Image: Original Recipe Biscuits- Photo by Linda Sue Grimes
Biscuits & Gravy
These are my original recipes. You might want to experiment with amounts to find the style you like best.
Biscuits
This recipe can easily be converted to a vegan version by simply using vegan butter and almond milk. When I make it as a vegan version, I use Earth Balance vegan butter and 365 Almond Milk.
Ingredients
1 cup whole wheat flour (I use 365 Organic)
1 cup unbleached flour (365 Organic)
4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp sea salt
2 tsp coarse ground black pepper
3/4 cup dairy or almond milk
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup dairy or vegan butter
Instructions
Heat oven to 450˚.
Stir vinegar into almond milk and set aside.
Place dry Ingredients into food processor. Pulse until well mixed.
Cut in butter until mixture is crumbly.
Add milk slowly until all moisture is taken up.
Form into ball.
Flatten on floured counter and roll out dough to about 1 inch thick.
Cut out biscuits with biscuit cutter. Makes 12-14 biscuits.
Place in cast iron skillet and bake in 450˚oven for 20 minutes; then, brown under broiler to two minutes.
Image: Gravy in Cast Iron Chicken Fryer – Photo by Linda Sue Grimes
Gravy
This recipe is easily made vegan also by using vegan butter (Earth Balance) and almond milk (365) instead of dairy.
Ingredients
1/4 cup dairy or vegan butter
1 tbsp olive oil
4 cups dairy or almond milk
3/4 cup whole wheat flour, plus 2 tbsp unbleached flour
1 tsp each of sea salt & coarse ground black pepper
Instructions
Over medium heat, melt butter and oil in cast iron skillet. (The deep chicken fryer is perfect for making gravy.)
Add flour, salt, & pepper, whisking until mixture becomes brown and grainy.
Slowly add milk, whisking until mixture is smooth.
Heat over medium burner until mixture begins to simmer.
Lower heat and gently simmer, stirring continuously for 4 minutes.
Image: Avocado Breakfast Sandwich – Photo by Linda Sue Grimes
Avocado Breakfast Sandwich
This recipe is one of my favorites! And it is still my favorite breakfast. The fat and protein of the avocado will keep you satisfied until lunchtime and even beyond.
The flavor of the muffin, the tomato (or salsa), the nutritional yeast, and spices is incomparable. You will savor every bite.
It is easy to prepare! It is beautiful to the eye! What are you waiting for! Go make one! Buon Appetito!
Ingredients
▪ 1 English muffin, toasted
▪ 2 teaspoons butter (or vegan butter)
▪ 1 tsp sesame seeds
▪ 1 tsp nutritional yeast
▪ 1 slice ripe tomato (or salsa if desired)
▪ sea salt & black, coarse ground pepper to taste
▪ 1/2 of a ripe Hass avocado
Instructions
1. Toast English muffin to desired toastiness; then add butter to each half.
2. On one English muffin half, place tomato, sesame seeds, nutritional yeast, salt & pepper.
3. Place avocado on top of tomato/seeds/yeast.
4. Salt & pepper avocado and top it off with the other half of the English muffin.
5. Press down to flatten avocado to make it easier to handle while eating.
While this recipe is not an exact copy of the one the cooks use to make the dessert served during the Self-Realization Fellowship Convocation Pilgrimage to the SRF Meditation Garden in Encinitas CA, it is the closest I have been able to come up with that tastes like that dessert called Paesh.
Ingredients
8 oz soft paneer cubed
1/2 cup raw sugar (I use Florida Crystals)
8 oz whole milk ricotta
2 tsp rose water
2 oz slivered almonds
Instructions
Place paneer and sugar in food processor, mix until cheese if broken into small round pieces.
Move paneer/sugar mixture to sand mixer, add ricotta and rose water.
For years, I have experimented with cornbread, trying to find a recipe that was as good as my mother’s. Finally, I asked my sister if she had Mommy’s cornbread recipe. She did, and I tried it and discovered that was the taste I was after.
