2016 Loon Lake Retreat
A spiritual retreat is a concentrated time of companionable connections and deepened divine awareness–I only wish that all could attend. Each retreat is a mystery as to what the topic will be. As the time approached my prayer was that our time together fulfill the highest good of all—whatever topic God chose.
The approach of the 70th anniversary of the release of the Autobiography of a Yogi in December of this year triggered the topic—to spend our time meditating on the life and ongoing influence of our great master, Paramhansa Yogananda. When a soul such as Sri Yoganandaji realizes God, his life yields an unending source of inspiration and offers unlimited facets of a divine personality.
I asked our three ministers to read passages from the Autobiography of a Yogi that were particularly meaningful to them. Larry focused on the fascinating chapter Kashi, Reborn and Rediscovered. It is an intense experience for Master as he promises to do a thing that he is not sure how to do—finding Kashi in his new incarnation and put him solidly on the spiritual path. Through his knowledge of how the heart acts as a receiving station and the ajna a transmitter Master develops a method for finding Kashi that he fearlessly and relentlessly employs in order to fulfill his sacred promise.
That promise is made when Kashi asks about his future. Master spontaneously says, You shall soon be dead. Instead of Kashi asking that his life be spared he implores Master to find him when he reincarnates and ensure his continued spiritual journey. Kashi is unremitting in pursuing Master to fulfill this difficult occult request. Master finally relents when he sees Kashi stretched to the breaking point. It is both touching and fascinating as Master describes in humble detail how he fulfills his sacred promise to his beloved disciple.
Jill read from the chapter The Resurrection of Sri Yukteswar in which Master’s guru describes afterlife, and in particular the astral worlds. In his new afterlife role Sri Yukteswarji serves as spiritual preceptor in an astral heaven where he is a guru for those souls who leave their bodies on earth in a high state of realization, but not yet fully realized. The great master intimately knows the comings and goings in all the three worlds. Jill spoke about her younger days when she was keenly aware of death, a constant feature to life, but no one wanted to talk about it. Death, the elephant in the room that went unnoticed, was finally addressed when she read the Autobiography. It spoke deeply to her longheld quest to know the truth about death.
Peter described that when he was given the Autobiography as a young teen it struck him as the ultimate adventure story. Master ran away from home to the Himalayas in search of saints as a youth, Peter could identify with this impulse and in reading the Autobiography he felt he was on an exciting spiritual journey with Mukunda. Peter related how his awakened spiritual life helped him in an outdoor adventure of his own in the Alaskan wilderness. He and a friend hiked and then paddled a raft to a campsite at the end of a remote lake. The plan was for a seaplane to pick them up in three days. They were well prepared, however when they unpacked there were no matches! Their freeze-dried food was inedible without the required hot water, so they faced a daunting prospect of no food and no warming fire in the days to come.
The two young campers displayed an unusual response to this crises—both entered into a deepened state of prayer. After placing their dilemma before God they searched around a bit and discovered matches mysteriously spread on the ground and amazingly, quite amazingly, they were dry and flame-worthy. How could these matches inexplicably be in this remote area and in perfect condition? This demonstration of God’s Grace was not dissimilar to what happened in Master’s life that he describes in the chapter Peter read, Two Penniless Boys in Brindaban. Master’s life ignited a spiritual flame in young Peter that has burned ever since.
The retreat was filled with Master, his grace definitely felt. No better topic could have surfaced for our time together, and it is proof positive that Master is a living presence that only grows with time.
Picture: Mother’s Autobiography of a Yogi
