Where Are You Going?

Where Are You Going?
by Deana Tareshawty

Sat Chit Ananda Guru Ki Jay

Muktananda Paramahmsa shares, “O friend, where are you going? Where have you come from, and what are you supposed to do? You belong to the Supreme truth, but you have forgotten your origin. Now it is time to get back on the main road. Today the world is said to be making more and more progress, but in what way has it become greater? Murder, thievery, fighting, and destruction are on the rise everywhere. All over the world there is hatred among nations, hostility among political parties, animosity among societies, and enmity among races and classes.  People talk about innovation and reform, but in the name of these things they have succeeded only in destroying the environment, in wrecking family life, and in increasing selfishness and hostility. In such a world there is only one thing we need, and that is the true understanding of humanity. Yet that is exactly what we lack. Why does a human being behave as he does? Why does he create barriers between himself and others? Why does he live with enmity and competition instead of a feeling of brotherhood? He does these things because he lacks true understanding about himself. He does not know the greatness that lies within the human heart. He imagines that he is false, ordinary, and weak, and that he will simply pass through this world and die. Yet, if he were to look within himself, he would realize that he contains the divinity of the entire world.”

In preparing for this blog, I was somewhat directionless. I had a topic in mind, but where I was going with it wasn’t exactly clear.  I needed that one spark of inspiration to turn “where is this all going” into “now I’ve got it.”

Since these mantras “where is this going” filled my mind, I decided to see if that spark of inspiration was within the pages of Baba’s book, “Where Are You Going.” I pulled it from my shelf and found the direction I was looking for in the utterance above.

Baba wrote these words in 1981. Today in 2025, they still ring true and the conditions of the world he speaks of have not changed much. Now more than ever, we need the Grace and love of the Siddhas to help us understand the purpose of our human birth. We need to be reminded why Shaktipat and Sadhana is necessary to address our identity crisis and the ills of the world.

Reading Baba’s words reminded me that I need to reflect on where I am going, where I have come from and what I am supposed to do in Sadhana, so that I can stop getting stuck in Sadhana by making it more complicated than it truly is out of fear, stubbornness and resistance.

Where I Have Come From

The saints and sages of our lineage share that we are the Self. Our true nature is the indescribable Joy of the Self that is found beyond the mind and the senses. From lifetimes of concealing this fact from ourselves, we forget who we are. In our forgetting, we become what others want us to be by way of adopting the cult of personality, thinking we are a unique individual. We are shaped by the pressure to fit in by the conditioning of society, the beliefs of our parents, friends, teachers and lovers. We seek to find happiness in things that are based in the world. We become stuck in the maze of worldliness, constantly pursuing reward.

This was my life experience. I had struggled so much with depression, poor self-esteem, and feeling directionless in life. I didn’t know what happiness was. I defined myself in my roles as a woman, daughter, student, a wife, and mother. I defined myself by the material possessions I had or didn’t have. I had so many expectations of what life was supposed to be like.  I was becoming what others wanted me to be in these roles, thinking this was my purpose in life.

Shaktipat was the catalyst that began a true healing within me. It sparked a remembrance within me. During the receipt of Shaktipat, by the Grace of Kedarji, I had the direct experience that showed me who I am, the Self.  In that, I had an awareness that I am so much greater than I thought I was. This experience changed the direction of my life and how I think of myself.

Sadhana- Changing Course

After I received Shaktipat, I was euphoric and enthusiastic about where my life was going. I was awash in the peace and happiness in receiving the Grace of my Guru. There was an ease to my daily spiritual practice that allowed me to love where I was going.  I looked forward to sitting for meditation because I was experiencing the peace of going beyond the mind and senses.

Changing the course of my life required effort. It required me to put into practice what I had been learning in Nityananda Shaktipat Yoga so that I could observe, evaluate, remove and replace people, places and things, along with ideas, and beliefs, that no longer served me in the direction I wanted to go.

So, the time came to begin the inner work. I entered the Shaktipat Kriya Process, also known as Sadhana and I stand in the mirror of the Guru.

In Sadhana, to make permanent spiritual transformation and to address my karmic baggage, I must be shown where I am at and reminded where I am going.  I must be shown the limitation of the ego idea and how this impacts my experience of joy in daily living. This is accomplished by embracing Sadhana under the leadership of the Shaktipat Siddha Guru and the Shaktipat Kriya Process.

I was no stranger to understanding that I needed to have some level of dedication and discipline to gain and become good at a skill. I was a cheer leader and I was in the performing arts growing up, so I knew I had to practice and focus to be successful in those activities.

