The greatest hindrance to spirituality is what one might call asatsang the opposite of the scriptural recommendation of satsang.
It's no small thing to develop new ways of thinking, feeling, and living in a materialistic world. Satsang or togetherness enables the sharing of spiritual aspirations.
Many do realise that the quest for material comfort and security is empty, without inner peace. What is the solution? Paramhansa Yogananda sought to show people that outer efficiency, without a corresponding inner peace, is an empty gourd.
How wonderful it would be if those who seek God, even if few in number, could congregate together so that "job, school, church, and one's whole life could be brought together in one place, instead of scattered".
I was at a garden party in 1949 in California when Yoganandaji addressed hundreds on this subject. It was the most powerful lecture one could have heard. He urged his listeners to "go north, south, east, and west ^ thousands of youths to show the world that living together for God is the way to true freedom and happiness!" I vowed to do whatever was in my power to bring this ideal to fruition.
It isn't as though everybody who joins a spiritual community is a saint. Different individuals, according to their own nature, talent, faith, and devotion, will apply spiritual principles at different levels. After 40 years and seeing thousands of people, we can clearly say from experience here at the Ananda Sangha that practising the truths of the scriptures works. Those who were able to serve God and others wholeheartedly are the most self-fulfilled. Those who have most resisted these principles have had the most trouble in their personal lives.
You don't become great by drifting but by meeting the challenges of life with faith, by taking everything that comes, difficult as well as easy, with a positive attitude, doing it all for a higher ideal. That's why we were born on this planet.
We live here in this world for lifetimes, and we get so involved in so many things that seem so important. But what does it all matter in the end if it doesn't bring us close to God? It's all a dream. When we wake up and look back, we'll see that it lasted for just a few moments.
What we can do while we're here is awaken from the dream and expand our identity, expand our consciousness. We can realise that we are one with the great ocean of life, one with God and with the God in everyone. The more we do, the more we will fulfill the only purpose for which we've been born.
St Augustine said, "Father, Thou hast made us for Thyself alone, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee." You have no other duty in life except to find God. If spiritual communities can be of any service in this goal, service to the people who join them, service to the people around the world who are helped by them, they'll have fulfilled their entire function.
Ananda means divine joy and sangha is fellowship. Ananda Sangha means fellowship of divine joy... We believe in single, blissful, eternal consciousness , satchidanandam, which pervades the entire universe, unifying it and all creatures in a bond of mutual service. This blissful consciousness is the underlying reality of all existence; it precedes the very manifestation of the universe.