Awakening of the gods
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  • Universe
    • Introduction
    • Basic Creation
    • The View of Modern Science
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    • Personalized Creation Model
  • Adventures
    • Introduction
    • Adventures in Wonderland
    • Cosmic Hypnosis
    • Ego and God-consciousness
    • Karma and Reincarnation
    • Destiny and Free Will
    • Why is there Suffering?
  • Awakening
    • Introduction
    • Religion and Spirituality
    • Paradise Lost
    • Who and Where are We?
    • The Path to Awakening
    • Awakening and Enlightenment
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Autobiography of a Yogi  (October 2020)


In his highly-acclaimed book, The Life of Yogananda (2018), the author, Philip Goldberg, has this to say;


"Paramahansa Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi was a seminal text for me. I had already discovered Eastern philosophy and yogic practices such as meditation, but the iconic memoir expanded my knowledge, strengthened my commitment, and inspired me to dive deeper into my own spirituality. I continued to learn from Yogananda’s writings, and when I researched his life for my 2010 book, American Veda, I came to admire him as a giant of modern spirituality whose contribution to the transmission of India’s ancient wisdom to the West was second to none. I also came to see that his life story was more moving, complex, and compelling than even his ardent followers realize. He was a world-class spiritual master with a unique and important mission .....  He danced to the beat of a cosmic drum that no one else could hear."
"His crowning achievement, and the most enduring monument to his earthly expedition, was Autobiography of a Yogi  .....  It has sold at least 4 million English-language copies and has been translated into nearly 50 languages.  .....  Regardless of which edition readers acquired over the years, the ad slogan used today would have applied: “The book that changed the lives of millions.” That was especially true as the staid ’50s gave way to the tumultuous ’60s, when a large segment of baby boomers embraced Eastern spirituality as passionately as they opposed the Vietnam War. In counterculture circles, the autobiography, with the now-familiar ochre-colored background to the deep-eyed visage of Yogananda in the Standard Pose, was by far the most beloved, borrowed, gifted, and ripped-off spiritual text. If you were lucky enough to know George Harrison, you might have received one from the stack he kept on hand to give away.  .....  Now, more than seven decades after its publication, it can be found everywhere from small-town school libraries to hipster health food stores and, of course, amid the fancy outfits and accessories in the shops of yoga studios that owe their existence, at least in part, to the book and its author."

“You would be hard-pressed to find anyone on the spiritual path whose life has not been influenced by this profound work of literature.” ~ Jack Canfield, co-creator of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series

“Autobiography of a Yogi is regarded as an Upanishad of the new age ....  the immortal nectar of India’s Sanatana Dharma, the eternal laws of truth, has been stored in the golden chalice of Autobiography of a Yogi.” ~ Dr. Ashutosh Das, M.A., Ph.D., D.Litt., Professor, Calcutta University

And finally, from the Goodreads website;

"This acclaimed autobiography presents a fascinating portrait of one of the great spiritual figures of our time. With engaging candor, eloquence, and wit, Paramahansa Yogananda narrates the inspiring chronicle of his life: the experiences of his remarkable childhood, encounters with many saints and sages during his youthful search throughout India for an illumined teacher, ten years of training in the hermitage of a revered yoga master, and the thirty years that he lived and taught in America.
Autobiography of a Yogi is at once a beautifully written account of an exceptional life and a profound introduction to the ancient science of Yoga and its time-honored tradition of meditation. The author clearly explains the subtle but definite laws behind both the ordinary events of everyday life and the extraordinary events commonly termed miracles. His absorbing life story thus becomes the background for a penetrating and unforgettable look at the ultimate mysteries of human existence."


Named one of the best spiritual books of the twentieth century, Paramahansa Yogananda’s remarkable life story takes you on an unforgettable journey that illuminates the deepest secrets of life and the universe — opening our hearts and minds to the joy, beauty, and unlimited spiritual potentials that exist in the lives of every human being.

Below are  brief excerpts from this extraordinary book. Some of the excerpts are quotations from others as recorded by Yogananda; these are duly noted - most of these are from Sri Yukteswar, the guru of Yogananda, as well as Lahari Mahasaya, the guru of Sri Yukteswar. The excerpts are grouped by topic into the following sections;

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  1. Meditation
  2. Kriya Yoga
  3. The Law of Miracles
  4. Healings
  5. Physical Materializations
  6. Seeing the Future
  7. Science
  8. WWI Visions
  9. Astral & Causal Worlds
  10. Suffering
  11. Free Will & Karma
  12. The Poem Samadhi
  13. Various
  14. Final Thoughts
The sections are self-contained and can be read in any order (although it may help to read Section 1 before Section 2 and Section 3 before Sections 4 & 5.)

Clicking on a name will take your directly to that section. A return link back to the start of this posting is provided after each section.

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Meditation
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Meditation is fundamental to the spiritual teachings of the East. As such, meditation is the cornerstone of Yogananda's teachings. The following are some of the key thoughts expressed in the book on this topic.

Yoga is a method for restraining the natural turbulence of thoughts, which otherwise impartially prevents all men, of all lands, from glimpsing their true nature of Spirit. Like the healing light of the sun, yoga is beneficial equally to men of the East and to men of the West. The thoughts of most persons are restless and capricious; a manifest need exists for yoga: the science of mind control.  

In deep meditation, the first experience of Spirit is on the altar of the spine, and then in the brain. The torrential bliss is overwhelming, but the yogi learns to control its outward manifestations.  

The universal appeal of yoga is thus its approach to God through a daily usable scientific method, rather than through a devotional fervor that, for the average man, is beyond his emotional scope.  

“Outward longings drive us from the Eden within; they offer false pleasures that only impersonate soul happiness. The lost paradise is quickly regained through divine meditation." ~ Sri Yukteswar

"Even he with the worst of karma who ceaselessly meditates on Me quickly loses the effects of his past bad actions" ~ Bhagavad Gita

"Meditation furnishes a twofold proof of God. Ever-new joy is evidence of His existence, convincing to our very atoms. Also, in meditation one finds His instant guidance, His adequate response to every difficulty." ~ Sri Yukteswar

"It [yoga] promises undreamed-of possibilities  .....  the perfect and appropriate method of fusing body and mind together so that they form a unity  .....  This unity creates a psychological disposition which makes possible intuitions that transcend consciousness.” ~ Carl Jung

“Ever-new Joy is God. He is inexhaustible; as you continue your meditations during the years, He will beguile you with an infinite ingenuity. Devotees like yourself who have found the way to God never dream of exchanging Him for any other happiness." ~ Sri Yukteswar


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Kriya Yoga
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Babaji
(guru of Lahiri Mahasaya)
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The specific yoga technique that was taught by Yogananda (and the other spiritual masters mentioned in his book) was Kriya Yoga. This is an advanced form of Raja Yoga, the Royal Path to God. Known for millennia, the technique was lost during earth's Dark Ages. It has now been revived and is available to all seeking souls.

The following excerpts include comments about Kriya as well as mention about higher states of consciousness attained by advanced practitioners.

“The Kriya Yoga that I am giving to the world through you in this nineteenth century,” Babaji told Lahiri Mahasaya, “is a revival of the same science that Krishna gave millenniums ago to Arjuna; and that was later known to Patanjali and Christ, and to St. John, St. Paul, and other disciples.”

"The cries of many bewildered worldly men and women have not fallen unheard on the ears of the Great Ones. You have been chosen to bring spiritual solace through Kriya Yoga to numerous earnest seekers." ~ Babaji, speaking to Lahiri Mahasaya

The Kriya technique, which is simple, embodies the art of quickening man’s spiritual evolution. Hindu scriptures teach that the incarnating ego requires a million years to obtain liberation from maya. This natural period is greatly shortened through Kriya Yoga.***


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*** To rise above the duality of creation and perceive the unity of the Creator was conceived of as man’s highest goal. Those who cling to the cosmic illusion must accept its essential law of polarity: flow and ebb, rise and fall, day and night, pleasure and pain, good and evil, birth and death. This cyclic pattern assumes a certain anguishing monotony after man has gone through a few thousand human births; he begins then to cast a hopeful eye beyond the compulsions of maya.

Kriya Yoga is thus “union (yoga) with the Infinite through a certain action or rite (kriya).” A yogi who faithfully practices the technique is gradually freed from karma or the lawful chain of cause-effect equilibriums.

Untying the cord of breath that binds the soul to the body, Kriya serves to prolong life and to enlarge the consciousness to infinity. 

“The ancient yogis discovered that the secret of cosmic consciousness is intimately linked with breath mastery. This is India’s unique and deathless contribution to the world’s treasury of knowledge." ~ Sri Yukteswar

The body of the average man is like a fifty-watt lamp, which cannot accommodate the billion watts of power roused by an excessive practice of Kriya. Through gradual and regular increase of the simple and foolproof methods of Kriya, man’s body becomes astrally transformed day by day, and is finally fitted to express the infinite potentials of cosmic energy.

The advanced yogi transmutes his cells into energy. Elijah, Jesus, Kabir, and other prophets were past masters in the use of Kriya or a similar technique, by which they caused their bodies to materialize and dematerialize at will.

Samadhi is a blissful superconscious state in which a yogi perceives the identity of the individualized soul and Cosmic Spirit.    

In the first state of samadhi (sabikalpa), the devotee shuts off all sensory testimony of the outer world. He is rewarded then by sounds and scenes of inner realms fairer than the pristine Eden.

An oceanic joy broke upon calm endless shores of my soul. The Spirit of God, I realized, is exhaustless Bliss; His body is countless tissues of light. A swelling glory within me began to envelop towns, continents, the earth, solar and stellar systems, tenuous nebulae, and floating universes. The entire cosmos, gently luminous, like a city seen afar at night, glimmered within the infinitude of my being.  …..     The divine dispersion of rays poured from an Eternal Source, blazing into galaxies, transfigured with ineffable auras. Again and again I saw the creative beams condense into constellations, then resolve into sheets of transparent flame. …..   I cognized the center of the empyrean as a point of intuitive perception in my heart. Irradiating splendor issued from my nucleus to every part of the universal structure.   …..   Suddenly the breath returned to my lungs. With a disappointment almost unbearable, I realized that my infinite immensity was lost. Once more I was limited to the humiliating cage of a body, not easily accommodative to the Spirit.

