Paramahansa Yogananda Quotes

146 Sourced Quotes

Mind is the creator of everything. You should therefore guide it to create only good. If you cling to a certain thought with dynamic will power, it finally assumes a tangible outward form. When you are able to employ your will always for constructive purposes, you become the controller of your destiny.

Paramahansa Yogananda
Weaken a bad habit by avoiding everything that occasioned it or stimulated it, without concentrating upon it in your zeal to avoid it. Then divert your mind to some good habit and steadily cultivate it until it becomes a dependable part of you.

Paramahansa Yogananda
Sing songs that none have sung, think thoughts that ne'er in the brain have rung,
Walk in paths that none have trod, weep tears as none have shed for God,
Give peace to all to whom none other gave,
Claim him your own who's everywhere disclaimed.
Love all with love that none have felt and
Brave the battle of life with strength unchained.

Paramahansa Yogananda
I don't want people to think that they can attain realization simply by listening to others or by reading books. They must practice what they read and hear.

Paramahansa Yogananda
Why forgive one who wrongs you? Because if you angrily strike back you misrepresent your own divine soul nature-you are no better than your offender. But if you manifest spiritual strength you are blessed, and the power of your righteous behavior will also help the other person to overcome his misunderstanding.

Paramahansa Yogananda
God-realization is the most difficult state to reach. Let no one fool himself, nor think that someone else can "give" it to him. Whenever I fell into a state of mental stagnation, my Master could do nothing for me. But I never gave up trying to keep in tune with him by cheerfully performing whatever he asked me to do. "I have come to him for God-realization," I reasoned, "and I must listen to his advice."

Paramahansa Yogananda
Truths are not truths to you unless you realize them within yourself. Without realization, they are just ideas. For spiritual perception, spiritual consciousness, lies not in vague theological ideas, but in the acquisition of Self-realization.

Paramahansa Yogananda
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.

Paramahansa Yogananda
Ever-new Joy is God. He is inexhaustible; as you continue your meditations during the years, He will beguile you with an infinite ingenuity. Devotees like yourself who have found the way to God never dream of exchanging Him for any other happiness; He is seductive beyond thought of competition.

Paramahansa Yogananda
We are what we think we are. The habitual inclination of our thoughts determines our talents and abilities, and our personality. So whatever you want to be, start to develop that pattern now.

Paramahansa Yogananda
Most of the world is like a mental hospital. Some persons are sick with jealousy, others with anger, hatred, passion. They are victims of their habits and emotions. But you can make your home a place of peace.

Paramahansa Yogananda
Be honest with yourself. The world is not honest with you. The world loves hypocrisy. When you are honest with yourself you find the road to inner peace.

Paramahansa Yogananda
Those persons who have perceptive eyes enjoy beauty everywhere.

Paramahansa Yogananda
We should bathe our spirits in the deep, pure feeling that stirs within us when we gaze on the glories of His creation. This is the way to know God as beauty.

Paramahansa Yogananda
Truths are more than imagination; they are real. Yet their origin is a thought in the mind of God.

Paramahansa Yogananda
I relax and cast aside all mental burdens, allowing God to express through me His perfect love, peace, and wisdom.

Paramahansa Yogananda
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.

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

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

Paramahansa Yogananda
This world is not the same to all people. Each one lives in his little domain....Peace and harmony may reign in one person's world; where strife and restlessness in anothers. But whatever the circumstances of one's environment, it consists of both an inner and an outer world. The outside world is the one in which your life engages in action and interaction. The world inside of you determines your happiness or unhappiness.

Paramahansa Yogananda
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?

Paramahansa Yogananda
Sincerity is a soul quality that God has given to every human being, but not all express it.

Paramahansa Yogananda
You had to fight to get into the womb. Not only you but many souls rushed to enter, and the ones that won are you, and you and I. It was not an easy victory.

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

Paramahansa Yogananda
Everything is Spirit - in essence, though hidden in manifestation. If you had the perception, you would see God in everything.

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

Paramahansa Yogananda
I am a spark from the Infinite.
I am not flesh and bones.
I am light.

Paramahansa Yogananda
Our great whirling planet, our human individuality, were not given to us merely that we might exist for a time and then vanish into nothingness, but that we might question what it is all about.
To live without understanding the purpose of life is foolish, a waste of time. The mystery of life surrounds us; we were given intelligence in order to solve it.

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

Paramahansa Yogananda
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.

Paramahansa Yogananda