Thank you. And greetings to you and greetings to everyone present.

Yogananda envisioned Lake Shrine as a spiritual center where all people can come and experience a renewal of heart and mind and where all faith, traditions and all religions are welcome.

So we have several features at the shrine site itself. We have a lake, a natural lake surrounded by meditation gardens. There is a quarter where people of all religions can come and worship. They can see their religion portrayed and honored there. They can walk on a quiet pathway around the lake. They can choose meditation benches or places to sit. There is an open temple forum there with the Golden Lotus Towers. Guruji described that as a temple without walls, so it is a church that has no boundaries. It is open to the world. We also have the ashes of Mahatma Gandhi. That's a unique feature. There you can see it enshrined inside a Chinese marble sarcophagus. Yogananda and Mahatma were friends, and they shared common spiritual and humanitarian values. And so, when Gandhi was assassinated, a mutual friend arranged for the ashes to be delivered to Yogananda's shrine and had them installed here. And people come from all over the world to pay homage to Mahatma Gandhi.

Well, as a young man, I had a lot of questions, I had an inquiring mind, I was always looking for answers to big questions in life. And for several years as a youth, that brought me nothing but frustration because I just wasn't finding the answers to the questions I was seeking. I grew up in Southern California and I was always close to the ocean. So my friends and I would go out surfing and I would come in and sit on a bluff there on the San Diego coastline. And I remember very clearly sitting there looking out on the expanse of the ocean and profoundly wondering to myself, where was I before I was born? Where do I go when I die? Why am I here? What is the purpose of this life? And what am I supposed to accomplish? I almost felt like I couldn't chart my course or plan until I answered some of these cosmic questions. And so my inquiry continued and I was reading books and trying to find answers to some of these big challenging questions.

And finally, I came across a little book by Yogananda called The Science of Religion. I have it right here. This is the centennial version of science and religion. It is the printed version of the first talk he gave at the Congress of religious leaders in Boston. You saw the clip of the historic paper article on that, and he gave a lecture there. And it's printed in this book. The title is The Science of Religion. And I read that little book and came to a portion where Yogananda very simply connected the dots forming. He answered my most important question, why am I here? What is my purpose here? And he says, essentially, everyone is seeking happiness. Everyone wants happiness, whether they're seeking it legally or illegally, they all want happiness. And there is a source of happiness that is right within us. That is a joy more incredible than anything we have ever experienced from pleasures in the world around us. And he calls that inner joy, bliss. The greatest happiness is bliss and bliss is God. And to this day, that remains the most profound and straightforward definition of God that I've ever heard. And when those dots were connected for me, I immediately felt something resonating.

That's my mission. To tap into that inner joy because nothing in this world has satisfied me so far. And I continued with that inquiry about where this joy exists because I wanted proof. Just reading about it wasn't enough for me. I wanted proof. And so I was asking Yogananda if this joy does exist, if God is real, I need evidence. And after several months of inquiry, the doors started to open and I began to feel this constant stream of joy and it had no relationship with the outer conditions and had no stimulus from around me. It was just a state of being that was starting to manifest within me. And I knew that it was real and it was real. And so that was the launch of my journey in life, and it was also the founding purpose behind my choosing to become a monastic because I said this is something I can dedicate my life to. So I think that if I were that late at an age to develop a resume, it would. Brother Satyananda explores and cultivates inspiration and strives to share that with others. In conversations with you, I hear you using the word inspiration a lot. I don't know if you're aware of it, but I hear you saying, oh, that's inspiring, or this inspired me. And I'm wondering if you can kindly share with us what inspiration means to you?

I used to love lying on my back outside at night, looking up into the sky, and just immersing myself in the heavens. It was a cosmic connection. Yogananda has motivated me over the years. He says even if life gave you everything you wanted: wealth, power, friends, after a while, you would again become dissatisfied and need something more. But there is one thing that can never become stale to you, then why not seek joy directly? Unlike material pleasures, this joy is not an abstract quality of mind. It is the conscious, self-born self-expressing quality of spirit. Seek it and be comforted forever.

