divine friendships; a feeling of having finally reconnected with soul friends of many incarnations. Truly, it’s like brand new friendships with old, incredibly dear friends.
Then you add the fact that India is so far away and it definitely tugs at my heart strings. But at the same time I’m deeply aware of what a lovely dilemma this is: to have been blessed with yet more heart friends! I’m so grateful.
The Living Discipleship “Gratitude Event” was today, but I’m the one who ended up filled to overflowing with a sense of deep gratitude…
The event began with some songs (Ramesha and I had been invited to join in the singing), followed by a “skit”, then concluding with a few more songs. I have to write “skit” in quotes because it was way, way beyond any skit I’ve ever seen!
The setting of the short play was the meditation retreat in July of 2069, just after Ananda’s 100th anniversary! The narrators were two of the present day Living Disciples who were welcoming a new crop of 2069 Living Disciples and reflecting on their own experience of jumping into Living Discipleship immediately after the 50th anniversary–“fifty years ago!”, as one of them says.
They then proceeded to trace the evolution of our path, starting with Arjuna choosing Krishna before the battle of Kurukshetra. Briefly, yet powerfully, they acted out the pivotal moments between Jesus and Babaji; Babaji and Lahiri; Yukteswar at the Kumbha Mela; Yogananda meeting Sri Yukteswar; Kriyananda meeting Yogananda; and finishing up with our very own Jyotish meeting Swami Kriyananda and volunteering to help him with the “project” that eventually became Ananda.
It was sweet, devotional, funny, inspiring, and deeply moving.
The first song after the skit was O Master, which wasn’t easy to sing because I was already moved almost to tears. I held it together for Cloisters and Lord, May We Serve You. But then everyone stood and we sang Thy Light Within Us Shining…and I pretty much lost it.
I mean, there we were in the Temple of Leaves, where Swamiji started it all; we’re still feeling the incredible bliss of the 50th anniversary celebrations; and then (somewhat miraculously) through the power of today’s Living Discipleship presentation, I felt as though I was present at Ananda’s 100th anniversary. It felt so real; the blessings were palpable.
Words really can’t convey what a gift this was. Thank you, thank you to each and every one of the great souls who manifested this event.
A lot of insights were shared during the Living Disciples’ dinner conversation tonight. Below are a few choice gems that I particularly resonated with.
Sometimes when we chant “I want only Thee, Lord”, we can’t help but be aware that–actually–we want a lot of things besides God! So we can change it in our mind to “I want to want only Thee, Lord!”
Or another way of approaching it is to realize that, whatever we’re desiring, it’s really only God that we want:
Want money? God is infinite abundance.
Want a relationship? God is love.
Want more health? God is life energy.
Want to laugh and have fun? God is joy.
(You get the idea.)
And, finally, sometimes it’s hard to access a sense of willingness, but we can be willing to be willing. Or even willing to be willing to be willing. 🙂
I love hearing and thinking about these sorts of tips and practical approaches to the spiritual path.
Tonight’s session with the Living Discipleship participants was “beyond imagination of expectancy”!
They’re all so experienced and so committed, with most of them already serving as powerful leaders in their home communities. The majority already sing in (or direct!) Ananda choirs, and the ones who don’t (yet) are open and eager to sing with the group.
For a variety of reasons we went up with only a very loose idea of how the evening would unfold. So how did it unfold?
We sang a lot and laughed almost more than we sang! We had given them a handout titled “Music as a Spiritual Tool” and the group ended up spontaneously experiencing how humorous music raises energy in the spine and lifts us high above life’s challenges, where we’re able to see things from a positive perspective.
But the absolute high point of the evening for me came towards the end, after we sang Brothers. According to our outline the next song would have been Many Hands Make a Miracle. But we felt guided to sing O Master instead. Words are inadequate to describe the feeling as we sang the words: “…into the light, the inner sun, into the truth that we’re all one.” The sense of unity, of oneness, was palpable.
That was the end of the session, but no one wanted to be the first to break the circle. Finally, someone suggested we end by standing up to sing Thy Light Within Us Shining. So we did…it was wonderful…and we all stood there not wanting to break the circle!
Then someone suggested we really end with Peace and–my oh my!–the bliss level just went through the roof! I’ve had a lot of powerful experiences with Ananda Music in twenty years, but this was right up there in the top five. Unbelievable.