Swami Chidananda Giri, president and spiritual head of Yogoda Satsanga Society of India/Self-Realization Fellowship (YSS/SRF), recently visited India and gave inspirational talks on the Kriya Yoga teachings of Sri Sri Paramahansa Yogananda (author of the Autobiography of a Yogi and founder-Guru of YSS/SRF). During his stay in India, Swami Chidanandaji was interviewed on matters of import affecting different strata of the society and the world. Here are some excerpts:

Q: “A saint is a sinner who never gave up,” Yoganandaji said. But, sometimes when a person first embarks on the spiritual path, they may harbour a feeling that they are not really cut out for it. As we are deeply entrenched in our own set of material habits and worldly ways, one may feel discouraged to embark on the spiritual journey thinking perhaps that, “Here are all these saints and I'm a sinner sitting among them!”

Swami Chidanandaji:

This is a universal delusion that all human beings are subject to, especially people on the spiritual path. We all have a little bit of humility, and that humility wrongly-directed becomes low self-esteem or thinking ill of oneself.

But remember, once somebody asked Yoganandaji, what's the most inspiring thing in the Autobiography of a Yogi and he said, “These words of my Guru Sri Yukteswarji: ‘Forget the past. The lives of all men are dark with many shames. Everything in future will improve if you are making a spiritual effort now.’” That’s a positive way to concentrate.

This may sound a little harsh but at a certain point when people keep on affirming to themselves, “everybody else is more advanced than me, and I'm the only one in the room who's a complete failure on the path,” then in a way, that becomes almost an excuse for not making the effort. You have to confront that tendency in yourself and just order it, “STOP! I'm not listening to you! Get Out!”, just like you would if some crazy person was at your door, telling you, “Oh, you're a terrible person, you're no good.” Because, that's exactly what's going on.

You have these delusions that are latched on to the ego, and their number one objective is to prevent you from making a spiritual effort. Discouragement about yourself is usually the most effective way of preventing yourself from making a spiritual effort. So, you have to confront it, you have to be a “spiritual warrior.” Those are the Kaurava warriors that Paramahansa Yoganandaji writes about in Chapter I of his commentary on the Bhagavad Gita (God Talks With Arjuna) and that try to latch on to your thought processes and deflect you and deter you from standing up and asserting your victorious spiritual nature.

But it doesn't come automatically. It takes will power, it takes determination, it takes an inner core of strength. But the worst thing that somebody can do is to keep repeating to themselves, “I'm no good, everybody else is better.” Just stop thinking that way, and take something that's more positive from one of Guruji’s books, such as Where There is Light or Metaphysical Meditations. That's why Guruji gave us those positive affirmations where he said, “I am a child of God, I am made in the image of God.” It takes work to uproot those delusions of wrong concepts about ourselves. And that work is done by meditation and by positive affirmation. Further info.: yssofindia.org