Reprint from Elephant Journal: Yogananda

Yogananda’s Advice on Life

For those of you who are not familiar with Autobiography of a Yogi, Paramahansa Yogananda was born on January 5, 1893 in Gorakhpur, India.

He was considered by many people to be the “Father of Yoga in the Western World,” and insisted on the unity and common thread between the belief systems of the East and West. In addition, he drew attention to the balance we must strike between the material and the spiritual.

Below are six quotes straight from the book to remind us all of our common core, and the importance of love and fellowship, which is more than relevant in our world today.

1. “You can’t love God and at the same time be unkind to your associates. You can’t love Him and be full of wrath. How you behave toward others both reflects your inner consciousness and conditions it.”

2. “Never imagine that you can win God’s love if you can’t win the love of your fellow creatures. As you love Him, so you should love Him in all.”

3. “God lives and breathes in all. We are Americans or have some other nationality for just a few years, but we are God’s children forever. The soul cannot be confined within man-made boundaries. It’s nationality is Spirit. It’s country is omnipresence.”

4. “Practice loving those who do not love you. Feel for those who do not feel for you. Be generous to those who are generous only to themselves. If you heap hatred on your enemy, neither he nor you are able to perceive the inherent beauty of your soul.”

5. “Relatives are those whom we think of as our own. To love our relatives trains us in expanding our consciousness and helps us practice loving all people as our relatives in God. For relatives and strangers are all equally God’s children. If you limit your love to your own direct family, you have Christ consciousness to only that limited degree. When you love your neighbour as your wider family, you express more of Christ consciousness.”

6. “Love must never remain circumscribed in littleness. Through the gates of friendship, conjugal affection, parental love, and the love of one’s fellow beings and all animate creatures, we can enter into the kingdom of Divine Love.”