# Autobiography of a Yogi  ## Metadata - Author: [[Paramahansa Yogananda]] - Full Title: Autobiography of a Yogi - Category: #books ## Highlights - The Aum vibration that reverberates throughout the universe (the “Word” or “voice of many waters” of the Bible) has three manifestations or gunas, those of creation, preservation, and destruction (Taittiriya Upanishad I:8). Each time a man utters a word he puts into operation one of the three qualities of Aum. This is the lawful reason behind the injunction of all scriptures that man should speak the truth. ([Location 898](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=898)) - Tags: [[pink]] - “An indescribable peace blossomed within me at the master’s glance. I was permeated with his fragrance, as though from a lotus of infinity. To be with him, even without exchanging a word for days, was experience which changed my entire being. If any invisible barrier rose in the path of my concentration, I would meditate at the guru’s feet. There the most tenuous states came easily within my grasp. Such perceptions eluded me in the presence of lesser teachers. The master was a living temple of God, whose secret doors were open to all disciples through devotion. ([Location 1229](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=1229)) - Tags: [[pink]] - ‘Words are only shells,’ he said. ‘Win conviction of God’s presence through your own joyous contact in meditation.’ ([Location 1242](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=1242)) - Tags: [[pink]] - The different sensory stimuli to which man reacts — tactual, visual, gustatory, auditory, and olfactory — are produced by vibratory variations in electrons and protons. The vibrations in turn are regulated by prana, “lifetrons,” subtle life forces or finer-than-atomic energies intelligently charged with the five distinctive sensory idea-substances. ([Location 1426](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=1426)) - Tags: [[pink]] - “You go often into the silence, but have you developed anubhava?”5 He was reminding me to love God more than meditation. ([Location 1693](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=1693)) - Tags: [[pink]] - All creative scientists know that the true laboratory is the mind, where behind illusions they uncover the laws of truth. ([Location 1841](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=1841)) - Tags: [[pink]] - From him I learned the sweetness of God in the aspect of Mother, or Divine Mercy. The childlike saint found little appeal in the Father aspect, or Divine Justice. Stern, exacting, mathematical judgment was alien to his gentle nature. ([Location 2046](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=2046)) - This “reconciliation of opposites” satisfies heart and head; bhakti (devotion) and jnana (wisdom) are essentially one. Prapatti, “taking refuge” in God, and sharanagati, “flinging oneself on the Divine Compassion,” are really paths of the highest knowledge. ([Location 2105](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=2105)) - Tags: [[favorite]] - a worthy leader has the desire to serve, not to dominate.” ([Location 2917](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=2917)) - The forceful, activating impulse of wrong desire is the greatest enemy to the happiness of man. Roam in the world as a lion of self-control; don’t let the frogs of sense weakness kick you around!” ([Location 2961](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=2961)) - Are you content to be a hollow victrola, mechanically repeating the words of other men?” “I give up!” The scholar’s chagrin was comical. “I have no inner realization.” ([Location 3003](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=3003)) - A master bestows the divine experience of cosmic consciousness when his disciple, by meditation, has strengthened his mind to a degree where the vast vistas would not overwhelm him. Mere intellectual willingness or open-mindedness is not enough. Only adequate enlargement of consciousness by yoga practice and devotional bhakti can prepare one to absorb the liberating shock of omnipresence. ([Location 3346](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=3346)) - I wrote, in my later years, the following poem, “Samadhi,” endeavoring to convey a glimpse of its glory: ([Location 3352](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=3352)) - Tags: [[pink]] - Spiritual advancement is not to be measured by one’s displays of outward powers, but solely by the depth of his bliss in meditation. “Ever-new Joy is God. He is inexhaustible; as you continue your meditations during the years, He will beguile you with an infinite ingenuity. ([Location 3408](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=3408)) - The lotus posture (padmasana) holds the spine upright and locks the body securely against the danger of falling, backward or forward, during the trance state (sabikalpa samadhi); it is therefore the yogi’s favorite meditation posture. However, padmasana may present some difficulties for the beginner, and should not be attempted without the guidance of a Hatha Yoga expert. ([Location 3686](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=3686)) - “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God” (I John 3:1). ([Location 3941](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=3941)) - The truth is that man reincarnates on earth until he has consciously regained his status as a son of God. ([Location 3950](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=3950)) - Tags: [[favorite]] - Cf. Socrates’ words (in Plato’s Phaedrus): “As for me, all I know is that I know nothing.” ([Location 4259](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=4259)) - Proof that one is a master, however, is supplied only by the ability to enter at will the breathless state (sabikalpa samadhi) and by the attainment of immutable bliss (nirbikalpa samadhi). ([Location 4520](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=4520)) - 