Paramahansa Yogananda

“ When I say that to attain Bliss is the universal end of Religion, I do not mean by Bliss what is usually called pleasure, or that intellectual satisfaction which arises from the fulfillment of desire and want and which is mixed with an excitation, as when we say we are pleasurably excited. In Bliss there is no excitement, nor is it a contrast consciousness that “my pain or want has been removed by the presence of such and such objects.” It is a consciousness of perfect tranquillity—a consciousness of our calm nature unpolluted by the intruding consciousness that pain is no more. ”

“ It is a great pity that men will spend their best efforts and time in securing what is needed for worldly existence or in indulging in intellectual controversy over theories, but seem never to think it worth their while to realize and patiently experience in life the truths which not only vivify but impart meaning to it. Misguided efforts can engage their attention longer than well-guided efforts. I have been practising the above-mentioned method for the last 18 years, and the more I do so, the more I feel the joy of a state of permanent and unfailing Bliss. ”

“ However, most people will agree that the worldly life, with its cares and pleasures, weal and woe, is worth living.
But of the necessity of the Universal Religion few or none will ever remind us, and so we are not quite alive to it. It is a truism that man can not look beyond the circle in which he is placed. Whatever falls within his own circle he justifies, follows, imitates, emulates, and feels to be the standard of thought and conduct. What is beyond his own sphere he overlooks or lessens the importance of. ”

“ In this case your religion is crude—too crude to bear the name of religion. But it is Religion, just the same. Your goal is perfectly right, the same that all persons have. For both you and they want to get happiness, or Bliss. But your means are ridiculous. Because of your ignorance you do not know what will bring you to Bliss, the goal of happiness; so you think of killing yourself to get it.
So in one sense every one in the world is religious, inasmuch as every one is trying to get rid of want and pain, and gain Bliss. Every one is working for the same goal. ”

“ Of whatever sort the want may be, it gives pain. The more wants we have, the greater the possibilities of pain. For the more wants we have, the more difficult is it to fulfill them, and the more wants remain unfulfilled, the greater is the pain. Increase desires and wants, and pain is also increased. Thus if desire finds no prospect of immediate fulfillment, or finds an obstruction, pain immediately arises. And what is desire? It is nothing but a new condition of “excitation” which the mind puts on itself—a whim of the mind created through company. ”

“ So in all forms of thought, reasoning, inference, or imagination we are not face to face with Reality. Reason or thought may arrange and systematize facts of experience. It can endeavor to see things as a whole. It may try to penetrate into the mystery of the world. But its effort is hampered by the materials on which it works—facts of experience, sense impressions. They are bald, hard facts, disconnected, limited by our powers of perception. The materials disturb rather than help the thought process, which also has a restless continuity. ”

“ Underlying all the so-called Religions—Christianity, Mahomedanism, Hinduism—there is one truth remaining, viz., that unless you know yourself as spirit,—as the fountainhead of Bliss, separate from body and mind,—your existence is devoid of meaning and your life is akin to that of the brute. We can know God only by knowing ourselves, for our natures are similar to His. Man has been created in the image of God. ”

“ If we are once convinced that the attainment of this Bliss-consciousness is our Religion, our goal, our ultimate end, then all doubts as to the meaning of multifarious teachings, injunctions, and prohibitions of the different faiths of the world will disappear. Everything will be interpreted in the light of the stage of growth for which it is prescribed. Truth will shine out, the mystery of existence will be solved, and a light will be thrown upon the details of our lives, with their various actions and motives. ”

“ And we also feel an inward expansion and all-embracing sympathy for all things. The tumults of the world die away, excitements disappear, and the “all in One and One in all” consciousness seems to dawn upon us. A glorious vision of light appears. All imperfections, all angularities, sink into nothingness. We seem to be translated into another region, the fountainhead of perennial Bliss, the starting point of one unending continuity. Is not Bliss-consciousness, then, the same as God-consciousness, in which (God-consciousness) the above states of realization seem obvious? ”

