VEDIC TEACHINGS

 

The Vedas are a large body of religious texts originating in ancient India. Composed in Vedic Sanskrit, the texts constitute the oldest layer of Sanskrit literature and the oldest scriptures of Hinduism. Hindus consider the Vedas to be apauruṣeya, which means "not of a man, superhuman” and "impersonal, authorless."

Indian saints compare Vedas to a manual that God gave to mankind when He created the Earth. For a long time, this sacred knowledge was transferred orally from a master to a disciple. About 5 thousand years ago, Vedic texts were written down, and are now available in a written form. Many are still learning from this ancient wisdom. Various parts of The Vedas were translated numerous times in different languages, and many Hindu saints tried to share this knowledge with the West. One of them was the renowned Indian sage Paramahansa Yogananda, who brought the teachings of Kriya yoga to the West in 1920.

The ultimate goal of Kriya yoga, as well as any other authentic yoga teachings, is to help a man achieve direct personal connection to God. Kriya yoga provides practical techniques that allow you to accomplish this in an efficient way, but these techniques alone, without love and devotion, cannot accomplish the goal of building a loving relationship with God.

 “Practice of technique is not enough. Intellectual attainments are not enough. Unless you love God, He will never reveal Himself to you.”

Pramahansa Yogananda SRF Lessons

For more information about the teachings of Paramahansa Yogananda and Kriya yoga, visit: https://yogananda.org/

​This section contains some inspirational quotes about love based on the teachings of The Vedas

 

 

If you cannot conquer human hearts, you cannot conquer the Cosmic heart.

Pramahansa Yogananda SRF Lessons

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The greatest love you can experience is communion with God in meditation.

If you meditate deeply a love will come over you such as no human tongue can describe, and you will be able to give the pure love to others.

Pramahansa Yogananda SRF Lessons

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Remember this: When I have left this world, only love can take my place. Be so drunk with the love of God night and day that you won’t know anything but God, and give that love to all.

Pramahansa Yogananda SRF Lessons

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Remember also that love is the one gift that God is seeking from us all. Just as in an ideal human relationship each one sets aside thoughts of self-gain and focuses on giving, so also in our relationship with God. The more we give our love to Him, not looking for results, the more we will feel His sweet response. “To those who give themselves to Him,” said Paramahansaji, “God gives Himself.”

Pramahansa Yogananda SRF Lessons

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Love is magnet from which God cannot escape.

Sayings of Paramahansa Yogananda

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As soon as we learn in meditation to love God, we

shall love all mankind as we love our own family. Those who have found

God through their own Self-realization -- those who have actually

experienced God -- they alone can love mankind; not impersonally, but as

their blood brothers, children of the same one Father. That is my

experience. When we have fellowship with God, and through Him true

fellowship with all, we find no differences in race, class, or creed. When

God is our religion, the dross of dogmatism is removed from our

understanding and we see the Truth, which is in every soul and in every

religion.

Paramahansa Yogananda “The Divine Romance. To Know God is to Love All”

 

Constant communion with the Infinite by Self-Realization Fellowship methods of meditation fills one with divine love, which alone enables one to love one’s enemies.

Pramahansa Yogananda SRF Lessons

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This dream of life will be taken away from you one day; the only thing that is real is the love of God.

Spiritual Diary May 1

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True meditation reawakens the consciousness of our divine nature and ends in complete union with God. It is the expression of our love for God and His responding love.

Pramahansa Yogananda SRF Lessons

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If we meditate correctly, regularly, and with devotion, God is sure to respond. His response may come during meditation either as spiritual light, or as the holy sound Aum. Or it may come as intuitive, formless wisdom; or as devotion, or as divine, all-inclusive love, or as bliss. It may come in spoken words or in golden letters.

Pramahansa Yogananda SRF Lessons

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This omnipresent love of God this is why I consider Bhagavan Krishna and Jesus Christ avatars of East and West, as the supreme expressions  of the Krishna-Christ Consciousness ( The Universal Kutastha Chaitania) for in them was evident in the highest degree the Incarnation of God's divine love and compassion.  Krishna's love gave to the world the yoga of liberation from the sea of suffering through scientific meditation and right action, and the devotional approach by flinging oneself on the Divine Compassion. Jesus demonstrated in his every act of ministering to the sick and forsaken and in the consummate sacrifice of his body to alleviate the sins of many, the incomparable love of God that is in infinitude of mercy and forgiveness.

