Shivaratri Kirtan

February 20th this year was Shivaratri, the Hindu festival day dedicated to Lord Shiva. We took the opportunity at Friday’s kirtan of diving a little more deeply into the vast ocean of Indian chants. We had a wonderful turnout of harmoniums, guitars, percussion, and singers filling the temple with devotional chants to Shiva (along with a few to his son, Ganesha).

As Asha occasionally reminds us, our teachings are “about as Hindu as they are Catholic,” and the style of chanting that Master created reflects that uniqueness of his overall mission. But it’s fun sometimes to tip a bit over to one side of the scale or the other. Repetitions of the many many names of Shiva may not be as automatically meaningful to Western ears, but that can also be a good excuse to leave the intellect behind entirely for a time and just become absorbed in the devotional flow of the music.

More photos here.

Members' Candlelight Tea

On Saturday night we held our annual Members’ Candlelight Tea celebration, in which we dress ourselves up a bit and come together to celebrate the wonderful satsang we have and the powerful community we’ve created by being a part of Ananda. If you were at service on Sunday, you got to see the magnificent display reaching to the rafters and forming a seat for Master, as our guest of honor. It was just too lovely to take down after a single evening.

The “tea” aspect of this evening is a bit of a misnomer, of course. One of the other things Ananda members tend to be good at creating, besides spiritual community, is good food. While there probably was tea available somewhere, the Department of Delicious Delicacies was dominated by a potluck spread of both savories and sweets, including the ever-popular chocolate fountain.

Another thing we’re good at creating? Music. The choir tends to have more than its fair share of that fun, though, so this time everybody was involved. Karen found two songs with nice, simple 2-part arrangements: “I Live Without Fear” and “Brave Were the People.” With everyone divided into four groups, and with a bit of guidance from experienced singers, each group learned one part of one song. Then each half of the audience got to regale the other half with their newfound talents.

As an added treat for the evening, several of our more historical souls put together a fascinating slideshow. Narrated primarily by David G., the Pravers, and pretty much anybody who wanted to call anything out, it stretched from the early days of Ananda Village, through the founding of the Palo Alto colony, to the present day. If you’ve ever wanted to see Asha in a Mickey Mouse hat, the Ananda baseball team, the original East West store, or the church before we renovated it, now’s your chance. You can see the whole slideshow here, and more photos of the rest of the event here.

The greatest blessing in all the three worlds is a true guru, but true gurubhais are pretty high on the list as well. Thank you all.

Farewell to Tushti and Surendra

The new year has been bringing its new changes, and last week we bid farewell to our dear friends Tushti and Surendra. They’re moving on to new adventures at Ananda Laurelwood, where they’ll help create and develop the new Education for Life campus there.

Over the nine years they’ve spent in Palo Alto, Tushti and Surendra have been managers of East West, shepherding it lovingly through trying economic times. They’ve also directed the yoga center, taught many meditation classes, led the Sadhaka training group, and been tireless examples of devoted service, inspiring everyone who met them.

Tushti and Surendra, with the Masters, 

as always, watching over them.

On New Year’s Day we held a going-away party for them at Chela Bhavan (photos here), sharing lots of food, stories, and expressions of friendship and gratitude. And, just so they could take a little bit of us along with them, we even presented them with 108 custom-made fortune cookies, each containing a personal note or a blessing from one of their many friends. At the following Sunday service, we also got to publicly acknowledge them and send them off with a chorus of Aums from the congregation.

Thank you, Tushti and Surendra, for everything you’ve given and shared with us here. We’ll miss you, but we wish you much joy and many blessings in your new roles. 

Master's Birthday

Last Thursday, January 5th, was the anniversary of Paramhansa Yogananda’s birthday, the day when we all wish each other “Happy Birthday” in joyful gratitude for the spiritual birth he made possible for all of us.

Of course, we wanted to wish Master a happy birthday as well, but what birthday gift do you get for the guru who has everything? Master used to say that he preferred a soul to a crowd, but he loved crowds of souls. And so, along with the flowers we brought to the altar Thursday evening, we brought crowds of souls before him to remind him (and ourselves) of our dedication to God and guru. From truth-seekers on other paths (or still finding their paths), to Ananda church members, to disciples, Sadhakas, and Sevakas, there was an appropriate vow and moment at the altar for everyone.