“ This pleasurable consciousness consists of an ‘‘excitation”’ or feeling, and a contrast thought-consciousness that I am no longer feeling the pain of the boil. Now the man who has attained Bliss, though having had a boil on his leg, will feel, when cured, that his state of tranquillity had neither been disturbed, when the boil was, nor regained when it was cured. He feels that he passed through a pain-pleasure universe with which he really has no connection or which can neither disturb nor heighten the tranquil or blissful state which flows on without ceasing. ”

“ In order to carry on the business we have to pay attention to thousands of wants and necessities that the carrying on of a business entails. Each want and necessity in turn involves other wants and more attention, and so on. Thus we see that the original pain involved in want of money is a thousand times multiplied by the creation of other wants and interests. Of course it is not meant that the running of a business or earning of money is bad or absolutely unnecessary. The point is that the desire to create greater and greater wants is bad. ”

“ They lack motive power. We are not necessarily seeking God when we call Him Infinite, Omnipresent, All-Merciful, and so forth. These conceptions satisfy our intellect, but do not soothe our soul. If respected and cherished at heart, they may broaden us to a certain extent—may make us moral and resigned towards Him. But they do not make God our own—they are not intimate enough. They place Him aloof from everyday concern of the world. These conceptions savor of outlandishness when we are on the street, in a factory, behind a counter, or in an office. ”

“ What is true of the earning of money is also true of every action of the world. Whenever we forget our true end—the attainment of Bliss or the state, condition, or mode of living eventually leading to it—and direct our sole attention to the things which are mistakenly thought to be the means or conditions of Bliss, and turn them into ends, our wants, desires, excitations go on increasing, and we are started on the road to misery or pain. We should never forget our goal. ”

“ If each one plays his part according to the directions of the stage manager, then the play, with all its diversities of comical, serious, sorrowful parts, becomes successful. Even the insignificant parts have their indispensable places in the play. The success of the play lies in the perfect playing out of each part. Each actor plays his part of sorrow or pleasure realistically, and to all outward appearances seems to be affected by it; but inwardly he remains untouched by it or by the passions he portrays—love, hate, desire, malice, glory, humility. ”

“ If what is most necessary and universal is not Religion to him, what then can it be? That which is most accidental and variable can not be it, of course. If we try to make money the one and only thing requiring attention in our life, then money becomes Religion to us—‘‘the Dollar is our God.” The predominant life motive, whatever it may be, is Religion to us. Leave aside here the orthodox interpretation, for principles of action, and not intellectual profession of dogmas, or observance of ceremonies, determine, without the need of our personal advertisement, what religion we have. ”

“ We can not have full or direct knowledge of God through the limited powers of the intellect. Intellect gives only a partial and indirect view of things. To view a thing intellectually is not to see it by being one with it: it is to view it by being apart from it. But Intuition, which we shall later explain, is the direct grasp of truth. It is in this Intuition that Bliss-consciousness, or God-consciousness, is realized. ”

“ Religion is truly an act of Intuition; without it the former degrades into the observance of lifeless conventions and rites. It is from the point of view of Intuition that every fact of the world finds meaning in its totality. The criterion of development in the Spiritual world is also Intuition. Men of the world will see how far you are punctual, regular, and devoted in the matter of observing the codes and canons of worldly-wise morality and Religion, but the seer of truth will mark how far you have progressed in the path of realization—Intuition. ”

“ We should take religion and God out of the sphere of belief into that of daily life. If we do not emphasize the necessity of God in every aspect of our lives and the need of religion in every minute of our existence, then God and religion drop out of our intimate daily consideration and become only a one-day-in-a-week affair. ”

“ For the materials of thought must be sense-impressions, which, as we have just found, cannot tell us of our existence, as that feeling is already pre-supposed in them. Nor can the process of thought give us the consciousness of existence, for the latter is already implied in the former. When, by comparing ourselves with the outer world, we endeavor to think or infer that we exist therein, the consciousness of existence is already present in the very act of thinking and inferring. Then, if sense or thought fails, how do we know that we exist? It is only by Intuition that we can know this. ”

