This page includes some of my favorite quotes from Paramahansa Yogananda. They are organized by the book in which they are found.
Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda
“Intuition is soul guidance, appearing naturally in man during those instants when his mind is calm.”
– Paramahansa Yogananda, Autobiography of a Yogi, p124
“The power of unfulfilled desires is the root of all man’s slavery.”
– Paramahansa Yogananda, Autobiography of a Yogi
“Anyone who practices a scientific technique for divine realization is a yogi. He may be either married or unmarried either a man of worldly responsibilities or one of formal religious ties.”
– Paramahansa Yogananda, Autobiography of a Yogi, p251
A yogi engages himself in a definite, step-by-step procedure by which the body and mind are disciplined and the soul gradually liberated. Taking nothing for granted on emotional grounds or by faith, a yogi practices a thoroughly tested series of exercises that were first mapped out by the ancient rishis.
– Paramahansa Yogananda, Autobiography of a Yogi, p251
“Yoga is a method for restraining the natural turbulence of thoughts, which otherwise prevents all men…from glimpsing their true nature of Spirit…The thoughts of most persons are restless and capricious; a manifest need exists for yoga: the science of mind control.”
– Paramahansa Yogananda, Autobiography of a Yogi, p251
“Fulfilling one’s earthly responsibilities need not separate man from God, provided he maintains mental uninvolvement with egotistical desires and plays his part in life as a willing instrument of the Divine.”
– Paramahansa Yogananda, Autobiography of a Yogi, p253
“In the initial states of God-communion (savikalpa Samadhi) the devotee’s consciousness merges in the Cosmic Spirit; his life force is withdrawn from the body, which appears “dead”, or motionless and rigid. The yogi is fully aware of his bodily condition of suspended animation. As he progresses to higher spiritual states (nirvikalpa Samadhi)…he communes with God without bodily fixation; and in his ordinary waking consciousness, even in the midst of exacting worldly duties.”
– Paramahansa Yogananda, Autobiography of a Yogi, p266
“In men under maya or natural law, the flow of life energy is toward the outward world; the currents are wasted and abused in the senses. The practice of Kriya reverses the flow; life force is mentally guided to the inner cosmos and becomes reunited with subtle spinal energies.”
– Paramahansa Yogananda, Autobiography of a Yogi, p269
“Each man’s intellectual reactions, feelings, moods, and habits are merely effects of past causes, whether of this or a prior life.”
– Paramahansa Yogananda, Autobiography of a Yogi, p272
“The adhesive force by which all three bodies are held together is desire. The power of unfulfilled desires is the root of all man’s slavery.”
– Sri Yukteswar, Autobiography of a Yogi, p316
“So long as the soul of man is encased in one, two, or three body- containers, sealed tightly with the corks of ignorance and desires, he cannot merge with the sea of Spirit. When the gross physical receptacle is destroyed by the hammer of death, the other two coverings-astral and causal-still remain to prevent the soul from consciously joining the Omnipresent Life. When desirelessness is attained through wisdom, its power disintegrates the two remaining vessels. The tiny human soul emerges, free at last; it is one with the Measureless Amplitude.”
– Sri Yukteswar, Autobiography of a Yogi, p316
God Talks with Arjuna by Paramahansa Yogananda
“Births and deaths are inevitable for man only during the state of ignorance in which he thinks he is the body and cannot exist without it. Only the man who will not seek the awakening of wisdom must suffer the nightmares and delusive dreams of births and deaths and the fanciful miseries and limitations attending them.”
– Paramahansa Yoganda, “God Talks With Arjuna”
“The spiritual man performs all right actions of seeing, touching, smelling, tasting, and hearing without feeling any mental attachment. His soul floats on the foul waters of dark earthly experiences—of man’s sad indifference to God—like an unsoiled lotus arising from the muddy waters of a lake.”
– Paramahansa Yogananda, God Talks With Arjuna
“Freed from the intoxications of delusion and delusive mortal limitations, the superman knows his earthly name and possessions, but is never possessed or limited by them. Living in the world he is not of the world. He is aware of hunger, thirst, and other conditions of the body but his inner consciousness identifies itself, not with the body, but with Spirit. The advanced yogi may own many possessions, but will never sorrow if all things are taken away. If he happens to be materially poor, he knows that, in Spirit, he is rich beyond all dreams of avarice.”
– Paramahansa Yogananda, God Talks With Arjuna
“God manifests in creation as the Cosmic Vibration, which expresses itself as Cosmic Sound and Cosmic Light.”
– Paramahansa Yogananda, God Talks with Arjuna, p614
“Aum, being a spiritual vibration, is not heard physically, but felt spiritually.”
– Paramahansa Yogananda, God Talks with Arjuna, p614-616.
The Second Coming of Christ by Paramahansa Yogananda
“Evil resides in the Adversarial Force that maintains its realm of influence by the gross obscuration of the true God-nature of all created beings.”
– Paramahansa Yogananda, The Second Coming of Christ, p143
“It is better to know all the lures of evil and the ways to combat them than to be blind and deny their existence. Knowledge only, and not indifference, can produce final emancipation.”
– Paramahansa Yogananda, The Second Coming of Christ, p37
“Angels are God-ordained heavenly beings who serve God’s purposes throughout creation. They are either personified powers or qualities of God, or are fully liberated souls in whose beings the perfect spirit of God is encased. The latter, having overcome both material and heavenly desires and attachments, have merged in Spirit and then reemerged in bodies of pure energy—omnipotent, omniscient forces of the Divine Will.”
– Paramahansa Yogananda, Th Second Coming of Christ, p210-211
“The vibratory force emanating from Spirit, endowed with the illusory creative power of maya, is the Holy Ghost: Cosmic Vibration, the Word, Aum (Om) or Amen. All things, all created planets and living beings in the Holy Ghost, or Holy Vibration are nothing but the frozen imagination of God. This Holy Ghost in the Hindu Scriptures is called the Aum or Maha-prakriti (Great Nature, the Cosmic Mother that gives birth to all creation); by the scientists, the structure of matter, its tissue or material, is also knows to a lesser degree, as cosmic vibration.”
– Paramahansa Yogananda, The Second Coming of Christ, p11
“In order to give individuality and independence to Its thought images, Spirit had to employ a cosmic deception, a universal mental magic…There God is active as the creative Vibratory Holy Ghost with its immanent Christ Consciousness.”
– Paramahansa Yogananda, The Second Coming of Christ, p140
Where There is Light by Paramahansa Yogananda
“Tune yourself with the creative power of Spirit. You will be in contact with the Infinite Intelligence that is able to guide you and to solve all problems. Power from the dynamic Source of your being will flow uninterruptedly so that you will be able to perform creatively in any sphere of activity.”
– Paramahansa Yogananda, Where There is Light, p64