Paramahansa Yogananda “The Second Coming of Christ”

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Our highest duty is to reciprocate that love; because love for God makes one with God.

Pramahansa Yogananda SRF Lessons

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He (Jesus Christ) represented God's love for erring humanity in act and sermons of forgiveness and compassion that showed how God is continuously trying to use a superior force of Divine Love expressed as parental, friendly, filial, and all-surrendering pure conjugal love to coax man to forsake his cooperation with Evil's forces of hate, anger, jealousy, lust, and selfishness.

Paramahansa Yogananda “The Second Coming of Christ”

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When the heart is divinely attuned, close human relationships are opportunities to invite God's infinite love from the vessel of many hearts. Without this perspective understanding, these God-given relationships easily degenerate through the influence of cosmic delusion into limiting unfulfilling attachments, with their sad partings and their separations at death.

Paramahansa Yogananda “The Second Coming of Christ”

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Pure love in human hearts radiates the universal Christ-love.

Paramahansa Yogananda “The Second Coming of Christ”

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When assailed by someone, it is hard to give love. The best way, while taking commonsense steps to remedy the situation, is to pray to God to change the heart of that person.

Paramahansa Yogananda “The Second Coming of Christ”

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Practice of technique is not enough. Intellectual attainments are not enough. Unless you love God, He will never reveal Himself to you.

Pramahansa Yogananda SRF Lessons

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Love and forgiveness form the nucleus of the Christ teachings. Far more than just a noble ideal, the principle of love is verily manifestation of God in His creation.

Paramahansa Yogananda “The Second Coming of Christ”

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The devotee who seeks redemption by attuning his actions to the righteous guidance of divine law, and also implores with pure devotion and faith the unconditional love of God will be transformed in God's light of forgiveness. Love is greater than law; it is the unifying thread that attaches the devotee’s heart to the unconditional heart of God.

Paramahansa Yogananda “The Second Coming of Christ”

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Love, affirmed by humility, conquers human hearts and wins the heart of God. … Humility and love alone can attract the divine response – nothing else.

Paramahansa Yogananda “The Second Coming of Christ”

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God is love. His silent loving call eventually draws every wrongdoer back to the Divine Home.

Paramahansa Yogananda “The Second Coming of Christ”

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Jesus emphasized that salvation begins with those practices that enable the devotee truly to love God with the supreme offerings of heart, mind soul, and strength.

Paramahansa Yogananda “The Second Coming of Christ”

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Those persons yet unable to love God as His subtle expressions in meditation can nurture their love for Him as manifested in nature and in all beings they contact of sense in any way.

Encouraged by love for God in meditation, one might best begin soul neighborliness by reaching out in helpfulness to persons who are outside one’s family, yet are nearer than the world at large.

Paramahansa Yogananda “The Second Coming of Christ”

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Saints and sages who fulfill the two preeminent commandments are no longer subservient to the discipline of other commandments, for in loving God in transcendental meditation and as manifested in others, the righteousness in all cosmic laws is honored automatically.

Therefore, to love God through continuous prayer and meditation and to love God through physical, mental and spiritual service to His manifestations in one’s universal family of neighbors, is the support and essence of the entirety of other laws of human conduct and liberated lives.

Whether one has been righteous or reprehensible, love of God is one’s salvation.

But he quick becomes a virtuous man, even if scattered with the sins of the world, who says from the sincerity of his heart, “God, I love You,” He is safe.

 

Paramahansa Yogananda “The Second Coming of Christ”

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No one can find God without love, for love given freely from the heart of His children is the only thing man’s Maker is seeking. He has everything else.

A lover that is not a man or a woman but the great God who has masqueraded before him as father, mother, friend incarnations of lovers. It is He who is calling you; He who will never abandon you.

Paramahansa Yogananda “The Second Coming of Christ”

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When that love of God fills one’s being, it embraces everyone in a universal consciousness of love, service, and compassion.  As Jesus’ great disciple John wrote: “Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.”