As often as I quieted the two natural tumults [the breath and the restless mind], I beheld the multitudinous waves of creation melt into one lucent sea; even as the waves of the ocean, when a tempest subsides, serenely dissolve into unity. 

A master bestows the divine experience of cosmic consciousness when his disciple, by meditation, has strengthened his mind to a degree where the vast vistas would not overwhelm him. Mere intellectual willingness or open-mindedness is not enough. Only adequate enlargement of consciousness by yoga practice and devotional bhakti can prepare one to absorb the liberating shock of omnipresence.

The divine experience comes with a natural inevitability to the sincere devotee. His intense craving begins to pull at God with an irresistible force.

Sri Yukteswar taught me how to summon the blessed experience at will, and also how to transmit it to others when their intuitive channels are developed.  I have transmitted the Cosmic Vision to a number of Kriya Yogis in East and West.

In the initial states of God-communion (sabikalpa samadhi) the devotee’s consciousness merges in the Cosmic Spirit; his life force is withdrawn from the body, which appears “dead,” or motionless and rigid. The yogi is fully aware of his bodily condition of suspended animation. As he progresses to higher spiritual states (nirbikalpa samadhi), however, he communes with God without bodily fixation; and in his ordinary waking consciousness, even in the midst of exacting worldly duties.

Most men are utterly incapable of summoning those irresistible powers of devotion that are effortlessly possessed only by a few ekantins, “singlehearted” saints found in all religious paths, whether of East or West. Yet the ordinary man is not therefore shut out from the possibility of divine communion. He needs, for soul recollection, no more than the Kriya Yoga technique, a daily observance of the moral precepts, and an ability to cry sincerely: “Lord, I yearn to know Thee!”

“Divine union is possible through self-effort, and is not dependent on theological beliefs or on the arbitrary will of a Cosmic Dictator.” ~ Lahiri Mahasaya

 “Kriya Yoga, the scientific technique of God-realization will ultimately spread in all lands, and aid in harmonizing the nations through man’s personal, transcendental perception of the Infinite Father.” ~ Babaji

The blessed role of Kriya Yoga in East and West has hardly more than just begun. May all men come to know that there exists a definite, scientific technique of Self-realization for the overcoming of all human misery! 

Had India no other gift for the world, Kriya Yoga alone would suffice as a kingly offering.

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Law of Miracles
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Autobiography of a Yogi abounds in stories involving "miracles." As Yogananda and other masters explain in the excerpts below, these are not really miracles but are events that are based on an understanding and use of higher laws that are known to those who have tuned into their God-minds;

A “miracle” is commonly considered to be an effect or event without law, or beyond law. But all events in our precisely adjusted universe are lawfully wrought and lawfully explicable. The so-called miraculous powers of a great master are a natural accompaniment to his exact understanding of subtle laws that operate in the inner cosmos of consciousness.

The motion-picture art can portray any miracle. From the impressive visual standpoint, no marvel is barred to trick photography. A man may be seen as a transparent astral body that is rising from his gross physical form, he can walk on the water, resurrect the dead, reverse the natural sequence of developments, and play havoc with time and space. The expert may assemble the photographic images as he pleases, achieving optical wonders similar to those that a true master produces with actual light rays.

At night man enters the state of dream-consciousness and escapes from the false egoistic limitations that daily hem him round. In sleep he has an ever recurrent demonstration of the omnipotence of his mind. Lo! in the dream appear his long-dead friends, the remotest continents, the resurrected scenes of his childhood. That free and unconditioned consciousness, which all men briefly experience in certain of their dreams, is the permanent state of mind of a God-tuned master. Innocent of all personal motives, and employing the creative will bestowed on him by the Creator, a yogi rearranges the light atoms of the universe to satisfy any sincere prayer of a devotee.

The law of miracles is operable by any man who has realized that the essence of creation is light. A master is able to employ his divine knowledge of light phenomena to project instantly into perce
ptible manifestation the ubiquitous light atoms. The actual form of the projection (whatever it be: a tree, a medicine, a human body) is determined by the yogi’s wish and by his power of will and of visualization.

Great saints who have awakened from the cosmic mayic dream and have realized this world as an idea in the Divine Mind, can do as they wish with the body, knowing it to be only a manipulatable form of condensed or frozen energy. Though physical scientists now understand that matter is nothing but congealed energy, illumined masters have passed victoriously from theory to practice in the field of matter control. 

All scriptures proclaim that the Lord created man in His omnipotent image. Control over the universe appears to be supernatural, but in truth such power is inherent and natural in everyone who attains “right remembrance” of his divine origin.

"Thought is a force, even as electricity or gravitation. 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." ~ Lahiri Mahasaya

“[Lahiri Mahasaya] knew this world to be nothing but an objectivized dream of the Creator. Because he was completely aware of his unity with the Divine Dreamer, Lahiri Mahasaya could materialize or dematerialize or make any other change he wished in the dream atoms of the phenomenal world." ~ Sri Yukteswar

"All creation is governed by law. The principles that operate in the outer universe, discoverable by scientists, are called natural laws. But there are subtler laws that rule the hidden spiritual planes and the inner realm of consciousness; these principles are knowable through the science of yoga. It is not the physicist but the Self-realized master who comprehends the true nature of matter. By such knowledge Christ was able to restore the servant’s ear after it had been severed by one of the disciples.” ~ Sri Yukteswar


Autobiography of a Yogi recounts many, many stories of "miracles" of various types. These are typically described in a casual, matter of fact style that reflects the author's understanding of the science behind them. They were not miracles to him. In the next two sections are excerpts from the book that provide examples of healings and physical materializations.

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Healings

Autobiography of a Yogi contains many stories of healings that were carried out by Sri Yukteswar, Lahari Mahasaya and other spiritual masters. Below are three of these stories:
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        "Sir, you seem sad. What is the trouble?” Lahiri Mahasaya made this sympathetic inquiry one morning to his employer.
     “My wife in England is critically ill. I am torn by anxiety.”
     “I shall get you some word about her.” Lahiri Mahasaya left the room and sat for a short time in a secluded spot. On his return he smiled consolingly.
     “Your wife is improving; she is now writing you a letter.” The omniscient yogi quoted some parts of the missive.
     “Ecstatic Babu, I already know that you are no ordinary man. Yet I am unable to believe that, at will, you can banish time and space!”
     The promised letter finally arrived. The astounded superintendent found that it contained not only the good news of his wife’s recovery but also the same phrases that, weeks earlier, the great master had uttered.
     The wife came to India some months later. Meeting Lahiri Mahasaya, she gazed at him reverently.  
     “Sir,” she said, “it was your form, haloed in glorious light, that I beheld months ago by my sickbed in London. At that moment I was completely healed! Soon after, I was able to undertake the long ocean voyage to India.”

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One of my friends, Sasi, spent a number of happy weekends in Serampore. Master became immensely fond of the boy, and lamented that his private life was wild and disorderly.
     “Sasi, unless you reform, one year hence you will be dangerously ill.” Sri Yukteswar gazed at my friend with affectionate exasperation. “Mukunda is the witness; don’t say later that I didn’t warn you.”
     Sasi laughed. “Master, I will leave it to you to interest a sweet charity of cosmos in my own sad case! My spirit is willing but my will is weak. You are my only savior on earth; I believe in nothing else.”    
     “At least you should wear a two-carat blue sapphire. It will help you.”    
     “I can’t afford one. Anyhow, dear Guruji, if trouble comes, I fully believe you will protect me.”   
     “In a year you will bring three sapphires,” Sri Yukteswar replied. “They will be of no use then.”  
  .....  A year passed  .....  One day I was visiting my guru at the Calcutta home of his disciple, Naren Babu. About ten o’clock in the morning, as Sri Yukteswar and I were sitting in the second-floor parlor, I heard the front door open  .....  I raced down the stairway. Sasi was ascending.  .....  He threw himself at Sri Yukteswar’s feet, placing there three beautiful sapphires. 
     “Omniscient Guru, the doctors say I have pulmonary tuberculosis. They give me only three months to live! I humbly implore your aid; I know you can heal me!”
     “Isn’t it a bit late now to be worrying over your life? Depart with your jewels; their time of usefulness is past.” Master then sat sphinxlike in an unrelenting silence, punctuated by the boy’s sobs for mercy.
     An intuitive conviction came to me that Sri Yukteswar was merely testing the depth of Sasi’s faith in the divine healing power. I was not surprised a tense hour later when Master turned a sympathetic gaze on my prostrate friend.
     “Get up, Sasi; what a commotion you make in another person’s house! Return the sapphires to the jeweler’s; they are an unnecessary expense now. But get an astrological bangle** and wear it. Fear not; in a few weeks you shall be well.  .....  It is as impossible for you to die of tuberculosis as it would be for the sun and moon to interchange their positions.”   Sri Yukteswar added abruptly, “Go now, before I change my mind!”


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** Though jewels and metal bangles have remedial values for the body, Sri Yukteswar had another reason for recommending them. Masters never wish to appear as great healers: God alone is the Healer. Saints, therefore, often cloak with various disguises the powers they have humbly received from the Lord. Man usually puts his trust in tangibles; when persons came for healing to my guru, he advised them to wear a bangle or a jewel in order to arouse their faith and also to divert attention from himself. The bangles and jewels possessed, in addition to their intrinsic electromagnetic healing potencies, Master’s hidden spiritual blessing.

“Electrical and magnetic radiations are ceaselessly circulating in the universe; they affect man’s body for good and ill. Ages ago our rishis pondered the problem of combating the adverse effects of subtle cosmic influences. The sages discovered that pure metals emit an astral light which is powerfully counteractive to negative pulls of the planets." ~ Sri Yukteswar

Pearls and other jewels as well as metals and plants, applied directly to the human skin, exercise an electromagnetic influence over the physical cells. Man’s body contains carbon and various metallic elements that are present also in plants, metals, jewels. The discoveries of the rishis in these fields will doubtless receive confirmation someday from physiologists. Man’s sensitive body, with its electrical life currents, is a center of many mysteries as yet unexplored.

