Paramahansa Yogananda Quotes

To remember non-attachment is to remember what freedom is all about. If we get attached, even to a beautiful state of being, we are caught, and ultimately we will suffer. We work to observe anything that comes our way, experience it while it is here, and be able to let go of it.

Surrender becomes so much easier when you realize the fleeting nature of all experiences and that the world cannot give you anything of lasting value. You then continue to meet people, to be involved in experience and activities, but without the wants and fears of the egoic self. That is to say, you no longer demand that a situation, person, place, or event should satisfy you or make you happy. It's passing and imperfect nature is allowed to be.

In a single moment we can understand we are not just facing a knee pain, or our discouragement and our wishing the sitting would end, but that right in the moment of seeing that knee pain, we're able to explore the teachings of the Buddha. What does it mean to have a painful experience? What does it mean to hate it, and to fear it?

Your timeless self does not age and has no fear of the future. Contemplate your physical self and all its possessions, and practice laughing peacefully at it all.

Who is the wisest man? He who neither knows or wishes for anything else than what happens.

If I could learn to treat triumph and disaster the same, then I would find bliss.

Be content to be what you are, and prefer nothing to it, and do not fear or wish for your last day.

I'm just dealing with what's happening, with what is. Joy, happiness, good, bad, all those terms are meaningless to me.

The whole purpose of life is to make yourself happy.

Great tranquility of heart is his who cares for neither praise nor blame.

We live in this thought web; we identify things and put them away and distance ourselves from them. But to be completely present? That is source, that is art, that is spirituality. And meditation is a way to defy fear and experience that source.

Fame an fortune are nothing if you're not happy and healthy.

Take no thought of who is right or wrong or who is better than. Be not for or against.

Health is the greatest possession. Contentment is the greatest treasure. Confidence is the greatest friend. Non-being is the greatest joy.

What can be added to the happiness of a man who is in health, out of debt, and has a clear conscience?

Happiness is the cessation of suffering.

For the wretched one night is like a thousand; for someone faring well death is just one more night.

Happiness, contentment, the health and growth of the soul, depend, as men have proved over and over again, upon some simple issue, some single turning of the soul.

Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.

The Dalai Lama was once asked for his favorite chant, and he said it was better not to have a favorite anything, which I think is a great thought.

Happiness is the absence of the striving for happiness.

Joy of living is sustainable; fear of dying is not.

If it is, it is, If it's not, it's not.

Happiness resides not in possessions, and not in gold, happiness dwells in the soul.

I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free.