Top 385 Quotes & Sayings by Paramahansa Yogananda - Page 4

Analyze yourself. All emotions are reflected in the body and mind. Envy and fear cause the face to pale, love makes it glow.

The more you meditate, the more helpful you can be to others, and the more deeply you will be in tune with God.

Retire to the center of your being, which is calmness.

Know that this universe is nothing but a dream bluff of nature to test your consciousness of immortality.

Why shouldn't you strengthen your own vibrations through fellowship with people seeking Self-realization, and by group meditation with them? This practice will fortify your own spiritual convictions you will find that many seemingly insuperable barriers in your life will crumble and dissolve in the waters of meditation. Your devotion and love for God will commingle with the devotion and love of others. Divine bliss will radiate from you, helping all persons you meet.

When you make up your mind to do good things, you will accomplish them if you use dynamic will power to follow through. No matter what the circumstances are, if you go on trying, God will create the means by which your will shall find its proper reward.

Consider whether fulfillment of the goal you have chosen will constitute success. What is success? If you possess health and wealth, but have trouble with everybody (including yourself), yours is not a successful life. Existence becomes futile if you cannot find happiness. When wealth is lost, you have lost a little; when health is lost, you have lost something of more consequence; but when peace of mind is lost, you have lost the highest treasure.

You are walking on the earth as in a dream. Our world is a dream within a dream; you must realize that to find God is the only goal, the only purpose, for which you are here. For Him alone you exist. Him you must find.

Stillness is the altar of spirit.

Mind is the creator of everything.

He who is persistent will realize God. So try your best to make meditation a regular experience in your life.

Conserve the vital energy, follow a balanced diet, and always smile and be happy. He who finds joy within himself discovers that his body is charged with electric current, life energy, not from food but from God. If you feel that you can't smile, stand before a mirror and with your fingers pull your mouth into a smile. It is that important!

The time will come when mankind will begin to get away from the consciousness of needing so many material things. More security and peace will be found in the simple life.

You cannot make steel until you have made the iron white-hot in fire. It is not meant for harm. Trouble and disease have a lesson for us. Our painful experiences are not meant to destroy us, but to burn out our dross, to hurry us back Home. No one is more anxious for our release than God.

Great healers, people of divine realization, do not cure by chance but by exact knowledge.

It takes a long time-many incarnations of right action, good company, help of the guru, self-awakening, wisdom, and meditation-for man to regain his soul consciousness of immortality. To reach this state of Self-realization, each man must practice meditation to transfer his consciousness from the limited body to the unlimited sphere of joy felt in meditation.

Group Meditation is a castle that protects the new spiritual aspirants as well as the veteran meditators. Meditating together increases the degree of Self-realization of each member of the group by the law of invisible vibratory exchange of group magnetism.

The greatest romance is with the Infinite.

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. That is the meaning of Christ Consciousness.

When you learn to live for others, they will live for you.

So long as we believe in our heart of hearts that our capacity is limited and we grow anxious and unhappy, we are lacking in faith. One who truly trusts in God has no right to be anxious about anything.

Never be petty. Do not feed resentments against anyone. I prefer good-hearted sinners to so called good people who are intolerant and devoid of compassion. Being spiritual is to have an open mind, understand and forgive, and be friends with everyone.

Those who are unconquered in spirit are the real successes in life. If you can so train or condition your mind that you are content regardless of what you have or do not have, and if you can stand the challenge of all your trials and remain calm-that is true happiness.

When you yearn for God with intensity, He will come to you.

The way to freedom is through service to others. The way to happiness is through meditation and being in tune with God... break the barriers of your ego, shed selfishness, free yourself from the consciousness of the body, forget yourself, do away with this prison house of incarnations, melt your heart in all, be one with creation.

Those who look at the surface of the sea must behold the birth and death of the waves, but those who seek the depths of the ocean behold one indivisible mass of water. Similarly, those who acknowledge "life" and "death" are tossed by sorrow, while those who live in the illimitable superconsciousness behold and feel the One Ineffable Bliss.

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.

Be afraid of nothing. Hating none, giving love to all, feeling the love of God, seeing His presence in everyone, and having but one desire - for His constant presence in the temple of your consciousness - that is the way to live in this world.

In that power of self-control lies the seed of eternal freedom.