Yes, well, the simple definition Yogananda gives for God is bliss and bliss consciousness, which is at the foundation of self-realization. Self-realization is a state of being that we can acquire and experience. It's an expansion of our human state of awareness into a greater magnified, more beautiful state of awareness. And in this sense, God is part of us and we are part of God. There is no separation there. It's simply that we must become aware of that unity of being. So when we have that search within ourselves for self-realization, we seek to acquire an awakened understanding, perception, and experience of a God that is already part of us. And I find this very stimulating because it's perhaps the highest level discovery that human beings can make.

Yes, that's one of Yogananda's central themes. He's saying that all around us, life's conditions are unstable and constantly changing. Sometimes they're to our liking and our benefit. Sometimes they seem to be working against us. We have been seeking something as a desire we want to fulfill moved just beyond our reach. So seeking happiness only from around us subjects us and makes us vulnerable to the instability of the world. And so, therefore, we are changing and our state is constantly fluctuating. But if we seek something within ourselves that is ever-present, that becomes a constant source that we can rely on. Now, I think it's very interesting to note that Yogananda's life spanned a huge world drama. So from the 1920s to the end of his life, we had two world wars, a decade of economic depression between his life. He was walking through the kind of drama that we're experiencing right now in our country. And he was giving this message to everyone. He was saying, I can be happy. Even though there is suffering going on around me and I am struggling, I can find happiness. He said something very moving to me. He said if you can find that joy and retain that all the time, no matter what happens in your life, you will stand unshaken amidst the breaking world. And I think that when we ask ourselves, what are we experiencing right now, this week, today, it's almost like the crash of breaking worlds, isn't it?

Yes, this is the purpose of a traditional spiritual path. So when people ask me what Self Realization Fellowship is? I say, well, Self Realization Fellowship is not just a church. It is a path. It's a spiritual path. And this is a classic tradition from India that the teacher maps out a pathway that a disciple, seeker, spiritual seeker, and joy seeker can follow. And it involves meditation. It involves prayer. It involves living right. An important message for this current time is to protect your consciousness. Don't allow yourself to be dragged through the mud of these volatile world events. Stay in touch and be informed, but be in contact with your inner self. So there is a need for constant watchfulness. There is this idea of being able to walk the path with steadfastness, steadiness. As we walk this path daily, it applies timeless spiritual principles and keeps us moving forward. It's that steady daily effort. It's not just going to church on Sunday. It's not just saying, oh, I was so inspired three weeks ago. No, we want that inspiration to flow continuously. And that's something that we work for.

As I have known, one of my feet is deeply entrenched in the world of business. And there's a lot of talk over the last year around employee well-being, particularly from the standpoint of managing stress and managing mental health. And I think there's something really powerful in the message that you're communicating: if we were to move from just eliminating the downside to maximizing the upside, which is more than just about stress elimination or just going to get to some level of mental strength.

We must always be aware of our choices because we have been given the gift of free will. Free choice and daily life give us a menu and we have choices that we can make. So I think it's an excellent standard to live by that we always strive to make the highest level choice available to us. And if we do this and live this way consciously, then we will find that we are optimizing, you might say, the benefits of what life is offering to our advantage. And so we find this in great people doing extraordinary things. They're constantly making the highest choices available to them. That is how they interpret events, the kinds of things that they respond to within themselves. So we may have a bad emotion like, for example, someone is going through the death of a loved one. I talk with people all the time this way, and when they counsel me, they're always presenting two sides. One is the sorrow, but then one is the kind of unique experience that they're having being connected with the spirit at that time. And that dual experience is always there. And I'm saying to them, be aware of what you choose.

You can be aware of the sorrow, but choose the mystical, beautiful, connected experience with the departed loved one. And this can help us to navigate wisely through complicated situations like we're experiencing today. We can be aware of the need to navigate carefully. We need to be mindful of the need to protect our consciousness. But if we are choosing joy, if we are choosing peace, if we are interpreting our experiences this way, you will find almost immediately that your heart and mind respond to those choices and you're able to live life with greater strength. We are not disconnected. We are very deeply connected with the life around us, but we live life with much more inner strength and serve others.

