For one of our satsangs, in Torrance, the center leader asked us to talk about how to find spirituality in big-city life. I thought you, too, might be interested in the thoughts we shared that evening on the challenges faced by city-dwellers and some of the spiritual solutions to them.

Swami Kriyananda gave us two principles which, like moral compass points, guide the Ananda communities. The first is something he saw when visiting the Maharaja of Cooch Behar. The family motto read: Yato dharma, tato jaya. This sloka from the great epic, the Mahabharata, means, “Where there is adherence to righteousness, there is victory.” This ancient “compass point” is the polestar that has allowed India to navigate the turbulent tides of time. If we hold fast to this principle, it will align our actions with the subtle laws of the universe.