This inspired talk was delivered at the 2017 Yogoda Satsanga Society of India Sharad Sangam in Ranchi, as part of the YSS Centenary celebrations. In it, Brother Chidananda elucidates three core concepts of yoga — sadhana, satsanga, and darshan — in light of Paramahansa Yogananda’s teachings, bringing out the most elevated and practical meaning of these ancient terms.
Topics include:
• Paramahansa Yogananda’s bringing the essence of India’s eternal Truth to the world as the science of yoga
• Utilizing the integrated system of SRF meditation techniques in the search for the Divine
• Practical ways of making the Divine Presence a reality in one’s life
•The inner experience of attuning oneself to the presence of the guru
• A special guided meditation at the close of the talk
Running time: 62 minutes
Audio CD previously released with the Spring 2018 Self-Realization magazine
In this talk, given at the 1994 SRF World Convocation, Brother Bhaktananda explains how to perfect the guru-disciple relationship: God’s eternal plan to free each soul.
Topics Include:
Obedience and loyalty: divine laws that lead to real freedom and happiness
The spiritual benefits of simplicity in thought, feeling, and action
Three essential keys to spiritual development: practicing the presence of God meditation, and study of the SRF Lessons
Stillness in meditation: the time God comes to us
Sister Bhakti, a nun of the Self-Realization Fellowship order for more than 25 years, speaks on how we can put the teachings of Yogananda into practice in the various situations and challenges that arise in our daily lives.
Topics Include
• Developing dynamic will power to overcome life’s challenges
• Finding time for God in our busy lives
• Methods to reduce mental and physical tension
• Dealing with difficult people and conditions
This talk was given at Self-Realization Fellowship’s 2009 World Convocation in Los Angeles, California.
Audio CD previously released with the Fall 2009 Self-Realization magazine
In this talk recorded at the 2012 SRF World Convocation, Brother Vishwananda offers many helpful and motivating tips for achieving the greatest goal of human life: Self-realization. Sharing several inspiring stories, he reminds us that that Divine is omnipresent – always with us guiding and supporting us in all we do.
Topics include:
• Making you relationship with God and Guru personal
• The importance of living in the moment
• The purpose of life
• Yama-niyamas— the foundation of spiritual practice
Audio CD previously released with the Summer 2016 Self-Realization magazine
On August 9, 1991, Sri Daya Mata held a satsanga for members from many countries who had attended the recently completed Self-Realization Fellowship Convocation. The gathering was held in the main chapel at the SRF International Headquarters in Los Angeles.
This video features her warm welcome and informal talk, in which she shares her insights and inspiration about seeking that divine, unconditional love that is the universal craving of every heart and soul. She explains how, by meditation and by seeking “God first,” all happiness, joy, and peace can be ours. Daya Mata recounts many personal stories—including her visit to the Jagannath Temple in India and her first meeting with Paramahansa Yogananda—as well as answering many questions from the audience.
Topics include:
• The sweetness of divine friendship
• Fulfillment of the spiritual life
• Peace – proof of God’s presence within
• Making time for meditation
• Jesus’ years in India
• Practicing spirituality in the business world
Sri Mrinalini Mata is one of the close disciples of Paramahansa Yogananda personally chosen and trained by him to help guide his society after his passing. She has dedicated more than sixty years to selflessly serving the Guru’s work. In 2011, Sri Mrinalini Mata became president and spiritual head of Self-Realization Fellowship/Yogoda Satsanga Society of India; and this evening of divine inspiration from the 2011 SRF World Convocation was the first time she spoke at an international gathering of SRF/YSS devotees since becoming president.
Topics include:
• A tribute to the lineage of divine souls responsible for the founding and growth of Self-Realization Fellowship
• The most common question of devotees: “Why am I not making more spiritual progress?”