The recipe is better with white cornmeal, which has become difficult to find except in mixes that contain leavening and other unwanted ingredients.
I was lucky enough to find white cornmeal on Amazon under the brand Indian Head. The pack states that the product is “Old fashioned stone ground.” Interestingly, the white cornmeal cost $5.00 more than the yellow.
While I do think that white cornmeal makes for better flavor, I have determined that the real difference that has made my earlier cornbread unacceptable was using egg.
Except for my vegan version of cornbread, I had always added egg, and I now believe that the egg created a flavor that distorted the true taste of cornbread.
In the vegan version, I had used coconut milk and vegan sour cream, which likely distorted the cornbread flavor. It was a simple omission that has made all the difference in cornbread, the simple omission of egg from the recipe.
Now I plan to tweak my vegan version, by omitting the vegan sour cream and substitute almond milk for coconut milk. The tweak offered here can easily be made vegan by using vegan butter (I use Earth Balance) instead of dairy butter.
Ingredients
1 tbsp oil
2 cups white cornmeal
1 cup flour
2 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 1/4 cup buttermilk
1 cup water
Instructions
Heat oven to 425°
Place 10 inch cast iron skillet with oil in oven
In large mixing bowl place remaining ingredients
Mix well
Remove skillet with hot oil from oven, and pour into mixture
Mix well
Return skillet to oven
Bake for 25-30 minutes until golden brown
My Tweak of Mommy’s Recipe
Because buttermilk tends not to serve me well, I have tweaked Mommy’s recipe a bit.
Ingredients
1 tbsp unsalted butter and 1 tbsp olive oil
1 cup white or yellow cornmeal (because white is hard to find nowadays)
1/2 cup unbleached flour
1 tbsp baking powder (without aluminum)
2 tsp salt (I use Redmond Real Salt™️)
1 cup almond milk (with 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar)
3/4 cup water
Instructions
Heat oven to 450°
Place 10 inch cast iron skillet with butter/oil in oven
In large mixing bowl, place remaining ingredients
Mix well
Remove skillet with hot oil/butter from oven, and pour into mixture, mix well
According to Paramahansa Yogananda, the human is a soul who has a body. Identifying more strongly with the body than with the immortal soul cripples spiritual striving.
Humanity Classifies Itself
Humans classify themselves first by sex. When a newborn arrives, the first question is, boy or girl? Sex is the easiest classification, because only two categories exist, excluding the very rare occurrence of hermaphroditism and current fad of confusing sex with gender.
The newborn will later realize that he belongs to a category called “race.” Unless both parents are the result of many generations of the same “race,” the newborn may not resemble the race of either parent. Nevertheless, race is still a fairly reliable classification even though that category is becoming less acceptable scientifically.
Next comes nationality, an easy one: birth country. One is always his original nationality even though he is free to become virtually any hyphenated version. So humans classify themselves by sex, race, and nationality; in addition to those categories are religious, political, and socio-economic classifications.
Temporary vs Permanent Classification
Only the first three—sex, race, and nationality—are virtually unchangeable. However, the other three—religious, political, and socio-economic—are changeable, based on choice.
A new category has entered the field, one of sexual-orientation, for which there can be at least two choices: heterosexuality, homosexuality, and possibly bisexuality. (A problematic category because at least two sexual partners are required to complete that orientation—a situation that society does not accept. Bigamy is illegal. And though promiscuity is wide-spread, it is not an acceptable societal norm.)
And there is also a category called “transgendered,” which defeats the spiritual purpose of transcending sex identity, which is purpose of the original, natural change of sex upon rebirth on the physical plane.
No one would consider allowing pedophilia—despite supportive organizations such a NAMBLA—bestiality, masturbation, and celibacy as valid categories. Pedophilia and bestiality are against the law, while masturbation and celibacy are barely tolerated.