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Sri Yukteswar
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Lahiri Mahasaya
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Jesus calls Lazarus
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“Rama was suddenly put to a severe test,” Sri Yukteswar continued. “He contracted the disease of Asiatic cholera. As our master [Lahiri Mahasaya] never objected to the services of physicians at times of serious illness, two specialists were summoned. Amidst the frantic rush of ministering to the stricken man, I was deeply praying to Lahiri Mahasaya for help. I hurried to his home and sobbed out the story.
     “‘The doctors are seeing Rama. He will be well.’ My guru smiled jovially.
     “I returned with a light heart to my friend’s bedside, only to find him in a dying state.
     “‘He cannot last more than one or two hours,’ one of the physicians told me with a gesture of despair. Once more I hastened to Lahiri Mahasaya.
     “‘The doctors are conscientious men. I am sure Rama will be well.’ The master dismissed me blithely.
     “At Rama’s place I found both doctors gone. One had left me a note: ‘We have done our best, but his case is hopeless.’
     “My friend was indeed the picture of a dying man. I did not understand how Lahiri Mahasaya’s words could fail to come true, yet the sight of Rama’s rapidly ebbing life kept suggesting to my mind: ‘All is over now.’ Tossing thus on alternating waves of faith and doubt, I ministered to my friend as best I could. He roused himself to cry out:
     “‘Yukteswar, run to Master and tell him I am gone. Ask him to bless my body before its last rites.’ With these words Rama sighed heavily and gave up the ghost.
     “I wept for an hour by his bedside. Always a lover of quiet, now he had attained the utter stillness of death. Another disciple came in; I asked him to remain in the house until I returned. Half dazed, I trudged back to my guru.
     “‘How is Rama now?’ Lahiri Mahasaya’s face was wreathed in smiles.
     “‘Sir, you will soon see how he is,’ I blurted out emotionally. ‘In a few hours you will see his body, before it is carried to the crematory grounds.’ I broke down and moaned openly.
     “‘Yukteswar, control yourself. Sit calmly and meditate.’ My guru retired into samadhi. The afternoon and night passed in unbroken silence; I struggled unsuccessfully to regain an inner composure.
     “At dawn Lahiri Mahasaya glanced at me consolingly. ‘I see you are still disturbed. Why didn’t you explain yesterday that you expected me to give Rama tangible aid in the form of some medicine?’ The master pointed to a cup-shaped lamp containing crude castor oil. ‘Fill a little bottle with oil from the lamp; put seven drops in Rama’s mouth.’
     “‘Sir,’ I remonstrated, ‘he has been dead since yesterday noon. Of what use is the oil now?’
     “‘Never mind, just do as I ask.’ My guru’s cheerful mood was incomprehensible to me; I was still in an unassuaged agony of bereavement. Pouring out a small amount of oil, I departed for Rama’s house.
     “I found my friend’s body rigid in the death-clasp. Paying no attention to his ghastly condition, I opened his lips with my right index finger; and managed, with my left hand and the help of the cork, to put the oil drop by drop over his clenched teeth. As the seventh drop touched his cold lips, Rama shivered violently. His muscles from head to foot vibrated as he sat up wonderingly.
     “‘I saw Lahiri Mahasaya in a blaze of light!’ he cried. ‘He shone like the sun. “Arise, forsake your sleep,” he commanded me. “Come with Yukteswar to see me.”’
     “I could scarcely believe my eyes when Rama dressed himself and was strong enough after that fatal sickness to walk to the home of our guru. There he prostrated himself before Lahiri Mahasaya with tears of gratitude.
     “The master was beside himself with mirth. His eyes twinkled at me mischievously.
     “‘Yukteswar,’ he said, ‘surely henceforth you will not fail to carry with you a bottle of castor oil. Whenever you see a corpse, just administer the oil. Why, seven drops of lamp oil must surely foil the power of Yama!’
     “‘Guruji, you are ridiculing me. I don’t understand; please point out the nature of my error.’
     “‘I told you twice that Rama would be well; yet you could not fully believe me,’ Lahiri Mahasaya explained. ‘I did not mean the doctors would be able to cure him; I remarked only that they were in attendance. I didn’t want to interfere with the physicians; they have to live, too.’ In a voice resounding with joy, my guru added, ‘Always know that the omnipotent Paramatman [literally, Supreme Soul] can heal anyone, doctor or no doctor.’
     “‘I see my mistake,’ I acknowledged remorsefully. ‘I know now that your simple word is binding on the whole cosmos.’”
     As Sri Yukteswar finished the awesome story, one of the Ranchi lads ventured a question that, from a child, was doubly understandable.
     “Sir,” he said, “why did your guru send castor oil?”
     “Child, giving the oil had no special meaning. Because I had expected something material, Lahiri Mahasaya chose the nearby oil as an objective symbol to awaken my greater faith. The master allowed Rama to die, because I had partially doubted. But the divine guru knew that inasmuch as he had said the disciple would be well, the healing must take place, even though he had to cure Rama of death, a disease usually final!”

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The spiritual law does not require a master to become ill whenever he heals another person. Healings ordinarily take place through the saint’s knowledge of various methods of instantaneous cure in which no hurt to the spiritual healer is involved.***

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However, taking on the karma of disciples may result in a master choosing to experience physical ailments, as mentioned in the Free Will and Karma section.

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Physical Materializations
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Autobiography of a Yogi
contains several stories of spiritual masters materializing objects, including their body-forms, in various locations for specific purposes. Below are brief excerpts on this topic;

  • A yogi who through perfect meditation has merged his consciousness with the Creator perceives the cosmical essence as light (vibrations of life energy); to him there is no difference between the light rays composing water and the light rays composing land. Free from matter-consciousness, free from the three dimensions of space and the fourth dimension of time, a master transfers his body of light with equal ease over or through the light rays of earth, water, fire, and air.
 
  • "Yonder light is the glow of a golden palace, materialized here tonight by the peerless Babaji. In the dim past, you once expressed a desire to enjoy the beauties of a palace. Our master is now satisfying your wish, thus freeing you from the last bond of your karma  .....  In tune with the infinite all-accomplishing Will, Babaji is able to command the elemental atoms to combine and manifest themselves in any form. This golden palace, instantaneously brought into being, is real — in the same sense that the earth is real. Babaji created this beautiful mansion out of his mind and is holding its atoms together by the power of his will, even as God’s thought created the earth and His will maintains it. When this structure has served its purpose, Babaji will dematerialize it." ~ disciple of Babaji, speaking to Lahiri Mahasaya
 
  • Masters who are able to materialize and dematerialize their bodies and other objects, and to move with the velocity of light, and to utilize the creative light rays in bringing into instant visibility any physical manifestation, have fulfilled the lawful condition: their mass is infinite. The consciousness of a perfected yogi is effortlessly identified not with a narrow body but with the universal structure.
   
  • “Yes, my child, I am the same. This is a flesh and blood body. Though I see it as ethereal, to your sight it is physical. From cosmic atoms I created an entirely new body, exactly like that cosmic-dream physical body which you laid beneath the dream-sands at Puri in your dream-world  .....   My new body is a perfect copy of the old one. I materialize or dematerialize this form any time at will, much more frequently than I did while on earth. By quick dematerialization, I now travel instantly by light express from planet to planet or, indeed, from astral to causal or to physical cosmos.”~  Sri Yukteswar                                                                                                         ......  Bliss poured forth like a fountain through endless, newly opened soul pores. Anciently clogged with disuse, they now widened in purity at the driving flood of ecstasy. My former incarnations appeared before my inward eye in motion-picturelike sequence. Good and bad karma of the past was dissolved in the cosmic light shed around me by Master’s divine visit.
 
  • Years later, from the lips of Swami Keshabananda, an advanced disciple, I heard many wonderful details about the passing of Lahiri Mahasaya. “A few days before my guru relinquished his body,” Keshabananda told me, “he materialized himself before me as I sat in my hermitage at Hardwar. “‘Come at once to Banaras.’ With these words Lahiri Mahasaya vanished. “I entrained immediately for Banaras. At my guru’s home I found many disciples assembled. For hours that day the master expounded the Gita; then he addressed us simply. “‘I am going home.’  .....  At the morning hour of ten, one day after the body of Lahiri Mahasaya had been consigned to the flames, the resurrected master, in a real but transfigured body, appeared before three disciples, each in a different city.
   
  • One night while I was engaged in silent prayer, my sitting room in the Encinitas hermitage became filled with an opal-blue light. I beheld the radiant form of the blessed Lord Jesus. A young man, he seemed, of about twenty-five, with a sparse beard and moustache; his long black hair, parted in the middle, was haloed by a shimmering gold. His eyes were eternally wondrous; as I gazed, they were infinitely changing. With each divine transition in their expression, I intuitively understood the wisdom conveyed. In his glorious gaze I felt the power that upholds the myriad worlds. A Holy Grail appeared at his mouth; it came down to my lips and then returned to Jesus. After a few moments he uttered beautiful words, so personal in their nature that I keep them in my heart.
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Seeing the Future
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In the web posting entitled The Enigma of Time (July 2018) on the What's New page of this website, a model of time is presented that is based on the teachings of both mystics and modern scientists. A brief excerpt follows; 
              
"There is an Eternal Now that encompasses all time; the Present Moment, the "most probable" future and a past that is consistent with the Present Moment (see The Probabilistic Universe posting for an outline of the "most probable" future concept). The Eternal Now stretches across all events of time and provides a vast panoramic view from the beginning to the end of the universe. The Eternal Now can be visualized as a movie film strip made up of countless static, standalone movie frames in which the entire movie from start to finish can be seen all at once. For the vast majority, who currently only have access to their lower ego-minds, only a very small portion of the Eternal Now movie can be seen.  The ego-consciousness plays the static frames, or snapshots, of this limited portion of the movie in succession to create the illusion of continuous motion in our lives and the universe  .....  For those with access to the higher consciousness of their god-minds, the full movie, the complete panoramic view of the Eternal Now can be experienced all at once."