“ We should play our parts, as appointed by the Great Stage Manager, on the stage of the world with our whole mind, intellect, and body, inwardly as unaffected or unruffled by pleasure and pain consciousness as are the players on an ordinary stage. When there is dispassion and severing of identification, Bliss-consciousness arises in us. As long as you are human you can not but have desires. Being human, how then can you realize your divinity? First rationalize your desires, then stimulate your desire for nobler things, all the while trying to attain Bliss-consciousness. ”

“ What other direct proof than the existence of Bliss in ourselves in real prayer or worship can we give of the existence and nature of God? Though there is the cosmological proof of the existence of God,—from effect we rise to cause, from the world to the world-maker,—and there is the teleological proof as well, from the telos (plan, adaptation) in the world, we rise to the Supreme Intelligence that makes the plan and adaptation. There is also the moral proof—from conscience and the sense of perfection we rise to the Perfect Being to whom our responsibility is due. ”

“ It is a great mistake to regard a certain object as pleasurable in itself and to store the idea of it in the mind in the hope of fulfilling a want by its actual presence in the future. If objects were pleasurable in themselves, then the same dress or food would always please every one, which is not the case. ”

“ This knowing is one form of Intuition. It is beyond sense and thought—they are made possible by it.
It is very difficult to define Intuition, for it is too near to every one of us. Every one of us feels it. Do we not know what the consciousness of existence is? ”

“ As a matter of fact, it is ludicrous to say that there are two religions, when there is but one God. There may be two denominations or sects, but there is only one Religion. What we now call different religions should be known as different denominations or sects under that one universal Religion. And what we now know as different denominations or sects should be specified as different branch cults or creeds. ”

“ Hence it is natural for man to develop himself through thinking and reasoning, by deep study of books, by original research work, and by laborious investigations into causes and effects in the natural world. The more deeply a man engages in thought-processes, the more he can be said to be utilizing the method by which he has come to be what he is in the course of the world-evolution process (i.e., the method by which consciousness develops into Self-consciousness) and the nearer, knowingly or unknowingly, he approaches the Self. For in thought we rise above the body. ”

“ If God be something other than Bliss, and His contact produces in us no Bliss, or produces in us only pain, or if His contact does not drive pain away from us, should we want Him? No. If God is something useless to us, we want Him not. What is the use of a God who remains always unknown and whose presence is not inwardly manifest to us at least in some circumstance in our life? Whatever conception of God we form by the exercise of reason or intellect, viz., Transcendant, Immanent, etc., will always remain vague and indistinct unless really felt as such. ”

“ To take even the figurative sense of identification: a mother who is in deep identification with her only child suffers and feels intense pain merely by the very hearing of her child’s probable or real death, whereas she may feel no such pain if she hears of the death of a neighboring mother’s child with whom she has not identified herself. Now we can imagine the consciousness when the identification is real and not figurative. Thus the sense of identification with the transitory body and restless mind is the source or root-cause of our Spiritual self’s misery. ”

“ It is in Bliss-consciousness that we realize Him. There can be no other direct proof of His existence. It is in Him as Bliss that our spiritual hopes and aspirations find fulfillment—our devotion and love find an object. No other conception of a Personal Being who is nothing but ourselves magnified is required for us. God may be or become anything—Personal, Impersonal, All-merciful, Omnipotent, etc., etc. What we say is that we do not require to take note of these. Whatever conception we have put forth exactly suits our purposes, our hopes, our aspirations, and our perfection. ”

“ Perception can not really give the true nature of Substance—One, Universal—underlying diverse manifestations. This is the verdict of Reason itself. When Buddhi (in the broad sense, thought) turns back upon itself to judge how far, by interpreting the sense-impressions, it is capable of knowing Reality, it finds itself hopelessly shut up within the domain of the sense-world. There is no loop-hole through which it can peep into the super-sensuous world. ”

“ Presence of life in man is existence, absence of it is death. Hence the method that teaches life’s direct power to control itself must be the best of all.
Now savants of different ages and climes have suggested methods adapted to the mental frame and condition of the people among whom they lived and preached. Some have laid stress on prayer, some on feeling, some on love, some on reason or thought, some on meditation. ”