Teachers

Paramahansa Yogananda

Contents

Biography

Quotations

Affirmations

Literature

Notes

Bibliography

Links

Biography

Paramahansa Yogananda (1893-1952) was born Mukunda Lal Ghosh on January 5,

1893, in Gorakhpur, India, into a devout and well-to-do Bengali family. From his

earliest years, it was evident to those around him that the depth of his awareness

and experience of the spiritual was far beyond the ordinary. In his youth he sought out
many of India's sages and saints, hoping to find an illumined teacher to guide him in
his spiritual quest.

It was in 1910, at the age of 17, that he met and became a disciple of the revered
Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri. In the hermitage of this great master of Yoga he spent
the better part of the next ten years, receiving Sri Yukteswar's strict but loving
spiritual discipline. After he graduated from Calcutta University in 1915, he took
formal vows as a monk of India's venerable monastic Swami Order, at which time
he received the name Yogananda (signifying bliss, ananda, through divine union,
yoga). His ardent desire to consecrate his life to the love and service of God thus
found fulfillment.

Yogananda began his life's work with the founding, in 1917, of a "how-to-live"
school for boys, where modern educational methods were combined with yoga
training and instruction in spiritual ideals. Visiting the school a few years later,
Mahatma Gandhi wrote: "This institution has deeply impressed my mind."

In 1920, Yogananda was invited to serve as India's delegate to an international
congress of religious leaders convening in Boston. His address to the congress, on
"The Science of Religion," was enthusiastically received. That same year he founded
Self-Realization Fellowship to disseminate worldwide his teachings on India's
ancient science and philosophy of Yoga and its time-honored tradition of
meditation.

For the next several years, he lectured and taught on the East coast and in 1924
embarked on a cross-continental speaking tour. The following year, he established
in Los Angeles an international headquarters for Self-Realization Fellowship, which
became the spiritual and administrative heart of his growing work.

Over the next decade, Yogananda traveled and lectured widely, speaking to
capacity audiences in many of the largest auditoriums in the country -- from New
York's Carnegie Hall to the Los Angeles Philharmonic. The Los Angeles Times
reported: "The Philharmonic Auditorium presents the extraordinary spectacle of
thousands....being turned away an hour before the advertised opening of a lecture
with the 3000-seat hall filled to its utmost capacity."

Yogananda emphasized the underlying unity of the world's great religions, and
taught universally applicable methods for attaining direct personal experience of
God. To serious students of his teachings he introduced the soul-awakening
techniques of Kriya Yoga, a sacred spiritual science originating millenniums ago in
India, which had been lost in the Dark Ages and revived in modern times by his
lineage of enlightened masters.

In 1935, Yogananda began an 18-month tour of Europe and India. During his
yearlong sojourn in his native land, he spoke in cities throughout the subcontinent
and enjoyed meetings with Mahatma Gandhi (who requested initiation in Kriya
Yoga), Nobel-prize-winning physicist Sir C. V. Raman, and some of India's
renowned spiritual figures, including Sri Ramana Maharshi and Anandamoyi Ma. It
was during this year also that his guru, Swami Sri Yukteswar, bestowed on him
India's highest spiritual title, paramahansa. Literally supreme swan (a symbol of
spiritual discrimination), the title signifies one who manifests the supreme state of
unbroken communion with God.

During the 1930s, Paramahansa Yogananda began to withdraw somewhat from his
nationwide public lecturing so as to devote himself to the writings that would carry
his message to future generations, and to building an enduring foundation for the
spiritual and humanitarian work of Self-Realization Fellowship (known in India as
Yogoda Satsanga Society).

Under his direction, the personal guidance and instruction that he had given to
students of his classes was arranged into a comprehensive series of
Self-Realization Fellowship Lessons for home study.

Yogananda's life story, Autobiography of a Yogi, was published in 1946 and
expanded by him in subsequent editions. A perennial best seller, the book has been
in continuous publication since it first appeared and has been translated into 18
languages. It is widely regarded as a modern spiritual classic.

An inspired life and then a remarkable death

On March 7, 1952, Paramahansa Yogananda entered mahasamadhi, a
God-illumined master's conscious exit from the body at the time of physical death.
His passing was marked by an extraordinary phenomenon. A notarized statement
signed by the Director of Forest Lawn Memorial-Park testified: "No physical
disintegration was visible in his body even twenty days after death....This state of
perfect preservation of a body is, so far as we know from mortuary annals, an
unparalleled one....Yogananda's body was apparently in a phenomenal state of
immutability."

excerpted from http://www.selfrealization.org/py-life/index.html

Quotations

 

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.

