“Behind our every thought and volition is the infinite spirit of God. Seek Him and you shall attain complete victory.”
— Sri Sri Paramahansa Yogananda
As the warmth and joy of the holiday season light the way into a new year, all of us in Gurudeva Paramahansa Yogananda’s ashrams visualize that glow embracing each member of our dear spiritual family around the world. We thank you from our hearts for your many expressions of thoughtfulness at Christmas, and for your divine friendship and support throughout the year. Our special prayer is that, at this time of new beginnings, God infuse your hearts and minds with a revitalized determination to attain your spiritual goals and live in conscious attunement with Him who is the Fulfilling Power behind each noble aspiration and endeavor.
The year ahead beckons us with fresh opportunities to unfold the divine potential of our souls, and no one is more joyously eager than God to help us. Your receptivity to His offerings of elevating possibilities will increase if you travel lightly into the new year, leaving behind the baggage of regrets and worries, past errors, and self-defeating habits. How much freer you will feel when instead you resolve to carry only energizing, uplifting thoughts that motivate you to bring forth your innate invincibility. Gurudeva urged us: “Drink vitality and receive mental nourishment from materially and spiritually progressive minds. Feast unstintingly on the creative thinking within yourself and others. Take long mental walks on the path of self-confidence. Exercise with the instruments of judgment, introspection, and initiative.” Following that advice will totally recharge your psychological and spiritual vigor, enabling you to face the future with the enthusiasm and confidence natural to your ever-youthful soul. Developing the muscle of will is also vital in materializing sought-after improvements, for a strong will enables you to control body and mind, to do what is right rather than what is expedient, and to seek God with undiscourageable patience. Affirm again and again your God-endowed ability to be victorious, especially when assailed by self-doubt or temporary failure; for perseverance born of love and trust in Him connects your success-creating will with His universe-creating will.
Positive use of the mind increases attunement with the Source of all power to accomplish; but the most profound changes come when in meditation we begin to still the obscuring oscillations of restlessness and surrender our consciousness into the waiting embrace of God’s love and light. As we deeply pray to Him and envision that causal light of freedom and creative possibility permeating the very cells of our brain, it can eradicate the fixed “grooves” of unwanted habits, making our consciousness malleable to newly affirmed resolutions of thoughts and behavior in harmony with the Divine and with our own highest wellbeing. May you enter the year ahead with indomitable faith that God’s blessings, drawn by your devotion and sincere willingness to change, will transform your life in ways that bring a new dawn of happiness to yourself and others.
Wishing you and your loved ones a most blessed and fulfilling new year,
Sri Sri Mrinalini Mata