• How to be the conqueror of one’s self and one’s problems, no matter what our difficulties
• The spiritual efficacy of Kriya Yoga and how its devoted practice bestows assurance of spiritual progress
• Personal reminiscences of her years spent with Paramahansa Yogananda
• An inspiring account of the last days of our late beloved president, Sri Daya Mata
In this beautifully inspiring message, Mrinalini Mata exhorts us all to be as Paramahansa Yogananda wished, channels of God’s light and love to help illumine this world.
AWAKE: The Life of Yogananda is an unconventional biography about Paramahansa Yogananda, who brought yoga and meditation to the West in the 1920s. Paramahansa Yogananda authored the spiritual classic Autobiography of a Yogi, which has sold millions of copies worldwide and is a go-to book for seekers, philosophers, and yoga enthusiasts today. (Apparently, it was the only book that Steve Jobs had on his iPad.) By personalizing his own quest for enlightenment and sharing his struggles along the path, Yogananda made ancient Vedic teachings accessible to a modern audience, attracting many followers and inspiring the millions who practice yoga today.
Filmed over three years with the participation of thirty countries around the world, the documentary explores why millions today have turned their attention inwards in pursuit of Self-realization. Featuring interviews with direct disciples of Paramahansa Yogananda as well as with Ravi Shankar, George Harrison, Krishna Das, and many others. A visual feast taking us from holy pilgrimages in India to Harvard’s Divinity School and its cutting-edge physics labs, from the Center for Science and Spirituality at the University of Pennsylvania to the Chopra Center in Carlsbad, California.
Brother Anandamoy, a member of the Board of Directors and a senior minister of Self-Realization Fellowship, shares inspiration from his more than sixty years of discipleship and his years of training with Paramahansa Yogananda. He speaks of God’s love for the devotee and how you can experience that all-fulfilling love in meditation.
Topics inlude:
• Developing a personal concept of God
• God’s unconditional love
• How negative thoughts about oneself block devotion
• The yearning of the soul to go back to God
An excellent introduction to the teachings of Paramahansa Yogananda, this is an ideal gift for those who want to know more about the timeless teachings of Self-Realization Fellowship. In the talk, given in Washington, D.C., Brother Anandamoy identifies the universal needs that lie at the core of all spiritual seeking, and demonstrates how true spirituality, found in the esoteric traditions of the world’s great religions, fulfills these needs through direct personal experience of God.
Paramahansa Yogananda’s dispensation for the ages covers every aspect of life and spiritual living. In this video recording, Brother Anandamoy—a direct disciple of the great Guru for more than fifty years and a widely acclaimed international lecturer for Self-Realization Fellowship — focuses on the essence of Paramahansaji’s teachings, providing encouraging guidance on how it is possible to attain God-realization in this life.
On August 20, 2000, Self-Realization Fellowship held a day-long celebration to honor the 50th anniversary of the Lake Shrine’s dedication. As part of the festivities, six monastic disciples of Paramahansa Yogananda shared informal reminiscences of their years with him and of events related to the opening of the Lake Shrine. This DVD captures their stories, interspersed with rare archival footage and photos from the dedication of the Lake Shrine. The inspiring accounts of these monks and nuns convey the love, joy, and wisdom they encountered in the great master’s presence, giving viewers firsthand intimate insights into the experience of daily life around Paramahansaji.
This talk, given in 1982, was one of the early video recordings made at SRF’s annual Convocations in Los Angeles. Answering many questions frequently asked on the spiritual path, Brother Anandamoy shows why the law of karma is a just and necessary part of creation. In this serious yet compassionate talk, he explains many subtle aspects of the scientific nature of karma — the cosmic law of cause and effect that manifests in our lives and throughout the universe. Ultimately, he points out, understanding karma gives us the means to rise above all limitations and attain spiritual freedom and joy.
