Namaste, dear friends.
I’m sending you this last newsletter of the year to thank you for all your support and trust over all these years together.
I also want to wish you much Light for this final moment of the year and a blessed new beginning for all of you.
Accompanying you on this yoga journey is, for me, the most incredible, wonderful, and honorable purpose in the Universe. I couldn’t be more grateful.
Christmas Meditation
Before we finish 2026, if you want to connect with me once again, on Sunday, December 14th, from 5:30 PM to 6:30 PM (GMT), there will be an online Christmas meditation on Zoom.
The meditation is on donation, and all donations will be sent to Yoga de Rua in Rio de Janeiro (https://yogaderua.org), to abandoned animals (https://www.instagram.com/
Yogananda’s Friendship Poem
Thinking of you with my heart, here is this beautiful and inspiring poem by Master Yogananda, on Divine Friendship.
“Friendship”
What is friendship?
Is it the entwining of the purple cords of two hearts?
Is it the fusion of two minds into one great mind?
Is it the united spring of love, gushing forth to strengthen the impetus of love in arid souls?
Is it the rose blossoming between two similar branches of the same compassionate branch?
Is it a single thought in two different bodies?
Or is friendship perhaps like two strong stallions of different colors and temperaments,
drawing together, with a single vision,
the chariot of life toward the same goal?
Is friendship founded on equality or inequality?
Is it built on the foundations of differences?
Is friendship the unthinking agreement, the hand-in-hand, the blind path of two souls who foolishly rejoice in their shared folly, only to fall into the pit of disillusionment?
Is friendship noble, fruitful, holy,
when two souls walk together in diversity
yet in harmony, in agreement and disagreement,
improving themselves with enthusiasm and variety,
with the shared desire to find comfort in true happiness.
If the lover never seeks comfort for himself
by sacrificing the beloved,
it is precisely in that garden of altruism
that fragrant, perfect friendship blossoms,
because friendship is a hybrid, the fruit of two souls,
it is the fragrance of two different flowers,
mixed and diffused by the enveloping breeze of love.
Friendship is born from the heart
of inexplicable, secret affinities.
Friendship is the fountain of sincere feelings.
Friendship grows in affinity and difference.
Friendship slumbers or dies in familiarity
and festers in lustful, selfish, and limited desires.
Friendship grows tall and strong
in the soil of the unity of body, mind, and soul.
Pretensions, deceptions, the sordid sense of possession,
lack of courtesy, petty selfishness, suspicion
are all cancers that devour the heart of friendship.
Oh, Friendship! Flowering plant, blossoming in paradise!
You are nourished in the soil of unconditional love,
in the common quest for spiritual evolution,
by two souls who pave each other’s way.
And you are bathed in the most anxious care
and the dew of sweetness, internal and external,
by the deep and selfless devotion of the heart.
Oh, friendship! Where your flowers, blooming in the soul,
rest, there, on that sacred and fragrant sanctuary,
the friend of all friends longs to come and stay!
Paramhansa Yogananda, from the book “Whispers from Eternity”
Wishing you a wonderful end to the year with your family and friends, a blessed Christmas, and may the coming year be one of beautiful rebirth, evolution, and great accomplishments, both internally and externally, in Divine friendship. Always count on me; I’m here for you.
With Infinite Love,
Prema
Jay Guru Jay
Raquel Bhavani