 

 

We are all part of the One Spirit.

When you experience the true meaning of religion,

which is to know God, you will realize that He is your Self,
and that He exists equally and impartially in all beings.

 

 

Many people may doubt that finding God is the purpose of life;

but everyone can accept the idea that the purpose of life is to find happiness.

I say that God is Happiness. He is Bliss. He is Love.

He is Joy that will never go away from your soul.

So why shouldn't you try to acquire that Happiness?

No one else can give it to you.

You must continuously cultivate it yourself.

God is Love;
His plan for creation
can be rooted only in love.
Does not that simple thought,
rather than erudite reasonings,
offer solace to the human heart?
Every saint who has penetrated
to the core of Reality has testified
that a divine universal plan exists
and that it is beautiful and full of joy.

Only those who partake of the harmony within their souls

know the harmony that runs through nature.

Whosoever lacks this inner harmony

feels also a lack of it in the world.

The mind in chaos finds chaos all around.

How can one know what peace is like if he has never tasted it?

But he who has inner peace can abide in this state

even in the midst of outer discord.

 

 

Everything has its place, but when you waste time

at the cost of your true happiness ~ it is not good.

I dropped every unnecessary activity

so that I could meditate  and try to know God,

so that I could day and night be in His divine consciousness. . .

 

 

Very few of us know how much we can put into life

if we use it properly, wisely, economically.

Let us economize our time ~ lifetimes ebb away before we wake up,
and that is why we do not realize

the value of the immortal time God has given us.

 

 

Do not while away your time in idleness.

A great many people occupy themselves with inconsequential activities.

Ask them what they have been doing and they will usually say,

"Oh, I have been busy every minute!"

But they can scarcely remember what they were so busy about!

Become aware of what is in you.

Announce it, pronounce it,

produce it and give birth to it.

 

 

What you are is much greater than anything

or anyone else you have ever yearned for.

God is manifest in you in a way

that He is not manfiest in any other human being.

Your face is unlike anyone else's,

your soul is unlike anyone else's,

you are sufficient unto yourself;

for within your soul lies the greatest treasure of all ~ God.

The real You is the prolific Source of all power;

but the everyday you is only a fragment

of that which can be brought out and manifested.

The basic You is infinite in its potentiality.

 

 

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 for constructive purposes,

You become the controller of your destiny.

 

 

Yoga is a system of scientific methods

for reuniting the soul with the Spirit....

Yoga teaches us how to rise above the delusion of separation

and realize our oneness with God.

 

 

The purpose and goal of Yoga

[is] to regain the lost paradise of soul consciousness
by which man knows that he is, and ever has been, one with Spirit.

 

Yoga is the art of doing everything

with the consciousness of God.

Not only when you are meditating,

but also when you are working,

your thoughts should be constantly anchored in Him.

If you work with the consciousness

that you are doing it to please God,

that activity unites you with Him.

 

Therefore do not imagine

that you can find God only in meditation.

Both meditation and right activity are essential,

as the Bhagavad Gita teaches.

 

If you think of God

while you perform your duties in this world,

you will be mentally united with Him.

 

 

Change your thoughts

if you wish to change your circumstances.

Since you alone are responsible for your thoughts,

only you can change them.

You will want to change them

when you realize that each thought creates

according to its own nature.
Remember that the law works at all times

and that you are always demonstrating
according to the kind of thoughts you habitually entertain.

Therefore, start now to think only those thoughts

that will bring you health and happiness.

 

Essentially,

conditions are neither good nor bad;

they are always neutral,

seeming to be either depressing or encouraging

because of the sad or bright attitude of the mind
of the individual concerned with them.

 

 

Though the ordinary man looks upon death with dread and sadness,

those who havegone before know it as a wondrous experience

of peace and freedom.

 

 

At death,

you forget all the limitations of the physical body

and realize how free you are.

For the first few seconds there is a sense of fear ~

fear of the unknown, of something unfamiliar to the consciousness.

But after that comes a great realization:
the soul feels a joyous sense of relief and freedom.

You know that you exist apart from the mortal body.