And so it is that the spiritual masters mentioned in Autobiography of a Yogi had the ability to see the full movie film strip of individuals who crossed their paths. The film strip of the future represents the most probable future based on the most likely decisions and actions to be taken by individuals. Should an individual make a decision or take an action in the future that is not his most probable one, then the movie changes and presents a different future.

We see how this unfolds in the story of the healing of Sasi above. By viewing the movie film strip of Sasi's life, Sri Yukteswar foresaw the upcoming health problem for the boy. Sri Yukteswar also saw that the film strip could be changed if Sasi made better life decisions going forward and he so advised Sasi. By ignoring Sri Yukteswar's advice, Sasi's health problem ensued.

Autobiography of a Yogi has other similar stories. As well, some general seeing the future stories are also described in the book. Below are two examples;

     “Sir, what a sour fruit! I could never like strawberries!”
     My guru laughed. “Oh, you will like them — in America. At a dinner there, your hostess will serve them with sugar and cream. After she has mashed the berries with a fork, you will taste them and say: ‘What delicious strawberries!’ Then you will remember this day in Simla.” 
.....  [many years later]  ..... 
     When a dessert of strawberries was put on the table, my hostess picked up a fork and mashed my berries, adding cream and sugar. “The fruit is rather tart; I think you will like it fixed this way,” she remarked. I took a mouthful. “What delicious strawberries!” I exclaimed. At once my guru’s prediction in Simla emerged from the fathomless cave of memory. I was awestruck to realize that long ago his God-tuned mind had detected the program of karmic events wandering in the ether of futurity.

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Mr. E. E. Dickinson
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Swami Vivekananda

The following story was told to Yogananda by a disciple of his, Mr E. E. Dickinson.

     "It is a long story, one I have kept hidden within me.” Mr. Dickinson looked at me shyly. “The beginning was dramatic: I was drowning. My older brother had playfully pushed me into a fifteen foot pool in a small town in Nebraska. I was only five years old then. As I was about to sink for the second time under the water, a dazzling multicolored light appeared, filling all space. In the midst was the figure of a man with tranquil eyes and a reassuring smile  .....
     “Twelve years later, a youth of seventeen, I visited Chicago with my mother. It was September 1893; the great World Parliament of Religions was in session.
     “‘Mother,’ I cried, ‘that was the man who appeared at the time I was drowning!’
     “She and I hastened into the building; the man was seated on a lecture platform. We soon learned that he was Swami Vivekananda of India. After he had given a soul-stirring talk, I went forward to meet him. He smiled on me graciously, as though we were old friends. I was so young that I did not know how to give expression to my feelings, but in my heart I was hoping that he would offer to be my teacher. He read my thought.
     “‘No, my son, I am not your guru.’ Vivekananda gazed with his beautiful, piercing eyes deep into my own. ‘Your teacher will come later. He will give you a silver cup.’ After a little pause, he added, smiling, ‘He will pour out to you more blessings than you are now able to hold.’ 
     ".....  Years passed; no teacher appeared. One night in 1925 I prayed deeply that the Lord would send me my guru. A few hours later, I was awakened from sleep by soft strains of melody. A band of celestial beings, carrying flutes and other instruments, came before my view. After filling the air with glorious music, the angels slowly vanished.
     “The next evening I attended, for the first time, one of your lectures here in Los Angeles, and knew then that my prayer had been granted.
     "For eleven years now I have been your Kriya Yoga disciple,” Mr. Dickinson continued. “Sometimes I wondered about the silver cup; I had almost persuaded myself that the words of Vivekananda were only metaphorical.
     “But on Christmas night, as you handed me the little box by the tree, I saw, for the third time in my life, the same dazzling flash of light. In another minute I was gazing on my guru’s gift that Vivekananda had foreseen for me forty-three years earlier — a silver cup!” 

Publisher's Note: Mr. Dickinson met Swami Vivekananda in September of 1893 — the year in which Paramahansa Yogananda was born (January 5). Vivekananda was apparently aware that Yogananda was again in incarnation, and that he would go to America to teach the philosophy of India.


An interesting detail that Mr. DIckinson did not mention to Yogananda but later recounted is that as he 
went up to the lecture platform in Chicago, Swami Vivekananda greeted him by saying, "Young man, I want you to stay out of the water!"
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Science
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Many of the remarkable scientific discoveries of the early twentieth century occurred prior to the writing  of Autobiography of a Yogi in the 1940s. Yogananda explained the underlying spiritual nature of some of these scientific findings, as evidenced by the excerpts below.

The physical world operates under one fundamental law of maya, the principle of relativity and duality. God, the Sole Life, is Absolute Unity; to appear as the separate and diverse manifestations of a creation He wears a false or unreal veil. That illusory dualistic veil is maya. Many great scientific discoveries of modern times have confirmed this simple pronouncement of the ancient rishis.

Fundamental natural activities all betray their mayic origin. Electricity, for example, is a phenomenon of repulsion and attraction; its electrons and protons are electrical opposites. Another example: the atom or final particle of matter is, like the earth itself, a magnet with positive and negative poles. The entire phenomenal world is under the inexorable sway of polarity; no law of physics, chemistry, or any other science is ever found free from inherent opposite or contrasted principles.

Physical science, then, cannot formulate laws outside of maya: the very fabric and structure of creation. Nature herself is maya; natural science must perforce deal with her ineluctable quiddity. In her own domain, she is eternal and inexhaustible; future scientists can do no more than probe one aspect after another of her varied infinitude. Science thus remains in a perpetual flux, unable to reach finality; fit indeed to discover the laws of an already existing and functioning cosmos but powerless to detect the Law Framer and Sole Operator.

In the creation of the universe, God’s first command brought into being the structural essential: light. On the beams of this immaterial medium occur all divine manifestations.

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Albert Einstein
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Among the trillion mysteries of the cosmos, the most phenomenal is light. Unlike sound waves, whose transmission requires air or other material media, light waves pass freely through the vacuum of interstellar space. Even the hypothetical ether, held as the interplanetary medium of light in the undulatory theory, may be discarded on the Einsteinian grounds that the geometrical properties of space render unnecessary a theory of ether. Under either hypothesis, light remains the most subtle, the freest from material dependence, of any natural manifestation.

With a few equational strokes of his pen, Einstein banished from the universe every fixed reality except that of light.

From science, then, if it must be so, let man learn the philosophic truth that there is no material universe; its warp and woof is maya, illusion. Under analysis all its mirages of reality dissolve.

As steps in man’s awakening, the Lord inspires scientists to discover, at the right time and place, the secrets of His creation. Many modern discoveries help man to apprehend the cosmos as a varied expression of one power — light, guided by divine intelligence. The wonders of the motion picture, of radio, of television, of radar, of the photoelectric cell — the amazing “electric eye,” of atomic energies, are all based on the electromagnetic phenomenon of light.

Motion pictures, with their lifelike images, illustrate many truths concerning creation. The Cosmic Director has written His own plays and has summoned the tremendous casts for the pageant of the centuries. From the dark booth of eternity He sends His beams of light through the films of successive ages, and pictures are thrown on the backdrop of space. Just as cinematic images appear to be real but are only combinations of light and shade, so is the universal variety a delusive seeming. The planetary spheres, with their countless forms of life, are naught but figures in a cosmic motion picture. Temporarily true to man’s five sense perceptions, the transitory scenes are cast on the screen of human consciousness by the infinite creative beam. A cinema audience may look up and see that all screen images are appearing through the instrumentality of one imageless beam of light. The colorful universal drama is similarly issuing from the single white light of a Cosmic Source. With inconceivable ingenuity God is staging “super-colossal” entertainment for His children, making them actors as well as audience in His planetary theater. 

After I had finished writing this chapter [Chapter 30, The Law of Miracles], I sat on my bed in the lotus posture. My room was dimly lit by two shaded lamps. Lifting my gaze, I noticed that the ceiling was dotted with small mustard-colored lights, scintillating and quivering with a radiumlike luster. Myriads of penciled rays, like sheets of rain, gathered into a transparent shaft and poured silently upon me. At once my physical body lost its grossness and became metamorphosed into astral texture. I felt a floating sensation as, barely touching the bed, the weightless body shifted slightly and alternately to left and right. I looked around the room; the furniture and walls were as usual, but the little mass of light had so multiplied that the ceiling was invisible. I was wonder-struck. “This is the cosmic motion-picture mechanism.” A Voice spoke as though from within the light. “Shedding its beam on the white screen of your bed sheets, it is producing the picture of your body. Behold, your form is nothing but light!” I gazed at my arms and moved them back and forth, yet could not feel their weight. Ecstatic joy overwhelmed me. The cosmic stem of light, blossoming as my body, seemed a divine reproduction of the light beams that stream out of the projection booth in a cinema house and make manifest the pictures on the screen. For a long time I experienced this motion picture of my body in the faintly lit theater of my own bedroom.

A.D. 1700. That year ushered in Dwapara Yuga, a 2400-year period of electrical and atomic-energy developments: the age of telegraphy, radio, airplanes, and other space-annihilators. The 3600-year period of Treta Yuga will start in A.D. 4100; the age will be marked by common knowledge of telepathic communications and other time-annihilators.

Dire pronouncements are occasionally published regarding an imminent “end of the world.” Planetary cycles, however, proceed according to an orderly divine plan. No earthly dissolution is in sight; many ascending and descending equinoctial cycles are yet in store for our planet in its present form.

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WWI Visions
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As a young man, Yogananda experienced two visions regarding World War I, as described in Autobiography of a Yogi. The stories of these visions have been covered previously in other parts of this website. They are repeated here, since they provide so much insight into this dream world that we occupy;

One day I entered a cinema house to view a newsreel of the European battlefields. The First World War was still being waged in the West; the newsreel presented the carnage with such realism that I left the theater with a troubled heart. “Lord,” I prayed, “why dost Thou permit such suffering?” To my intense surprise, an instant answer came in the form of a vision of the actual European battlefields. The scenes, filled with the dead and dying, far surpassed in ferocity any representation of the newsreel. “Look intently!” A gentle Voice spoke to my inner consciousness. “You will see that these scenes now being enacted in France are nothing but a play of chiaroscuro. They are the cosmic motion picture, as real and as unreal as the theater newsreel you have just seen."

