Cassandra Wolff

On the afternoon of 01/07/25 I received an email blast from Phil Bolsa, the community email list coordinator for friends of the SRF Encinitas Temple that read  “The fire in Pacific Palisades is out of control and very close to Lake Shrine. The fire area has grown to 770 acres and has forced evacuations.”

As the wildfire raged through the Palisades, I found myself furiously seeking updates on the area surrounding the Self-Realization Fellowship’s Lake Shrine Temple. It was as if my own home was on fire, desperately darting my eyes past any news report with the word fire and Palisades in it, scouring for information as a hunter tracking a fleeting shadow, each moment growing more and more allusive to anything that may have been happening in real time. Was the very first ember landing atop the Windmill chapel? So many questions raged through my mind.

When local news reported that the wildfire had grown to 21,000 acres and that it was the most destructive fire in LA county’s history, I started looking for answers. This did not seem accidental. I became suspicious— immersed in the tendency of human nature to demand ego-answers to soul-questions. What was the material meaning of this? I wouldn’t land into the spiritual meaning for yet a couple of days.

This is what the ego does, it uses all available resources of the mind to prove or disprove something that is out of our control.

The information I was gathering pointed toward “eco terrorism” or the action of causing deliberate environmental damage to further political ends. The sources mentioned LA “smart city” plans, California fire insurance companies, budget cuts to fire departments, mismanagement of water resources and so on, attempting to link these events to a planned attack.  

In those moments, I was caught up in the storyline of what was happening or not happening, trying fervently to piece something together. I was in the midst of frantic mental storymaking because my fast-moving ego needed calming, and wanted to feel less of a lack of control. Sadly, these Earthly disasters are a natural course of a world in the midst of transition, in many ways, we have worked to set these things in motion ourselves as the one path forward in our own evolution.

There I was, 7pm on that Tuesday, phone grasped close, my face shuttered in fear, tears streaming down the front of my body. All I could do was hold my face to try to feel a little stillness amid my inconsolable temperament. I was frozen in what was one of the hardest mental emotional moments relating to the material world that I have experienced in this lifetime.

Beloved Lake Shrine, you have been my refuge many a moment when life tore my heart asunder. You offered me spiritual gifts of silent retreats, unsurpassed peace in the stillness of Windmill Chapel, and clarity on countless walks around your light-sparkled lake. You witnessed my tears of joy and devotion as I knelt before Gandhi, immersed in a profound bliss that only you could provide. Your sky, endlessly calm, has poured its beauty and peace upon me time and time again. How shall I endure without you? What will happen to you in the midst of all of this?

On and on I went, sniffling feebly:

“I wanted to get married there.”

“My mother still has not seen Lake Shrine”

“I did not get to meditate on the houseboat”

“What about the swans and turtles?!”

“How can this even be happening?”

By the graces of God, Gurus and Saints of all Religions, on January 9th, 6:30pm, the worldwide SRF community received an official update from the Mother Center, the international headquarters of SRF, “We now have confirmation that the Lake Shrine Temple and Retreat buildings are completely undamaged.”

How did I allow myself to fall into such worry and fear?

I was entering the aftermath of of momentary ego-destruction to my little world, and now it was time to contemplate.

I think we can all relate to the reality that our spiritual discernment can weaken when we are faced with a fight-or-flight response that wants to protect something we love.

The first wave of insight came as guilt for placing an exorbitant emphasis on the Lake Shrine Temple itself rather than the people who had lost their homes. Change was happening too fast for my ego to comprehend, and I was misdirected in my attempts to console myself.

Nevertheless, in my spiritual consolations, I reminded myself of our Guru’s Guru, Swami Sri Yukteswar’s “The Holy Science” where He talks about change and transition in His excerpts on the yugas, portending that “transition is required to make the spiritual leap.”

He explains that the only way people become more spiritual is to be challenged on the physical plane. That challenge helps us to sustain and preserve that spiritual traction amid the challenges of maya-delusion.

What does this challenge point to? What is it asking me to see?

The second wave of insight came as a realization of the temple of my own heart.

Lake Shrine, here I am again, I beseech thee to hear my soul call. Though your soil and sacred waters have been consecrated by the Guru Himself, though you have been my refuge, clarity, my calm, I realize that your true sanctity lies not only in the physical realm but within the stillness of my own heart.

A third wave of insight swept through my awareness. That Guruji’s Temples are important, necessary and sacred, but they are secondary to the temple of the heart.

The situation that I find myself in is a special reminder for me to strengthen the caverns of the Temple of my own heart.

This does not mean that I should not lean into the holy places that Master has consecrated for His devotees. It means that the more I lean into my spiritual practice, the more I trust in my prayers to beckon the Gurus to my side, the more I strengthen my own Lake Shrine within, the taller I will stand in harmony and balance, even as pandemic, war, fire or hurricane surround me, my loved ones, or the Temples that I hold so dear.

“The Lake Shrine has been saved, its been preserved” -Brother Chidananda

“Those of you who have been following this path for years. You know, on the path of divine communion, we don’t speak much about our sacred experiences do we. And I tell you these last few days, witnessing what has taken place at the Lake Shrine, this is truly a spiritual experience. And because of that, accordingly I don’t plan to talk too much more about it. Other than it’s for the same reason as we don’t talk about our other spiritual experiences. You know why because it’s too easy to become proud, or smug or to feel somehow we’re better than others who didn’t fair as well. I want to share this thought with you that our Guru would have abhorred any sense of superiority complex based not the fact that we were spared while others have suffered. It’s completely opposite to the spirit of his life. His open hearted universality, his love and concern for the welfare of all. So, I really want to make this point, this is not a time for philosophizing or speculating about why we were protected and why others including many of the other churches in the area who were not.” -Brother Chidananda