552 Quotes by Paramahansa Yogananda

The trivial preoccupations of daily life are not enough for man; wisdom too is a native hunger.

Why the ancient rishis selected the cow for apotheosis is obvious to me. The cow in India was the best comparison; she was the giver of plenty. Not only did she give milk, but she also made agriculture possible. The cow is a poem of pity; one reads pity in the gentle animal. She is the second mother to millions of mankind. Protection of the cow means protection of the whole dumb creation of God.

God is my life. God is my love. God is the temple that calls my heart to unceasing worship. God is my Goal. No duty can be performed without the power borrowed from God, so my highest duty is to find Him.” Without that attitude of devotion and determination one cannot know God.

The body of the average man is like a fifty-watt lamp, which cannot accommodate the billion watts of power roused by an excessive practice of Kriya. Through gradual and regular increase of the simple and foolproof methods of Kriya, man’s body becomes astrally transformed day by day, and is finally fitted to express the infinite potentials of cosmic energy, which constitutes the first materially active expression of Spirit.

Good manners without sincerity are like a beautiful dead lady,” he remarked on suitable occasion. “Straightforwardness without civility is like a surgeon’s knife, effective but unpleasant. Candor with courtesy is helpful and admirable.

The life and teachings of Paramahansa Yogananda are described in his Autobiography of a Yogi. An award-winning documentary film about his life and work, Awake: The Life of Yogananda, was released in October 2014.

He fitted the Vedic definition of a man of God: “Softer than the flower, where kindness is concerned; stronger than the thunder, where principles are at stake.

Turning a corner, I ran into an old acquaintance – one of those long-winded fellows whose conversational powers ignore time and embrace eternity.

The spiritual man is trying to free himself from the materiality that is the cause of his prodigal wandering in the maze of incarnations, but the ordinary man does not want more than a betterment of his earthly existence.