Brother Achalananda speaking at the Self-Realization Fellowship annual convocation in Los Angeles.
Self-Realization Annual Convocation in LA
August 2 – 8, 2009
There’s something both powerful and inspirational about sharing an enormous room with nearly 4,000 people, all poised and sitting silently, creating a meditative space that vibrates far beyond the walls. This was the setting of The Self-Realization Fellowship’s Annual Convocation.
Self-Realization Fellowship
The organization was founded in 1920 by Yogananda and landed in its current home of Los Angeles in 1925. Its impact on the city is palpable, even outside of the densely populated downtown hotel ballrooms of the Convocation. The magical Lake Shrine in the Pacific Palisades, headquarters in Mount Washington, the Hollywood Temple, retreat and hermitage in Encinitas and Yogananda’s crypt at Forest Lawn in Glendale are only a few of the beacons of light Yogananda left burning. Many of the other beacons are found in the people who practice and who came together during the Convocation’s week of teachings, meditations, kirtan (call-and-response chanting), fellowship, spiritual pilgrimage and more.
Brother Chidananda Spoke on Divine Harmony: Attuning our Inner and Outer Lives with God’s Plan
On Sunday night, Brother Chidananda spoke on the topic, “Divine Harmony: Attuning our Inner and Outer Lives with God’s Plan.” He began by telling us that we come here for one reason: to experience God. But as he said, we’ve come under the chaotic influence of a powerful hypnosis that tries to make us forget what it is all about, that tries to make us forget that we are so much more than a physical being. “Until we tune into that, we cannot be living in tune with God’s plan.” In word and in action, God’s plan involves us living as divine beings.
If we can live on Earth, “while retaining our heavenly astral connection,” Brother Chidananda said we can experience “paradise on Earth.” How can we do this? According to his talk, it is through practice. “The science of Kriya Yoga takes this possibility out of the realm of myth and story,” and into our everyday reality. According to Brother Chidananda, when we can imagine our astral connection through our third eye and spinal centers, through the science of meditation, we can have a direct experience of God. “We can revolutionize our lives.”
“Keep your consciousness here,” Brother Chidananda said, pointing to the center of the forehead, the third eye. When there is more consciousness here, at the third eye, and within the spinal centers (chakras), then, he said, there is an increased ability for more peace to flow through the body. More peace means there is a greater ability of the body/ mind/spirit to experience harmony. And harmony begets harmony. The more a person is able to tune into their own spiritual subtle body, the more that person is able to draw on their own inner well of strength and love. The more we experience that connection, the easier it becomes to find it again. And the more we practice, the more peace and joy we find on the journey.
For more information about the Self-Realization Fellowship or Convocation, visit: Yogananda.org.
Felicia Tomasko has spent more of her life practicing Yoga and Ayurveda than not. She first became introduced to the teachings through the writings of the Transcendentalists, through meditation, and using asana to cross-train for her practice of cross-country running. Between beginning her commitment to Yoga and Ayurveda and today, she earned degrees in environmental biology and anthropology and nursing, and certifications in the practice and teaching of yoga, yoga therapy, and Ayurveda while working in fields including cognitive neuroscience and plant biochemistry. Her commitment to writing is at least as long as her commitment to yoga. Working on everything related to the written word from newspapers to magazines to websites to books, Felicia has been writing and editing professionally since college. In order to feel like a teenager again, Felicia has pulled out her running shoes for regular interval sessions throughout Southern California. Since the very first issue of LA YOGA, Felicia has been part of the team and the growth and development of the Bliss Network.