Yes, it seems like a paradox. But, when we strive to live in a higher way in daily life, we find ourselves rising above the drama. And it's a natural response to the effort that we're making, where we are experiencing what life is putting before us, but we are not becoming so engrossed and immersed in it. So there can be this experience of powerful events that just sweep over you like a tide and completely engulf you, and you feel lost in them. But if we choose a higher level, we can have the experience of participating in daily life. But we are not overwhelmed by the effects of everyday life. And I think it's important to recognize that we can be guiding and governing ourselves wisely. And that produces a very powerful response from the inside that can strengthen us while witnessing and experiencing events on the outside. And in this way, we can be united with some form of inspiration even while going through great trials. And this is what we see in strong people. And this is what we admire about strong people. How can they be that way? How can they have this kind of attitude? What's driving them? What is the source inside that gives them this kind of positive energy in the face of such obstacles?

Yes, I think this is something that we always do in our public forums for Self Realization Fellowship because it's one thing to talk about solutions, spiritual solutions, but it's a whole different level to be able to experience it. So I could say very briefly that Yogananda teaches us meditation is both an art and a science, and it's to discover our inner human potential or potential for inspiration or joy. And the spiritual path that Self Realization Fellowship lays out for anyone who wishes to follow is a path of scientific methods because these are proven methods that can produce consistent results. We call this the path of Kriya Yoga. It includes scientific meditation according to specific techniques and procedures and a lifestyle that supports it. And the path in this sense builds a bridge between our human condition and the potential for greater joy that we can embrace from within. I begin to become aware on a higher level—a state of peace. The state of well-being, sorrow, turmoil, challenges of daily life begin to melt into a peaceful state. And I become receptive to an interstate of happiness. And so this way, we can tune in. I call this my reboot. My meditation is just for a few minutes. I do it sometimes, just during the day when our phone starts acting crazy and starts working slow and doesn't load apps. What do we do? We shut it off, count to three, and then turn it back on and the operating system takes out the trash and runs a virus check. And we're good to go. So I call this my reboot. You can do it any time throughout the day. It just takes seven or eight minutes, and you'll find that your performance improves. Your intuition is active. You become much more effective at anything that you do, and most importantly, you're living in the world but not quite influenced by it. And so you can navigate better and you can also have a more profound effect on the people around you. And you will feel yourself giving love where love is needed, giving strength or strength is required. The world right now needs these kinds of people. We need these kinds of inspirational leaders. I know that this is part of Hitendra's agenda and his teaching courses, consultation with clients is an aspect of inspirational leadership. It's not so much what we say. It's more who we are. And if we have a little practice, a little daily routine like this, we will become as one young man said it at Lake Shore the other day. He said, I started coming to Lake Shore and for the first time a month ago, I've been coming every week. And I want to tell you that I'm a much better person now, and I have a sense of direction. I'm so much happier. And he said that just this week. So it works.

Well, I would suggest guiding them through a little meditation like we just did. You can't reach someone very well when they are all wrapped up in those kinds of powerful emotions. So if I'm sitting down with someone and they're going through an emotional turmoil, I take a few minutes to quiet them down. I say, could we have a short meditation together? Would you mind? And then you can guide them through. You'd be amazed. You sit down with them, and they're all agitated and all worked up and angry. And if you allow them or guide them through just simple tension and relaxation. You will find that they will completely shift into a more receptive state. And then you can listen to them first and then talk to them and encourage them.

So I think encouragement is probably one of the most effective tools that we can use in helping other people. Most often, people don't want advice, but they do thrive on encouragement. So you can do this, you can survive this, you can prevail over this. You're able to do this. You have the strength within you. I know you. I love you. And people respond to that and they will go away feeling that they were deeply understood. I would encourage this kind of approach. I practice and I think you can too.

Yes. And on a personal level, it's very empowering to recognize that we don't have to be victims of our moods. So we expose ourselves or become exposed to prevailing forces that are very strong. We have our emotional and mental reactions. And so we stagger in two different states of agitation, but we tend to be passive about it. And we tend to think, oh, I'm really in a mood today, and we don't think we can do anything about it because the path of enlightenment, as we might say, is about doing something about this.