Behavior not Being
The obvious problem with the new category based on sexual-orientation is that it is based on behavior or activity, not being. At birth one can be classified using all the six categories, but one has to wait until at least puberty to classify as a hetero-, or homo-sexual. And still the classification will be based on an act not an essence.
Act of Sex Always a Choice
That choice plays the central rôle is what is always overlooked when discussing this issue. Any act of sex, with the exception of rape and peer-pressure, is always a choice. No one is ever required to engage in sexual experience. Of course, the sexual urge is strong, especially when abused and over-indulged, but still one can live an entire life without ever having engaged in sexual activity. The issue with rape is that that act has little to do with sex itself and more to do with power that the perpetrator has over the victim.
The other categories cannot be chosen this way. As a non-self-realized human being in the prenatal state, one cannot choose sex, race, nationality, etc. No matter how one lives or where, he will always be eligible for classification on sex, race, nationality, religion, politics, and socio-economics. But one never has to be classified as hetero- or homo-sexual.
Because the sex act is a voluntary one—excluding rape and peer-pressure/societal intimidation, the latter which is responsible for most people becoming sexually active before they are really inclined to—one cannot argue that sexual-orientation is part of anyone’s character; it is behavior, but not part of the essence, character, or personality, which is essentially a soul, a spiritual being, whose existence is not dependent upon any physical attributes.
Sexuality Misunderstood
A great chasm separates the reality and societal notions of sexuality. The misunderstanding is as great now as it was when homosexuality was universally considered a sin and punishable by law. It is doubtful that the wider society will ever equate homo- and hetero-sexuality. Celibacy is even less understood. A sex culture permeates society, wherein sex sells everything from shampoo to shoes.
Procreation vs Recreation
The true purpose of the sex act is primarily procreation and possibly in moderation, the expression of genuine love and affection between two committed partners—including homophile partners. The sex act is simply not amenable to recreation. Doing it because it feels good is not a moral attitude, because it tends to lead to moral turpitude.
If parents were consistently capable of teaching their offspring that the purpose of the sex act is procreation and genuine love within a stable, loving marriage, there would be less reliance on abortions, fewer sufferers of venereal disease, no supposed need for pornography, and much less waste of energy trying to lure a fellow human being into a recreational diversion.
Roughly in order of origin, the five major world religions are Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Each major religion has many branches or denominations that focus on certain aspects of the main religion. This article features a brief overview of each of the five major religions.
Introduction: What Is the Purpose of Religion?
“If God after making the world puts Himself outside it, He is no longer God. If He separates Himself from the world or wants to separate Himself, He is not God. The world is not the world when it is separated from God. God must be in the world and the world in God.” —D. T. Suzuki
According to Paramahansa Yogananda [1], the purpose of all religions—as well as the purpose of life itself—is to reunite the individual soul with the Supreme Soul or God. The differences that seem to split religions from one another result from the use of different metaphors that portray concepts.
Also use of different names for the Supreme Deity causes confusion; for example, Allah, Divine Mother, Ultimate Reality, Supreme Intelligence, Emptiness, Absolute, and Over-Soul represent some of the terms used to name the Unnameable or the Ineffable [2].
A common misunderstanding of Hinduism emerges from the many Hindu names for God or the Supreme Soul. But instead of actually signifying different “gods,” the names merely signify different aspects of of the one God. Hinduism is monotheistic, just as Christianity and all other religions are.
All of the five major world religions—Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—have in common a basic faith, even though each religion describes the nature of their faith differently. They each have a prophet, or prophets, who interpret God’s ways, and scripture in which the interpretation resides.
Hinduism
Hinduism’s scripture is the Bhagavad-Gita, and major prophet is Krishna. However, Hinduism is probably the world’s oldest religion, [3] and, therefore, it also has other ancient scripture that was not written down for many centuries or perhaps millennia. These are called the Vedas.
