Self-Realization Fellowship Blog

The following is an excerpt from a satsanga (questions and answers) given by SRF nun Sister Namita during the 2007 SRF World Convocation in Los Angeles. Sister Namita has been a nun of Self-Realization Fellowship for more than fifty years and served in the office of Sri Daya Mata, beloved third president of SRF/YSS — including as one of her secretaries and personal assistants — for nearly four decades. She currently resides at the SRF Mother Center in Los Angeles. Fuller excerpts from this satsanga were published in the 2024 annual issue of Self-Realization magazine and the full satsanga is available in our Video & Audio Teachings Library, both under the title “Seeing God in Everyone.”

Question: “I would like to be able to love others, to relate to others more. Could you please give me some thoughts to work on?”

This is a vast subject, but perhaps the simplest answer is that when we meditate, we start feeling that sweetness of God, that love that reaches out to others.

When we start to realize that God is in everyone, that each one of us is nothing but a spark of that Divine Beloved, then we see others in a different way, in a different light.

Hafiz, a Persian poet of the 13th century, expressed this thought very beautifully. He wrote, “If God invited you to a party and said, ‘Everyone in the ballroom tonight will be my special guest’ — how would you then treat them when you arrived? Indeed, indeed, Hafiz says, there is no one in this world who is not upon God’s jeweled dance floor.”

Many years ago, shortly after I became an SRF member, I went to London to study. The first thing I did when I reached London was to look for the SRF meditation group there.

When I arrived, I was introduced to another lady who, like me, was from Italy. She was very beautiful and very elegant. And as I greeted her, she very haughtily said, “I am Countess So and So.” That did it. I felt an instantaneous aversion to her, and I was very happy when meditation started, so I didn’t have to talk with her again.

Immediately after the service, I said a quick good night, and returned to my hotel. As I opened the door to my room, I was stunned. I had placed the “Last Smile” picture of our guru, Paramahansa Yogananda, on a shelf, and in that moment he looked exactly like that countess! Even his hair was blonde!

I met that countess a few years later when she came to the SRF International Headquarters on Mt. Washington — by this time I was living in the ashram as a nun — and I really felt gratitude and love for her, not just because she was used by the Guru to teach me a very good lesson, but because when I looked beyond her face and blonde hair, I could see Paramahansaji’s mischievous look.

If we always try to see others as our travel companions on the path to Self-realization — and very often unaware personal teachers — we will tend to love them more easily.

So what else can we do? Start with small things. Have you ever tried after your morning meditation to ask Guruji to use you to help someone that day? You’d be surprised with the wonderful things that can happen, if you keep your heart and mind open. He can work through you.

Don’t be afraid to give away something that is dear to you to make someone else happy. Don’t be afraid to give it, even if it’s something valuable to you, because let’s face it, when we step into the astral world (after death), we cannot take anything with us. Nothing at all. It is just our soul going forward. So why not make someone happy now and maybe get a little bit of good karma at the same time?

Don’t be afraid to send a note of thank you to someone, or just of appreciation; or a bouquet of flowers to someone who may be lonely. Reach out to others. Love comes when you give it out, not when you keep it for yourself.

And don’t be afraid to pray for others. At the end of your meditation, take a few minutes, even when busy, and pray for others. Prayer is very powerful. You can reach out in that way too. They may never know that you prayed for them, but you may change their lives by doing so.

And then, when you perhaps find out what Gurudeva did through you, you will be very happy — very happy to know that you have done something toward overcoming this seeming inability to reach out to others.

I read about someone who organized a contest to find the most thoughtful child, and the winner was a four-year-old boy, whose next-door neighbor, an elderly man, just lost his wife. The little boy saw this man sitting on his lawn, crying, and so he went to him and climbed on his lap.

And later on, his mother asked the boy, “Honey, what did you say to the old man?” And he said, “Nothing, I just helped him cry.”

Often it’s not the grand gestures that touch the heart of people. It’s the little thoughtful things we can do every day. So ask God and Guru to give you Their love, to love others with. Then your heart will be opening up — and you will be able to give that same love to all, and reach out to others much more easily.

We invite you to learn more about how you can reach out to help others through the dynamic power of prayer — the unlimited power of God within each of us — by participating in the Self-Realization Fellowship Worldwide Prayer Circle.