Turning Inward Tuesday...

  Each morning I try to devote a measure of time to my spiritual practice of meditation and japa...It is not an easy discipline for me as I have a terrible habit of procrastination and most often just plain laziness:) This is something I am working on though and when I am unable to formally practice I frequently keep my mind on Spirit. I love to read the words of the great Masters and Acharyas of the past and present...I have grown to deeply love and appreciate the Beloved Paramhansa Yogananda...I love to read his prayers and they resonate so deeply within me a feeling of devotion and love for this vast Universe and all that is in it...I am in awe of Creation and how I am literally part of it...That we are all One...
   Each morning after performing japa and meditating I like to read a prayer from Yogananda's book called 'Whispers from Eternity'...This morning's prayer struck me most profoundly that I felt a need to share it here on my blog...I hope that you will appreciate His words as deeply as I have.

   ~I tell my prayers on the beads of love, strung with my devotion. I direct them beyond all names-God, Spirit, Brahma, Christ, Shankara, Krishna, Buddha, Mohammed-for all names are Thine. And I shun no name, for I know Thou dwellest in all forms.

   In Thy cosmic dramas on the stage of time, and in Thy myriad acting roles, Thou hast assumed innumerable names. Behind them all, too, I know Thy one, changeless name: Eternal, Conscious, Self-existent Bliss.

   Many times have I played with Thee. Many songs of Thine have I sung. On the ocean-bosom of Thy eternal life I've been nurtured by Thee as a tiny drop of life. I remember Thy warm touch through the centuries whenever, feeling the chill of separation, I turned homeward to Thee. Again, in this daylight of remembrance, let me play with Thee. Let me sing Thy songs.~

Om Shanti,

Nirvani