The Path: One Man's Quest on the Only Path There is - Softcover

Walters, Donald J.

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9781565897335: The Path: One Man's Quest on the Only Path There is

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1565897331 ISBN 13: 9781565897335

Publisher: Crystal Clarity Publishers, 2004

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Here, with over 400 stories and sayings of Paramhansa Yogananda, is the inspiring story of onemans search for truth that led him to the great masters door, where he learned to live thespiritual life more perfectly through his teachers training and example. A vitally useful guidefor sincere seekers on any path. Filled with insightful stories and mystical adventures, ThePath is considered by many as a companion to Yoganandas Autobiography of a Yogi.

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About the Author:

J. Donald Walters (Swami Kriyananda) is an internationally known author, lecturer, and composer. Widely recognized as one of the world’s foremost authorities on meditation and yoga, he has taught these principles and techniques to hundreds of thousands of students around the world.

An advocate of simple living and high thinking, his more than 80 books emphasize the need to live wisely by one’s own experience of life, and not by abstract theories or dogmas.

In 1968, Walters founded Ananda Village in Nevada City, California, dedicated to spreading the spirit of friendship, service, and community throughout the world. Ananda is recognized as one of the most successful intentional community in the world. Today, over 1,000 people reside in five Ananda communities throughout the U.S. (Seattle, Palo Alto, Portland, Sacramento and Ananda Village) and in Europe. The European retreat and community located in Assisi, Italy, also serves Ananda meditation groups in Europe, Croatia, and Russia. Both the Nevada City and Assisi communities have world-renowned guest retreat facilities where thousands of visitors annually visit for renewal or instruction in many aspects of meditation, yoga, and the spiritual life. Walters has also established "Living Wisdom" schools for grades K-12 in Nevada City, Sacramento, Portland, and Palo Alto.

Mr. Walters books and music have sold over 3 million copies worldwide and been translated into 28 languages. He is the author of more than 80 books on a variety of topics including leadership, education, creativity, and moral values. His Best-selling titles include Awaken to Superconsciousness, Meditation for Starters, God Is for Everyone,The Art of Supportive Leadership, The Path – One Man’s Quest on the Only Path There Is, Money Magnetism, The Essence of Self-Realization, Affirmations for Self-Healing, Education for Life, and his best-selling Secrets gift books.

Chapter 29 Gardens - Mundane and spiritual ....One day we were moving a delicate but rather heavy tropical plant into position on the hillside. Our handling evidently was too rough, for Master cried out, "Be careful what you are doing. Can't you feel? It's alive!"

His sensitivity to all things living inspired sensitivity from them in return. Not only people and animals, but even plants seemed to respond to his feelings for them. His gardens flourished. Tropical mangoes and bananas grew at Mt. Washington, where the climate is not conducive to their survival. Shraddha Mata (Miss Sahly) tells of one day watching what she calls a "rose devotee" that kept turning in its vase to face master as he moved about the room. Above all, like every sentient being, they respond to live.

Master even felt with certain plants a mysterious personal identity. One day, pointing to an avocado tree by a walkway at Mt. Washington, he told us, "Originally I planted two trees here, one on either side of the path. We had a certain student living here in those days who was deeply devoted. Speaking of him once, I told a few others, 'One of us will leave this work, and one of these trees also will die. This tree stands for me; that one for him. The tree that dies will signal which one of us will leave.'

"Well, his tree died. Soon afterwards he left. He had been very devoted, too. But - his devotion fled. The delusion that took him away was the desire for--money." Master paused momentarily before naming that delusion, to give us time mentally to fill in the blank with our own karmic obstacles, and thus remind ourselves what we needed to work on for our own spiritual welfare.

...Sometimes in his training of us he likened us too, to plants. Of a certain monk who had been resisting his spiritual counsel, he explained, "What a job one takes on when he tries to improve people! He has to go into their minds and see what it they are thinking. The rose in the vase looks beautiful; one forgets all the care that went into growing it. But if it takes such care to produce a rose, how much more care is needed to develop a perfect human being!"

--Like a divine gardener, Master labored unceasingly for our spiritual development. It took patience, love, courage, and considerably greater faith in us than most of us had in ourselves. For where we saw only our own egos struggling to shed their imperfections, he saw our souls struggling to reclaim their divine birthright in God. Some of his disciples justified his faith in them better than others did, but he extended to all the same vision of their ultimate perfectibility.

--All human life, so the Scriptures of India tell us, is a dream. It's ultimate goal is to help us learn well our lessons, to overcome our attachments to material limitations, and to realize that all things, seemingly separate and real in themselves, are but manifestations of the one light of God. The highest lesson of all is to learn to love God. The best karma of all is the ability to love him.

"Sir," Norman once said, rather morosely, to Master, "I don't believe I have very good karma."

"Remember this," Master replied with deep earnestness, "it takes very, very, VERY good karma even to want to know God!"

Through love of God, and only through that love, may one win final release from physical rebirth, and the right to advance to higher spheres of existence. Victory comes not by hating this life, but by beholding God's presence in it everywhere, by paying reverence to the veriest fool as though to a holy shrine.

"You must be very joyous and happy," Master said, "because this is God's dream, and the little man and the big man are all nothing but the Dreamer's consciousness."

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