Sri Paramahansa Yogananda

 

Sri Paramahansa Yogananda

 

Sri Paramahansa Yogananda

 

Sri Paramahansa Yogananda

Make your meditation so intense that its effect lasts throughout all the day's activities. Do not be too busy to seek the One who created you. If you become king of the world, what then? If you conquer all nations, what then?

 

One day you will find you are dying and helpless. Why should you crave to own worldly things? They can be taken away from you anytime—as they surely will when you pass through the portals of death. Rather, make the effort to know that Something which can never be wrested from you.

 

God is the most uncertain to those who do not meditate, yet the yogi knows Him as the most dependable Certainty. And "great will be their reward" who find Him. Real happiness I have seen in the great yogis of India. Their earthly abode may be only a humble cave; but they are kings smiling with the joy of God, the King of kings, secure in their power over all creation.

 

Realize that to attain this consciousness of God is your ultimate and most worthwhile goal; I am telling you all the steps so that you know how to get there. It is not just sitting quietly and saying a little prayer that will give you God-realization; it is churning the silence with your prayer and desire for God. The result will be something wonderful.

 

You must make the effort: I am not here to feed you with words, but to nourish your soul with the love of God. From my researches in the laboratory of life, I have found eternal pleasure.

 

Sri Paramahansa Yogananda

 

Swami Paramahansa Yogananda

 

My Master said to me: “I will be your friend from now through eternity, no matter whether you are on the lowest mental plane or on the highest plane of wisdom. I will be your friend even if you should err, for then you will need my friendship more than at any other time.”

 

When I accepted my Master’s unconditional friendship, he said: “Will you give me the same unconditional love?” He gazed at me with childlike trust.

 

“I will love you eternally, Gurudeva!”

 

“Ordinary love is selfish, darkly rooted in desires and satisfactions. Divine love is without condition, without boundary, without change. The flux of the human heart is gone forever at the transfixing touch of pure love.” He added humbly, “If ever you find me falling from a state of God-realization, please promise to put my head on your lap and help to bring me back to the Cosmic Beloved we both worship.”

 

It was only after we had made this spiritual pact that I began to understand fully the significance of a guru to a disciple. I never found complete satisfaction, comfort, and God contact until I attuned myself with unconditional loyalty and devotion to the divine consciousness of my Guru.

 

Sri Paramahansa Yogananda

Paramhansa Yogananda

The greatest love you can experience is in communion with God in meditation. The love between the soul and Spirit is the perfect love, the love you are all seeking. When you meditate, love grows. Millions of thrills pass through your heart....If you meditate deeply, a love will come over you such as no human tongue can describe; you will know His divine love, and you will be able to give that pure love to others.

In the consciousness of one who is immersed in the divine love of God, there is no deception, no narrowness of caste or creed, no boundaries of any kind. When you experience that divine love, you will see no difference between flower and beast, between one human being and another. You will commune with all nature, and you will love equally all mankind.

If you could feel even a particle of divine love, so great would be your joy—so overpowering—you could not contain it.

- Paramhansa Yogananda

Paramhansa Yogananda

God is the life behind your life, the sight behind your eyes, the taste behind your tongue, and the love behind your love. To realize this to the fullest extent is Self-realization. Without God's power you can do nothing. If you always hold this thought, you cannot go wrong, because you will have purified the temple of your mind and your soul with the vibrations of God.

The love of God uplifts and enlarges us. I can never think of myself anymore as exclusively in this body; I feel that I am present in all bodies. I have no awareness of race or other distinctions at all. In my perceptions, just as I feel my own consciousness in every part of my physical form, I feel you all to be a part of me. Everything that is living I feel within this body. I know the sensations of all. It is not imagination; it is Self-realization. This consciousness is far beyond telepathy. It is awareness of the perceptions of every being.

- Paramhansa Yogananda

Paramhansa Yogananda

God is Eternal Bliss. His being is love, wisdom, and joy. He is both impersonal and personal, and manifests Himself in whatever way He pleases. He appears before His saints in the form each of them holds dear: a Christian sees Christ, a Hindu beholds Krishna or the Divine Mother, and so on. 

Devotees whose worship takes an impersonal turn become conscious of the Lord as an infinite Light or as the wondrous sound of Aum, the primal Word, the Holy Ghost. The highest experience man can have is to feel that Bliss in which every other aspect of Divinity — love, wisdom, immortality — is fully contained.

- Paramhansa Yogananda 

Paramhansa Yogananda

There cannot be any excuse for not thinking of God. 

Day and night, rolling in the background of your mind, 

God! God! God!

Whether you are washing dishes or digging a ditch or working in an office or a garden —whatever you may be doing—inwardly say, 

"Lord, manifest to me!

You are right here.

You are in the sun.

You are in the grass.

You are in the water.

You are in this room.

You are in my heart."

And when great love for God comes in your heart, you do not miss anything; no matter what you have or do not have in this world, you nevertheless feel fulfilled. Divine love transmutes all material desires — even the longing for human love, that mortal passion which so often brings pain either from its fickle nature or because it is snatched away by death. Loving the Lord, you can never turn back to being satisfied by lesser loves. In Him you will find all the love of all hearts. You will find completeness. Everything that the world gives you and then takes away, leaving you in pain or disillusionment, you will find in God in a much greater way, and with no aftermath of sorrow. 