In more recent history the important scripture that contains the explanation for existence and the guide back to God is the Bhagavad-Gita, whose central narrator is Bhagavan Krishna.
Buddhism
Buddhism’s scripture is the Dhammapada, and its major prophet is Siddhartha Gautama or the Buddha [4]. Buddhism began around 500 B.C. in India, when the prince Gautama abandoned his young wife and child and took up the life of an ascetic. It is said that he positioned himself under a banyan tree and determined to remain there until he had attained enlightenment.
Buddhism is very similar to Hinduism in that they both focus on meditation to achieve “enlightenment,” which is called “nirvana” in Buddhism and “samadhi” in Hinduism. Also both religions describe the nature of God, or the Absolute, pantheistically.
Judaism
Judaism’s major prophets are the Old Testament prophets, especially Moses [5]; thus, its scripture is the Old Testament or Torah consisting of the Five Books of Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.
Because Judaism does not recognize the New Testament, it does not recognize the “old” testament as such, but simply as the Torah. The name “Judaism” originates from the fourth son of Jacob, who was the father of the tribe of “Judah.” The name “Judah” means gratitude in Hebrew.
It was the tribe of Judah that resided in Jerusalem during the reign of both David and Solomon. Later the Judaic kingdom included all of the southern tribes of Israel.
Thus, the religion of the Jews is called “Judaism.
Christianity
Christianity’s major prophet is Jesus Christ, whose major scripture is the Sermon on the Mount [6] which is part of the New Testament. Like most prophets, Christ appeared at a time of history when there was great turmoil and strife. Human kind had lost its knowledge of its divinity within the soul, and the Christ appeared to remind people that “the kingdom of God is with you.”
Islam
Islam’s prophet is Muhammad, and its scripture is the Quran (Koran). In addition to the Quran, the devout Muslim studies the Sunnah, which is an account of the prophet’s life and the activities and traditions he approved.
The prophet Muhammad was born April 20, 571, to a wealthy family of the tribe of Mecca. His father had died a few days before his son was born, and his mother died when he was six-years-old.
His grandfather, who was caring for the boy, then died when Muhammad turned nine, at which time he was cared for by an uncle. The world in which the young boy lived was a chaotic one, sometimes described a “barbaric.” It is said that Muhammad was a gentle boy, sensitive and compassionate in his dealings with others.
At the age of twenty-five he entered the caravan business owned by a wealthy widow, Khadija; their relationship grew from deep respect to admiration and love, and they married. Their union proved successful. Fifteen years later the man Muhammad transformed into the Prophet, but such a transformation did not happen overnight. According to Huston Smith [7],
There was a huge, barren rock on the outskirts of Mecca known as Mount Hira, torn by cleft and ravine, erupting unshadowed and flowerless from the desert sands. In this rock was a cave which Muhammad, in need of deep solitude, began to frequent. Peering into the mysteries of good and evil, unable to accept the crudeness, superstition, and fratricide that were accepted as normal, “this great fiery heart, seething, simmering like a great furnace of thoughts,” was reaching out for God.
Religious Distortion
All of the great religions have suffered distortion at the hands ignorant interpreters. In the name of Christianity large scale devastation was visited upon the world during in the Middle Ages during the Crusades [8], then later in the Spanish Inquisition [9] , and even in the colonial America during the Salem Witch Trials [10].
Hindu zealots have misappropriated and turned the Caste system into an oppressive ordering of society [11] that was not part of Hindu scripture. Many adherents to Buddhism in the West are attracted to that religion based on the misunderstanding that Buddhism is an atheistic religion.
Again, the misunderstanding results from failure to grasp the basic metaphors used to make sensible the Ineffable. And, of course, the extremist Islamists who distort the meaning of jihad [12] demonstrate the horror that can be fostered from erroneous understanding of the metaphor of scripture.
