The path of a yogi is suited to the individuality of the practitioner. Only through deep understanding may you know for certain that you are following the highest path. Even then the notion that you will know everything in a factual sense is never true. What you do know is your absolute oneness with God. You may take on the role of a master, a lover of God, a servant, a child, an instrument, or other such divine expressions. However, what is consistent in all of these spiritual manifestations is the experience that God is the operator of the machine, you are but the machine. Even what sort of expression you become is according to His will. In this sense there is no free will, even though your experience is that of choosing to do His will. Relationships such as a Father and Son, a Hand in the glove, the Master and servant, have all joined and merged, one into the other. Now God and His devotee are interchangeable; it is God who has become the servant, and the servant has become God. The depth of this mystery knows no bounds.

Since childhood Memorial Day has been a special family celebration. Although the holiday was launched to pay respects to those who gave their lives in war, for many it was expanded to give honor and to remember all of our ancestors.

Each year it has been our family’s tradition to take flowers out to all the gravesites in the area that was first settled in the mid to late 1800s. My great grandfather moved onto undeveloped land covered only my rock and sagebrush, built his tent and walked five miles round trip to the river, with a yoke and buckets, to get water for drinking, watering his fruit trees and washing. He knew the irrigation canal would arrive in a couple of years, so he endured; bringing his new wife to his tent home in January, a cold and dismal time of the year. He and many of his progeny are buried in an ancient cemetery that overlooks that same Yakima River he had walked to everyday in those early years.

Now, at a time when there is so much looking forward to what is coming in a rapidly changing world, it is good to take time to look back, and honor those who gave so much for their families and securing a better future. In relative terms, we live in such prosperous times, thanks to those core principles that were in the hearts and minds of so many of the past, and it would be good to emulate many of those now.

“A man is a good as his word,” was taken very seriously where I grew up. Far more importantly than a person’s social status or ethnicity was his integrity. That you were slow to borrow money, and you paid it back as soon as you could was highly valued; and you did not leave a debt unpaid. You worked hard, often from early sun to late in the day, and during harvest time you may go as long light was available; for crops ready to harvest would not wait. Prayer was done quietly, but seriously. The town I grew up in was once in the Guinness World records as having the most churches per population.

These are some of the lessons that were all around me when growing up. I honor those who have gone before, worked hard, was honest in their dealings with their fellow man and in general strove to live good lives. Of course there were plenty of heartbreaks along the way, those who did not live according to those high principles, and plenty of “characters” who added color and liveliness to the landscape.

As in any family there is plenty of pain that has been handed down. We have all been recipients of a pretty rough couple of thousand years in which man’s inhumanity to man has been atrocious. Wars, famines, and cruelty, both institutionally and personally left little room for many to be even aware that there might be a better, higher way to Self-realization. However, there have always been those who have risen above their times.

And this leads to another area in which to honor ancestors, of a different type. Spiritually kindred spirits will many times be as important, and even more so, than blood relationships in our lives. I would not have had physical incarnation was it not for my human mother and father, and I would not have had my spiritual birth if not for Mother Hamilton and our succession of para-param gurus. The second could not be without the first birth, but the second, the spiritual birth, is the more important.

I lay the flowers of devotion upon the “markers” of the gurus spiritually enlightened lives, those markers is the spiritual Light they brought into this world; for this I am so truly grateful. I bow at their feet in love and adoration, now and for all time. And to you, my spiritual family, I join with you in the celebration of the great gift given to us by these luminary giants that make us kindred spirits with the deepest bonds of love and the profound desire to rise up to the Light of lights where all sorrow is resolved in bliss and understanding. Ever in God Christ Gurus, Yogacharya David.

Picture: Tonto Natural Bridge

“This is my new favorite place!” Carla said this as we were at the base of a Tonto Natural Bridge. The land bridge is the world’s largest travertine (400 feet long, 183 feet high, 150 feet wide), a formation that is created by a hot spring pouring over the sides, leaving a buildup of minerals over millenia.

The land bridge was first known by settlers when a miner was chased by Apaches and he hid in one of the caves nearby. Today it is a state park that requires a steep drive down and then a switchback trail that takes you to the base of the bridge.

It is when we arrive at the end of the trail that we are charmed by the red rock slabs surrounding pools of water under this natural bridge. There are many caves that captivate our interest, as it always intrigues me to be inside these caves.

From time immemorial caves have been the natural habitat of yogis, monks and spiritual seekers. There are practical reasons for this, a cave will provide shelter, and with a little fire a cave can become a comfortable living site.

There are also more subtle reasons for an inwardly focused meditator to find a cave suitable. As you spiritually progress your psychic body becomes more sensitive, more open. Noise, light and mental disturbances by worldly people can become difficult, even painful for the ardent seeker. The refuge of the cave blocks out sound, light and is an excellent insulator from the psychic chaos of the world.

There are places upon the earth that are naturally attuned to more refined spiritual forces. An area or a cave can also become spiritually charged due to the influence of a highly advanced soul. The two can work together when a naturally charged area is frequented by a highly developed being; an ultimate combination of nature and nurture.

Under the land bridge there are a number of naturally formed caves. There is no evidence of any advanced soul having lived here, but there is a profound sense of peace and spiritual vibrancy that accompanies this natural setting. In our journey to the Southwest we had previously felt such a vibration at Kartchner Caverns State Park. Now, here, it is felt to be even more powerful.

God arranged it so that just as we arrive a group of hikers are leaving, giving the place all to ourselves. We explore around the pools of water and sit in the natural caves. It is a spiritual baptism for the soul; washing clean everything not of a higher vibration.

It is inevitable that when we mix with the world we will pick up some of those lower influences. The advanced practitioner may rise above these influences; some may be divinely directed to purify such forces through their bodies; and the most advanced in consciousness will simply see these forces as aspects of God.

When Papa Ramdas had a vision of Krishna he said something to Krishna that was shocking to me when I first read it. Papa told Krishna to take this form of Krishna away and to make Papa see Krishna in His universal form; the all-pervading universal vision. There are many aspirants who seek all of their lives for the embodiment of Krishna to manifest even as he did to Papa; yet here was Papa sending him away! Papa was after the purist, most sublime vision of God; not a form that can come and go, but a permanent vision of God as everything that is!

As I have said before, God is equally present everywhere, it is just that he seems more equally Present in some places than others! The spontaneous thought comes to me now, that you should feel the peace and spiritual purity of this sanctuary of God under that natural land bridge and that as we imbibe the deep Presence of the Divine in God’s natural cathedrals, you will be with us in Spirit and feel it as well.