But, changing the course of my life by way of adopting the discipline taught by Kedarji is something I never had been asked to do, simply because this was of a spiritual nature. I had a block in my understanding where this was concerned.

So, due to this understanding, I can share that I was resistant and very stubborn in this process. As I began to see the obstacles, the tendencies, and ways I conceal my true nature from myself, as revealed in the Shaktipat Kriya Process, I began to feel less than enthusiastic about Sadhana, mainly because I didn’t think I had any tendencies or bad habits.

I started to believe that I was having the experience that my life was falling apart, and only bad things were happening to me. I didn’t understand it at the time, but this was all my Guru’s Grace, clearing the path for me to move forward. This Grace is in the giving and taking. And good things did happen to me during this time. At that time, I was only focused on giving attention to what I perceived to be negative experiences, in order to feed my ego idea and breed doubt about where I was going.

Fears and Expectations In Sadhana

Kedarji has shared that, in the process of surrendering the false notion of who we are, the ego will hear a lot of things it doesn’t like, and it will cause problems.

This was the case for me. The ego began to cause problems, and I entertained it. Thus, when it came time to embrace and contemplate the highest understandings and the wisdom utterances of the sages of our lineage that caused me to question and challenge the worldly understandings I currently held, I found myself struggling with and overwhelmed by a spiritual lifestyle.

Suddenly, all the instructed daily spiritual practices seemed to be too much for me. Doubts, along with fear, began to creep into my thinking. I started to become upset at only seeing things I considered “bad” about myself, such as how I reach for fear, praise and blame, and pain to deal with mundane life experiences.

Being resistant and stubborn allowed fears of all shapes and sizes to easily fill my mind. One of the biggest fears I had, and still have to some degree in Sadhana, is the fear of letting go of my current worldly life. A reason that I cling to this attachment is due to a fear of the unknown. I don’t know how my life will look and feel without these things.

Expectations about Sadhana ride in on the back of my fears and doubts. Because we live in a fast-paced world where we can have anything we want in an instant, I brought this worldly understanding and expectation into my Sadhana. I also believed that I should be permanently liberated in only a few months’ time and with as little effort as possible. My ego tells me that if this path is the easy means, why am I not there yet. This caused me to worry about the future of my Sadhana and if I would ever have what it takes to be Liberated.

Where I am Going

Kedarji shares, “Sadhana is our instructed daily spiritual practice to reduce cravings, desires, doubts, fears and worries. To reduce these things to ashes in the fire of Sadhana. The purpose of Sadhana is to perfect surrendering the ego idea in order to experience the bliss of the Self, from moment to moment. Our duty in Sadhana is to have as many experiences of our True Nature as possible, in one, 24-hour period.”

Kedarji recently shared in a Wednesday program that as we go about Sadhana, we should not think the states of the self-realized beings of our lineage are unattainable, and we shouldn’t worry about when and if Liberation will come.

We are the Self, we are Love. Our perfection is already with us. We just forget and need to be reminded to reach for the practices that deliver us to the experience of the indescribable Joy of the Self. In Sadhana, it is important that we remain fully present with the Self, from moment to moment. This is a practice. If we are not experiencing joy, we have another moment coming to change course, using the methods we have been taught, to experience Joy. Sadhana is the practice of experiencing as many moments of indescribable Joy as possible, for the day we are on.

This instruction is not new to me. In fact, in the 10 years I have been engaged in Nityananda Shaktipat Yoga, Kedarji has been saying that this is the way to go about performing Sadhana. However, when I heard it this time, I began to revisit what I thought I heard and knew about Sadhana.

Hearing this instruction again caused me to have a renewed enthusiasm for my Sadhana.

I had the realization that all the suffering, stubbornness, fear, and resistance I experience in Sadhana is because I don’t remember this very important point of wisdom. The focus of my Sadhana is to perfect the practice for the 24-hour period I am on. In my sharing of where I was and how I previously proceeded in Sadhana, along with the understandings I was holding, it is clear that I was not proceeding the way Kedarji instructs me to do.

I understood that this is where I am going- focus on my Sadhana just for the day I am on. My goal is to have one more moment of the experience of the Bliss of the Self than I did yesterday and leave my future to God. This is the way I will stay on the road of the Self.

Sat Chit Ananda Guru Ki Jay

Deana Tareshawty performs her selfless service as Vice President of our public charity, The Bhakta School, in addition to serving as a program leader and harmonium player. She also serves on our Board of Directors. Additionally, she holds a Bachelor of Arts in Communications and a double minor in Biology and Chemistry. She is a certified Ecology of Well-Being practitioner and the owner of Inspired Wholeness. She is also a trained Reiki Master in Usui Reiki.