Tag Archives: Yogananda

A FORM OF MEDITATION

Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Last year I read many books about Eastern philosophies and spiritual practices, including the Autobiography of a Yogi, written by the great spiritual teacher from India, Paramahansa Yogananda.  I do not practice Yoga, or meditation, per se,  nor do I ascribe to any organized spiritual methods or organizations.  I am following my own path of reading, communicating and seeking to remember Who I Really Am as an immortal spiritual entity.  I suppose I could call my form of meditation:   “looking, communicating, understanding and loving”.  I practice my “meditation” continually, at least to the degree that I am willing to discipline myself to attain awareness and ability above the extremely limited perceptions imposed by animating an aging biological body on Earth.

I do not “believe in god” or have a membership card in a group of followers.  However, I am inspired and emboldened by beings who know themselves as the source of life energy, of love, wisdom, and of creation of realities for themselves and of universes.  As part of my continuing journey I am reading a book and Blog by a fellow traveler, Pam Grout.  Here is a compilation video she recommended about Russell Brand.  His enthusiastic advocacy of wisdom, and egalitarian love, through self-realization reminds me very much of Yogananda.  This video recommended by Pam Grout in her Blog ( http://pamgrout.com/ )

THE WEALTH OF INDIA

During recent years I have granted myself the right and privilege to read many of the great books of Western and Eastern philosophy and spirituality.  One of the very best was written by Paramahansa Yogananda  (January 5, 1893 – March 7, 1952).   Although poor in material resources, India is filled with “Skyscrapers of Spiritual Wisdom”.  These are two of the living saints, who, when incarnated as human beings, possessed the spiritual ability to transcend death, heal the sick, travel without bodies, read the innermost minds of others, and to Love Unconditionally.  This photograph is of two of the Greatest Gifts that India has given to Humankind.  The poem that follows is from the book  Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramhansa Yogananda.  ( THIS LINK IS TO THE FREE ON-LINE EDITION)  If you have not given yourself the profound pleasure of enjoying this book yet, I sincerely encourage you to do so.  — LRS

Yogananda with Sri Anandamayi Ma

(PHOTO: Yogananda with Sri Anandamayi Ma)

Samadhi

Raised the veils of light and shade,
Evaporated whole fog of sadness,
Sailed away around the dawn of transient joy
Faded blurred mirage of the senses.

AOAYLove, hate, health, disease, life, death:
Became extinct these false shadows on the screen of duality.

The storm of maya stilled
With the magic wand of intuition deep.

Present, past, future, no longer exist for me
I only everlasting, onifluente, I, everywhere.

Planets, stars, constellations of dust, dirt,
Volcanic eruptions of doomsday cataclysms,
The normalizing furnace of creation,
Glaciers of silent x-rays, burning electron floods,
Thoughts of all men, past tenses, present, Futures,
Every blade of grass, myself, mankind,
Each particle of dust universal
Anger, greed, good, bad, salvation, lust,
All assimilated, all transmuted
In the vast ocean of blood of my own Being undivided.

Rejoicing in embers, often fanned by meditation,
Blinding my eyes teary,
Burst into flames of immortal bliss,
Consumed my tears, my limits, my all.

Thou art I, I am Thou
The Knowing, the Knower, the Known, unified!

Palpitation quiet, uninterrupted peace ever new
Eternally alive.

Treat all expectations transcendent imagination,
Beatitude of samadhi!

Neither unconscious state,
Neither mental chloroform without the voluntary,
Samadhi extends my conscious realm
Beyond the limits of my mortal frame
Even the farthest boundary of eternity
Where I, the Cosmic Sea,
I watch the little ego floating in Me

We hear, of atoms, murmurs furniture;
The dark earth, mountains, valleys are liquid melt!

Mares fluids are converted into fuzzy vapor!

Aum blows upon vapors, revealing wonders.

Further,
Oceans unfold revealed, shining electrons,
Until the last sound of the drum cosmic
Transfuse the lights eternal rays in the densest
Of bliss that seeps into everything.

From joy I came, for joy I live, in sacred joy
Dissolvo me.

Ocean of mind, I drink all creation’s waves.

Four veils of solid, liquid, gas, and bright
Raised.

I, at all, penetrate the Great I.

Extinguished forever the faltering, flickering shadows,
Memories of mortals:
Immaculate is my mental sky – below, above and well ahead;
Eternity and I, one united ray.

Tiny bubble of laughter, I,
I became the very Sea of Joy.

_________________________________

Copyright © Self Realization Fellowship. All Rights Reserved.
Paramahansa Yogananda – (Portuguese)