 

Our real self, the soul, is immortal.

We may sleep for a little while

in that change called death,

but we can never be destroyed.

We exist, and that existence is eternal.
The wave comes to the shore,

and then goes back to the sea; it is not lost.

It becomes one with the ocean,

or returns again in the form of another wave.

This body has come, and it will vanish;

but the soul essence within it will never cease to exist.

Nothing can terminate that eternal consciousness.

 

 

If you have given up hope of ever being happy,

cheer up.  Never lose hope.

Your soul, being a reflection of the ever joyous Spirit,

is, in essence, happiness itself.

 

 

In the universal sense,

love is the divine power of attraction in creation

that harmonizes, unites, binds together....

Those who live in tune with the attractive force of love

achieve harmony with nature and their fellow beings,

and are attracted to blissful reunion with God.

 

 

The world as a whole

has forgotten the real meaning of the word love.

Love has been so abused and crucified by man

that very few people know what true love is.
Just as oil is present in every part of the olive,

so love permeates every part of creation.

But to define love is very difficult,

for the same reason that words cannot
fully describe the flavor of an orange.

You have to taste the fruit to know its flavor.
So with love.

 

 

The spiritual man conquers wrath by calmness,

stops quarrels by keeping silence,
dispels inharmony by being sweet of speech,

and shames discourtesy by being thoughtful of others.

 

 

There is no more liberating action

than sincerely to give people kindness

in return for unkindness.

 

Love is the light

that dissolves all walls...

 

Affirmations

 

I am protected behind the battlements of my good conscience.

I have burned my past darkness.

I am interested only in today.

Today I Know i am the light of good news.

I am a lighthouse for souls tossed on the sea of sorrow.

Literature

Brother Anandamoy on "Yoga: The Science of Religion"

Our true essence is the soul: made in the image of God—immortal,
indestructible, ever-blissful Infinite Consciousness. As Paramahansa
Yogananda often said, if you have a lump of gold and you cover it with
mud are you going to claim it's no longer gold? Of course not; it is still
gold...."We are like gold in the mud," [he said]: "when the mud of
ignorance is cleansed away, the shining gold of the soul, made in God's
image, is seen within."

That is the purpose of religion—indeed, the purpose of life—to wash
off the mud of ignorance, so we can know who we really are. And it is the
answer to the problems we face in the world. Can you imagine what this
world would be like if it were filled with people who had found within
themselves the great love and joy and peace and wisdom of God?

http://www.yogananda-srf.org/excerpts/xcerpts.html

See Selected Writings

    http://www.selfrealization.org/writings/index.html

Notes

Most of the material on this page was excerpted from the Self Realization WebSite.

The URL is    http://www.selfrealization.org/

Bibliography

Autobiography of a Yogi

The living presence of God-love and Inner light vividly emanates from the pages

of Yogananda's anthologies. The inspiration felt while reading these expressions

of divine communion heave a far-reaching effect on the heart and soul of most

sincere readers. This has resulted in many seekers lives being uplifted and

redirected, resulting in a far greater awareness and sense of wellbeing.  While

reading this gospel, one may literally share many of the author's spiritual

experiences and  awarenesses, to whatever degree one truly is open to the

inner realities of the spirit. Begin your new spiritual adventure with Yogananda's

wisdom way.

 

 

Autobiography of a Yogi (Paperback) by Paramahansa Yogananda.

Autobiography of a Yogi (Hardbound) by Paramahansa Yogananda

Autobiography of a Yogi, Paramahansa Yogananda's acclaimed spiritual classic has

become for many a lifelong companion and guide.  It has been translated into eighteen

languages and is used as a text and reference work in numerous colleges and universities.

A perennial bestseller since it was first published over fifty years ago, Autobiography

of a Yogi has found its way into the hearts of millions of readers around the world

 

 

 

Man's Eternal Quest (Paperback) by Paramahansa Yogananda.

Man's Eternal Quest (Hardbound) by Paramahansa Yogananda

Man's Eternal Quest:   This series of fascinating talks explores subjects that include

approaches to God-awareness, meditation, life after death, the nature of creation

and powers of the mind.

 

The Divine Romance (Paperback) by Paramahansa Yogananda

The Divine Romance (Hardbound) by Paramahansa Yogananda

The Divine Romance:  A second collection of Yogananda's  talks focuses on the special

experience of devotion to God.  Filled with pearls of great wisdom that are practical

and quite relevant to our everyday living, deep vibrations of Divine Love seem to

"pour out of every page!"

