Posts tagged Paramahansa Yogananda

A story on persistence and faith

A man planted a flower seed in his garden. He looked after it, steadfastly weeding and watering the soil around it. A robust plant appeared — but, for years, no flower. He thought of destroying the plant, but finally decided: “My business is to look after the plant; it is for God to produce the flower. I will keep myself busy in tending the plant and not concentrating on my flowerless labors.” Years passed; he contented himself with the care of the plant and forgot all about the flower. One sunny morning, when a breeze was gently blowing, he smelled a strangely attractive fragrance. He ran to his plant and stood speechless in joy — there in front of him was the gorgeous flower! The aromatic beauty had always been present in the plant, a hidden potential awaiting the right moment of blossoming made possible by his labor of love.

The yogi should similarly keep himself busy nurturing his plant of Self-realization; if he is not impatient, he will find (one day when God in his infinite wisdom deems it proper) the amaranthine flower of eternal freedom.

— Paramahansa Yogananda (born on 5th January)

Photo by Hamed Saber

Admiration Vs Possessiveness

When you see the beauty somewhere, when you fall in love with something, the next impulse that comes in you is to possess it, have it; and, when you have it, it looses all its significance.

— Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

When you see a sunset, in that moment of beauty there is a spontaneous, creative joy. When you wish to repeat that experience again, there is no joy in the sunset; you try to receive that same creative happiness but it is not there. Your mind, not expecting, not wanting was capable of receiving, but having received it is greedy for more and it is this greed that blinds. Greed is accumulative and burdens the mind-heart; it is ever gathering, storing up. Thought-feeling is corrupted by greed, by the corroding waves of memory. Only through deep awareness is this engulfing process of the past brought to an end. Greed, like pleasure, is ever singularistic, limiting, and how can thought born of greed comprehend that which is immeasurable!

— J. Krishnamurti, Ojai 6th public talk, 18 June 1944

A true yogi may admire a beautiful horse, for instance; but those who feel a wish to possess the animal become entangled in Sankalpa, ego-instigated desires. He is a yogi who can remain in any material environment without being involved in likes and dislikes.

— Paramahansa Yogananda, God Talks with Arjuna, p. 593.

Have you not experienced in moments of great ecstasy the cessation of time; there is no past, no future but an intense awareness, a timeless present? Having experienced such a state greed begins its activities and re-creates time, recalling, reviving, looking to the future for further experience, rearranging the pattern of time to capture the Timeless. Thus greed, the becoming, holds thought-feeling in the bondage of time.

So be aware of the present, however sorrowful or pleasant; then it will unfold itself as a time process and if thought-feeling can follow its subtle and devious ways and transcend them, then that very extensional awareness is the timeless present. Look only to the present, neither to the past nor to the future, for love is the present, the Timeless.

— J. Krishnamurti, Ojai 4th public talk, 1945

So, the present moment is all that matters. Drop all efforts to recreate a beautiful experience that you’ve had in the past, for what you think is past is only your own account of what actually happened. Any attempt to recreate your imagination will be a failure. Drop all efforts to possess something you admire. When the feeling of possession comes in, the feeling of admiration goes away. When you try to possess or recreate the past, you are craving, you are being a beggar. But when you can really live in present moment awareness, you are the master of your reality, you have more than all you’ve ever wanted.

So then, start living in the present moment, be open, free your mind, know that the present moment is the only reality, what you think as past and future are just constructs of your mind, figments of your imagination.

The entire universe is yours!

Man, made in the divine image, has come on earth to play his role intelligently in the cosmic drama of destiny designed by God. This life is not man’s own show; if he becomes personally and emotionally involved in the very complicated cosmic drama, he reaps inevitable suffering for having distorted the divine “plot.”

~ Paramahansa Yogananda in “God Talks with Arjuna”.

We don’t know what caused us to come here on earth, we don’t know where we go in the end, we don’t know how the universe has come into existence. We may or may not believe in God. Yet, somehow all things have perfectly come together to bring us into existence, the chemical reactions, water, the perfect temperature, the perfect gravitational force… somehow, organisms started evolving on this beautiful earth, the sunlight providing life to everything, and the perfect system to assimilate the energies and sustain life, then came the fish and the frog and the monkey and the man.

The System takes care of everything. Our existence as human beings in the universe is tiny. Yet we think that we are the doers of everything. We are anxious to take good care of ourselves (often, at the cost of others). We fight with each other for survival forgetting that in order to survive, the first thing we have to do is to stop fighting with each other. We are just a tiny part of the big plan, our life in the System is for a very very short period, we come and go in a flash. But we entertain our own selfish agendas, petty desires, and behave as if we, with this little bodies, will live forever and even outlive the System! Invariably, the result of such arrogant attitude is suffering and misery for ourselves.

Then what is the way? How to live? The way is to stop identifying ourselves exclusively with this tiny body-mind complex and recognize that we are part of the System. This tiny body-mind will perish, but the System will survive. When we learn to recognize how beautifully the System has brought us into existence and sustains us, how lovingly the System takes care of us like a mother taking care of her baby, when we recognize how harmoniously our lives are interwoven with the life of the System and dissolve our narrow, selfish plans into the big plan and correctly recognize our part in the big plan, life becomes ever so graceful, ever so harmonious, ever so beautiful! Then we are no more separate from the System, we are no more part of the system, we become the System. In fact, we are the System.

The entire universe is one whole; and, when someone drops their holding onto limited boundaries, then what they gain is the entire universe.

~ Sri Sri Ravi Shankar