Paramahansa Yogananda Quotes

“As we watch, therefore, the tragic mistakes and misfortunes in people’s lives – including our own – we should shed only tears of joy at the privilege of being able to offer help, even to ourselves. We should approach tragedy, whether in others’ or in our own lives, with an attitude of dynamic inner joy. The way to emerge from suffering is to raise to a higher level our own, or other people’s, consciousness. For ourselves, consciousness can be raised by right attitudes. In souls made in the image of God there is no room for disturbing emotions such as grief. The fundamental cure for all human ills is everywhere one and the same: to raise one’s consciousness.”

“Just as a wet match, when struck, does not produce fire, so a mind saturated with restlessness cannot produce the fire of concentration even when one makes great efforts to strike the cosmic spark.”

“Only when the slumbering ego perceives itself, not as a body, but as a free soul, a son of God residing in and working through the body, can it rightfully and lawfully demand its own divine rights.”

“Remember, people suffer only because they think things ought to be different from what they are.”

“The fundamental cure for all human ills is everywhere one and the same: to raise one’s consciousness.”

“To repeat a prayer-demand over and over again, whether mentally or out loud, with ever-deeper attention and devotion, spiritualizes the prayer; it changes conscious, concentrated repetition into superconscious experience.”