By Gurudevi Nirmalananda

Don’t beat people up with your spirituality!

If you were truly a sannyasi (spiritual adept), you would watch the football game with them, serving them by sharing the time with them.

The feeling that you don’t want to be there means you haven’t yet renounced your desire to separate yourself from others, nor your desire to choose your own pleasurable activities. Sannyasa is when you know, “If no one was home, I would meditate, but they are home, so I am going to sit with them.” Sannyasa is renunciation, not rejection and not abandonment.

The good news is that you don’t have to be a sannyasi in order to become Self-Realized! Neither do you have to be initiated as a sannyasi, nor do you have to wait until you age into it. Gurudevi says, “My Baba often taught about the householder-saints in yoga. You can become Self-Realized today in the life you are already living. You have my permission and my blessing.”

How do you weave your spirituality into the stage of life you currently inhabit? You begin with accepting the stage you are in. The bottom line is, “Be Here Now.”

You can focus on “Be,” which is the ultimate mystical Knowingness of who you are. Or you can focus on “Now,” a popular way of pointing you inward toward your own spiritual essence. But you also have to focus on “here.” You are in the stage of life that you are in. Enjoy it.

Live a spiritual life and progressively deepen your spiritual practices. This is a beautiful life.

Excerpt from A Yogic Lifestyle, pages 243‒244