Topics Include:
• Free will versus the law of cause and effect
• Understanding the purpose of life
• Recognizing and benefiting from your karmic lessons in this life
• Gaining the wisdom to live in harmony with the divine plan
Thousands of people from all over the world have cherished the experience of attending a satsanga with Self-Realization Fellowship’s third president, Sri Daya Mata. By the God-love and tangible divine realization she radiated, Daya Mataji uplifted those present into a higher state of consciousness. This deeply encouraging video, recorded at SRF′s 1990 World Convocation in Los Angeles, allows all to share in those transforming moments, and to come away with renewed strength, inspiration, and commitment to creating a life of divine peace and balance — flowing moment by moment from the inner experience of the presence of God.
Topics Include:
• The power of united prayer as a force for world peace
• Paramahansa Yogananda’s universal message of balanced spiritual living in the modern world
• Guidance for spiritualizing family life and teaching spiritual values to children
• Carrying the consciousness of divine communion into daily life
Sri Daya Mata was president and spiritual head of Paramahansa Yogananda’s worldwide society for more than fifty-five years until her passing in 2010. In this talk, given at the 1996 Self-Realization Fellowship Convocation in Los Angeles, she conveys a joyous and uplifting spirit of hope and encouragement. Now all can share what was felt by the thousands who attended from all over the world — the inner strength and compassion, and the tangible experience of divine love and God-realization that Sri Daya Mata was able to infuse in the hearts of everyone she met.
Topics include:
• How to be in the world but not of the world
• Why God-communion is the universal solution to all life’s needs
• Making time for spiritual practice and balance while fulfilling your material
responsibilities
• Ways to counteract the stresses, fears, and tensions of modern existence
• How to succeed in attaining Self-realization
If we want to get God’s attention, we have to cultivate the habit of remembering Him with love all day long. Taking this lesson of Paramahansa Yogananda’s to heart, Brother Bhaktananda — a direct disciple of the spiritual Master and deeply revered by all those who knew him — shares his own personal experiences of learning to live with heart and mind uplifted in the Divine.
Brother Anandamoy sets the tone for this talk with a powerful quote from Autobiography of a Yogi, which explains that although God as the Infinite Absolute is beyond all qualities, “human thought and yearning have ever personalized It as the Universal Mother.” Expanding on this theme, Brother Anandamoy shares many delightful and heartwarming illustrations from devotees of East and West that remind us of just how near the omnipresent Mother really is for those who turn to Her. Drawing on his personal experiences with Paramahansa Yogananda, he shows us how we, too, can awaken a greater awareness of the Divine Mother’s presence and unconditional love in our own lives. Recorded in Los Angeles at the historic Biltmore Hotel during the 1981 SRF Convocation.
Topics Include:
• Numerous stories from the life of Paramahansa Yogananda
• Understanding the different manifestations of the Divine Mother in our lives
• How to be receptive to divine grace
• The Guru: visible expression of Divine Mother’s unconditional love
• Beautiful examples of the devotion to the Mother that is India’s timeless heritage
Beholding God in the Temple of All Life is one of the earliest video recordings made of Daya Mata’s satsangas. Recorded at the SRF Mother Center in 1982 it allows all to experience the uplifting atmosphere of joy, wisdom, and devotion that flowed as a tangible presence from Sri Daya Mata to all who met her.
Daya Mataji begins by sharing excerpts from inspirational writings of Paramahansa Yogananda. She intersperses explanatory comments and personal reminiscences of how the Guru made those divine inspirations a reality in his own daily life and in the lives of those who followed his training. She goes on to impart valuable insights from her own experience about living a balanced spiritual life of God-communion and loving service to all.
Following her talk, Daya Mataji greeted each participant. This special footage gives a glimpse of her ability to touch individual hearts and souls with the transforming power of divine love and caring that she embodied and radiated to all for so many years.
Sri Daya Mata was president and spiritual head of Paramahansa Yogananda’s worldwide society for more than fifty-five years until her passing in 2010.
This talk was given at Self-Realization Fellowship’s 2003 World Convocation in Los Angeles. The title comes from Paramahansa Yogananda’s statement about the power of Kriya Yoga to bring complete spiritual liberation, spoken personally to Brother Anandamoy in 1950: “Kriya Yoga plus devotion — it works like mathematics: it cannot fail.”
