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people. Nevertheless, there was one woman who came every week. When we 

told her we had decided to quit, she said, “You can’t! I’ve been looking all my 

life for a teaching like this.” We listened to her and heard her. I believe it was in 

that moment that a real ministry began. Our focus shifted from what we could 

accomplish to how we could serve, starting with one person. A deeper awareness 

that we had a role to play in the divine plan, one that would unfold in its own 

way and time was dawning. From that shift in consciousness, and the surrender 

that accompanied it, many doors opened. We stopped struggling and started 

serving.

We were offered the community room of a savings and loan building in Los 

Gatos for Sunday mornings. People started to come and to tell others about this 

new ministry. Those who had left traditional churches, but were still spiritually 

hungry, came to hear the radically positive message, as well as to learn to medi-

tate. Couples from different faith backgrounds found a spiritual home where 

they could worship together. Those who had no previous religious affiliation 

were delighted with the freedom to develop their spiritual life in a nonsectarian 

environment. One man told me that when a friend invited him to go to this new 

worship service, he replied that he didn’t go to church. His friend said, “It’s not 

a church, it’s in a bank.” He said, “Okay, I’m comfortable with going to a bank!” 

Gradually, the group of worshippers grew from one, to thirty, to three or four 

hundred attending two services on Sundays.

Through the years, we have offered nearly two thousand Sunday worship 

services, as well as thousands of classes and retreats, teaching people how to 

meditate and follow principles of spiritual living. It is inspiring to consider that 

services have been continuous for thirty-five years. Not a day missed. Today, 

worship services and classes are filled with seekers from all religious back-

grounds who sit side by side in the silence of divine communion worshipping 

the one Reality that is known by many names. The ministry itself has offered a 

witness: our lives and the lives of others are changed for good with faith in the 

ability of a power greater than ourselves to fulfill its purposes of healing and 

repairing our families, our community, and our world. All of life conspires to 

support our awakening as compassionate beings living in harmony with Truth, 

with one another, and the planet.

The spiritual root of CSE’s teaching is the tradition of Kriya Yoga, the science 

of Self-realization brought to the West by the great sage, Paramahansa Yoga-

nanda, in the 1920s. The Sanskrit word “yoga” means to yoke, join, or experience 

union. It is divine remembrance—the direct experience of our essential Self. 

The teachings of yoga are a nonsectarian spiritual path for seekers of all faiths 

“Our focus shifted from what we could accomplish  

to how we could serve, starting with one person.”