That is, take charge of your inner self, take control of your inner experience, be aware that the choices that you make within yourself will determine your perception.

And so if we are finding ourselves adversely affected by something that's going on in our life, it's okay to respond. I mean, react and catch yourself and say, do I need to endure the suffering within myself or have a higher choice? And then you will find that if you do just a little bit of reboot, a little bit of meditation, it liberates you to make the higher choice before you were trapped as a prisoner with the powerful energy of a dark mood. But if you have a short meditation and you release it, you release those shackles and allow you to make the higher choice.

And as you do this day after day, really striving with that, you will find that you are gaining a new spiritual skill, a new skill to rise above. It's an act of intention. And as we rise above, we find new strength, we try new options and it becomes a new potential for us.

Well, it's easy to measure things in terms of metrics so we can take our surveys and calculate percentages and so forth. Esoteric or inner subjective matters are a little bit harder to define that way. But I would say, yes, definitely we can measure a great deal of satisfaction. So, for example, I took time to train myself with this little reboot and when I first started, it took me about 15 minutes to calm myself down to my satisfaction. And I could have remained at that level and said, okay, well, it takes 15 minutes. But I said, no, I don't always have 15 minutes. I want to be able to do this in 60 seconds. And so I started training myself, and gradually I brought myself to a point where now I can take myself from a state of agitated restlessness to a state of profound enjoyment of stillness and peace in 60 seconds. And I did that because I started using a measuring tool. Another way is journaling. I give the disciples classes at the shrine to evaluate their daily life experience and initiate needed changes. And so, I'm constantly tracking personal change. I'm starting to experience experiments that allow me to make adjustments in my performance and how I'm doing things and how I feel and respond to something and then evaluate. So, for example, this morning after my meditation, I drew a little circle in my journal and said, okay, conversation with Hitendra today. How will it go? And I put a question mark and I said, I predict we will get along well. I respect him. It's a beautiful topic.

I think it's going to go well. But later today, this evening, tomorrow, I'll go back and say, how did I perform? Was I centered? Was I coherent? All of these little things. I ask myself these questions. And in this way, I can see how I can improve my performance on a personal level and a social and spiritual level. So I think if you take an active role in working with yourself, posing the questions that seem to have no answers, trusting yourself to provide answers from the stillness within and start trusting your judgment and your interpretations to choose the higher choices consciously. I think that when you begin working with yourself actively or interactively this way, the results are surprisingly measurable and you feel better for it.

Yes. Well, I recommend the teachings of Yogananda. They are profoundly insightful, very instructional and highly encourage you to go to the website. And click on the top menu and you will see there are several handy options. One of them is our online bookstore. In addition to the classic autobiography of a Yogi, a book I like to recommend is a collection of inspirational lectures by Yogananda. He has a collection of three books. But the book that's my favorite is called Divine Romance. And it has a beautiful selection that you can kind of browse the table of contents and find actual topics and themes precisely as you're seeking right now. Yogananda also has a very profound lesson study course where you can subscribe to Self Realization Fellowship lessons. This was developed by Yogananda himself and expanded and refined by his disciples, according to his instructions. It's incredibly profound. It gives a lot of practical metaphysics, an extraordinary spiritual worldview that we can apply in today's conditions, today's environment, and defines the path for us, how we can build this bridge from the outer human experience to an inner, highly inspirational experience. So these are resources that you can seek out yourself.

By that, I mean, it's now a presence all year all over the world. And now, during this campaign season, we have an online meditation community. So you can go to our website and tap into Calendar online group meditations.

Well, keep up your inner quest, I suggest you keep posing questions to yourself and keep seeking answers, look to sources that you trust, learn how to meditate a little bit every day, and you will start discovering for yourself how spirituality can provide a profound resource for your daily life. I love this quote of Yogananda, who says life becomes ever more beautiful, richer and more wonderful in every way as you progress step by step to higher and more refined states of consciousness and thereby see through the coverings of matter and vibrations that obscure the glory of the indwelling spirit within you and all-pervading creation. So the message there is that life can be even more beautiful, rich and wonderful if we follow a step-by-step path that we can use to reveal the secrets of life. And this deepens and enriches our life experience.