Top 385 Quotes & Sayings by Paramahansa Yogananda - Page 6

Self-realization may be and sometimes is attained even by people who are struggling with sick and otherwise imperfect bodies; but it cannot be attained unless one can concentrate and meditate uninterruptedly upon God.

Find god - he isn't hiding from you, you're hiding from him.

Be inwardly ever newly joyous, like the ever-fresh laughing waters of a gurgling brook.

Just behind the darkness of closed eyes shines the light of God. When you behold that light in meditation, hold onto it with devotional zeal. Feel yourself inside it: That is where God dwells.

Every morning I offer my body, my mind and any ability that I posses, to be used by Thee, O infinite creator, in whatever way Thou dost choose to express Thyself through me. I know that all work is Thy work, and that no task is too difficult or too menial when offered to Thee in loving service.

Some form of self-discipline is necessary to transmute material desires into spiritual aspirations.

Evil spreads with the wind; truth is capable of spreading even against it.

Nothing may truly be said to be a miracle except in the profound sense that everything is a miracle.

When, by meditation, we withdraw restless thoughts from the lake of the mind, we behold our soul, a perfect reflection of Spirit.

The scenery of mountains painted on the ever-changing azure canvas of the sky, the mysterious mechanism of the human body, the rose, the green grass carpet, the magnanimity of souls, the loftiness of minds, the depth of love - all these things remind us of a God who is beautiful and noble.

Realize the tremendous spiritual power and beauty of the life of Christ, and try to live as he lived. Christ had no nationality. He loved all races as the children of God. Try to feel that brotherhood with all nationalities. Real brotherhood can never come unless we feel it in our hearts. Such feeling can be attained only through the actual contact of God in our hearts.

As I radiate love and goodwill to others, I will open the channel for God's love to come to me.

He who has realized oneness with God possesses all knowledge contained in Him. Knowing the Lord as Beginning and End of all beings and worlds, a true Brahmin has knowledge of the hereafter and of the workings of nature on this plane of existence.

Every night in sleep God takes away all your troubles to show you that you are not a mortal being; you are spirit.

Sri Yukteswar used to poke gentle fun at the commonly inadequate conceptions of renunciation."A beggar cannot renounce wealth," Master would say. "If a man laments: 'My business has failed; my wife has left me; I will renounce all and enter a monastery,' to what worldly sacrifice is he referring? He did not renounce wealth and love; they renounced him!"Saints like Gandhi, on the other hand, have made not only tangible material sacrifices, but also the more difficult renunciation of selfish motive and private goal, merging their inmost being in the stream of humanity as a whole.

The Bhagavad-Gita is where God Himself talks to His devotee Arjuna.

Humbly serving all with their beauty, flowers say more to us about God than anything else. Each one brings a message that the Heavenly Father is right here.

Gandhi has sound economic and cultural reasons for encouraging the revival of cottage industries, but he does not counsel a fanatical repudiation of all modern progress. Machinery, trains, automobiles, the telegraph have played important parts in his own colossal life! Fifty years of public service, in prison and out, wrestling daily with practical details and harsh realities in the political world, have only increased his balance, open-mindedness, sanity, and humorous appreciation of the quaint human spectacle.

Love is the heartbeat of all life.

He is the wisest who seeks God. He is the most successful who has found God.

The man of Self-realization knows a bliss that cannot be compared to anything in this world. His joy is independent of any object or sensory experience. It is an incomparable happiness that cannot be described in words. Such joy is known as sattvik-ananda.

Seek spiritual riches within. What you are is much greater than anyone or anything else you have ever yearned for.

As God talked with Arjuna, so will He talk with you. As He lifted up the spirit and consciousness of Arjuna, so will He uplift you. As he granted Arjuna supreme spiritual vision, so will He confer enlightenment on you.

Spirit is the vast stillness which is behind all created things.

World' is a large term, but man must enlarge his allegiance, considering himself in the light of a world citizen... A person who truly feels: 'The world is my homeland; it is my America, my India, my Philippines, my England, my Africa,' will never lack scope for a useful and happy life. His natural local pride will know limitless expansion; he will be in touch with creative universal currents.

Bring into play the almighty power within you, so that on the stage of life you can fulfill your high destined role.