Much fantasy has grown out of the facts of religions, and much mayhem and destruction has been and continues to be carried out in the name of religion. But all of the great religions teach compassion and love, and even though certain misguided zealots try to conquer others immorally in so-called holy wars, they do not represent the vast majority of the devout who understand and practice their religions as they are meant to be practiced.
Sources
[1] Paramahansa Yogananda. The Science of Religion. Self-Realization Fellowship. 1953. Print. [2] Linda Sue Grimes. “Names for the Ineffable God.” Linda’s Literary Home. October 7, 2025.
[3] Joshua J. Mark. “Hinduism.” World History Encyclopedia. June 8, 2020.
According the renowned spiritual leader, Paramahansa Yogananda, when an individual develops an intense yearning for God, then God sends that individual tangible evidence of His love: “When you have convinced the Lord of your desire for Him, He will send someone — your guru — to teach you how to know Him.”
Also Yogananda has explained that when evil seems to be overcoming good in the world,
God sends a prophet (guru or spiritual leader) to help people turn back toward God. Muhammad, being a gentle, compassionate soul, developed his latent soul qualities and by intense meditation in the cave at Mount Mira touched God’s heart and God spoke to him, not only to satisfy the individual soul of Muhammad, but God also used Muhammad to inform those crude, superstitious, fratricidal brothers of a better way of life.
Unfortunately, just as Hindu zealots have misappropriated and turned the Caste system into an oppressive ordering of society, many Islamists have turned the teachings of Muhammad into the opposite of the prophet’s instructions for peace, and instead of leading to a “better way of life,” many ignorant followers of that faith have returned to “crude, superstitious, fratricidal” behavior.
God is one Being, but God has many aspects; thus God has many names. All religious scriptures point to God as the only Creator. As the ineffable Spirit, God remains only the essence of Bliss, but as Creation, He is able to function through various bodies and powers for differing motives.
The Many Names of God, the Ineffable
The term “ineffable” applies to anything that is indescribable, something that is so beyond human concepts that there are actually no words that can do it justice. The term God is such a concept. If humankind wanted to proscribe all terms hitherto naming God, it would do well to employ only the term the “Ineffable.”
Despite the fact that there are things, beings, even events that humanity finds ineffable, the confluence of the human mind and heart seeks to name and describe those entities anyway. But the naming and describing must always come with the caveat that anything said naming and describing are mere approximations.
For example, on the purely material, physical plane, the taste of an orange remains ineffable. One may say the orange tastes sweet, but so do apples, cookies, and ethylene glycol—none of which tastes like an orange. The only way to know the taste of an orange is to taste it—no description will ever reveal that actual taste.
The same situation exists facing the issue of knowing who or what God is. Humanity from time immemorial has described God, given God names and descriptions, but to know God is like to know the taste of an orange—it has to be experienced for oneself.
That is where the practice of religion enters: the purpose of religion is to assist the individual in discovering the method for knowing God. Because most human knowledge is acquired through the five senses, one would think that knowing God would also be acquired the same way.
But that does not work, because the senses can detect only phenomena on the physical, material level of being. The five senses cannot detect noumena which exists on a different plane of existence.
As the Absolute Spirit, God is an ineffable concept because the term God includes everything in creation and also everything that exists outside of creation. God is both creation and the originator of creation. This fact means that there is no way to understand such a being with the limited human mind.
Thus, the concept of God has come to be thought of in many manifestations or aspects, such as God as Father, God as Son, as God as Holy Spirit, which will be immediately recognized as the Trinity of Christianity, the religion of the West. And the “Holy Spirit” aspect is the only aspect of God within creation. Paramahansa Yogananda explains the nature of the trinity [1]:
When Spirit manifests creation, It becomes the Trinity: Father, Son, Holy Ghost, or Sat, Tat, Aum. The Father (Sat) is God as the Creator existing beyond creation (Cosmic Consciousness).
The Son (Tat) is God’s omnipresent intelligence existing in creation (Christ Consciousness or KutasthaChaitanya). The Holy Ghost (Aum) is the vibratory power of God that objectifies and becomes creation.