“With these few words he gave us the essence of the whole teaching,” Brother Anandamoy says. Speaking from his own fifty years’ experience of practicing Kriya meditation, he goes on to elucidate many profound and practical points about Kriya Yoga — with compassionate wisdom and loving concern for all who would follow this “royal highway to God-realization”.
Topics include:
• How Kriya Yoga enables us to fulfill the goal of life
• Integrating meditation into the spiritual lessons of daily life
• Freeing the consciousness from the negative influences of material environment
• Making your meditations an intimate personal relationship with the Divine
A Scripture of Love features archival footage of the first complete filming of a public satsanga by Sri Daya Mata, sanghamata and president of Self-Realization Fellowship from 1955 until her passing in 2010. Captured on this film is a joyous and heartwarming exchange of divine love. The occasion was a gathering of Self-Realization members and friends held at Christmastime 1978 in the Pasadena Civic Auditorium. Sri Daya Mata addresses the thought-provoking question, “What would Jesus tell us if he came back today?” His beautiful message, she explains, is just as timely and life-transforming now as it was two thousand years ago. Daya Mata reminds us that by seeing God first we will learn to include all beings in that love, and experience in ourselves the eternal gifts of the soul: peace, security, wisdom, and ever new joy.
The teachings of the saints and sages down the ages have ultimately had one purpose: to help us rediscover our relationship with God—with the infinite love, knowledge, and joy that is our divine essence. In this talk from the 2004 SRF Convocation, Brother Anandamoy shares beautiful experiences from his years with Paramahansaji that demonstrate the depth of the Guru’s love for his disciples, and the subtle ways the guru guides those who ask for his help. With great simplicity and clarity, Brother Anandamoy boils down the spiritual path to a few basic practices that will enable any sincere seeker to open the door to the reality of God’s presence. “Bring God into your meditations,” he counsels us, “and it will change your life.”
Topic include:
• Bringing the living presence of God and Guru into your meditations
• Overcoming feelings of discouragement
• Practical points for deepening your relationship with Master
• Why we need the Guru’s spiritual help
• How devotion can transform your life
Among the most cherished experiences of the annual weeklong Self-Realization Fellowship Convocations in Los Angeles were the satsangas with past SRF President Sri Daya Mata. By the God-love and tangible divine realization she radiated, Daya Mataji uplifted into a higher state of consciousness the thousands who attended from nations throughout the world. This deeply encouraging video, taped at the 1985 Convocation, allows all to share in those transforming moments, and to come away with renewed strength, inspiration, and commitment to making God’s unconditional love a reality in one’s own daily life.
This illuminating and profound talk is a perfect companion to Paramahansa Yogananda’s landmark translation of and commentary on the Bhagavad Gita, God Talks With Arjuna—imparting a renewed fervor for the spiritual life and a deeply encouraging vision of its ultimate goal: union with God.
This illuminating and profound talk is a perfect companion to Paramahansa Yogananda’s landmark translation of and commentary on the Bhagavad Gita, God Talks With Arjuna—imparting a renewed fervor for the spiritual life and a deeply encouraging vision of its ultimate goal: union with God.
In this very moving and in-depth talk, SRF/YSS President Sri Mrinalini Mata recounts uplifting and instructive reminiscences, many never before related in public, of her years with Paramahansa Yogananda. She shares unique experiences of the Guru’s blessings for his disciples then and now, and his far-reaching vision for the ongoing fulfillment of the divine dispensation he brought to the world. Contains brief rare motion picture footage of Paramahansa Yogananda and Swami Sri Yukteswar.
Brother Achalananda, a senior minister and member of the Board of Directors of Self-Realization Fellowship, draws on over fifty years of experience on the spiritual path, discussing how we can discover and express the divine potential of will power within ourselves.
Topics include:
• The relationship between energy and will
• Using will to overcome habits and achieve our goals
• Exerting will versus surrender to God
• Cultivating divine will
This talk was given at Self-Realization Fellowship’s 1997 World Convocation in Los Angeles.
