From time to time people get caught up in predictions,
and particularly when the world is in a state of turmoil,
a state of difficulty like we’re going through now
predictions about this catastrophe and that catastrophe, and so on and so forth.
Master’s attitude toward that?
You’ve all heard it on his recording where he says,
“This world will always have turmoil and trouble.
What are you worried about?”
So I have a suggestion: Don’t worry about the future.
Don’t be preoccupied with this prediction or that prediction,
or what Guruji supposedly said to this disciple or that disciple.
I’ve heard most of them,
and I can tell you two things about them.
First of all,
many or most of them didn’t come from Master at all.
They were from some various psychics, or astrologers,
or talk-radio hosts,
and different devotees, well-meaning no doubt,
but misguided over the years thought,
“Well, this sounds like something Master would have said,”
and so lo and behold it did become something he said.
That’s the first thing. The second thing is; do you want to know
what the most likely thing in connection is with all these predictions?
It’s simply this: that no matter what happens,
God will protect you if you follow these teachings.
Our Guru said, “I make one prediction:
this world is not going down to destruction.
Don’t be frightened.
Believe in your Father — He will protect you if you remember His ideals
and keep faith in Him.”
Remember his ideals; meditate, get in the spine then he can help us.
Live the yoga-balanced way of life, and keep the mind attuned
to that flow of his guidance, moment by moment,
situation by situation that comes when we
manage to keep a little bit of our consciousness
in the spiritual eye.
And the more we do this,
the more we live in this world as a divine being,
able to “stand unshaken midst the crash of breaking worlds.”
I’m not predicting that the worlds are going to crash, but just in case.
So remember His ideals, Guruji said, and keep faith in Him.
Faith, faith is such a beautiful — again, in Yogananda language —
faith is such a beautiful concept. It’s so much more than just
a hopeful or optimistic attitude.
Because hope, we hope for something when we have some,
from past experience, from some —
we have some reason to believe that things are going to be better,
that things are going to turn out all right.
But faith — faith is so much deeper.
“Faith,” one person said, “is not defeated by the ways of the world,
for it does not come from experience;
it comes from our original nature and first being.”
And here’s the most beautiful point; it says, “If we are indeed
the children of the One,
then He will not suffer Himself to be deprived of His own,
not by any enemy, not even by ourselves.”
I want to close with these beautiful words of our Guru.
Again, please just close your eyes
and listen to this, absorb this, because this sums up
everything about God’s plan.
Guruji says: “God’s love toward His children is unconditional
because He feels responsible for having sent them out from Him
into the delusion and misery of this world.
If they see through false worldly lures and look to Him
— above all, if they love Him, the Giver, in preference to His material gifts —
they return to Him by the power of their virtue.
Even in the darkest hours of human decline,
when transgressors have become extremely entangled
in delusion by repeated performance of wrong actions,
God comes through liberated masters or other great incarnations
to enlighten and redeem those who repent.
Such is the love of God for all His children.
Somehow, in some way, the unseen God
— the Maker, and therefore the Wielder, of the law of cause and effect —
helps all souls to come back to Him.
After the vicissitudes of many incarnations
in the lonesome wilderness of delusive creation — after lifetimes
man cries from the depths of his heart, ‘Enough! Enough!’
When worldly enticements are at last deemed not worth their toll of suffering
and precarious wandering in maya, and he cries out from his core for deliverance,
then the hidden God by His unseen touch melts the band of unknowing
from man’s eyes of wisdom.
Then in joy and more joy the Lord appears openly to His devotee.
He explains that His hiding was not meant to cause suffering,
but to heighten the enjoyment of man’s ultimate,
inevitable discovery of the Eternal Love.”