Find peace in doing things for God. Don’t spare yourself. Conquer the flesh and you will see Him in front of you. The more you cater to flesh, the more you grumble, the worse you will be. Other temptations will invade you. That is why working hard for Him and meditating is the best way.
– Paramahansa Yogananda
You don’t know how free you are, when you have no husband nor wife to fuss about. First God; seek God first. I am not talking to those who are married. Those who are married, let them find out for themselves. But if you are already married you can find God just the same. But if you are free, why should you lose your freedom? God first. It is His world. It is He who is trying to delude us with wine, sex and money.
– Paramhansa Yogananda
This world may be a play to God but it is death to us. How few will wake from this dream! Most people are dreaming this nightmare. It is not easy to get out of maya. In the meantime, remember, don’t desire things that will cause disease, and don’t give too much thought to your body. Just disconnect your mind. That is the greater way
– Paramhansa Yogananada
There is a common form of nervousness: soul nervousness. The soul is so identified with the body that it has forgotten its real nature. Soul nervousness can be destroyed only by meditation—by transferring the attention from your nerves to the perception of Infinite Happiness within, transferring your attention from the bundle of bodily sensations to the infinite nature, which is your true Self.
– Paramhansa Yogananda
God is not a mute unfeeling Being. He is love itself. If you know how to meditate to make contact with Him, He will respond to your loving demands. You do not have to plead; you can demand as His child. But which of you will spend the necessary time?
Which of you will persist until you become so concentrated that you receive an answer from Him?
Paramhansa Yogananda
Material objects which give joy remain outside of the mind; they only gain entry into the mind through imagination. Joy, from its very nature, is something born of the mind and lives closest in it. External, material objects can be destroyed, but this joy within can never be destroyed if one knows how to keep it and unless the possessor of joy changes his mind and becomes sorrowful. This joy is ever-new and indestructible.
Paramhansa Yogananda
If you succeed in finding happiness in your soul, then even though you die tomorrow and join the long procession of departed souls that slowly moves down pillared corridors of centuries, you will always carry with you that priceless treasure.
– Paramhansa Yogananda
Outward environment and the company you keep is of paramount importance. The specific outer environment of early life is specially important in stimulating or stifling inner instinctive environment of a child. A child is usually born with a pre-natal mental environment. This is stimulated if the outer environment is like the inner environment, but if the outer environment is different from it, the inner environment is likely to be suppressed. An instinctively bad child may be suppressed and made good in good company, and vice versa, while an instinctively good child placed in good company would, no doubt, increase his goodness.
Paramhansa Yogananda
If you are a slave to your senses, you cannot be happy. If you are a master of your desires and appetites, you can be a really happy person. If you overeat against you will; if you wish anything contrary to your conscience; if you act wrongly, forced by your senses, against the wish of your Inner Self, then you cannot be happy. People who are slaves to the senses find that their evil habits compel them to do things that will hurt them. Stubborn bad habits bludgeon your will power every time it tries to take the lead and guide your thoughts to the kingdom of right action. The remedy lies in rescuing your will power from the imprisoning power of the senses.
– Paramahansa Yogananda