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In 1915, shortly after I had entered the Swami Order, I witnessed a strange vision. Through it I came to understand the relativity of human consciousness, and clearly perceived the unity of the Eternal Light behind the painful dualities of maya. The vision descended on me as I sat one morning in my little attic room in Father’s Garpar Road home. For months the First World War had been raging in Europe; I had been reflecting sadly on the vast toll of death. As I closed my eyes in meditation, my consciousness was suddenly transferred to the body of a captain in command of a battleship. The thunder of guns split the air as shots were exchanged between shore batteries and the ship’s cannons. A huge shell hit the powder magazine and tore my ship asunder. I jumped into the water, together with the few sailors who had survived the explosion. Heart pounding, I reached the shore safely. But alas! a stray bullet ended its swift flight in my chest. I fell groaning to the ground. My whole body was paralyzed, yet I was aware of possessing it as one is conscious of a leg gone to sleep. “At last the mysterious footstep of Death has caught up with me,” I thought. With a final sigh, I was about to sink into unconsciousness when lo! I found myself seated in the lotus posture in my Garpar Road room. Hysterical tears poured forth as I joyfully stroked and pinched my regained possession: a body free from a bullet hole in the breast. I rocked to and fro, inhaling and exhaling to assure myself that I was alive. Amidst these self- congratulations, again I found my consciousness transferred to the captain’s dead body by the gory shore. Utter confusion of mind came upon me. "Well, I can stop my heart… why am I crying … why am I thinking that I am dead. I have practiced death, so I know what it is to stop the heart and go beyond. I am in that Eternal Joy." But still, the body dream was so real – I said this is death that has happened to me at last – the death that I thought never would happen to me ... Then I saw that Light and I said, "Cosmic Father, tell me, am I dead on the battlefield or am I sitting meditating in Calcutta?"  He said, "Neither – you have been dreaming that you are sitting and meditating and you have been dreaming that you are dead. You are neither of these two dreams. You are this Light that created those dream delusions”…. and my delusion fled and I became that Great Light. ***
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***
the first part of the above story is taken from Autobiography of a Yogi. The last part (shown in italics) is from an audio recording of a talk given by Yogananda at Christmas 1951, entitled The Great Light of God. While the two versions of the story are almost identical, I prefer the combination above.

Note: As mentioned above, the stories of these two visions provide much insight into this world of frozen light forms that we find ourselves in, e.g.

  • Everything is consciousness. That portion of the universe that we see around us and that we play in is a projection of consciousness. Each of our personal worlds is a combination of what is projected by our own consciousness overlaid on a collective view that is projected by Spirit.

  • If we can access our higher consciousness, then we can be a "witness" to the world around us and we see our body as merely a player in a play world. Our higher consciousness is a blissful state of boundless, formless joy. More on this in the web posting Are You in the Universe or is the Universe in You? (April 2020) on the What's New page of this website.

  • In the first vision, God refers to creation as a "cosmic motion picture" show, i.e. a cosmic movie displayed on the screen of space and on the screen of human consciousness. If we identify too strongly with the character that we are playing in the movie, then the movie becomes our "reality" and if the movie portrays suffering, then we suffer.  If we can minimize our identification with our movie character, then our consciousness can take a higher view and we can see the cosmic motion picture show just as a person watches a movie in a theatre. To a person watching a movie as an audience member, there is no reality to the scenes being shown in the movie and hence no suffering.
 
  • In the second vision, God refers to creation as a dream. In the dream analogy of creation, if we identify too strongly with our dream character, then the dream becomes our "reality" and if the dream portrays suffering, then we suffer. Our challenge is to learn to dream consciously, like having a daydream. If we can do that, part of our consciousness is on the character in the dream but we never lose our awareness of our true awakened self outside the dream. To a person dreaming consciously, there is no reality to the scenes being shown in the dream and hence no suffering. We recognize our awakened state to be our true self and know that the dream self is just that - a dream.
 
  • Another creation analogy often referred to in this website is to see creation as a virtual reality (VR) game. In this analogy, your "real" self is the one that exists outside of the game. For fun, you put on your VR headset to enjoy the "creation game." With your VR headset on, you see a local part of the universe around you and you see the character you are to play in the game. As you begin the game, part of your consciousness is on your "real" self outside the game and part of your consciousness relates to the character that you are playing in the game. If you are experiencing a war in the VR creation game world, you see it as entertainment only, since you know your real self exists outside the game. If at some point, the action in the game becomes so intense that you forget your real self and now totally identify with the virtual character that you playing in the VR game, then everything that happens to your virtual character becomes your reality. You have forgotten your true reality. Now the virtual war in the game seems quite real, as does the incurring suffering.
 
  • It is interesting to see how one gets out of the VR game of creation once trapped inside. The trick is to remember your true self outside the game. To do so is very similar to what we are told to do in trying to remember our true selves (i.e. our god-selves) from our current state of ego-consciousness in our virtual world. In both cases, it takes someone who knows how to play the game correctly (as we did at first) to come into the virtual game world to help us. The help that is offered is to put our game character "on hold" by being still and silent and trying to remember our true self within our consciousness. Eventually, that happens and we finally remember who we really are and take off our VR headsets (or become our god-selves again).

  • More on this topic on the webpage Helpful Creation Analogies as well as in several of the postings on the What's New webpage.
 
  • Of course, it doesn't help that the cosmic hypnosis of maya keeps trying to convince us that our movie role is real; that our dream self is real; that our character in the VR creation game is real. This universe and our body-forms are just vibrations of frozen light. There is no "material" world. It is all just light - just like in a movie, just like in a dream, just like in a VR game. However, the cosmic hypnosis works constantly to convince us that there is a material world and that our body-forms are real (in spite of the fact that science tells us that "matter" is 99.999999999% empty space - just condensed light). It is not easy, but the challenge given to us as players in this cosmic game of creation is to overcome the delusion of maya and regain awareness of our true selves, our god-selves.
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In an audio recording of a talk he gave in 1949, entitled Beholding the One in All, Yogananda describes another conversation that he had with God on seeing this world as a cosmic motion picture show.

Although not part of Autobiography of a Yogi, excerpts from this talk are provided below with the hope that they lead to a better understanding of the above;

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     I remember one day I was in the movies; movies have one fascination, because I see the whole world as movies.  I was in the booth and I saw the operator was reading a novel and I saw this automatic machine was going on and the beam was causing on the screen a terrible horror picture.
      And I said, “Lord, how is it. I have the whole show of the universe in front of me. You are this operator who is thinking of new plays and Your Nature is throwing this beam in the sky. And I see the hero and the villain are nothing but pictures. Nobody is killed.”   
     Many were being killed and shot in this picture but I saw from the booth it was the light that had created the villain and the light had created the hero.
     And the Voice said, “….. and now you see that there is no villain, no hero, they are both pictures of my beam."  
     Realize that all this world which you see, of terrible wars and troubles is nothing but a picture show, cosmic motion picture show in the sky  .....  Until you find that out, this world is a terrible show.
     I said to God, as He was talking to me, “But Lord, look at the audience. They are howling and screeching downstairs at this horror show. I see it is nothing but pictures and light because I see the invisible beam. There are no murders in the beam, no heroes, no villains in the beam. But Lord, what about the audience – they don’t know it.”
     Then the Voice said, “Tell them all to look at my beam within and they will realize that this show is given to entertain them, not to get mixed up with it.”

.....  Do not get mixed up with this movie, these terrible movies of God. There is one purpose – to get to the beam…..then you will realize it was only a show.


.....  everything is happening in your own thought.

  ..... Come into the beam of light and you will realize that all this world, which you see as terrible wars and trouble, is nothing but a picture show, a cosmic motion picture show in the sky.

     You cannot be violated or harmed by stones, nor bombs, nor machine guns, nor atomic bombs. Remember the best shelter is in the silence of your soul.  If you can develop that silence, nothing in the world can touch you – nothing in the world. And you can say, having which, no other gain becomes greater. Then you can stand unshaken amidst the crash of breaking worlds.  Then you are not in any way touched by cold and heat, pleasure and pain. As soon as you are touched by these you are in the movie.

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Astral & Causal Worlds
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Vedic cosmology identifies three worlds of existence: Bhuloka or the physical plane; Antarloka or the subtle or astral plane; and Sivaloka or Karanaloka or Brahmaloka, the causal plane, the world of the gods and highly evolved souls.

And so, within the game of creation, the metamorphosis of Spirit produces a triune production;
  • a Causal World made up of the finest vibrations of consciousness;
  • an Astral World of light and life force, vibratory energy, the condensation cloaking the original ideational concepts of the causal; and
  • the Physical World of the gross atomic vibrations of matter, a “denser” vibratory level that gives the luminous astral light bodies the appearance of solidity.
The web posting Astral and Causal Worlds (May 2017) on the What's New page of this website provides an overview of this topic and includes much material taken from one of the most fascinating chapters of Autobiography of a Yogi. In this chapter, a resurrected Sri Yukteswar describes these worlds to Yogananda.

So as not to be too repetitive with the web posting mentioned above,  only a sampling of Sri Yukteswar's quotes are provided below.

 “You have read in the scriptures  that God encased the human soul successively in three bodies — the idea, or causal, body; the subtle astral body, seat of man’s mental and emotional natures; and the gross physical body. On earth a man is equipped with his physical senses. An astral being works with his consciousness and feelings and a body made of lifetrons. A causal-bodied being remains in the blissful realm of ideas.”

 “As prophets are sent on earth to help men work out their physical karma, so I have been directed by God to serve on an astral planet as a savior,” Sri Yukteswar explained. “It is called Hiranyaloka or ‘Illumined Astral Planet.’ There I am aiding advanced beings to rid themselves of astral karma and thus attain liberation from astral rebirths."

