Journey to Self-Realization

~ Paramahansa Yogananda

Shut yourself in seclusion and meditate. At first your mind will rebel against your will, but if you are in earnest, you will eventually find that nothing else can satisfy you as meditation does.

Your meditation should not be an oblivion of wandering thoughts, but an attentive, constantly increasing devotion to God - a deep joy arising from contact with Spirit. In the silence within, implore His presence again and again, with yearning you have felt when you have wanted something very badly. With that most urgent desire, pray to Him and tell Him that you want Him.

Death and darkness cannot cast fear upon us, for we are the very Consciousness out of which this universe has been created by God.

Though I live in this world and behold it as a moving picture show that continuously comes and goes, still most of the time this earthly movie is away from my consciousness. I go within, into the Unchanging Reality. That is the way to seek God. Live in that eternal consciousness.

Personal desires are like an acid that corrodes the peace of our souls.

The ability to accomplish is all in the mind. Your body itself is virtually sustained by thought. Food is incidental; the main power sustaining you is your mind, your consciousness. It is thought that brings energy into the body.

To live in harmony, to live with strong will power to do the will of Him who sent you, is all you should be interested in. Never lose courage, and always be smiling. Have the smile of the heart and the smile of the face completely in harmony. If your body, mind, and soul register the smile of the inner consciousness of God, you can scatter smiles about you wherever you go.

Set a program for yourself, carry it through, and you will find how much happier you will be. Failure to keep to your schedule of improvement means you have paralyzed your will. You have no greater friend and no greater enemy than yourself. If you befriend yourself, you will find accomplishment. There is no law of God preventing you from being what you want to be and accomplishing what you want to accomplish.

... there is no use spending your time detecting your faults or the faults of others.... My faults may have been extreme, but my love for God has drowned my faults. I am completely free in my heart; not a desire stalks me there. I love Him more than anything else. And, if He so desires, I am ready to scrub floors to express my love for Him.

God is your Father, God is your Mother, God is your Supreme Love. With God, parental and other human relationships are wonderful; but without God, they are only an interplay of the laws of karma and nature for this one lifetime. Those relationships would mean nothing if God had not put His thought and love in our hearts.

Disband attachment and learn to give true, sincere love to all. True love is impersonal and is not bound by anything. Our eyes bubble over with love, and we feel a wonderful togetherness; we feel we are one. Once in a while that is felt in ordinary life, but then then it is so easily mutilated by familiarity and lack of respect.

The power of love is the greatest of all powers. No power of authority is greater than that. Love can conquer all.

Prayer
O cosmic vibration, reverberate through me as the cosmic, intelligent sound, and teach me to find in Thee the presence of the reflected Christ consciousness. O Holy Vibration, lead me to intuit the Christ consciousness in Thee. O omnipresent, cosmic sound of Amen or Aum, reverberate through me, expanding my consciousness from the body to the universe, and teach me to feel in Thee the all-permeating, perennial bliss.
- Whispers from Eternity