Just as oil is present in every part of the olive, so love permeates every part of creation.

As God is omnipresent in the cosmos but is undisturbed by its variety, so man, who as a soul is individualized Spirit, must learn to participate in this cosmic drama with a perfectly poised and equilibrated mind.

The seeker of God is the real lover of vidya, unchangeable truth; all else is avidya, relative knowledge.

If you are posing as religious and are not living the life as stressed by God, you should wake up. It is wrong to be insincere. The best time to begin a religious life is when you are youthful and well. If you have a short time to live, you must work harder at it. And if you have along time to live, you should not waste that precious opportunity.

When you know God as peace within, then you will realize Him as peace existing in the universal harmony of all things without.

One may have many teachers, but only one guru, who remains as one's guru even in many different lives, until the disciple reaches the final goal of emancipation in God. You must remember this, once that relationship is formed.

Brotherhood is an ideal better understood by example than precept!

You naturally love those who are dear to you, and you must learn to give that kind of love to the whole world.

Have the unflinching determination to move on your path unhampered by limiting thoughts of past errors.

I am calmly active, actively calm. I am the prince of peace sitting on a throne of poise, directing the kingdom of my activity.

Those in the West who have adopted Christ as their own should remember that he was an Oriental. Love and sympathy for Jesus should be expanded into love and sympathy for all Orientals, and for all the world.

Work for god, love god alone, and be wise with god. When an ordinary man puts the necessary rime and enthusiasm into meditation and prayer, he becomes a divine man.

Through the orifice of silence, the whole geyser of Bliss, perpetually shoots up and flows over the soul.

In your heart must well that sympathy which soothes away all pains from the hearts of others.

As you forget self in service to others, you will find that, without seeking it, your own cup of happiness will be full.

Affirm divine calmness and peace, and send out only thoughts of love and goodwill if you want to live in peace and harmony. Never get angry, for anger poisons your system.

Births and deaths are inevitable for man only during the state of ignorance in which he thinks he is the body and cannot exist without it. Only the man who will not seek the awakening of wisdom must suffer the nightmares and delusive dreams of births and deaths and the fanciful miseries and limitations attending them. (gt)

The greatest dread of ordinary man is death, with its rude imposition interrupting fortuitous plans and fondest attachments with an unknown and unwelcome change. The yogi is a conqueror of the grief associated with death. By control of mind and life force and the development of wisdom, he makes friends with the change of consciousness called death-he becomes familiar with the state of inner calmness and aloofness from identification with the mortal body.

The reality of my life cannot die for I am indestructible consciousness.

If God calls me tomorrow I will go without a moment's turning back.

Remember this: When I am gone, only love can take my place. Be absorbed night and day in the love of God, and give that love to all.

If religion means primarily God-consciousness, or the realization of God both within and without, and secondarily a body of beliefs, tenets and dogmas, then, strictly speaking, there is but one religion in the world, for there is but one God.

God-realization is attained only by great effort on the part of the yogi and by divine grace.

Forget your dream-born mortal weakness. Wake up and know that you and God are one.

Lord Krishna... proclaims Self-realization, true wisdom, as the highest branch of all human knowledge-the king of all sciences, the very essence of dharma ("religion")-for it alone permanently uproots the cause of man's threefold suffering and reveals to him his true nature of Bliss. Self-realization is yoga or "oneness" with truth-the direct perception or experience of truth by the all-knowing intuitive faculty of the soul.

Peace is the altar of God, the condition in which happiness exists.

The Spirit of God, I realized, is exhaustless Bliss; His body is countless tissues of light.

Keep puffing on the bubble until it breaks its confining walls and becomes the sea of joy.

Possession of material riches, without inner peace, is like dying of thirst while bathing in a lake. If material poverty is to be avoided, spiritual poverty is to be abhorred. For it is spiritual poverty, not material lack, that lies at the core of all human suffering.

Consider no one a stranger. Learn to feel that everybody is akin to you.

Sing songs that none have sung

It is foolish to be afraid of death. Just think. No more repaired tires on the body vehicle, no more patchwork living.

Self-realization is, in fact, the only religion. For it is the true purpose of religion, no matter how people define their beliefs.

Self-realization is the knowing in all parts of body, mind, and soul that you are now in possession of the kingdom of God.