Quotes from Autobiography of a Yogi

“Live quietly in the moment and see the beauty of all before you. The future will take care of itself......”
― Paramahansa Yogananda, quote from Autobiography of a Yogi

“You may control a mad elephant;
You may shut the mouth of the bear and the tiger;
Ride the lion and play with the cobra;
By alchemy you may learn your livelihood;
You may wander through the universe incognito;
Make vassals of the gods; be ever youthful;
You may walk in water and live in fire;
But control of the mind is better and more difficult.”
― Paramahansa Yogananda, quote from Autobiography of a Yogi

“You have come to earth to entertain and to be entertained.”
― Paramahansa Yogananda, quote from Autobiography of a Yogi

“The power of unfulfilled desires is the root of all man's slavery”
― Paramahansa Yogananda, quote from Autobiography of a Yogi

“You do not have to struggle to reach God, but you do have to struggle to tear away the self-created veil that hides him from you”
― Paramahansa Yogananda, quote from Autobiography of a Yogi

“Stillness is the altar of spirit.”
― Paramahansa Yogananda, quote from Autobiography of a Yogi

“The body is literally manufactured and sustained by mind.”
― Paramahansa Yogananda, quote from Autobiography of a Yogi

“The deeper the Self-realization of a man, the more he influences the whole universe by his subtle spiritual vibrations, and the less he himself is affected by the phenomenal flux.”
― Paramahansa Yogananda, quote from Autobiography of a Yogi

“God is simple. Everything else is complex. Do not seek absolute values in the relative world of nature.”
― Paramahansa Yogananda, quote from Autobiography of a Yogi

“Continual intellectual study results in vanity and the false satisfaction of an undigested knowledge.”
― Paramahansa Yogananda, quote from Autobiography of a Yogi

“Seeds of past karma cannot germinate if they are roasted in the fires of divine wisdom.”
― Paramahansa Yogananda, quote from Autobiography of a Yogi

“Yoga is, as I can readily believe, the perfect and appropriate method of fusing body and mind together so that they form a unity which is scarcely to be questioned. This unity creates a psychological disposition which makes possible intuitions that transcend consciousness.”
― Paramahansa Yogananda, quote from Autobiography of a Yogi

“Why be elated by material profit?” Father replied. “The one who pursues a goal of evenmindedness is neither jubilant with gain nor depressed by loss. He knows that man arrives penniless in this world, and departs without a single rupee.”
― Paramahansa Yogananda, quote from Autobiography of a Yogi

“The human mind is a spark of the almighty consciousness of God. I could show you that whatever your powerful mind believes very intensely would instantly come to pass.”
― Paramahansa Yogananda, quote from Autobiography of a Yogi

“Man's conscious state is an awareness of body and breath. His subconscious state, active in sleep, is associated with his mental, and temporary, separation from body and breath. His superconscious state is a freedom from the delusion that "existence" depends on body and breath. God lives without breath; the soul made in his image becomes conscious of itself, for the first time, only during the breathless state.”
― Paramahansa Yogananda, quote from Autobiography of a Yogi

“Attachment is blinding; it lends an imaginary halo of attractiveness to the object of desire.”
― Paramahansa Yogananda, quote from Autobiography of a Yogi

“TO EVERY THING there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.”
― Paramahansa Yogananda, quote from Autobiography of a Yogi

“The reflection, the verisimilitude, of life that shines in the fleshly cells from the soul source is the only cause of man's attachment to his body; obviously he would not pay solicitous homage to a clod of clay. A human being falsely identifies himself with his physical form because the life currents from the soul are breath-conveyed into the flesh with such intense power that man mistakes the effect for a cause, and idolatrously imagines the body to have life of its own.”
― Paramahansa Yogananda, quote from Autobiography of a Yogi

“The power of unfulfilled desires is the root of all man’s slavery.”
― Paramahansa Yogananda, quote from Autobiography of a Yogi

“He fitted the Vedic definition of a man of God: “Softer than the flower, where kindness is concerned; stronger than the thunder, where principles are at stake.”
― Paramahansa Yogananda, quote from Autobiography of a Yogi

“If you don’t invite God to be your summer Guest, He won’t come in the winter of your life.”
― Paramahansa Yogananda, quote from Autobiography of a Yogi

“You go often into the silence, but have you developed anubhava?” He was reminding me to love God more than meditation. “Do not mistake the technique for the Goal.”
― Paramahansa Yogananda, quote from Autobiography of a Yogi

“Moral: Look fear in the face and it will cease to trouble you.”
― Paramahansa Yogananda, quote from Autobiography of a Yogi

“Hay personas que tratan de ser altas cortando la cabeza a los demàs
Sri Yukteswar”
― Paramahansa Yogananda, quote from Autobiography of a Yogi