“The ordinary astral universe — not the subtler astral heaven of Hiranyaloka — is peopled with millions of astral beings who have come, more or less recently, from the earth, and also with myriads of fairies, mermaids, fishes, animals, goblins, gnomes, demigods and spirits, all residing on different astral planets in accordance with karmic qualifications. Various spheric mansions or vibratory regions are provided for good and evil spirits. Good ones can travel freely, but the evil spirits are confined to limited zones."

“The astral world is infinitely beautiful, clean, pure, and orderly. There are no dead planets or barren lands. The terrestrial blemishes — weeds, bacteria, insects, snakes — are absent. Unlike the variable climates and seasons of the earth, the astral planets maintain the even temperature of an eternal spring, with occasional luminous white snow and rain of many-colored lights. Astral planets abound in opal lakes and bright seas and rainbow rivers."

“The earth-liberated astral being meets a multitude of relatives, fathers, mothers, wives, husbands, and friends, acquired during different incarnations on earth, as they appear from time to time in various parts of the astral realms. He is therefore at a loss to understand whom to love especially; he learns in this way to give a divine and equal love to all, as children and individualized expressions of God. Though the outward appearance of loved ones may have changed, more or less according to the development of new qualities in the latest life of any particular soul, the astral being employs his unerring intuition to recognize all those once dear to him in other planes of existence."

"Visitors to the astral world dwell there for a longer or shorter period in accordance with the weight of their physical karma, which draws them back to earth within a specified time."


"The nearly-free beings who are encased only in the causal body see the whole universe as realizations of the dream-ideas of God; they can materialize anything and everything in sheer thought."

"Those who find themselves covered only by the delicate veil of the causal body can bring universes into manifestation even as the Creator. Because all creation is made of the cosmic dream-texture, the soul thinly clothed in the causal has vast realizations of power."

“The undeveloped man must undergo countless earthly and astral and causal incarnations in order to emerge from his three bodies. A master who achieves this final freedom may elect to return to earth as a prophet to bring other human beings back to God, or like myself he may choose to reside in the astral cosmos. There a savior assumes some of the burden of the inhabitants’ karma and thus helps them to terminate their cycle of reincarnation in the astral cosmos and go on permanently to the causal spheres. Or a freed soul may enter the causal world to aid its beings to shorten their span in the causal body and thus attain the Absolute Freedom.”


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Suffering
This topic is addressed in more detail on the webpage Why is There Suffering? on this website. Below are a few excerpts from Autobiography of a Yogi on this subject.

"The creature finally turns to his Creator, if for no other reason than to ask in anguish: ‘Why, Lord, why?’ By ignoble whips of pain, man is driven at last into the Infinite Presence, whose beauty alone should lure him." ~ unidentified sage

If joy were ceaseless here in this world, would man ever desire another? Without suffering, he scarcely cares to recall that he has forsaken his eternal home. Pain is a prod to remembrance.

Wherever the soul is encased in the physical body or in the astral body or in the causal body, there the eagles of desires — which prey on human sense weaknesses, or on astral and causal attachments — will also gather to keep the soul a prisoner.

Man’s forgetfulness of his divine resources (the result of his misuse of free will) is the root cause of all other forms of suffering.

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Free Will & Karma
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Free will and karma are considered in more detail on the webpages Karma and Reincarnation and Destiny and Free Will on this website. Below are some excerpts from Autobiography of a Yogi on these topics.

The equilibrating law of karma, as expounded in the Hindu scriptures, is that of action and reaction, cause and effect, sowing and reaping. In the course of natural righteousness, each man, by his thoughts and actions, becomes the molder of his destiny.

An understanding of karma as the law of justice underlying life’s inequalities serves to free the human mind from resentment against God and man. 

 “All human ills arise from some transgression of universal law.” ~ Sri Yukteswar

"By a number of means — by prayer, by will power, by yoga meditation, by consultation with saints, by use of astrological bangles — the adverse effects of past wrongs can be minimized or nullified.” ~ Sri Yukteswar

“A child is born on that day and at that hour when the celestial rays are in mathematical harmony with his individual karma. His horoscope is a challenging portrait, revealing his unalterable past and its probable future results. But the natal chart can be rightly interpreted only by men of intuitive wisdom: these are few. The message boldly blazoned across the heavens at the moment of birth is not meant to emphasize fate — the result of past good and evil — but to arouse man’s will to escape from his universal thralldom. What he has done, he can undo. None other than himself was the instigator of the causes of whatever effects are now prevalent in his life. He can overcome any limitation, because he created it by his own actions in the first place, and because he possesses spiritual resources that are not subject to planetary pressure.” ~ Sri Yukteswar

“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.” ~ Sri Yukteswar

"As soon as knowledge of the Reality has sprung up, there can be no fruits of past actions to be experienced, owing to the unreality of the body, just as there can be no dream after waking.” ~ Shankara

Right use of man’s God-given will [is a] force more formidable than are influences flowing from the heavens.

In nirbikalpa samadhi the yogi dissolves the last vestiges of his material or earthly karma. Nevertheless, he may still have certain astral and causal karma to work out, and therefore takes astral and then causal reembodiments on high-vibrational spheres.

 [Man's] freedom is final and immediate, if he so wills; it depends not on outer but inner victories.  

The metaphysical method of physical transfer of disease is known to highly advanced yogis. A strong man may assist a weak one by helping the latter to carry a heavy load; a spiritual superman is able to minimize the physical and mental troubles of his disciples by assuming a part of their karmic burdens. …..  Though he may allow it [his body] to become diseased in order to relieve other persons, his mind, unpollutable, is not affected. He considers himself fortunate in being able to render such aid. To achieve final salvation in the Lord is indeed to find that the human body has completely fulfilled its purpose; a master then uses it in any way he deems fit.

A guru’s work in the world is to alleviate the sorrows of mankind, whether through spiritual means or intellectual counsel or will power or physical transfer of disease. Escaping to the superconsciousness whenever he so desires, a master can become oblivious of physical illness; sometimes, to set an example for disciples, he chooses to bear bodily pain stoically. By putting on the ailments of others, a yogi can satisfy, for them, the karmic law of cause and effect. This law is mechanically or mathematically operative; its workings may be scientifically manipulated by men of divine wisdom. 

He [Jesus] thus took on himself the consequences of others’ karma, especially that of his disciples. In this manner they were highly purified and made fit to receive the omnipresent consciousness or Holy Ghost that later descended upon them.

Sri Yukteswar was signifying that, even as in his earthly incarnation he had occasionally assumed the weight of disease to lighten his disciples’ karma, so in the astral world his mission as a savior enabled him to take on certain astral karma of dwellers on Hiranyaloka, and thus hasten their evolution into the higher causal world.

The burden of the years has no ill effect on a great yogi’s full possession of supreme spiritual powers. He is able to renew his body at will; yet sometimes he does not care to retard the aging process, but allows his karma to expend itself on the physical plane, using his present body as a time-saving device to preclude the necessity of working out remaining fragments of karma in a new incarnation.

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The Poem Samadhi
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Yogananda wrote many poems. Most of these are found in other books, e.g. Songs of the Soul and Whispers from Eternity. However, one poem appears in Autobiography of a Yogi.
Entitled Samadhi, it offers a glimpse into what is experienced by one in the state of higher consciousness; of god-consciousness; of cosmic consciousness. This state is often referred to, in the mystical language of the East, as samadhi. It is our original native state before we became entrapped in maya's hypnosis. It is the state to which we shall all ultimately return.

Mystics say that it is impossible to fully portray the state of cosmic consciousness to those who have not experienced it. As was mentioned in the previous posting on this website, poetry offers the closest way to depict such mystical states. And so, in his later years, Yogananda wrote the poem, Samadhi, "endeavoring to convey a glimpse of its glory."

As one of his disciples said,
"Yogananda did something no one before him, to my knowledge, has ever done, in describing with extraordinary lucidity the state of cosmic consciousness. People don’t realize what a fantastic feat that was—going into that state and then being able to bring it down to a level where he could verbalize it."

The poem is quite long (over 65 lines). Excerpts are provided below;

Vanished the veils of light and shade,
Lifted every vapor of sorrow,
Sailed away all dawns of fleeting joy,
Gone the dim sensory mirage.

The storm of maya stilled
By magic wand of intuition deep.

Present, past, future, no more for me,
But ever-present, all-flowing I, I, everywhere.

Thoughts of all men, past, present, to come,

Smoldering joy, oft-puffed by meditation,
Blinding my tearful eyes,

Burst into immortal flames of bliss,
Consumed my tears, my frame, my all.
Thou art I, I am Thou,
Knowing, Knower, Known, as One!
Tranquilled, unbroken thrill, eternally living, ever new peace!
Enjoyable beyond imagination of expectancy, samadhi bliss!
Not an unconscious state
Or mental chloroform without willful return,
Samadhi but extends my conscious realm
Beyond limits of the mortal frame
To farthest boundary of eternity
Where I, the Cosmic Sea,
Watch the little ego floating in me.
The sparrow, each grain of sand, f
all not without my sight.
All space like an iceberg floats within my mental sea.
Colossal Container, I, of all things made.

Flowing seas change into vapors of nebulae!
Aum blows upon vapors, opening wondrously their veils,
Oceans stand revealed, shining electrons,
Till, at last sound of the cosmic drum,

Vanish the grosser lights into eternal rays
Of all-pervading bliss.
From joy I came, for joy I live, in sacred joy I melt.
Ocean of mind, I drink all Creation’s waves.
Four veils of solid, liquid, vapor, light,
Lift aright.
I, in everything, enter the Great Myself.

Eternity and I, one united ray.
A tiny bubble of laughter, I
Am become the Sea of Mirth Itself.

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Various
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The Holy Land

The following are some additional excerpts from Autobiography of a Yogi on a variety of subjects.

