Recent years and present times have seen the storms of the pandemic, natural and manmade disasters, political and economic upheaval, global unrest and many more such challenges. A mighty natural storm might uproot trees, destroy homes and lives, and lash the seas to heaving. And so today might seem like the breaking point of something significant, and maybe it is. When will it let up? Will it get better or worse? What is going to break down and when? We can speculate but cannot answer these questions; the real power we have is to exercise our “rights” of self-control, centeredness in God, and sharing God’s light in thought, will and activity.
These recent storms are new but not unprecedented difficulties facing our nation, our globe, and the human race. On an individual level there must be some coping mechanisms to weather the storms of life. A certain dynamic tension is unavoidable, even necessary for progress and growth, but excessive stress left unchecked on a system or an individual will ultimately be detrimental and destructive.
We learn valuable lessons from the elements and features of nature, Spirit expressed through the phenomena and beauty of the natural world. The same powerful storms which batter and break even the mightiest trees will strengthen them, even as the great American environmentalist John Muir observed, “some pines six feet in diameter will bend like grasses before a mountain gale”. Swami Kriyananda expresses this power of the trees in another way in the song Channels:
Trees standing firm hold the secret of inner power
Give us when tested, strength to endure
The tree that grips tightly to the earth, yet sways flexibly through even the most raging winds, will bend and shake but never break. Strength is needed, ultimately through the grace of God, to weather the mightiest storms of life. The Ananda Yoga affirmation for garudasana or eagle pose is perhaps most apt for these times: “At the center of life’s storms, I stand serene.”

John Muir with a mighty redwood tree
Sometimes we may need to embrace these storms like John Muir in one of his many daring adventures (what he playfully called scootchers) when he famously climbed a 100-foot pine tree to revel for hours in a furious windstorm, drinking in it’s power and glory. (A Windstorm in the Forest, 1984) . There are many more subtle, and less risky ways to turn the storms of difficulty into opportunities for spiritual adventures of courage and joy. In another of his countless melodic poetries, Kriyananda illustrates this carpe diem sentiment vitally:
Sing when the sun shines, sing when the rain falls, sing when your road seems strange;
In a tempest seize the lightning flash, and ride the winds of change!
In many ways we must simply accept the fate and karma of the world, and ourselves, with the serenity as Paramahnsa Yogananda advised to let “what comes of itself, let it come”. The yoga principles and practices give us the tools then to make the most of what comes, and ultimately to find freedom and joy in the process.
There is unmistakable hope, peace and joy in this world, battered and broken though it is. We must look and listen beyond the problems and chaos for the strains of the divine music that pervades all creation and its myriad happenings. To quote the great John Muir once more, perhaps at least as much enlightened mystic as environmentalist:
“This grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never all dried at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor is ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal sunset, eternal dawn and gloaming, on seas and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls.”
May the sunrise of God’s presence always shine on, and bless us. And may we remain centered, courageous and spiritually adventuresome in the face of all the comes.