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| The final proof of the existence of God can only be found within, by deeply, daily practicing some right method of meditation learned from a competent guru. |
The Voice of Paramahansa Yogananda |
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Paramahansa Yogananda Quotes
Happiness |
Freedom |
FREEDOM
To be able to do whatever one pleases is not the real meaning of freedom of actions. You should understand to what degree you are free, and how much you are influenced by bad habits.
True freedom consists in performing all actions - eating, reading, working, and so forth - in accordance with right judgment and choice of will, not in being compelled by habits. Eat what you should eat and not necessarily what you are used to. Do what you ought to do, not what your bad habits dictate. It's only when you discard bad habits that you are really a free man.
The way to freedom is through service to others.
WHY ARE WE HERE?
The only purpose of life is to find God. If you are single, seek God at once; if you are married, you and your mate should seek God together.
This world is an imperfect place. It is only a school of tests. Through tests we learn life's lessons. Test are not meant to crush us. They develop our power. They come through the natural law of progress.
As you march along this path, every moment of your life is precious. You are here in this world for only a little while; everything is temporary. But association with God is permanent and forever, and so you must not be deluded by the temptations of the world and forget God. God can be known. The Master of the universe, whose light twinkles in the stars, whose life-throb is in every blade of grass — you must find Him. The most important thing in this world is to seek and to find God.
This show has a purpose: that you learn how to play the various parts of the life movie without identifying your Self with your role. It is important to avoid identification with pain or anger or any kind of mental or physical suffering that comes. The best way to dissociate yourself from your difficulty is to be mentally detached, as if you were merely a spectator, while at the same time seeking a remedy. Don’t expect to attain unalloyed peace and happiness from earthly life. This should be your attitude: no matter what your experiences are, enjoy them in an objective way, as you would a movie.
Man comes here [on Earth] for the sole purpose of learning to break the cords that bind his soul. Disease, failure, negation, greed, jealousy — break these bonds now. You are in a cocoon of your own bad habits, and you must be freed to spread its wings of beautiful divine qualities.
If you love God's creation more than God, you will be disillusioned. God must be first, last, and always.
REINCARNATION
Reincarnation is the law of spiritual evolution. It gives everything a chance to work out its karma (the law of action). Evolution and reincarnation are methods of propelling all creation toward final freedom in Spirit, held no longer under the natural law of death.
By reincarnation the soul travels through the forms of mineral, plant, animal, and human life. In different incarnations the soul is encased in bodies of the brown, white, black, yellow, and red races, that man may learn non-attachment to any particular body and race. Finally he realizes his true nature of Spirit. He knows himself as a child of God... present in everything.
I also recall my own past incarnations, beyond all doubts. In the Tower of London, for example, I found many places that I remembered from a past life, places the present caretakers didn't know anything about.
At times life seems to be a cruel game. The only justification for it is that in reality it is only a dream. That is why there are so many differences in the world. Some people are poor, some are rich, some healthy, some sick, and so on. You have had many experiences through many incarnations and you will have others in future incarnations, but they should not frighten you. You must play all parts in the motion picture of life, inwardly saying: 'I am Spirit.' This is the great consolation that wisdom gives us.
There is deep reason why God does not usually allow us to recall our previous lives. It is because we would be clannish, tending to re-associate with those we knew before, instead of expanding our love to encompass others.
Life by life, each man progresses (at his own pace, be it ever so erratic) toward the goal of his own apotheosis. Death, no interruption in this onward sweep, simply offers man the more congenial environment of an astral world in which to purify his dross. 'Let not your heart be troubled... In my Father's house are many mansions.' It is indeed unlikely that God has exhausted His ingenuity in organising this world, or that, in the next world, He will offer nothing more challenging to our interest than the strumming of harps.
Life seems such a tangible reality, and yet it is elusive. Every minute is precious. Today you are; tomorrow you are not. I remind myself of this every day. One by one we slip away. Others will come and we shall go. But the body is only a garment. How many times you have changed your clothing in this life, yet because of this you would not say that you have changed. Similarly, when you give up this bodily dress at death you do not change. You are just the same, an immortal soul, a child of God. Reincarnation means merely a change of mortal dress. But your real self will never change. You must concentrate on your real self, not on the body, which is nothing but a garment.
We have to return again and again to the school of life until all lessons have been learned. So long as we leave earth at death with desires unfulfilled we have to come back again in order to fulfil those desires.
All good human experiences — marriage, love, success, study, meditation, exercise, self-discipline — are necessary steps in the growth of the fruit of Self-realization.
Try to realize you are a divine traveler. You are here for only a little while, then depart for a dissimilar and fascinating world (astral worlds). Do not limit your thought to one brief life and one small earth. Remember the vastness of the Spirit that dwells within you.
During your sojourn here upon earth, remember that you are only a movie actor. You may be called upon to play any kind of part, tragic or comic, and you must play well; as you watch yourself in tragic roles, say: 'That is a fine, sad picture and I played it well.'
How we live this life determines what we are in the next.
The thoughts that predominate at the time of death can bring you either salvation — if your supreme desire is for God — or rebirth. If you are filled with worldly desires, those thoughts impinge themselves on the subtle body and bring the soul back into another earthly incarnation. The sum total of past actions and unfulfilled desires determines what kind of body you will have, and sets the general pattern of your new incarnation. Just as the form of a huge banyan tree lies hidden in a tiny seed, awaiting favorable conditions for germination; or as the sounds of a record are secreted in its grooves, waiting for the touch of the needle to bring them out, so the past-life tendencies carried in the subtle body become manifested through the medium of a new incarnation.
KARMA
Karma means material action, that which is instigated by egoistic desire. It sets into motion the law of cause and effect. The action produces a result that binds itself to the doer until the cause is compensated by the appropriate effect, whether forthcoming immediately or carried over from one life to another.
Before you act, you have freedom, but after you act, the effect of that action will follow you whether you want it to or not. That is the law of karma.
You alone are responsible for yourself. No one else may answer for your deeds when the final reckoning comes. You work in the world - in the sphere where your karma, your own past activity, has placed you - can be performed only by one person: yourself.
When a true yogi performs an action, karmically it is like writing on water. No mark remains.
Anything you hate, you attract to yourself that you may learn to overcome that prejudice. That is the law.
Refuse to be bound by karma; it is an old superstition of the ignorant to believe you cannot change your destiny.
When you realize yourself as a child of God, what karma have you? God has no karma. And you have none, when you know you are His child. Every day you should affirm, "I am not a mortal being; I am not the body. I am a child of God."
God must be first, last, and always!
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