Quotes from Paramahansa Yogananda

A man who bows down to nothing can never bear the burden of himself.

It is never a question of belief ; the only scientific attitude one can take on any subject is whether it is true . The law of gravitation worked as efficiently before Newton as after him. The cosmos would be fairly chaotic if its laws could not operate without the sanction of human belief.

A divine decree, resting beyond the gaze of human beings, works mysteriously to bring all things into outer manifestation at the proper time.

unwritten law for the truth seeker is patience; a master may purposely make a test of one's eagerness to meet him. This psychological ruse is freely employed in the West by doctors and dentists!

A God-tuned master: Innocent of all personal motives, and employing the creative will bestowed on him by the Creator, a yogi rearranges the light atoms of the universe to satisfy any sincere prayer of a devotee.

It is only when a traveler has reached his goal that he is justified in discarding his maps. During the journey, he takes advantage of any convenient short cut.

The body of the average man is like a fifty-watt lamp, which cannot accommodate the billion watts of power roused by an excessive practice of Kriya. Through gradual and regular increase of the simple and foolproof methods of Kriya, man's body becomes astrally transformed day by day, and is finally fitted to express the infinite potentials of cosmic energy-the first materially active expression of Spirit.

The different sensory stimuli to which man reacts — tactual, visual, gustatory, auditory, and olfactory — are produced by vibratory variations in electrons and protons. The vibrations in turn are regulated by prana, "lifetrons," subtle life forces or finer-than-atomic energies intelligently charged with the five distinctive sensory idea-substances. Gandha

That is why I opened Santiniketan under the shady trees and the glories of the sky." He motioned eloquently to a little group studying in the beautiful garden. "A child is in his natural setting amidst the flowers and songbirds. Only thus may he fully express the hidden wealth of his individual endowment. True education can never be crammed and pumped from without; rather, it must aid in bringing spontaneously to the surface the infinite hoards of wisdom within.

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven."1

Through difficult daily lessons you will sometime see clearly that bad habits nourish the tree of unending material desires, while good habits nourish the tree of spiritual aspirations.

Yoga is a method for restraining the natural turbulence of thoughts, which otherwise impartially prevent all men, of all lands, from glimpsing their true nature of Spirit.

I realised anew that God wants His children to love everything as a part of Him and not to feel delusively that death ends all. The ignorant man sees only the unsurmountable wall of death, hiding, seemingly forever, his cherished friends. But the man of unattachment, he who loves others as expressions of the Lord, understands that at death the dear ones have only returned for a breathing-space of joy in Him.

Outward frailty has mental origin; in a vicious circle, the habit-bound body thwarts the mind.

that finding God will mean the funeral of all sorrows." Among

The cosmos [is] a varied expression of one power - light, guided by divine intelligence.

The sleeping man becomes a yogi; each night he unconsciously performs the yogic rite of releasing himself from bodily identification, and of merging the life force with healing currents in the main brain region and the six sub-dynamos of his spinal centres. The sleeper thus dips unknowingly into the reservoir of cosmic energy which sustains all life.

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

If we had a man like Paramahansa Yogananda in the United Nations today, probably the world would be a better place than it is. To my knowledge, no one has worked more, has given more of himself, to bind the peoples of India and America together.

for the faults of the many, judge not the whole. Everything on earth is of mixed character, like a mingling of sand and sugar. Be like the wise ant which seizes only the sugar, and leaves the sand untouched.

A dreaming person does not know that a nightmare is unreal until he wakes up.

Do you know the Bhagavad Gita? No, sir, not really; though my eyes and mind have run through its pages many times.

May obedience conquer disobedience within this house; may peace triumph here over discord; free-hearted giving over avarice, truthful speech over deceit, reverence over contempt. That our minds be delighted, and our souls uplifted, let our bodies be glorified as well; and 0 Light Divine, may we see Thee, and may we, approaching, come round about Thee, and attain unto Thine entire companionship!

The goal of yoga science is to calm the mind, that without distortion it may mirror the divine vision in the universe.