The choir sang a couple of songs (“O Master,” of course, a singalong at the end), and there were chants throughout the evening. But the full focus was on offering ourselves back to Master, who offered spiritual liberation to us. 

Aum Guru.

(See more photos of the evening here.)

New Year's Eve Ceremonies

As with our Christmas Eve service, we experimented this year with holding our New Year celebrations earlier in the evening, rather than doing a midnight service. Judging by the attendance at each, we have a lot of early birds in the community who appreciated it!

The evening began with a meditation, and a Nayaswami Order initiation ceremony, in which we welcomed in Adam, Joycee, and Amit as Pilgrims and a conditional (one-year) Brahmachari, respectively.

The initiation ceremony is very simple -- just an introduction from Asha and a recitation of the vows -- but incredibly powerful. Like a wedding, it has the power of human commitment supported by a loving community. But with God on the other end of each person’s vow the intensity is deepened immeasurably.

For the service portion of the evening we tried a completely new format, in which we got to go deeper into mantra chanting than we usually do. We began with 15 minutes of the Hring Kling mantra, for dissolving obstacles of all types, whether physical or spiritual. That was followed by 15 minutes each of the Gayatri and Mahamritunjaya mantras, more familiar from our Sunday fire ceremonies, which are chants for personal liberation, and for the upliftment of all beings. We ended with the Aum mantra, accompanying a purification ceremony -- an excellent way to set a spiritual intention for the new year.

Throughout the mantras and the purification ceremony, we had a large indoor fire, cleverly created out of candles fixed in the copper fire ceremony bowl filled with sand. This was very civilized for most of the hour and a half that it burned, but got much more exciting towards the end. The combined heat of all the candles (not to mention the burning purification papers thrown in with them) burned them down very quickly, until the bowl was one flaming mass of melted wax. It was actually quite dramatically beautiful, though it was also reassuring to have Nirmoha on hand with a lid, ready to intervene if it got out of hand.

Happy New Year!

Christmas Services

Our always-gorgeous Christmas services had some new tweaks this year.

Christmas Eve featured a live creche scene that built up throughout the Festival of Light. Mary, Joseph, and the baby Jesus were summoned “by the call of aspiring love” as it says in the Festival, embodied in the song “Cloisters” and Rita’s dance of a devotee. The family was then joined by angels, shepherds, and wise men, all accompanied by appropriate music. Having actual, living presences up on the stage, all so consciously holding the vibration deeply intensified the unfolding of the story. And it gave a powerful focal point for the audience’s devotion, when everybody joined in the arati and offered their candles to the baby at the altar. (See all the photos here.)

The family service on Christmas Day featured the same live creche, but with an extended cast of smaller angels, shepherds, and wise men enacting Asha’s telling of the Christmas tale. This year also included a sweet new scene in which Asha donned a yarmulke and played the part of the rabbi marrying Joseph and Mary.

After the service was the Christmas banquet. The grand finale of the day involved a rendition of “The 12 Days of Christmas” that outdid even our enthusiastic attempts at the Christmas parties. The days were assigned to different tables, and the gifts were acted out with great alacrity and gusto!

More photos of Christmas Day are here. Merry Christmas to all!

Continuing Celebrations: Meditation and Caroling

This weekend we celebrated what may traditionally be known as “Duality Awareness Week,” in which we juxtapose our most inwardly-focused and outwardly-focused Christmas celebrations. Representing the inward direction, Saturday was our annual 8-hour Christmas meditation. Many devotees gathered in the temple for a day of meditation, interspersed with chanting and recordings of Master and Swamiji. A few lovely photos are here.

On Sunday, we directed our Christmas cheer outward again, with a huge caroling party serenading the neighborhood. Also, in complete contradistinction to last weekend’s party, rather than having a potluck followed by singing, we went out singing first and then ate. Well, to be perfectly accurate, we sang, then ate, then sang again. It was just that sort of a night. (And there was some lovely a cappella harmonizing toward the end of the evening.)

May you feel Christ’s presence within you and around you this Christmas season!