From Realizing God In Your Daily Life 

(Journey to Self-Realization by Paramhansa Yogananda)

Paramhansa Yogananda

The paradox is that the simplest way to know God is the way of love.

Paramhansa Yogananda

There is a way of knowledge (Jnana Yoga) by which He can be known: the path of analytical discrimination, eliminating all that is not God—"Neti, neti," not this; not that. Another way is to purify oneself by performing nothing but good actions and renouncing the fruits thereof (Karma Yoga). And then there is the path of devotion (Bhakti Yoga), continuously thinking of God until one sees Him in everything. He is so evident if we look for Him with the eyes of devotion. We must make Him know that we want Him, that He cannot continue to elude us. If we press Him with our thoughts, with our longing for Him, He is bound to express Himself; He is bound to respond.

God's presence is so close; it is just as though somebody is playing hide-and-seek with you in a dark room. Though you do not see the person, you feel that he is there. That is how God is, just behind the darkness of your unseeing eyes. He is talking to us through the wise man. And He is inspiring us through the great ones, such as Christ, Krishna, and the Masters. He is, but where is He? That is what devotion answers: You do not have to see Him in order to become devoted to Him. Devotion means that you know He is omnipresent around you in the dark conundrum of cosmos, playing a divine game of hide-and-seek with you. Behind the leaves, behind the wind, behind the warm rays of the sun—He is hiding, but He is there. He is not far away; that is why it becomes easy to love Him.

God is the greatest lover our hearts can know. He loves to be pursued, because the only thing He hopes for is the love of His children. To receive their love is the sole purpose for which He sent forth creation. He has everything within Himself, except our love. He gave us free will to love Him or to love Him not. He wants us very much. That is why He sends His saints to show us the way back to Him.

By Paramhansa Yogananda

(Excerpts from 1998 SRF Magazine)

Paramhansa Yogananda

Mirabai composed many ecstatic songs, which are still treasured in India. I translate one of them here: 

If by bathing daily God could be realized Sooner would I be a whale in the deep; 

If by eating roots and fruits He could be known Gladly would I choose the form of a goat; 

If the counting of rosaries uncovered Him I would say my prayers on mammoth beads; 

If bowing before stone images unveiled Him A flinty mountain I would humbly worship; 

If by drinking milk the Lord could be imbibed Many calves and children would know Him; 

If abandoning one’s wife could summon God Would not thousands be eunuchs? 

Mirabai knows that to find the Divine One The only indispensable is Love. 

(Extract from Autobiography of Yogi)

Paramhansa Yogananda

GOD GOD GOD

Thou art the food and when I break my fast
Of nightly separation from Thee
I taste thee and mentally say

God, God, God!
No matter where I go, the spotlight of my mind
Ever keeps turning on Thee;
And in the battle dim of activity my silent war cry Is ever;
God, God, God!

When boisterous storms of trials shriek
And worries howl at me,
I drown their noises, loudly chanting
God, God, God!

When my mind weaves dreams
With treads of memories,
Then on that magic cloth I do emboss;
God, God, God!

Ever night, in time of deepest sleep,
My peace dreams and calls; Joy! Joy! Joy!
And my Joy comes singing evermore;
God, God, God!

In waking, eating, working, dreaming, sleeping,
Serving, meditating, chanting, divinely loving,
My soul constantly hums, unheard by any;
God, God, God! 

Paramhansa Yogananda

“It is not your passing thoughts or brilliant ideas so much as your plain everyday habits that control your life....Live simply. Don’t get caught in the machine of the world— it is too exacting. By the time you get what you are seeking your nerves are gone, the heart is damaged, and the bones are aching. Resolve to develop your spiritual powers more earnestly from now on. Learn the art of right living. If you have joy you have everything, so learn to be glad and contented....Have happiness now.” 

― Paramahansa Yogananda

Paramhansa Yogananda

Paramhansa Yogananda

Paramhansa Yogananda

Paramhansa Yogananda

God is

the life behind your life,

the sight behind your eyes,

the taste behind your tongue,

and the love behind your love.

To realize this to the fullest extent is Self-realization. Without God's power you can do nothing.

If you always hold this thought, you cannot go wrong, because you will have purified the temple of your mind and your soul with the vibrations of God.

Paramhansa Yogananda

Man's conscious state is an awareness of body and breath. His subconscious state, active in sleep, is associated with his mental, and temporary, separation from body and breath. His superconscious state is a freedom from the delusion that "existence" depends on body and breath. God lives without breath; the soul made in his image becomes conscious of itself, for the first time, only during the breathless state.” 

 (Autobiography of a Yogi)

Dear All,

What does Paramahamsa reveal in the above Gospel??

When we are awake       -    Body and Breath conscience present

When we are asleep.     -   Body and Breath conscience is missing temporarily

When  one 
gets Realization.            -     Body and Breath awareness is eternally 
                                             gone

And, the last state, the Paramahamsa aligns / relates with God's state and states that God has no breath.

So, only when we reach that ultimate state of SELF REALIZATION which Swamiji has referred as super conscious state, both we ( existing as soul and not as this body) and God's state are same and that is why THAT state is called SELF realization or GOD REALIZATION where,

SELF                =/ Merges with           GOD!!
(Atman).                                             (Brahman)

And, the author concludes for Nth time in this blog, "The above = or merging" with is the only purpose of our birth/ existence on this earth.

Love

Paramhansa Yogananda

Paramhansa Yogananda