Many cycles of cosmic creation and dissolution have come and gone in Eternity. At the time of cosmic dissolution, the Trinity and all other relativities of creation resolve into the Absolute Spirit.
The principal religion of the East is Hinduism, which is often mistakenly thought to be a polytheistic religion. The term “polytheism” signifies a misleading concept. There could never be two or more ultimate creators [2]:
Spirit, being the only existing Substance, had naught but Itself with which to create.
Spirit and Its universal creation could not be essentially different, for two ever-existing Infinite Forces would consequently each be absolute, which is by definition an impossibility. An orderly creation requires the duality of Creator and created.
That mistake of assuming Hinduism to be polytheistic arises because in Hinduism, especially as interpreted through yogic philosophy, God is expressed through many aspects.
Some of those aspects include such terms as Father, Mother, Friend, Love, Light, Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva, Sat-Chit-Ananda, Kali, Prakriti, Sat-Tat-Aum, and many others. Dr. David Frawley’s explanation [3] includes the lowercase use of the term “god” which actually refers only to an aspect of the Supreme God, as the context will reveal:
Spirit, being the only existing Substance, had naught but Itself with which to create.
Spirit and Its universal creation could not be essentially different, for two ever-existing Infinite Forces would consequently each be absolute, which is by definition an impossibility. An orderly creation requires the duality of Creator and created.
If Hinduism is deemed a polytheistic religion because of the many names for aspects of the one God, then Christianity could also be considered a polytheistic religion because it also possesses a trinity. In addition to the trinity, the Judeo-Christian Bible also puts on display many other names for God such as Jehovah, Yahweh, Lawgiver, Creator, Judge, and Providence—all obvious aspects of the One Supreme Absolute or God.
The fact remains that both Hinduism and Christianity, along with Judaism and Islam, are monotheistic religions. The Christian Trinity portrays the three functions of God, and Hinduism offers the same functional trinity in Sat-Tat-Aum. Hinduism also includes other manifestations or aspects of God such as Krishna [4], who in many ways parallels Jesus the Christ and Kali [5], who parallels the Virgin Mary.
Scientific religionists and dedicated spiritual seekers have determined that there is only one God—and all religions profess this fact—but there are many aspects of that one God. And those aspects have been given specific labels for the purpose of discussion. One cannot discuss everything at once; thus, to aid in that the ability to discuss spirituality and religion, various aspects of the one God have been isolated and specified with different names.
Aspect Names Similar to Nicknames
A human being may have several nicknames. I am Linda Sue Grimes, born Linda Sue Richardson, but I am also Sissy, Grammy, Nubbies—those are three of my nicknames: I am Sissy to my sister; Grammy to my grandchildren; Nubbies to the husband.
There are not five of me just because I have five names. There is one of me, but I have various aspects to different people; thus, each of them thinks of me in terms of a specific aspect to which they have each given a specific name. It is a similar situation for naming God through His many aspects.
However, even more pressing because in theory, one could discuss the person “Linda Sue Grimes” without breaking the concept of her into various aspects because Linda Sue Grimes as a human being is not ineffable. A discussion of the ineffable God remains impossible without those names of aspects.
God Remains Ineffable
Still, God remains ineffable despite the various aspects assigned to the concept. The spiritually striving devotee on the path to God unity is not attempting to merely understand God, which would be a mental function.
The spiritual aspirant is working to unite with God, more specifically to contact his own soul which is the spark or expression of God. Contacting the soul means quieting both the physical body and the mind in order for the soul become ascendant in one’s consciousness.
Avatars such a Paramahansa Yogananda instruct devotees that they are not the body, not the mind, but the soul. In fact, the human being is a soul that possesses and body and mind, not the other way around. The soul has become a blurred concept as it is replaced with the ego, which strongly identifies with physical body and the mind.
