A Quote by Paramahansa Yogananda
God-realization is attained only by great effort on the part of the yogi and by divine grace.
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The pure mystic wishes to approach his God only in the all-embracing love. The yogi, too, walks toward one single aspect of God. The bhakti-yogi keeps to the road of love and devotion, the raja and hatha yogi choose the path of self-control or volition, the jnana yogi will follow that of wisdom and cognition.
If we let ourselves believe that man began with divine grace, that he forfeited this by sin, and that he can be redeemed only by divine grace through the crucified Christ, then we shall find peace of mind never granted to philosophers. He who cannot believe is cursed, for he reveals by his unbelief that God has not chosen to give him grace.
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.
There is a warning here for true pilgrims. Beware of the talker, but also be careful not to judge too quickly those whom God has blessed with both genuine grace and a fluency to speak of divine mercy in ways more eloquent than others. The proof is in the life-not a perfect life, but a life that both delights in divine truth and magnifies God, the only giver of the sovereign grace that always produces the truly fruitful, fragrant life.
No matter how good you are, you still need grace to get out of the material world. You can be a yogi or a monk or a nun, but without God's grace you still can't make it.
Excellence in art is to be attained only by active effort, and not by passive impressions; by the manly overcoming of difficulties, by patient struggle against adverse circumstance, by the thrifty use of moderate opportunities. The great artists were not rocked and dandled into eminence, but they attained to it by that course of labor and discipline which no man need go to Rome or Paris or London to enter upon.
A man who has no part in the grace of God, cannot keep the commandments of God, or prepare himself, either wholly or in part, to receive grace; but he rests of necessity under the power of sin.
In this state [man's fallen condition], the Free Will of man toward the True God is not only wounded, maimed, infirm, bent, and weakened; but it is also imprisoned, destroyed and lost. And its powers are not only debilitated and useless unless they be assisted by grace, but it has no powers whatever except such as are excited by Divine grace.
It is grace at the beginning, and grace at the end. So that when you and I come to lie upon our death beds, the one thing that should comfort and help and strengthen us there is the thing that helped us in the beginning. Not what we have been, not what we have done, but the Grace of God in Jesus Christ our Lord. The Christian life starts with grace, it must continue with grace, it ends with grace. Grace wondrous grace. By the grace of God I am what I am. Yet not I, but the Grace of God which was with me.
Nature always takes you at your own valuation. Believe you are the child of God-really believe it. Believe that you express Divine Life, Divine Truth, and Divine Love. Believe that Divine Wisdom guides you. Believe that God is your supply. Believe that God is helping and blessing humanity through you. Believe that you are a special enterprise on the part of God and that he is opening your way-and what you really believe, that you will demonstrate.
I have indeed - praise be to God - attained my desire in this world, which was to travel through the earth, and i have attained in this respect what no other person has attained to my knowledge.
God realization and self-realization are one and the same. God-realization is nothing but the ability and expansiveness of heart to love everything equally.
If you read the stories of the great spiritual teachers of the past, we find that they have attained spiritual realization through a great deal of meditation, solitude and practice. They did not take any shortcuts.
Being a father or a mother is not only a great challenge, it is a divine calling. It is an effort requiring consecration.
This is the state of all creatures, whether men or angels; as they make not themselves, so they enjoy nothing from themselves; if they are great, it must be only as great receivers of the gifts of God; their power can only be so much of the divine power acting in them; their wisdom can be only so much of the divine wisdom shining within them; and their light and glory, only so much of the light and glory of God shining upon them.
It is delightfully easy to thank God for the grace we ourselves have received, but it requires great grace to thank God always for the grace given to others.
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