Paramahansa Yogananda
(1893-1952) Indian Yogi and Guru
Yogananda Quotes
"You heighten suffering by imagination. Worrying or feeling sorry for yourself won't ease your pain, but rather increase it. For instance, someone wrongs you; you dwell on it, and your friends talk about it and sympathize with you. The more you think of it, the more you magnify the hurt - and your suffering. Some people go on remembering all the suffering they passed through, and how terrible the pain was, from an operation that took place twenty years ago! Over and over again they relive the consciousness of that sickness. Why repeat such experiences? 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. The fact is, if you learn to live in your body without thinking of it as yourself, you won't suffer so much. The connection between you and bodily pain is only mental. When you are asleep and unconscious of the body, you feel no pain. Likewise, when a doctor or a dentist gives you an anesthetic and performs surgery on your body, you don't feel any pain. The mind has been disconnected from the sensation. Look after the body, but be above it. Know that you are separate from your mortal form. Put up a great mental barrier between your mind and body. Affirm 'I am apart from the body. No heat, cold or sickness can touch me. I am free'. Your limitations will become less and less."
"Avoid dwelling on all the wrong things you have done. They do not belong to you now. Let them be forgotten. It is attention that creates habit and memory. As soon as you put the needle on a phonograph record, it begins to play. Attention is the needle that plays the record of past actions. So you should not put your attention on bad ones. Why go on suffering over the unwise actions of your past? Cast their memory from your mind, and take care not to repeat those actions again"
"When you want to create a good habit or destroy a bad one, concentrate on the brain cells, the storehouse of the mechanisms of habit. To create a good habit, meditate; and then with the concentration fixed at the Christ center, the center of will between the eyebrows, deeply affirm the good habit that you want to install. And when you want to destroy bad habits, concentrate at the Christ center and deeply affirm that all the grooves of bad habits are being erased"
"By concentration and will power you can erase even deep grooves of long-standing habits. If you are addicted to smoking, for example, say to yourself: 'The habit of smoking has long been lodged in my brain. Now I put all my attention and concentration on my brain and I will that habit to be dislodged.' Command your mind thus, again and again. The best time of day to do this is in the morning, when the will and attention are fresh. Repeatedly affirm your freedom, using all the strength of your will power. One day you will suddenly feel that you no longer are ensnared by that habit"
"When tigers of worries, sickness, and death are chasing you, your only sanctuary is the inner temple of silence. The spiritually deep man lives day and night in a calm interior silence into which neither menacing worries nor even the crash of colliding worlds can intrude."
"Very simply, all you have to do is to think away the thoughts you want to destroy, by replacing them with constructive thoughts. This is the key to heaven; it is in your hands"
"Focus your attention within. You will feel a new power, a new strength, a new peace - in body, mind and spirit"
"Materialists become so engrossed in the task of making money that they can't relax enough to enjoy their comforts even after they've acquired them"
"Let my soul smile through my heart and my heart smile through my eyes, that I may scatter rich smiles in sad hearts"
"Remain calm, serene, always in command of yourself. You will then find out how easy it is to get along"
"Truth is exact correspondence with reality"
"One of the illusions of life is to continue to live helplessly. As soon as you say, 'It's no use', it becomes so... To think you cannot change at will is delusion"
"I do not expect anything from others, so their actions cannot be in opposition to wishes of mine"
"Look fear in the face and it will cease to trouble you"
"Happiness lies in making others happy, in forsaking self-interest to bring joy to others."
"To live for self is the source of all misery."
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