 

Journey to Self-Realization: Discovering the Gifts of the Soul:   This is the third book of

the great Yoga Master's talks, faithfully recorded verbatim by Sri DayaMata who at a

very young age was blessed to receive the spiritual training at the guru's ashram.

 

Where There is Light:  Insight and Inspiration for Meeting Life's Challenges:  This collection

of inspirational excerpts from Paramahansa Yogananda's writings is an excellent daily

companion on your Spiritwalk.  An excellent, accessible introduction to his thought,

Yogananda leads us on a path to Joy, Peace and Success.   

 

Metaphysical Mediations (Classic Paperback), 

Metaphysical Mediations (Deluxe Gift Edition) 

Metaphysical Mediations offers universal prayers, affirmations, and visualizations

that beginners and experienced meditators alike can use to awaken the boundless

joy of the soul.

 
Scientific Healing Affirmations (Classic Paperback)

Scientific Healing Affirmation: Theory and Practice of Concentration (Deluxe Gift Edition)

Scientific Healing Affirmations reveals the hidden laws for harnessing the power of

concentrated thought ~ not only for physical healing, but to overcome obstacles and

create all-around success in life.

 

How You Can Talk with God (paperback)

How You Can Talk with God (Deluxe Gift Edition):  In this classic devotional guide

Yogananda presents his clear conviction that we can know and speak with God directly,

and receive divine responses to our prayers.

 

The Science of Religion (Hardbound)

The Science of Religion:  Douglas Ainslie says in his introduction "this small book offers

the clue to the universe....between these narrow covers is to be found the flower of the

Vedas and the Upanishads, the essence of Patanjali,...and the thought of Shankara,

greatest mind that ever dwelt in mortal body........This is the deliberate attempt of one

who has at last found in the East, after many wanderings, the solution to the riddles of

the world......The essential point to be remarked about Paramahansa's teaching,....is

that it is not speculative ,  but practical, even when dealing with the utmost reaches

of metaphysics."

 

Spiritual Diary:   The Spiritual Journals of Paramahansa Yogananda

 

In the Sanctuary of the Soul: A Guide to Effective Prayer:In the Sanctuary of the Soul:

A Guide to Effective Prayer presents Yogananda's insights on how people can experience

God's presence directly in their lives, and clearly sets forth principles of effective prayer

for receiving God's response. A remarkable blending of East and West, the teachings

offered here embrace universal spiritual laws that will inspire people of all faiths to

deepen their spiritual practice.

 

The Law of Success (Paperback)

The Law of Success:  Using the Power of Spirit to Create Health, Prosperity and Happiness: Yogananda's timeless teachings on the spiritual dimension of success. 

 

Wine of the Mystic:  The Rubiyat of Omar Khayyam:   A Spiritual Interpretation is a

contemporary commentary of Khayyams timeless encrypted spiritual revelations about

the inner life of the spirit. An enlightening commentary on Fitzgeralds' 1st English transation. Yogananda's perceptive intuition, insight,and interpretation, plus a unique methodology

of clarifying and teaching these great truths- with the glossary, spiritual interpretation

and then the practical application, makes this work a most useful religious guidebook.

For those who have long appreciated Omar's pithy wisdom, let this edition take you into

its' full blown inspiration. This artistic, beautiful and deeply moving publication, brings

overdue honor and praise to one of the Arabic worlds' greatest mystics.

 

God Talks with Arjuna: The Bhagavad Gita  Yogananda translates for us one of the world's

most important spiritual books of all time.  Bringing his remarkable depth of understanding, Yogananda guides us through the world of divine knowledge and conscious, spiritual living

through this marvelous story.  The Bhagavad Gita is a must have for any spiritual eclectic,

and this edition is an excellent choice.

 

The Holy Science by Swami Yukteswar

Yogananda's teacher and guru shares with us the amazing, enlightened insights that

brought Paramahansa along his path of Self Realization.

Links

Self Realization Fellowship

   http://www.selfrealization.org/

 

Selected Writings of Paramahansa Yogananda

    http://www.selfrealization.org/writings/index.html

 

The Life of Paramahansa Yogananda

    http://www.yogananda.org/py-life/index.html

 

 

 

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