The guru’s consciousness is a catalyst for our spiritual unfoldment. As disciples, our part is to strive to be more in tune and to deepen our efforts to know God. When we’re “worried or indifferent,” or experiencing any number of wrong attitudes, we have the ability to transcend them by tuning in to the guru’s consciousness, which can free us from the mental shackles that keep us bound.

Devi and I are once again in India after an absence of more than three years. There is a palpable sense of the Divine here, which Paramhansa Yogananda highlighted on March 7, 1952, as he uttered the last words of his incarnation.