Paramahansa Yogananda Quotes

“A man will be beloved if, possessed with great power, he still does not make himself feared.”

“Alike in soul though diverse in outer experience, neither West nor East will flourish if some form of disciplinary yoga be not practiced.”

“All creative scientists know that the true laboratory is the mind, where behind illusions they uncover the laws of truth.”

“Astrology is the study of man’s response to planetary stimuli. The stars have no conscious benevolence or animosity; they merely send forth positive and negative radiations. Of themselves, these do not help or harm humanity, but offer a lawful channel for the outward operation of cause-effect equilibriums which each man has set into motion in the past. A child is born on that day and at that hour when the celestial rays are in mathematical harmony with his individual karma. His horoscope is a challenging portrait, revealing his unalterable past and its probable future results. But the natal chart can be rightly interpreted only by men of intuitive wisdom: these are few.”

“Attachment is blinding; it lends an imaginary halo of attractiveness to the object of desire.”

“Be comfortable within your purse. Extravagance will buy you discomfort.”

“Continual intellectual study results in vanity and the false satisfaction of an undigested knowledge.”

“Dharma aims at the happiness of all creatures.”

“Do not allow yourself to be thrashed by the provoking whip of a beautiful face.”

“Do not do what you want, and then you may do what you like.”

“God is simple. Everything else is complex. Do not seek absolute values in the relative world of nature.”

“Good and positive suggestions should instruct the sensitive ears of children. Their early ideas long remain sharply etched.”

“He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city.”

“I look forward optimistically to a healthy, happy world as soon as its children are taught the principles of simple and rational living. We must return to nature and nature’s God.”

“If man be solely a body, its loss indeed ends his identity. But if prophets down the millenniums spake with truth, man is essentially a soul, incorporeal and omnipresent.”

“If you don’t invite God to be your summer Guest, He won’t come in the winter of your life.”

“It is never a question of belief; the only scientific attitude one can take on any subject is whether it is true. The law of gravitation worked as efficiently before Newton as after him. The cosmos would be fairly chaotic if its laws could not operate without the sanction of human belief.”

“Kriya Yoga is a simple, psychophysiological method by which human blood is decarbonated and recharged with oxygen. The atoms of this extra oxygen are transmuted into life current to rejuvenate the brain and spinal centres. By stopping the accumulation of venous blood, the yogi is able to lessen or prevent the decay of tissues.”

“Live quietly in the moment and see the beauty of all before you. The future will take care of itself.”

“Look fear in the face and it will cease to trouble you.”

“Ordinary love is selfish, darkly rooted in desires and satisfactions. Divine love is without condition, without boundary, without change. The flux of the human heart is gone forever at the transfixing touch of pure love.”

“Seeds of past karma cannot germinate if they are roasted in the fires of divine wisdom.”

“Some people try to be tall by cutting off the heads of others!”

“Stillness is the altar of spirit.”

“Straightforwardness without civility is like a surgeon’s knife, effective but unpleasant. Candor with courtesy is helpful and admirable.”

“The body is literally manufactured and sustained by mind.”

“The body of the average man is like a fifty-watt lamp, which cannot accommodate the billion watts of power roused by an excessive practice of Kriya. Through gradual and regular increase of the simple and foolproof methods of Kriya, man’s body becomes astrally transformed day by day, and is finally fitted to express the infinite potentials of cosmic energy, which constitutes the first materially active expression of Spirit.”

“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.”

“The goal of yoga science is to calm the mind, that without distortion it may hear the infallible counsel of the inner voice.”

“The more deeply we perceive, the more striking becomes the evidence that a uniform plan links every form in manifold nature.”