Paramahansa Yogananda “The Second Coming of Christ”

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The best of yogi is he who feels for others, whether in grief or pleasure, even as he feels for himself.

He whose love contracts in divisive self-interest shuts out of his consciousness the universal consciousness of God. He whose mind is prepared to love his fellow beings as he loves himself, experiences the joy of feeling his little self-expanding in the omnipresence of God.

Paramahansa Yogananda “The Second Coming of Christ”

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Jesus taught his disciples not only feel God as the great manifestation of love and ever new joy in meditation, but also to love God in His tangible presence in the temples of human bodies.

Paramahansa Yogananda “The Second Coming of Christ”

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I am giving you a new commandment of spiritual law, that as disciples you should love one another. As I have loved you with divine love, so also with the same divine you should love one another.

Paramahansa Yogananda “The Second Coming of Christ”

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To feel that soul-love of all pure hearts is to be transported in an ecstasy of joy so great, so overwhelming, that it cannot be contained – a charge of bliss passing through one’s being, and thousand million volts rapturous power. This divine emotion is beyond description – a communion of unutterable sweetness with the Infinite Grace, the Indescribable Glory, the Eternal Protection. That is the love of God which Jesus felt, and in which he sheltered his disciples: “As that Father has loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love.”

Paramahansa Yogananda “The Second Coming of Christ”

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The flame of love and yearning must be fueled again and again with daily practice of meditation and self-discipline. Jesus pointed out that any devotee would be able to abide in the unending divine love… by loving God as the joy of meditation, with all the heart’s devotion, mind’s concentration, soul’s intuition, and body’s “strength” (withdrawing the energy from the senses to focus the attention on Him); and loving Him as present in the souls of all living creatures (“neighbors,” all those one happens to meet).”

By keeping those two foremost commandments of the Father, Jesus, and all liberated devotees abide eternally in the Lord’s unending, ever joyous, ever new love.

Paramahansa Yogananda “The Second Coming of Christ”

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Having endowed each soul with free will, God will never force anyone to choose Him over lesser desires. But His love is eternal pursuing His errant children always.

Paramahansa Yogananda “God Talks with Arjuna: The Bhagavad Gita”

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Compassion toward all beings (daya) is necessary for divine realization, for God Himself is overflowing with this quality. Those with a tender heart can put themselves in the place of others, feel their suffering and try to alleviate it.

Paramahansa Yogananda “God Talks with Arjuna: The Bhagavad Gita”

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The greatest of all miracles is the love of God.

Pramahansa Yogananda SRF Lessons

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The Lord wants us to escape this delusive world. ... You must seek His love, for it encompasses eternal freedom, endless joy, and immortality.

Paramahansa Yogananda "The Divine Romance"

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In the sanctuary of your soul, invite your restless thoughts to assemble and still themselves in a service of deepest united love for Christ.

Paramahansa Yogananda "A Christmas Message"

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The love of God is the only Reality. What we all really want is the love of God. And you will have itwhen you attain deeper realization.

Rajarusi Jamekananda "Rajarusi Jamekananda: A Great Western Yogi."

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It isn't always the length of time spent in meditation that is important, but rather the zeal, the ardor, that you put into your meditations. God responds to the love of the heart. God is more easily reached through love.

Pramahansa Yogananda SRF Lessons

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Love, the divine love of God, is the most inspiring truth that Jesus demonstrated; it was the power by which he could return love and forgiveness for the hatred he received.

Paramahansa Yogananda "A Christmas Message"

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My wish is to draw those who love God. I prefer a soul to a crowd, and I love crowds of souls.

Paramahansa Yogananda "A Christmas Message"

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I have God. When He is with you, He makes you fearless, secure in His love.

Paramahansa Yogananda "A Christmas Message"

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The best time to make love to God is at night when you are free and the world is asleep. Take your heart away from everything and give it only to God in deep meditation.

Paramahansa Yogananda "A Christmas Message"

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When freely we give our love to Him – not because He is great and all-powerful, but because He is our own, and because we are His children, expressions of His One Consciousness – that is what He loves.