“Forget the past. The vanished lives of all men are dark with many shames. Human conduct is ever unreliable until man is anchored in the Divine. Everything in future will improve if you are making a spiritual effort now.” ~ Sri Yukteswar

Awakening of the occult cerebrospinal centers (chakras, astral lotuses) is the sacred goal of the yogi. Western exegetes have not understood that the New Testament chapter of Revelation contains the symbolic exposition of a yogic science, taught to John and other close disciples by Lord Jesus. John mentions (Rev. 1:20) the “mystery of the seven stars” and the “seven churches”; these symbols refer to the seven lotuses of light, described in yoga treatises as the seven “trap doors” in the cerebrospinal axis. Through these divinely planned “exits,” the yogi, by scientific meditation, escapes from the bodily prison and resumes his true identity as Spirit. The seventh center, the “thousand-petaled lotus” in the brain, is the throne of the Infinite Consciousness.

No man lives who has not seen some of his prayers granted.

“The Lord responds to all and works for all. Just as He sent rain at my plea, so He fulfills any sincere desire of the devotee. Seldom do men realize how often God heeds their prayers. He is not partial to a few, but listens to everyone who approaches Him trustfully. His children should ever have implicit faith in the loving-kindness of their Omnipresent Father.” ~ Sri Yukteswar

“It is the Spirit of God that actively sustains every form and force in the universe; yet He is transcendental and aloof in the blissful uncreated void beyond the worlds of vibratory phenomena. Those who attain Self-realization on earth live a similar twofold existence. Conscientiously performing their work in the world, they are yet immersed in an inward beatitude." ~ Sri Yukteswar

According to the mass karma that guides and regulates the destinies of animals, the deer’s life was over, and it was ready to progress to a higher form. But by my deep attachment, which I later realized was selfish, and by my fervent prayers, I had been able to hold it in the limitations of the animal form from which the soul was struggling for release. The soul of the deer made its plea in a dream because, without my loving permission, it either would not or could not go. As soon as I agreed, it departed.

Spiritual sight, X-raylike, penetrates into all matter; the divine eye is center everywhere, circumference nowhere. I realized anew, standing there in the sunny courtyard, that when man ceases to be a prodigal child of God, engrossed in a physical world indeed dream, baseless as a bubble, he reinherits his eternal realms. If escapism be a need of man, cramped in his narrow personality, can any other escape compare with that of omnipresence?

One’s values are profoundly changed when he is finally convinced that creation is only a vast motion picture; and that not in it, but beyond it, lies his own reality.

Great prophets like Christ and Krishna come to earth for a specific and spectacular purpose; they depart as soon as it is accomplished. Other avatars, like Babaji, undertake work that is concerned more with the slow evolutionary progress of man during the centuries than with any one outstanding event of history. Such masters always veil themselves from the gross public gaze and have the power to become invisible at will. For these reasons, and because they generally instruct their disciples to maintain silence about them, a number of towering spiritual figures remain world-unknown. I give in these pages on Babaji merely a hint of his life — only a few facts that he deems fitting and helpful to be publicly imparted.

"Imagination is the door through which disease as well as healing enters. Disbelieve in the reality of sickness even when you are ill; an unrecognized visitor will flee!” ~ Sri Yukteswar

 “By ahimsa Patanjali meant removal of the desire to kill  .....  Man may be compelled to exterminate harmful creatures. He is not under a similar compulsion …. to feel anger or animosity.” ~ Sri Yukteswar

Because the very nature of God is Bliss, the man in attunement with Him experiences a native boundless joy. 

The dictum of Descartes: “I think, therefore I am,” is not philosophically valid. The reasoning faculties cannot shed light on man’s ultimate Being. The human mind, like the phenomenal world that it cognizes, is in perpetual flux and can yield no finalities. Intellectual satisfaction is not the highest goal. The seeker of God is the real lover of vidya, unchangeable truth.

The plan of the divine lila or “sportive play” by which the phenomenal worlds have come into existence is one of reciprocity between creature and Creator. The sole gift that man can offer to God is love; it suffices to call forth His overwhelming generosity.

We took ship over the sunny Mediterranean, disembarking at Palestine. Wandering day after day over the Holy Land, I was more than ever convinced of the value of pilgrimage. To the sensitive heart, the spirit of Christ is all-pervasive in Palestine. I walked reverently by his side at Bethlehem, Gethsemane, Calvary, the holy Mount of Olives, and by the River Jordan and the Sea of Galilee.

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Final Thoughts
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Paramahansa Yogananda
Although the above excerpts represent a small portion of the overall content of Autobiography of a Yogi, it is hoped that readers will be able to attune to the spiritual vibrations that suffuse this extraordinary book.

One of the features of Paramahansa Yogananda's world mission was to leave behind much written material for future generations. This is a rare gift.

Three of Yogananda's  books can be considered monumental;
  1. Autobiography of a Yogi
  2. The Second Coming of Christ  ("In this unprecedented masterwork of inspiration, Paramahansa Yogananda takes the reader on a profoundly enriching journey through the four Gospels. Verse by verse, he illumines the universal path to oneness with God taught by Jesus to his immediate disciples but obscured through centuries of misinterpretation." ~ Amazon)
  3. God Talks With Arjuna: The Bhagavad Gita ("The Bhagavad Gita is India's most sacred text: the Hindu "Bible". Yogananda's translation and commentary brings a unique and deeply penetrating insight into this great scripture  .....  God Talks With Arjuna explains the Bhagavad Gita's profoundest spiritual, psychological, and metaphysical truths, long obscured by metaphor and allegory." ~ Amazon)


The web posting The Story of Issa (December 2017) on the What's New page of this website looked at the life of Jesus and includes many quotations from Yogananda's The Second Coming of Christ.

Perhaps a future posting may provide excerpts from Yogananda's majestic translation and commentary on the Gita.

 
“As a bright light shining in the midst of darkness, so was Yogananda’s presence in this world.
Such a great soul comes on earth only rarely, when there is a real need among men”
~ C. Saraswati, the Shankaracharya of Kanchipuram

"A rare gem of inestimable value, the like of whom the world is yet to witness”
~ Swami Sivananda, Divine Life Society, 1952


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"The divine purpose of creation, so far as man’s reason can grasp it, is expounded in the Vedas. The rishis taught that each human being has been created by God as a soul that will uniquely manifest some special attribute of the Infinite before resuming its Absolute Identity. All men, endowed thus with a facet of Divine Individuality, are equally dear to God." ~ Paramahansa Yogananda, from Autobiography of a Yogi
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Addendum — Autobiography of a Yogi  (January 2021)

At the beginning of the last web posting, i.e. Autobiography of a Yogi (October 2020) on the What's New web page, mention is made of the highly-acclaimed book, The Life of Yogananda, by Philip Goldberg.

This book was first published in 2018. A paperback edition was released in 2020 to coincide with the 100th anniversary of Yogananda's arrival in America.

This addendum takes a brief look at The Life of Yogananda. The following sections are included;

1 - The Author
2 - Reviews of the Book
3 - Excerpts from the Book
4 - Final Thoughts



The Author  
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Philip Goldberg

The following bio is a shortened version taken from the author's website;

Philip Goldberg is the author or co-author of numerous books; a public speaker and workshop leader; a spiritual counselor, meditation teacher and ordained Interfaith Minister.  A Los Angeles resident, he cohosts the Spirit Matters podcast, leads American Veda Tours and blogs regularly on Elephant Journal and Spirituality & Health.

Like the beloved Dodgers of Philip’s youth, he was born and raised in Brooklyn and moved to Los Angeles. In between, Philip made stops in Manhattan, New England, Pennsylvania, San Francisco and Iowa. As a college student in the 1960’s, he shuttled uncertainly from one major to another.

After giving up on academia and taking his first job (creating a halfway house for developmentally disadvantaged youth in Massachusetts), Philip pursued answers to the Big Questions that conventional religion, psychology, politics and philosophy had failed to provide.  He was drawn to the pragmatic mysticism of the East, at first through public thinkers like Alan Watts and Aldous Huxley, and then directly from the texts of Buddhism, Taoism and Hinduism — especially Vedanta and Yoga.

This led inexorably to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s Transcendental Meditation. Philip spent much of the 1970’s teaching TM.


In the meantime, Philip continued earnestly pursuing his lifelong quest for illumination.  What he learned about that mysterious undertaking (from his own experience and conversations with fellow travelers) he wrote about in Roadsigns on the Spiritual Path: Living at the Heart of Paradox. 

Sometime in the mid-80s, Phil realized that his path — integrating yogic ideas and practices into modern life in the USA — was rather typical of 60s-era seekers. He started researching the phenomenon and soon realized that its impact was bigger than he thought  ..... in 2010 American Veda was published. The book earned good reviews, won awards and spawned related ventures.

Phil’s first book after American Veda was a comprehensive biography of the master teacher Paramahansa Yogananda. The Life of Yogananda: The Story of the Yogi Who Became the First Modern Guru was published in April, 2018. The paperback was released in 2020.

His latest book, published in August, 2020, is Spiritual Practice for Crazy Times: Powerful Tools to Cultivate Calm, Clarity, and Courage. It arrived in the middle of the global coronavirus crisis. Phil would rather the need for his book had not been so acute, but he is humbled and honored that it has so much to offer in these, the craziest times in memory.



Reviews of the Book

Below are some reviews of The Life of Yogananda. There are a few common themes that arise from these reviews;
  • the book is invariably well-received by the reviewers
  • the author is highly commended for his in-depth research  as well as his impartiality
  • the reviewers have great reverence for the subject of the book, i.e. Yogananda, who is seen as a unique and remarkable spiritual giant and a charismatic leader
The reviews are mostly from well-known spiritual authorities and writers.

I have included quite a number of reviews. Together, they tell a wonderful story in their own right.


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“Philip Goldberg sheds new light on the incredible story and illuminates the forces that made Yogananda a spiritual teacher and role model for the ages.”

~ Deepak Chopra, M.D., author many books including You Are the Universe and The Healing Self





"There is a new biography about Paramhansa Yogananda—the first serious biography that I know of for the great master ... Mr. Goldberg is most often generous in understanding what Master was trying to accomplish and the obstacles he had to overcome. He also makes it a point to stay with the facts based on his research ... The author brings to light many interesting facts about Master’s life that I had not known before  ... This biography does not carry the shakti-power of Master’s Autobiography, nor do I think he got everything right. However, this biography is an important supplement to understanding the life and teachings of this great God-man."

