Thanksgiving 2019
Thanksgiving and praise open in your consciousness the way for spiritual growth and supply to come to you. Spirit pushes Itself out into visible manifestation as soon as a channel is opened through which It can flow.
Paramahansa Yogananda
Thanksgiving greetings to you and your loved ones — and loving thoughts of friendship and goodwill from the ashrams of Paramahansa Yogananda. I am sure you feel, as I do, immense gratitude for the superabundance of wisdom and inspiration with which he has enriched our lives. As he reminds us in the powerful words quoted above, when we thank the Divine Giver for His gifts during our meditations and throughout the day, we increasingly feel a personal connection with Him, and open wider the channel for His blessings and guidance to flow to us. The inner practice of gratitude illumines and spiritualizes our lives; and by absorbing His goodness, automatically we radiate it to others, giving them cause to be thankful too. May your life become a part of His healing, transforming light in this world!
It is by practicing thankfulness daily that we discover its power to transform our outlook on life. If in this uncertain world we have developed a habit of focusing on worries or on what we lack, these issues tend to occupy the mind and crowd out the creative thoughts that energize the will and activate our innate capacity to find ever-new possibilities. But if by choosing instead to look for the good in our lives, in other people, in the world, and gratefully acknowledge those blessings, we begin to see a brighter world. We become filled with hope, with greater confidence that we can manifest our soul’s potential. The more we see the good, the more we are seeing God and attuning ourselves with Him. These practices strengthen our trust and faith in the Divine, so that even when challenges come we are able to focus on opportunities and solutions instead of problems.
This year has brought me the blessing and privilege of visiting Guruji’s beloved India again, and the joy of fellowship with thousands of devoted Yogoda Satsanga members. And I was also thankful to have the opportunity to meet with SRF devotees in Europe on the way there. These visits have filled my heart with gratitude for our Gurudeva’s spiritual family around the world. In both East and West I have found the same feeling of kinship in our shared love for God and Guru, and the same enthusiasm for practicing Guruji’s teachings.
Dear one, I thank you for all you do to manifest his universal ideals in your life. And I pray that throughout this time of Thanksgiving and the joyous Christmas season to follow, your life is blessed with a deep, reverential awareness of the reality and beauty of God’s presence.
Unceasing blessings in God and Guru,
Brother Chidananda
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