Paramahansa Yogananda "A Christmas Message"

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If you work for your Divine Beloved, your life will be filled with love and strength.

Pramahansa Yogananda SRF Lessons

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He wants your love to be freely given, without “prompting”. And we shall never be happy until we give it.

 Pramahansa Yogananda “How You Can Talk to God”

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Salvation is for those who love God, those who go on seeking Him to the end – not just to “stick it out”, but because they love Him. And when great love for God comes in your heart, you do not miss anything; no matter what you have or do not have in this world, you nevertheless feel fulfilled.

Pramahansa Yogananda SRF Lessons

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Divine love transmutes all material desires – even the longing for human love, the mortal passion, which so often brings pain either from its fickle nature or because it snatched away by death. Loving the Lord, you can never turn back to being satisfied by lesser loves. In Him you will find all the love of all hearts.

Pramahansa Yogananda SRF Lessons

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On earth we seemingly strangers; it is only when we love the Lord that we become truly brothers and sisters of all.

Pramahansa Yogananda SRF Lessons

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“I shall give you my hermitages and all I possess.” “Sir, I come for wisdom and God-realization. Those are your treasure troves I am after!” The swift Indian twilight had dropped its half-curtain before my master spoke again. His eyes held unfathomable tenderness. “I give you my unconditional love.” Precious words! A quarter-century elapsed before I had another auricular proof of his love. His lips were strange to ardor; silence suited his oceanic heart. “Will you give me the same unconditional love?” He gazed at me with childlike trust. “I will love you eternally, Gurudeva!” “Ordinary love is selfish, darkly rooted in desires and satisfactions. Divine love is without condition, without boundary, without change. The flux of the human heart is gone forever at the transfixing touch of pure love.” He added humbly, “If ever you find me falling from a state of God-realization, please promise to put my head on your lap and help to bring me back to the Cosmic Beloved we both worship.”

Pramahansa Yogananda Autobiography of Yogi

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The all-pervading light of God, imbued with the universal Christ Intelligence (Kutastha Chaitanya) silently emanates divine love and wisdom to guide all beings back to the Infinite Consciousness.

Pramahansa Yogananda SRF Lessons

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Without God, human love is never perfect.

Pramahansa Yogananda How to Be Happy All the Time

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During every little period of leisure, plunge your mind into the infinite thought of Him. Talk to Him intimately. He is nearest of the near, the dearest of the dear. Love Him as a miser loves money, as an ardent man loves his sweetheart, as drowning person loves breath. When you earn for God with intensity, He will come to you.

Sayings of Paramahansa Yogananda

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In the book’s final chapter, Paramahansa Yogananda writes of the profound assurance which has been affirmed by saints and sages of all the world’s religions down through the ages: “God is Love; His plan for creation can be rooted only in love. Does not that simple thought, rather than erudite reasonings, offer solace to the human heart? Every saint who has penetrated to the core of Reality has testified that a divine universal plan exists and that it is beautiful and full of joy.”

Pramahansa Yogananda Autobiography of Yogi

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I wish to influence others only by love. I just wilt when I am forced to train them in other ways.

Sayings of Paramahansa Yogananda

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I tore asunder those veils and discovered that my memory and my love for Him were doors to His presence. As often as I thought of Him, the door was flung open and I felt His presence.

Pramahansa Yogananda SRF Lessons

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You can find God in the solitude of your own room when, in the early morning hours and before sleeping, you compose yourself for meditation. With folded hands say mentally, "Father, Thou art omniscient. Thou knowest my every thought. Talk to me. I want to hear Thy voice." Say it mentally again and again until you feel it. You have to culture this feeling, to work for it. Repeat the prayer again and again until you find your heart throbs with love and yearning for God, and you get a conscious response.

Pramahansa Yogananda How to Be Happy All the Time

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When you wish to express your love for someone, you do not need to quote from a book of poems to express that love. Your love finds its own words, which flow spontaneously from the awakened heart. So pray to God mostly in your own words of love and yearning, not in the borrowed language of others. Never cease to keep up your prayers to God until He answers you.

Pramahansa Yogananda How to Be Happy All the Time

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God understands you when everyone else misunderstands you. He is the Lover who cherishes you always, no matter what your mistakes. Others give you their affection for a while and then forsake you, but He abandons you never.