This talk recorded at the 1989 Self-Realization Fellowship Convocation in Los Angeles, beautifully captures Brother Anandamoy’s compassionate understanding, profound insight, and humor, as he reminds us of the transforming power of our own thoughts and shows us how to use that power to connect with God and the innate strength of our soul.
Topics include:
• Understanding the universal nature of thought
• The mind’s power to bind you or to free you
• Benefiting from life’s tests and challenges
• Inner secrets of happiness and success
• Forgiving ourselves and others
This inspiring program provides a firsthand glimpse of Paramahansa Yogananda’s groundbreaking commentary on the Gospels — through reminiscences of two of his foremost disciples, Sri Daya Mata and Sri Mrinalini Mata. Interspersed throughout are archival photos of the Guru accompanied by rare recordings of his voice. A deeply moving documentary that will instill in viewers’ hearts and minds a lasting desire to experience for themselves the true Second Coming — the awakening of the Christ Consciousness within their souls.
On August 19, 1989, following the annual Convocation gathering of Self-Realization Fellowship members from around the world, Sri Daya Mata met with some of the attendees in the main chapel at the SRF International Headquarters in Los Angeles. This video features her informal talk with the devotees, in which she shares many beautiful personal insights about the guru-disciple relationship and discusses a variety of other subjects. Her words reflect the wise guidance and loving encouragement that Paramahansa Yogananda gave to all who sought his help on the path to spiritual freedom and ultimate reunion with God.
Topics include:
• The nature of a true guru — one who has travelled the path and knows God
• The unconditional love of the guru for the disciple
• Cultivating attunement and right attitude toward the guru
• How to replace restlessness with the peace of meditation
• Why modern families are struggling, and how to make yours stronger
• An inspiring reading of Sri Yogananda’s poem “When I Am Only A Dream”
On August 1, 2004, at the opening program of Self-Realization Fellowship’s World Convocation, Sri Mrinalini Mata conducted the official release of Paramahansa Yogananda’s monumental commentary on the four Gospels: The Second Coming of Christ: The Resurrection of the Christ Within You. This recording captures the joy and profound inspiration conveyed at that milestone event.
Highlighting the universal principles of yoga (union with God) taught by Jesus Christ in the New Testament and by Lord Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita, this talk beautifully conveys the essence of Paramahansa Yogananda’s mission of spiritually uniting East and West. Mrinalini Mata illustrates how Paramahansaji personally speaks to receptive souls through his writings — and how they have the power to change our consciousness. If we read and digest his living words in these commentaries on the scriptures, we will find them to be portals to the inner light of divine consciousness – and to the ultimate goal: realization of our own oneness with God.
Running time: 44 Minutes
In this talk, Sri Daya Mata offers a positive sense of direction for resolving the difficult problems we face in an increasingly complex world. Her wise and practical guidance shows how each of us can anchor our lives in an unshakable inner peace and security, and thus be an active force for good in our world community.
Speaking to an audience of thousands from all over the world at the 1989 Self-Realization Fellowship Convocation in Los Angeles, Self-Realization Fellowship’s third president Sri Daya Mata conveys a powerful and inspiring message of the reality of God’s love in our daily lives. This deeply encouraging video allows all to share in the divine experience of darshan and satsanga — the tangible upliftment of consciousness imparted by the presence of a God-knowing saint.
Topics include:
• Expanding your experience of God’s peace, love, and divine blessings
• Finding the strength and understanding to face life’s challenges
• How to recognize and overcome the impediments to divine communion
• Ways to spiritualize your daily life
• The unconditional love and help of the Guru
In this talk, filmed at an outdoor gathering at the SRF International Headquarters, Sri Daya Mata shares many wonderful stories of her years with Paramahansa Yogananda. Culminating with an inspiring account of Paramahansaji’s final days, the video offers a memorable encounter with this beloved world teacher through the eyes of his spiritual successor.
