When devotees feel overwhelmed by difficulties and trials, it’s mostly because they’ve allowed themselves to slip away from devotion. In difficult times, the most important thing is that you love God. That is your best astrological amulet, your most secure protective curtain. And if you love Him, then why be afraid? If you’re afraid, for that moment you’re losing that love.
It is love of God that gives you the power, as Paramhansa Yogananda put it, “to stand unshaken amidst the crash of breaking worlds.” This is something to remember, to write on your heart, because it’s the truth: Nothing will take you down if you inwardly always love God.
In fact, when you’re really in love with God and in tune with the divine flow, you find that nothing else matters very much. You understand that things happen as they ought to and that ultimately, everything works out for the best.
Let God solve your problems: People who are very worldly have a tendency to laugh at devotees as “impractical.” What they can’t figure out is why things somehow go so well for those devotees who don’t worry too much about any of the things worldly people consider so important.
But when you love God and put your trust in him, you find that He solves your problems for you, through you. All you need is to be enough in tune and your intuition will guide you. The way to achieve that attunement is through devotion and, in that devotion, to uplift yourself in Him and let Him work through you.
A very interesting case in that context is that of Jacinta, one of the three children in Fatima in Portugal who had the visions of the Madonna in 1917. Jacinta was seven years old and lived in a tiny village. Her entire life was one of devotion, prayer, and helping others through prayer.
Because of her devotion, and the intuition that resulted, she was able to give counseling to adults concerning the kinds of problems and difficulties that only adults have. She was able to understand their problems, not necessarily from the mind, but she said things that showed a deep understanding was coming through her.
That kind of understanding comes from being in tune with the divine flow. Saint Teresa of Avila said, “In a moment of ecstasy, you understand things that it would take you many years of study to grasp on a mental level.”
The mind functions at a very low level of your total potential but in ecstasy, in that experience of oneness with the Divine, suddenly you understand. You understand how God manifests in the world — how He manifests through languages, through food, through the flow of history, through an individual’s problems. You understand without reading, studying or thinking.
Swami Kriyananda is a living disciple of Paramhamsa Yogananda. He is also the founder of Ananda Sangha with nine communities all around the world