Sayings of Paramahansa Yogananda

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Affirm divine calmness and peace, and send out only thoughts of love and good will if you want to live in peace and harmony.

Pramahansa Yogananda SRF Lessons

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Even when devotees are active, that activity never diminishes their perception of love for God. The only way to outwit the devil is to keep your mind with God. And when night comes, forsake the world and all your cares of the day and meditate; be entranced with the love of God.

Pramahansa Yogananda SRF Lessons

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In countless ways God is daily seeking your love. He doesn’t punish you if you refuse Him, but you punish yourself.

Sayings of Paramahansa Yogananda

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Those who want to love the Lord and yearn to enter His kingdom, and who sincerely wish in their hearts to know Him, will find Him. You must have an ever-lasting desire for Him, day and night. He will acknowledge your love by fulfilling His promise to you throughout eternity, and you shall know joy and happiness unending. All is light, all is joy, all is peace, all is love. He is all.

Pramahansa Yogananda SRF Lessons

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Go so deep that you can feel the presence of God. God watches the heart. If in your heart there is love for God, then, you will find it easy.

Pramahansa Yogananda SRF Lessons

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All souls are equal. The only difference between you and me is that I made the effort. I showed God that I love Him, and He came to me. Love is the magnet form which God cannot escape.

Sayings of Paramahansa Yogananda

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Friendships do not satisfy us unless they are rooted in mutual love for the Lord. Our human wish for loving understanding from others is in reality the soul’s desire for unity with God. The more we seek to satisfy that desire outwardly, the less likely we are to find the Divine Companion.

Sayings of Paramahansa Yogananda

 

Meditate more; go deep; and follow the hermitage rules. By changing your habits you will awaken in your heart the memory of His wondrous Being; and, knowing Him, there is no doubt that you will love Him.

Sayings of Paramahansa Yogananda

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We have to dig constantly into peace with the spade of our good actions. We have to keep our happiness plant well watered with our spirit of love and service. We can only be happy by making others happy.

Pramahansa Yogananda How to Be Happy All the Time

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We should not exalt the objects of creation above the Creator. Our love for Nature, family, friends, duties, and possessions should not occupy the supreme throne in our hearts. That is where God belongs.

Sayings of Paramahansa Yogananda

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By placing us in families, God affords us an opportunity to overcome selfishness and to find it easier to think of others. In friendships He offers us a way to broaden further our sympathies. Even that is not the end; we should continue to expand our love until it becomes divine, encompassing all beings everywhere. Otherwise, how may we achieve oneness with God, the Father of all?

Sayings of Paramahansa Yogananda

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With the love of all saints, I will love Thee. Finding Thee first, I will find everything I desire in Thee.

Pramahansa Yogananda SRF Lessons

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Those who want to love the Lord and yearn to enter His kingdom, and who sincerely wish in their hearts to know Him, will find Him. You must have an ever-lasting desire for Him, day and night. He will acknowledge your love by fulfilling His promise to you throughout eternity, and you shall know joy and happiness unending. All is light, all is joy, all is peace, all is love. He is all.

Pramahansa Yogananda SRF Lessons

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Love God unconditionally, and He will come!

Sayings of Paramahansa Yogananda

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Is the diamond less valuable because it is covered with mud? God sees the changeless beauty of our souls. He knows we are not our mistakes.

Sayings of Paramahansa Yogananda

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What matters is not your clothes but your attitude. Make your heart a hermitage, and your robe the love of God.

Sayings of Paramahansa Yogananda

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Remember, meditation must be practiced with devotion, with love for God. Love for God means craving for God, the magnetic attraction of love He cannot resist.

Pramahansa Yogananda SRF Lessons

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The consciousness of a devotee, one who loves God, is not disturbed by the transition from this world to the next. He effortlessly enters a realm of light, love, and joy.

Sayings of Paramahansa Yogananda

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The Lord cannot be bribed by the size of the congregation in a church or by its wealth or well-planned sermons. God visits only the altars of hearts that are cleansed by tears of devotion and lighted with candles of love.