It is only through the soul that the human being can contact God. The body cannot contact God because it is just bunch of chemicals; the mind cannot contact God because it gets its information through the unreliable senses.
The senses are in contact with the ever-changing maya delusion of the created cosmos. Thus, only the soul as a spark of God can contact God. The only way the soul can contact God is to quiet the body and mind. After the body and mind become quieted and capable of remaining perfectly still, the soul can manifest to the consciousness of the individual human being.
Why Did God Create the Cosmic Delusion?
Paramahansa Yogananda explains:
In order to give individuality and independence to Its thought images, Spirit had to employ a cosmic deception, a universal mental magic.
Spirit overspread and permeated Its creative desire with cosmic delusion, a grand magical measurer described in Hindu scriptures as maya (from the Sanskrit root ma, “to measure”).
Delusion divides, measures out, the Undefined Infinite into finite forms and forces. The working of cosmic delusion on these individualizations is called avidya, individual illusion or ignorance, which imparts a specious reality to their existence as separate from Spirit.
. . .
This Unmanifested Absolute cannot be described except that It was the Knower, the Knowing, and the Known existing as One.
In It the being, Its cosmic consciousness, and Its omnipotence, all were without differentiation: ever-existing, ever-conscious, ever newly joyous Spirit.
In this Ever-New Bliss, there was no space or time, no dual conception or law of relativity; everything that was, is, or is to be existed as One Undifferentiated Spirit.[6]
The question arises, however: why did God decide to manifest into various forms, if as one ineffable Spirit He is nothing but Bliss? The best answer to that question is what gurus (spiritual leaders) tell their chelas (spiritual aspirants): leave some questions to Eternity, meaning after you reach your goal of unity with God, all questions will be answered.
However, Paramahansa Yogananda has also answered that question by explaining that God created his lila or divine play simply in order to enjoy it. As unmanifested Spirit, God exists as bliss, but even though He is present in his Creation and likely enjoying it, He is also suffering it; thus arise various paths that lead god back to God, or the soul back to the Over-Soul.
Because that answer likely still heralds another “why?” One must return to the notion of leaving some answers to Eternity. One must take baby steps on the journey back to uniting with unmanifested Spirit. Just fitting the physical and mental bodies by yogic practice for the ability to accomplish that unity gives the devotee enough to think about and do.
Other Concepts and Labels for God
As names for God vary, so do personal concepts. For example, Jesus the Christ liked to think of God as the Father [7]; thus, many Western prayers begin with “Heavenly Father.”
The founder Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF), Paramahansa Yogananda—”The Father of Yoga in the West”—was fond of assigning the mother-aspect to God and referring to God as Divine Mother. Thus, the opening of each SRF gathering begins with the following invocation:
Heavenly Father, Mother, (often lengthened to “Divine Mother”), Friend, Belovèd God, followed by the names of each guru associated with Self-Realization Fellowship.
All of these named references designate aspects of the same Entity—the Absolute Spirit or God.
My Use of the Term “God”
Because the term God can be alienating, especially triggering atheists and agnostics, I often refer to God in my commentaries by one of His possibly less disagreeable aspects. Therefore, I employ such terms as Ultimate Reality, Originator, Creator, Divine Reality, Divine Belovèd, Blessèd Creator, or simply just the Divine.
Likely, even the term Divine can be too mystically oriented for some postmodern, belligerent anti-spiritual, anti-religionists. Nevertheless, I do not completely eschew using the label God, despite negative reactions to and ignorance about the term, because the term does remain accurate and perfectly descriptive.
I do, however, continue to strive to render the context in which I use the term God as accurate and understandable as possible so that it may soften the blow for postmodern minds, being accosted by that term.
Sources
[1] Editors. Glossary: Trinity. Self-Realization Fellowship Official Web Site. Accessed March 5, 2023.
[2] Editors. “Law of Maya.” Paramahansa Yogananda: The Royal Path of Yoga. Accessed March 5, 2023.
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