“The ancient rishis discovered these laws of sound alliance between nature and man. Because nature is an objectification of Aum, the Primal Sound or Vibratory Word, man can obtain control over all natural manifestations through the use of certain mantras or chants.”
― Paramahansa Yogananda, quote from Autobiography of a Yogi

“The master never counseled slavish belief. ‘Words are only shells,’ he said. ‘Win conviction of God’s presence through your own joyous contact in meditation.”
― Paramahansa Yogananda, quote from Autobiography of a Yogi

“A man will be beloved if, possessed with great power, he still does not make himself feared.”
― Paramahansa Yogananda, quote from Autobiography of a Yogi

“The soul having been often born, or, as the Hindus say, ‘traveling the path of existence through thousands of births’ ... there is nothing of which she has not gained the knowledge; no wonder that she is able to recollect... what formerly she knew.... For inquiry and learning is reminiscence all.”-Emerson.”
― Paramahansa Yogananda, quote from Autobiography of a Yogi

“The poet is intimate with truth, while the scientist approaches awkwardly.”
― Paramahansa Yogananda, quote from Autobiography of a Yogi

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Popular quotes

“This is one of the goals of the Jewish way of living: to experience commonplace deeds as spiritual adventures, to feel the hidden love and wisdom in all things.”
― Abraham Joshua Heschel, quote from God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism

“No anesthetic was necessary for the people who ordered the killings; they had the misleading language of technocratic bureaucracy to distance them from the killings. Thus “mass murder” becomes “the final solution,” “world domination” becomes “defending the free world,” the War Department becomes the Department of Defense, and “ecocide” becomes “developing natural resources.” No one needs to get drunk to do any of this. A good strong ideology and heavy doses of rationalization are all it takes. But it may require little more than a simple unwillingness to step outside the flow of society, to think and act and most importantly experience for ourselves—and to make our own decisions.”
― Derrick Jensen, quote from A Language Older Than Words

“Wallingford vaulted up from his chair. “You’ve come here so that I can mollify you and share in your belittling of Anais? Well, you’ve knocked on the wrong bloody door, Raeburn, because I will not join you in disparaging Anais. I will not! Not when I know what sort of woman she is—she is better than either of us deserves. Damn you, I know what she means to you. I know how you’ve suffered. You want her and you’re going to let a mistake ruin what you told me only months ago you would die for. Ask yourself if it is worth it. Is your pride worth all the pain you will make your heart suffer through? Christ,” Wallingford growled, “if I had a woman who was willing to overlook everything I’d done in my life,
every wrong deed I had done to her or others, I would be choking back my pride so damn fast I wouldn’t even taste it.”
Lindsay glared at Wallingford, galled by the fact his friend— the one person on earth he believed would understand his feelings—kept chastising him for his anger, which, he believed, was natural and just.
“If I had someone like Anais in my life,” Wallingford continued, blithely ignoring Lindsay’s glares, “I would ride back to Bewdley with my tail between my legs and I would do whatever I had to do in order to get her back.”
“You’re a goddamned liar! You’ve never been anything but a selfish prick!” Lindsay thundered. “What woman would you deign to lower yourself in front of? What woman could you imagine doing anything more to than fucking?”
Wallingford’s right eye twitched and Lindsay wondered if his friend would plant his large fist into his face. He was mad enough for it, Lindsay realized, but so, too, was he. He was mad, angry—all but consumed with rage, but the bluster went out of him when Wallingford spoke.
“I’ve never bothered to get to know the women I’ve been with. Perhaps if I had, I would have found one I could have loved—one I could have allowed myself to be open with. But out of the scores of women I’ve pleasured, I’ve only ever been the notorious, unfeeling and callous libertine—that is my shame.Your shame is finding that woman who would love you no matter what and letting her slip through your fingers because she is not the woman your mind made her out to be. You have found something most men only dream of. Things that I have dreamed of and coveted for myself. The angel is dead. It is time to embrace the sinner, for if you do not, I shall expect to see you in hell with me. And let me inform you, it’s a burning, lonely place that once it has its hold on you, will never let you go. Think twice before you allow pride to rule your heart.”
“What do you know about love and souls?” Lindsay growled as he stalked to the study door.
“I know that a soul is something I don’t have, and love,” Wallingford said softly before he downed the contents of his brandy, “love is like ghosts, something that everyone talks of but few have seen. You are one of the few who have seen it and sometimes I hate you for it. If I were you, I’d think twice about throwing something like that away, but of course, I’m a selfish prick and do as I damn well please.”
“You do indeed.”
Wallingford’s only response was to raise his crystal glass in a mock salute.“To hell,” he muttered,“make certain you bring your pride. It is the only thing that makes the monotony bearable.”
― Charlotte Featherstone, quote from Addicted

“I ran upstairs, loving, weeping. I will run downstairs, unloving, not weeping.”
― Fay Weldon, quote from The Life and Loves of a She Devil

“the powerful are always lied to since the weak are always driven to panic”
― Louise Glück, quote from The Wild Iris

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BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

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