Sayings of Paramahansa Yogananda

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It is limiting to be attached to just one or only a few persons, excluding everyone else. Such course inhibits the growth of universal sympathy. You should extend the boundaries of the kingdom of your affections. Scatter your love everywhere to the God in everything.

Sayings of Paramahansa Yogananda

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So long as you have not found God, it is best not to be interested in amusements. Seeking diversion means forgetting Him. First learn to love Him and know Him. Then it won’t matter what you do, for He will never leave your thoughts.

Sayings of Paramahansa Yogananda

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When one has found his guru there should be unconditional devotion to him, because his is the vehicle of God. The guru’s sole purpose is to bring his disciple to Self-realization; the love a guru receives from a devotee is given by the guru to God.

Sayings of Paramahansa Yogananda

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And that is what you are seeking, everyone of you. You think you want human love and prosperity, but behind these is your Father who is calling you. If you realize He is greater than all His gifts, you will find Him.
Paramahansa Yogananda “The Divine Romance. To Know God is to Love All”

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Christ told each of us to ‘to love thy neighbor as thyself.’ But without soul knowledge, by which you realize that all men are indeed ‘thyself,’ you cannot follow Christ’s command. To me there is no difference among men, because I see each one as God’s child. I can’t think of anyone as a stranger.

Sayings of Paramahansa Yogananda

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I am interested in the redemption of your souls. That is why I came here. I have but one desire – to see this work established in each soul, that you may by your own realization and behold God templed everywhere. And with my love I shall stoop down to help you, wherever I can.

Pramahansa Yogananda SRF Lessons

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If, in the darkness, the mind never wavers, if love and longing never grow weak, it is then that you prove to yourself that you really have the love of God.

Sri Gyanamata; “God Alone: The Life and Letters of a Saint”

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God’s love is so all-embracing that no matter what wrongs we have done, He forgives us. If we love Him with all our hearts He wipes out our karma.

Pramahansa Yogananda “Self-Realization Magazine”

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The love of God cannot be described. But it can be felt as the heart is purified and made constant.

Paramahansa Yogananda “The Divine Romance"

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The love of God is the only Reality… People in the world think, ‘I do this, I enjoy that’. Yet whatever they are doing and enjoying inevitably comes to an end. But the love and joy of God that I feel is without any end.

Rajarsi Janakananda

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No matter the length of one’s meditation period, time should be given to cultivating, expressing, and feeling devotion, yearning, and communion with Divine – praying and talking to God in the language of the heart. The goal of loving and communing with God should always be kept uppermost, not the number of techniques one practices.

Pramahansa Yogananda SRF Lessons

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“O Arjuna, the best type of yogi is he who feel for others, whether in grief or pleasure, even as he feels for himself.”

Pramahansa Yogananda God Talks with Arjuna. The Bhagavad Gita VI:32

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But the devotee who turns his face Homeward, recognizing behind all lesser desires the desire of the soul for the love of God, is on the path to true and lasting happiness.

Pramahansa Yogananda SRF Lessons

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The love of God, the love of the Spirit, is an all-consuming love. Once you have experienced it, it shall lead you on and on int the eternal realms. That love will never be taken away from your heart. It shall burn there, and in its fire you shall find the great magnetism of Spirit that draws  others unto you, and attracts whatsoever you need or desire…

Pramahansa Yogananda SRF Lessons

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It is His love that I speak of. And that is what you are seeking, every one of you. You think you want human love and prosperity, but behind these is your Father who is calling you.

Pramahansa Yogananda SRF Lessons

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When God manifests as Love, there is a blissful merging of the soul and Spirit: the devotee and God become one. Love is the divine force of attraction in creation that is ever pulling everything toward unity and harmony in God.

Pramahansa Yogananda SRF Lessons

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When the love of God comes to you, it will overwhelm your heart with a fulfilment unequaled by the nectar of a thousand million human loves. Overflowing all boundaries, that Love embraces everyone and everything; you feel that all mankind is yours, that everyone is a part of your own family.

Pramahansa Yogananda SRF Lessons

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I am a friend to all and an enemy to none, because I see God in everyone. If just once you taste that love of God you will not rest night and day until you can hold on to it always.

Pramahansa Yogananda SRF Lessons

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