5 Acts 1:8; 2:1–4. ([Location 4559](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=4559)) - 5 The power of influencing others’ minds and the course of events is a vibhuti (yogic power) mentioned in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras III:24, which explains it to be a result of “universal sympathy.” ([Location 4813](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=4813)) - swami: one who seeks to achieve union with the Swa or Self. ([Location 4895](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=4895)) - The thoughts of most persons are restless and capricious; a manifest need exists for yoga: the science of mind control. ([Location 4910](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=4910)) - Tags: [[favorite]] - in Vedanta as Sat-Chit-Ananda, that is, Being-Intelligence-Bliss. ([Location 4981](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=4981)) - Untying the cord of breath that binds the soul to the body, Kriya serves to prolong life and to enlarge the consciousness to infinity. The yoga technique overcomes the tug-of-war between the mind and the matter-entangled senses, and frees the devotee to reinherit his eternal kingdom. He knows then that his real being is bound neither by physical encasement nor by breath — symbol of mortal man’s enslavement to air, to Nature’s elemental compulsions. ([Location 5277](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=5277)) - Tags: [[favorite]] - Kriya Yoga is the real “fire rite” oft extolled in the Gita. The yogi casts his human longings into a monotheistic bonfire consecrated to the unparalleled God. This is indeed the true yogic fire ceremony, in which all past and present desires are fuel consumed by love divine. The Ultimate Flame receives the sacrifice of all human madness, and man is pure of dross. His metaphorical bones stripped of all desirous flesh, his karmic skeleton bleached by the antiseptic sun of wisdom, inoffensive before man and Maker, he is clean at last. ([Location 5331](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=5331)) - Tags: [[pink]] - “These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God.” — Revelation 3:14. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… .All things were made by him [the Word or Aum]; and without him was not any thing made that was made.” — John 1:1–3. Aum of the Vedas became the sacred word Hum of the Tibetans, Amin of the Moslems, and Amen of the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Jews, and Christians. Its meaning in Hebrew is sure, faithful. ([Location 5372](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=5372)) - “Remember,” he had said slowly, “that he who rejects the usual worldly duties can justify himself only by assuming some kind of responsibility for a much larger family.” ([Location 5428](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=5428)) - The ignorant man sees only the unsurmountable wall of death, hiding, seemingly forever, his cherished friends. But the man of unattachment, he who loves others as expressions of the Lord, understands that at death the dear ones have only returned for a breathing space of joy in Him. ([Location 5485](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=5485)) - 8 The actual technique used by Pranabananda is known to higher Kriya Yoga initiates of the Self-Realization path as the Third Kriya Yoga Initiation. When given to Pranabananda by Lahiri Mahasaya, it was the “second” Kriya he received from the Yogavatar. This Kriya enables the devotee who has mastered it to leave and return to the body consciously at any time. Advanced yogis use this Kriya technique during the last exit of death — a moment they invariably know beforehand. ([Location 5579](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=5579)) - Tags: [[favorite]] - Newton’s Law of Motion is a law of maya: “To every action there is always an equal and contrary reaction; the mutual actions of any two bodies are always equal and oppositely directed.” Action and reaction are thus exactly equal. “To have a single force is impossible. There must be, and always is, a pair of forces equal and opposite.” ([Location 5799](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=5799)) - Physical science, then, cannot formulate laws outside of maya: the very fabric and structure of creation. Nature herself is maya; natural science must perforce deal with her ineluctable quiddity. ([Location 5806](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=5806)) - To rise above the duality of creation and perceive the unity of the Creator was conceived of as man’s highest goal. ([Location 5814](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=5814)) - Tags: [[favorite]] - Ezekiel said:4 “Afterwards he brought me to the gate, even the gate that looketh toward the east: and, behold, the glory of the God of Israel came from the way of the east: and his voice was like a noise of many waters: and the earth shined with his glory.” Through the divine eye in the forehead (east), the yogi sails his consciousness into omnipresence, hearing the Word or Aum, divine sound of “many waters”: the vibrations of light that constitute the sole reality of creation. ([Location 5825](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=5825)) - “The frank realization that physical science is concerned with a world of shadows is one of the most significant advances,” Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington writes in The Nature of the Physical World.6 ([Location 5846](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=5846)) - “The stream of knowledge,” Sir James Jeans writes in The Mysterious Universe,8 “is heading toward a non-mechanical reality; the universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine.” Twentieth-century science is thus sounding like a page from the hoary Vedas. ([Location 5866](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=5866)) - For this purpose were man