What are you afraid of? You are an immortal being. You are neither a man nor a woman, as you may think, but a soul - joyous, eternal.

Come into the silence of solitude, and the vibration there will talk to you through the voice of God.

Carrying a thought with dynamic will power means holding it until that thought pattern develops dynamic force. When a thought is made dynamic by will force, it can manifest according to the mental blueprint you have created.

If death were the end, then there is no God, and there are no realised masters - it is all a pack of lies. The great ones wouldn't urge you to became better, for what would be the use if, good or bad, we are all junked at the end of life? What would be the value of the scriptures? There would be no justice whatsoever if this present existence is all there is to each individual life. What of those souls who lived only a few years, or lived in blind or crippled bodies?

Environment is stronger than will.

We do not always see the things that are nearest to us. We pass by riches that lie close at hand and chase after rainbows.

With the realization of God comes all power. If the little wave knew that behind it is the great ocean, it could say, "I am the ocean." You should realize that just behind your consciousness is the Ocean of God.

Seclusion is the price of greatness.

The deeper the Self-realization of a man, the more he influences the whole universe by his subtle spiritual vibrations, and the less he himself is affected by the phenomenal flux.

Incredible amounts of energy are hidden in your brain; enough in a gram of flesh to run the city of Chicago for 2 days. And you say you are tired?

Success is not rightly measured by wealth, prestige and power. Success is measured by the yardstick of happiness.

When a man in the process of dreaming becomes conscious that he is dreaming, he is no longer identified with the phenomena; he is not affected exultantly or dolefully. God consciously dreams His cosmic play and is unaffected by it's dualities. A yogi who perceives his real self as separate from his active senses and their objects never becomes attached to anything. He is aware of the dream nature of the universe and watches it without being entangled in its complex but ephemeral nature.

In vegetables and fruits, God has infused medicinal power to help in overcoming disease. Even these, however, have but a limited potency. The organs of the body are essentially sustained by the energy of God, and the person who employs various methods to increase this energy will have at his command a greater power for healing than is afforded by any medicine or diet.

As a mortal being you are limited, but as a child of God you are unlimited... Focus your attention on God, and you shall have all the power you want, to use in any direction.

Happiness blooms naturally in the hearts of those who are inwardly free. It flows spontaneously, like a mountain spring after April showers, in minds that are contented with simple living.

Build your inner environment. Practice Silence! I remember the wonderful discipline of the Great Ones. When we used to talk and chatter, they would say: "Go back into your inner castle." It was very hard to comprehend then, but now I understand the way of peace

Environment is of supreme importance. It is greater than will power.

It is not a pumping-in from the outside that gives wisdom; it is the power and extent of your inner receptivity that determines how much you can attain of true knowledge, and how rapidly. You can quicken your evolution by awakening and increasing the receptive power of your brain cells.

The power of unfulfilled desires is the root of all man's slavery

The material and the spiritual are but two parts of one universe and one truth. By overstressing one part or the other, man fails to achieve the balance necessary for harmonious development... Practice the art of living in this world without losing your inner peace of mind. Follow the path of balance to reach the inner wondrous garden of Self-Realization.

I am no longer the wave of consciousness thinking itself separated from the sea of cosmic consciousness. I am the ocean of Spirit that has become the wave of human life.

To commune daily with God in deep meditation, and to carry His love and guidance with you into all your dutiful activities, is the way that leads to permanent peace and happiness.

Do your best and then relax.

From joy people are born; for joy they live; in joy they melt at death. Death is an ecstasy, for it removes the burden of the body and frees the soul of all pain springing from body identification. It is the cessation of pain and sorrow.

The true basis of religion is not belief, but intuitive experience. Intuition is the soul’s power of knowing God. To know what religion is really all about, one must know God.

Coercion or compulsion never brings about growth. It is freedom that accelerates evolution.

Intuition is soul guidance, appearing naturally in man during those instants when his mind is calm.

When you worry, there is static coming through your mind radio. God's song is the song of calmness. Nervousness is the static; calmness is the voice of God speaking to you through the radio of your soul.

Do not think of yourself as the body, but as the joyous consciousness and immortal life behind it.

To work with God's happiness bubbling in the soul is to carry a portable paradise within you wherever you go.

The best methods are those which help the life energy to resume its inner work of healing