Bro. Chidananda, President SRF/YSS
For those who go deeper…CONVOCATION IS A LIVING TRANSMISSION OF SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS AND POWER AND BLESSINGS.
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THE POWER OF SPIRITUAL FAMILY and CONVOCATION
Master said, “Once we were strangers, but when we love God we become brothers and sisters. That divine relationship is the strongest of bonds.”
BRO. BHUMANANDA [speaking from Convocation]: Well, we are a big family tonight, aren’t we? It has grown.
Seeing your faces reminds me of something. Some years ago, Brother Nikhilananda and I were in Seattle, conducting a retreat. And during our stay an Indian couple looked after us very nicely, and so at the end we went out and purchased a small bag of chocolates to express our appreciation to them.
And as we were leaving, the man selling the chocolates looked at us and he asked, “Are you brothers?”
Now, Brother Nikhilananda, you have to understand, is from Austria. He has an Austrian accent. I’m from California; I don’t know what kind of accent I have. And we don’t look alike. But when he asked, “Are you brothers?” I instinctively replied, “Yes, we are.” And he said, “I knew it. I could tell by your eyes.”
And if he was standing here tonight where I am and seeing all of you, I don’t think he’d have to ask. He’d be thinking, “I’ve never seen such a beautiful shining family, and there’s thousands of them.” Because there is that divine link between all of us, isn’t it?…
Through our practice of Kriya Yoga, through our love for God, we are eternally linked to the ever-living Gurus and to the Guru’s spiritual family.
Convocation was started by our Guru himself, and as we open our hearts and minds, we will feel his living presence. And as we go forward into the Convocation week, coming to the group meditations, the kirtans, the classes, the pilgrimage tours, the satsangas, let us do so with that faith that through the power of our Gurus and through our own sincerity and love for God, and through THAT POWERFUL MAGNET OF GROUP EFFORT, we will receive divine blessings that can completely, utterly transform our lives.
from . . .Forging Divine Consciousness in the Fires of Daily Existence
Bro. Bhumananda
from The Second Coming of Christ
JESUS “Where two or three are gathered in my name”: the power of united concentration
PARAMAHANSAJI: [W]hen a devotee reinforces his will by deep concentration and union with the strong will of other devotees he transforms his will into God’s will, recollecting his identity with God and thus recovering his divine heritage, possessing the illimitable material or spiritual power of his Heavenly Father. The devotee ought not to expect the full realization of the power of his will and prayer until he has strengthened them by divine company and God-contact.
When Jesus said, “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I,” he stressed the power of united concentration: When two or a few devotees come together for inner worship of God, the stronger divine concentration of one person strengthens the weaker concentration of another.
Paramahansa Yogananda. The Second Coming of Christ: The Resurrection of the Christ Within You . Self-Realization Fellowship. Kindle Edition.
See also~~
Yogananda Site 