and creation made: that he should rise up as master of maya, knowing his dominion over the cosmos. ([Location 5914](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=5914)) - The ‘glory’ or nimbus around the head of the saints is a symbolic witness of their capacity to render divine homage.” ([Location 6249](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=6249)) - ” The Vedas inculcate reverence for all natural phenomena. The devout Hindu well understands the praise of St. Francis of Assisi: “Blessed be my Lord for our Sister Water, so useful, humble, chaste, and precious.” ([Location 6414](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=6414)) - ‘There is nothing inexplicable about this materialization. The whole cosmos is a projected thought of the Creator. The heavy clod of the earth, floating in space, is a dream of God’s. He made all things out of His mind, even as man in his dream consciousness reproduces and vivifies a creation with its creatures. ([Location 6679](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=6679)) - Tags: [[favorite]] - Swalpamapyasya dharmasya trayate mahato bhayat.’ [“Even a little practice of this dharma (religious rite or righteous action) will save you from great fear (mahato bhayat)” — the colossal sufferings inherent in the repeated cycles of birth and death.] ([Location 6767](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=6767)) - ’ “‘I am washing the feet of this renunciant, and then I shall clean his cooking utensils.’ Babaji smiled at me like a little child; I knew he was intimating that he wanted me to criticize no one, but to see the Lord as residing equally in all body-temples, whether of superior or inferior men. ([Location 6822](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=6822)) - “‘I am washing the feet of this renunciant, and then I shall clean his cooking utensils.’ Babaji smiled at me like a little child; I knew he was intimating that he wanted me to criticize no one, but to see the Lord as residing equally in all body-temples, whether of superior or inferior men. ([Location 6823](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=6823)) - 15 “[He] humbleth himself to behold the things that are in heaven and in the earth” (Psalms 113:6). “Whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted” (Matt. 23:12). To humble the ego or false self is to discover one’s eternal identity. ([Location 6881](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=6881)) - Meditate unceasingly, that you quickly behold yourself as the Infinite Essence, free from every form of misery. Cease being a prisoner of the body; using the secret key of Kriya, learn to escape into Spirit.” ([Location 6961](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=6961)) - “The secret of improved plant breeding, apart from scientific knowledge, is love.” ([Location 7594](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=7594)) - The Bible refers to Aum as the Holy Ghost or invisible life force that divinely upholds all creation. “What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?” — I Corinthians 6:19. ([Location 7843](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=7843)) - The seeker of God is the real lover of vidya, unchangeable truth; all else is avidya, relative knowledge. ([Location 7860](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=7860)) - “Neither birth nor sacraments nor study nor ancestry can decide whether a person is twice-born (i.e., a Brahmin),” the Mahabharata declares, “character and conduct only can decide.”10 ([Location 8212](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=8212)) - . “Neither birth nor sacraments nor study nor ancestry can decide whether a person is twice-born (i.e., a Brahmin),” the Mahabharata declares, “character and conduct only can decide.” ([Location 8226](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=8226)) - “Do not do what you want, and then you may do what you like.” ([Location 8252](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=8252)) - 10 “Inclusion in one of these four castes originally depended not on a man’s birth but on his natural capacities as demonstrated by the goal in life he elected to achieve,” writes Tara Mata in East-West for January 1935. “This goal could be (1) kama, desire, activity of the life of the senses (Sudra stage), (2) artha, gain, fulfilling but controlling the desires (Vaisya stage), (3) dharma, self-discipline, the life of responsibility and right action (Kshatriya stage), (4) moksha, liberation, the life of spirituality and religious teaching (Brahmin stage). These four castes render service to humanity by (1) body, (2) mind, (3) will power, (4) Spirit. ([Location 8308](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=8308)) - Ahan-sa or ’han-sa (pronounced hong-sau) is literally “I am He.” These potent Sanskrit syllables possess a vibratory connection with the incoming and the outgoing breath. Thus with his every breath man unconsciously asserts the truth of his being: I am He! ([Location 8605](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=8605)) - the astral being employs his unerring intuition to recognize all those once dear to him in other planes of existence, and to welcome them to their new astral home. ([Location 8775](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=8775)) - This philosophy of monism received its highest expression in the Upanishad commentaries of Shankara. ([Location 9015](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=9015)) - One must conquer the palate before he can control the procreative instinct. Semi-starvation or unbalanced diets are not the answer. After overcoming the inward greed for food, a satyagrahi must continue to follow a rational vegetarian diet with all necessary vitamins, minerals, calories, and so forth. By inward and outward wisdom in regard to eating, the satyagrahi’s sexual fluid is easily turned into vital energy for the whole body.” ([Location 9174](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=9174)) - Tags: [[favorite]] - something new; let us try the force of love and God which is truth.” When we have got that, we shall want nothing else. ([Location 9273](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=9273)) - “How many times, O Man, do I forgive each of you daily?” 