Change Your Destiny: Part 1
Is it possible to change your destiny? Join Yogacharya Ellen Grace O’Brian, spiritual leader, writer, and poet, as she explores the wisdom of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, revealing how the tools of yoga possess the keys to transform your life trajectory.
Yogacharya Ellen Grace O’Brian is an acclaimed teacher, poet, award-winning author, and minister who has served seekers of spiritual enlightenment from all walks of life for over forty years. She is the recipient of the 2021 New Thought Walden Award for Interfaith and Intercultural Understanding. She has published several books including her latest book, The Jewel of Abundance: Finding Prosperity Through the Ancient Wisdom of Yoga. We are currently celebrating a yearlong series of Yoga Yantra, or Divine Pilgrimage, programs to honor the 40th Anniversary of her ministry ordination and the founding of the Center for Spiritual Enlightenment.
A teacher in the tradition of Kriya Yoga, Yogacharya O’Brian serves people from all faith backgrounds who are seeking Self- and God-realization, or awakening. She is the spiritual director of the Center for Spiritual Enlightenment, a meditation center in San Jose, CA. You can find out more about Yogacharya O’Brian’s books and online programs at EllenGraceOBrian.com and CSEcenter.org.
You can also follow her on social media: Facebook, Instagram and YouTube by searching for Ellen Grace O'Brian.
THE YOGA HOUR TEAM COMMENTS: It is a powerful concept, to think that we can change our destiny. The teaching that Yogacharya offered gave us the basics of what the mind is and how the mind can be purified through meditation and our spiritual practices. As Yogacharya said, these teachings are very logical. I appreciated the discussion of Samskaras- the repeated patterns of behavior that direct future behavior. Yogacharya said that samskaras are actually the recording system for karma. Yogacharya also said that through our meditation and spiritual practices the faculty of discernment becomes purified so that it becomes a mirror for the Self. This is how we discern what is right action. When our mind becomes purified we can discern whether our thoughts and actions will change the climate of the mental field so that pain producing thoughts are "neutered". There was so much that Yogacharya shared that helped me feel very positive. We can change our destiny through the practices of Kriya Yoga. I am looking forward to Part Two of this series.
DR. TRUJILLO’S COMMENTS: I loved talking with Yogacharya O’Brian about how to change our destiny through the practices of yoga. We began with the idea of disciple as learner, and explored Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras as a way to understand “how do we know what is true?” As the Yoga Sutras teach us: through direct experience, inference, and valid testimony from scripture or valid authority. Our conversation was so rich: about samskaras (mental impressions) in general, and how we can build positive samskaras in particular, and how we can "change the climate of the mental field” through superconscious meditation.