Paramahansa Yogananda Quotes

146 Sourced Quotes

Brotherhood is an ideal better understood by example than precept!

Paramahansa Yogananda
In titling this work The Second Coming of Christ, I am not referring to a literal return of Jesus to earth. He came two thousand years ago and, after imparting a universal path to God's kingdom, was crucified and resurrected; his reappearance to the masses now is not necessary for the fulfillment of his teachings. What is necessary is for the cosmic wisdom and divine perception of Jesus to speak again through each one's own experience and understanding of the infinite Christ Consciousness that was incarnate in Jesus. That will be his true Second Coming.

Paramahansa Yogananda
Roam in the world as a lion of self-control; see that the frogs of weakness don't kick you around.

Paramahansa Yogananda
Whenever you want to produce something, do not depend upon the outside source: go deep and seek the Infinite Source.

Paramahansa Yogananda
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.

Paramahansa Yogananda
You don't know what is going to come to you in this world; you have to go on living and worrying. Those who die are pitying us; they are blessing us. Why should you grieve for them?

Paramahansa Yogananda
Away, the partial love
That 'boldens Nature to sit above
Her Maker!

Paramahansa Yogananda
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.

Paramahansa Yogananda
Divine incarnations do not come to bring a new or exclusive religion, but to restore the One Religion of God-realization.
Many are the churches and temples founded in his name, often prosperous and powerful, but where is the communion that he stressed — actual contact with God? Jesus wants temples to be established in human souls, first and foremost; then established outwardly in physical places of worship. Instead, there are countless huge edifices with vast congregations being indoctrinated in churchianity, but few souls who are really in touch with Christ through deep prayer and meditation.

Paramahansa Yogananda
His interpretations of the Bhagavad Gita and other scriptures testify to the depth of Sri Yukteswarji's command of the philosophy, both Eastern and Western, and remain as an eye-opener for the unity between Orient and Occident. As he believed in the unity of all religious faiths, Sri Yukteswar Maharaj established Sadhu Sabha (Society of Saints) with the cooperation of leaders of various sects and faiths, for the inculcation of a scientific spirit in religion.

Paramahansa Yogananda
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.

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

Paramahansa Yogananda
It is a great mistake to regard a certain object as pleasurable in itself and to store the idea of it in the mind in hope of fulfilling a want by its actual presence in the future. If objects were pleasurable in themselves, then the same dress or food would always please everyone, which is not the case.

Paramahansa Yogananda
The so-called miraculous powers of a great master are a natural accompaniment to his exact understanding of subtle laws that operate in the inner cosmos of consciousness.

Paramahansa Yogananda
These teachings have been sent to explain the truth as Jesus intended it to be known in the world — not to give a new Christianity, but to give the real Christ-teaching: how to become like Christ, how to resurrect the Eternal Christ within one's Self...

Paramahansa Yogananda
Christ has been much misinterpreted by the world. Even the most elementary principles of his teachings have been desecrated, and their esoteric depths have been forgotten. They have been crucified at the hands of dogma, prejudice, and cramped understanding. Genocidal wars have been fought, people have been burned as witches and heretics, on the presumed authority of man-made doctrines of Christianity. How to salvage the immortal teachings from the hands of ignorance? We must know Jesus as an Oriental Christ, a supreme yogi who manifested full mastery of the universal science of God-union, and thus could speak and act as a savior with the voice and authority of God.

Paramahansa Yogananda
The greatest romance is with the Infinite.
You have no idea how beautiful life can be.
When you suddenly find God everywhere,
when He comes and talks to you and guides you,
the romance of divine love has begun.

Paramahansa Yogananda
The things you need in life are those that will help you to fulfill your dominant purpose. Things you may want but not need may lead you aside from that purpose. It is only by making everything serve your main objective that success is attained.

Paramahansa Yogananda
Wise guidance never violates people's Free Will. A superior who demands obedience of his subordinates should show respect for their capacity to understand, and also for their Innate Right to their own Free Will.

Paramahansa Yogananda
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.

Paramahansa Yogananda
Thought is the primary energy and vibration that emanated from God and is thus the creator of life, electrons, atoms, and all forms of energy.

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

Paramahansa Yogananda
There is in India a story of a dying youth who, hearing the sobs of grief around him, cried: Insult me not with your cries of sympathy. When I soar to the land of eternal light and love; it is I who should feel for you. For me, disease, shattering of bones, sorrow, excruciating heartaches no more. I dream joy, I glide in joy, I breathe in joy evermore.

Paramahansa Yogananda
Not an unconscious state
Or mental chloroform without wilful return,
Samadhi but extends my realm of consciousness
Beyond the limits of my mortal frame
To the boundaries of eternity,
Where I, the Cosmic Sea,
Watch the little ego floating in Me.

Paramahansa Yogananda
In the earlier days of history, kings and leaders went to the battlefield with their men; but today, those who determine that a nation will go to war remain safely behind. The next time leaders talk of warring, all the people should get together and send those leaders to the front lines. Give them a big arena with wonderfully effective ammunition, and the war will be finished in a day

Paramahansa Yogananda
The mother's love is not given to us to spoil us with indulgence, but to soften our hearts, that we may in turn soften others with kindness.

Paramahansa Yogananda
Mankind is engaged in an eternal quest for that 'something else' he hopes will bring him happiness, complete and unending.For those individual souls who have sought and found God, the search is over: He is that Something Else.

Paramahansa Yogananda
People are running, running, but there is no place in the world to which they can flee to escape themselves. Ultimately, each one must face himself.

Paramahansa Yogananda
Success is hastened or delayed by one's habits. It is not your passing inspirations or brilliant ideas so much as your everyday mental habits that control your life.

Paramahansa Yogananda
In the spiritual life one becomes just like a little child, without resentment, without attachment, full of life and joy.

Paramahansa Yogananda