19 Charles P. Steinmetz, the great electrical engineer, was once asked by Mr. Roger W. Babson: “What line of research will see the greatest development during the next fifty years?” “I think the greatest discovery will be made along spiritual lines,” Steinmetz replied. “Here is a force which history clearly teaches has been the greatest power in the development of men. Yet we have merely been playing with it and have never seriously studied it as we have the physical forces. Someday people will learn that material things do not bring happiness and are of little use in making men and women creative and powerful. Then the scientists of the world will turn their laboratories over to the study of God and prayer and the spiritual forces which as yet have hardly been scratched. When this day comes, the world will see more advancement in one generation than it has seen in the past four.” ([Location 9398](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=9398)) - 3 Casting aside every inferior attachment, Ananda Moyi Ma offers her sole allegiance to the Lord. Not by the hair-splitting distinctions of scholars but by the sure logic of faith, the childlike saint has solved the only problem in human life — establishment of unity with God. ([Location 9486](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=9486)) - Casting aside every inferior attachment, Ananda Moyi Ma offers her sole allegiance to the Lord. Not by the hair-splitting distinctions of scholars but by the sure logic of faith, the childlike saint has solved the only problem in human life — establishment of unity with God. ([Location 9505](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=9505)) - 1 Since 1950 this all-day meditation has been held on December 23. Self-Realization Fellowship members around the world also keep Christmas thus, in their homes and in SRF temples and centers, setting aside one day during the Christmas season for deep meditation and prayer. Many have testified to the great spiritual help and blessing they have gained through this annual observance begun by Paramahansa Yogananda. ([Location 9819](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=9819)) - In Indian art the lotus is a symbol of the Cosmic Consciousness center (sahasrara) in the brain, the “thousand-petaled lotus of light.” ([Location 9927](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=9927)) - The Hindu scriptures teach that man is attracted to this particular earth to learn, more completely in each successive life, the infinite ways in which the Spirit may be expressed through, and dominant over, material conditions. ([Location 10005](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=10005)) - A man who has reformed himself will reform thousands. ([Location 10020](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=10020)) - The life currents, operating in the human body as the fivefold prana or subtle life energies, are an expression of the Aum vibration of the omnipresent soul. ([Location 10076](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=10076)) - ” Buddha, too, refused to shed light on the metaphysical ultimates, dryly pointing out that man’s few moments on earth are best employed in perfecting the moral nature. The Chinese mystic Lao-tzu rightly taught: “He who knows, tells it not; he who tells, knows it not.” The final mysteries of God are not “open to discussion.” The decipherment of His secret code is an art that man cannot communicate to man; here the Lord alone is the Teacher. ([Location 10159](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=10159)) - God is Love; His plan for creation can be rooted only in love. ([Location 10173](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=10173)) - Buddha, too, refused to shed light on the metaphysical ultimates, dryly pointing out that man’s few moments on earth are best employed in perfecting the moral nature. The Chinese mystic Lao-tzu rightly taught: “He who knows, tells it not; he who tells, knows it not.” The final mysteries of God are not “open to discussion.” The decipherment of His secret code is an art that man cannot communicate to man; here the Lord alone is the Teacher. ([Location 10185](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=10185)) - 11 Paramahansa Yogananda’s comprehensive interpretation of the four Gospels is published in book form by Self-Realization Fellowship, entitled The Second Coming of Christ: The Resurrection of the Christ Within You. (Publisher’s Note) 12 God Talks With Arjuna: The Bhagavad Gita — Royal Science of God-Realization, published by Self-Realization Fellowship. ([Location 10271](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=10271)) - The central message of the Gita is that man may win emancipation through love for God, wisdom, and performance of right actions in a spirit of nonattachment. ([Location 10277](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=10277)) - A different conception from that of the trinitarian Reality: Sat, Tat, Aum; or Father, Son, Holy Ghost. Brahma-Vishnu-Shiva represents the triune expression of God in the aspect of Tat or Son, the Christ Consciousness immanent in vibratory creation. The shaktis, energies or “consorts” of the Trinity, are symbols of Aum or the Holy Ghost, the sole causative force that upholds the cosmos through vibration. ([Location 10322](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=10322)) - 31 Psalms 46:10. The goal of the science of yoga is to obtain that necessary inner stillness by which one may truly “know God.” ([Location 10336](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00JW44IAI&location=10336))