~Reverend Yogacharya David R. Hickenbottom, author of My Spiritual India and disciple of Yogananda



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“The Life of Yogananda is a profound and exquisitely written account of the life of one of the most renowned spiritual masters of our time, and is essential reading for anyone on a spiritual path… In a mysterious but unmistakable way, this book pulsates with the very presence, blessing, and transmission of Yogananda’s limitless wisdom and grace. With insight, clarity, and his own depth of consciousness, Philip Goldberg takes you on a virtual pilgrimage that will uplift you, inspire you, and illuminate your own journey of awakening.”

~ Dr. Barbara De Angelis, #1 New York Times best-selling author of Soul Shifts and The Choice for Love




"In this intensely researched book, Phil Goldberg describes the deep commitment and tireless effort of Paramahansa Yogananda to bring the spiritual teachings of India to the West. He reveals the many obstacles that Yogananda had to overcome in order to bring a light into the darkness.”

— Krishna Das, American vocalist known for his performances of Hindu devotional music known as kirtan. Author of Chants of a Lifetime





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“With spiritual elegance and integrity, Goldberg provides an intimate portrait of the life of Yogananda, the trailblazing guru of North American yoga’s influential early years. Through engaging stories and unique perspectives, Paramahansaji shines through this biography as an enlightened master and creator of a great spiritual legacy.”

~ Michael Bernard Beckwith, founder of Agape International Spiritual Center and author of Spiritual Liberation





“Paramahansa Yogananda is probably the dominant figure behind the Western Yoga movement and its spiritual roots, the veritable father of Yoga in the Western world, living and teaching in America for more than three decades. Philip Goldberg presents a detailed and informative biography of the great master, reflecting his daunting challenges in bringing the profound Yoga teachings of self-realization to the United States of the early 20th century.”

~ Dr. David Frawley, D. Litt., director of American Institute of Vedic Studies and author of Yoga and Ayurveda




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“This exceptionally written, wise, profound biography of one of the 20th century’s greatest spiritual pioneers is essential reading for all those who want to understand deeply the growing marriage between Eastern and Western spirituality. I am so moved by and grateful for Phil Goldberg’s humble mastery of tone and truth in this marvelous book.”

~ Andrew Harvey, British writer, religious scholar and teacher of mystic traditions. Author of over 30 books, including The Hope, Way of Passion: A Celebration of Rumi




“Philip Goldberg has masterfully assembled a colorful tapestry of stories detailing the intricacies and complexities that comprise the life of Paramahansa Yogananda. Goldberg’s work enables us to understand Yogananda as both mundanely human and extraordinary, while providing a detailed inside understanding of this remarkable human being and spiritual leader who has, and will continue to, inspire generations of spiritual seekers. This is a must-read for all who have read Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi and wish to better understand the story behind one of the world’s most remarkable human beings.”

~ Richard Miller, clinical psychologist, writer, researcher and scholar of yoga. Author of many books including Yoga Nidra and The Search for Oneness




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“The Life of Yogananda is a tremendous gift: a chance to meet from the ‘outside’ the spiritual genius we met on the ‘inside’ in Autobiography of a Yogi. That book shared what was important to Yogananda; this biography shares why Yogananda is important to you. If you’ve read the Autobiography, you must read the biography. If you haven’t read either, you must read both.”

~ Rabbi Rami Shapiro, writer, teacher, and speaker on the subjects of liberal Judaism and contemporary spirituality. Author of many books including The Prophets and Holy Rascals




“Yogananda was more than just a popular guru who brought Indian spirituality to the United States. He was also a spiritual genius in the art of living, and his impact and legacy transcend the traditional divides of race, ethnicity, nationality, politics, and religion. In The Life of Yogananda, Philip Goldberg meticulously peels back the mystical layers in order to reveal the man behind the myth.’’

~ Varun Soni, Ph.D., Dean of Religious Life at the University of Southern California. Author of Natural Mystics





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“When I was 15, Ram Dass gave me a copy of Autobiography of a Yogi and the gates of the universe opened. Yogananda’s account of his spiritual journey emboldened me to commence mine. Now, all these years later, Phil Goldberg has compiled the stories behind the stories! What a treasure.”

~ Mirabai Starr, author of God of Love and Caravan of No Despair





“This book is a gift for anyone interested in the yogic journey. Deeply informed by Phil Goldberg’s years of practice and study, it explores the life of one of the great spiritual masters of the 20th century.  Yogananda’s work has had enormous influence on the development of yoga and spirituality in the West, and continues to influence us to this day. In this new biography, Phil offers us a full portrait of an extraordinary man.”

~ Sally Kempton, author of many books including Doorways to the Infinite, Meditation for the Love of It and Awakening Shakti




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“The story of meditative ‘Eastern’ spirituality in the West doesn’t exist without Yogananda; yet the story of Yogananda, in anything like a full telling, hasn’t existed till now. Philip Goldberg, with the clear eyes of the diligent scholar and the open heart of the passionate, lifelong spiritual voyager, is the right person to tell it.”

~ Dean Sluyter, meditation teacher and author of many books including Fear Less, The Zen Commandments and Natural Meditation





“In making Awake, we discovered what a monumental task it is to represent a spiritual giant like Yogananda in all the many layers and facets of his life and personality. Philip Goldberg has done a terrific job of capturing the complexities of such a world teacher. His contribution will be a valued source for anyone interested in the life of this extraordinary individual.”

~ Paola di Florio, Lisa Leeman, and Peter Rader, filmmakers of Awake: The Life of Yogananda




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“With a rare combination of solid research and spiritual inspiration, Phil Goldberg, author of the seminal book American Veda, now brings us The Life of Yogananda, a timely biography of the yoga master whose life has inspired millions. The book is a fresh look into the life of Paramahansa Yogananda as an organizational leader, spiritual master, and modern-day saint. Goldberg shines a light on Yogananda’s humanity and his divinity, making the book a compelling and inspiring read.”

~ Yogacharya Ellen Grace O’Brian, spiritual director of the Center for Spiritual Enlightenment. Author of Path of Wonder and Living for the Sake of the Soul




“The Life of Yogananda is a thrilling read and a definitive sourcebook for this great master’s life. Anyone interested in Yogananda will find this book a grand discovery for its little-known stories and details about his eventful life. With great care, integrity, devotion, and excellent research, Phil Goldberg has given us a revealing and accurate look into what has made Yogananda so well loved by millions of spiritual seekers.”

~ Joseph Bharat Cornell, author of many books including Deep Nature Play and AUM: The Melody of Love




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“Phil Goldberg provides a much-needed and utterly fascinating link to the understanding of one of the greatest spiritual leaders of our time. He has done his homework and we are all the beneficiaries! The Life of Yogananda has been exhaustively researched and painstakingly presented by a man uniquely qualified with a deep understanding of east and west cultures, spiritual traditions, psychology, and historical relevance.”

~ Joseph Deitch, American business executive and philanthropist. Author of Elevate




"Nearly eight years ago Philip Goldberg’s American Veda made the case for how much America has absorbed from India  ... Now Philip Goldberg is back with The Life of Yogananda ... Goldberg takes us day by day, week to month to year, through the details in the life of a saint, as many feel, whose work has transformed millions of lives ...While it’s clear how much Philip Goldberg cares about his subject, this book is no hagiography  ... Goldberg’s prose is a marvel, going down as easily as ice cream on a hot day."

~ Paul Chaffee, publisher and editor of The Interfaith Observer




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"A thoroughly readable biography of perhaps the first, and to date the most influential, integrator of Eastern and Western philosophical traditions, the remarkable Yogananda ... A brilliant account of what history will recognize as one of the most significant lives of the 20th century"

~ Ken Wilber,
American philosopher and writer on transpersonal psychology. Author of many books including A Theory of Everything (2000) and The Religion of Tomorrow (2017)




Excerpts from the Book

The following are brief excerpts from the book The Life of Yogananda by Philip Goldberg;

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Introduction

The book’s central narrative is the saga of a profoundly spiritual being navigating the material realm, attempting to unite fully with the Divine while skillfully playing his role in the human drama—just as he taught so many to do themselves.

The Author's Comments on Yogananda

To many, Yogananda was a saint. To some, he was an avatar, an incarnation of God. I am not qualified to make such evaluations. For me it was enough that his contribution to the spiritual history of East and West is unparalleled.

To be clear, I am not a disciple of Yogananda.   …..  I am, to say the least, a great admirer. I have held him in high esteem ever since I read his Autobiography of a Yogi in 1970. The book that launched thousands of spiritual paths augmented and accelerated mine.

In the course of hundreds of conversations over the decades, I came to realize how many lives Yogananda has impacted. While researching my book American Veda I came to see him as a teacher for the ages, whose contribution to the transmission of India’s ancient wisdom to the West was incomparable.

[Yogananda] also had something more subtle and more profound: a qualitatively different state of consciousness. Self-realized yogic masters (and there is no reason to doubt that he was one) operate from a different awareness, with different modes of perception, attunement, intuition, and connection to unseen dimensions of existence.


Yogananda was a strong man from the East who crossed the earth to stand face to face with the mighty West, saying “Namaste” with hands joined at his chest. But he was of neither East nor West. He represented the universal Spirit that knows no border, breed, or birth. Through the strength of his character and his skillful transmission of perennial wisdom, he showed the way for millions to transcend those and other barriers to the liberation of the soul.

On Yogananda preparing to go to America

A series of obstacles was about to stand in his way like strong-armed sentinels guarding the gates to the future. These would be dispensed with one by one, as if deftly nudged aside by some cosmic jujitsu.     

Now the only remaining obstacle was Yogananda’s own trepidation. He needed a sign from God. It came in the form of his guru’s guru’s guru, the fabled Mahavatar Babaji. At this pivotal moment in Yogananda’s life, legend collides with history, faith with reason, personal testimony with the known laws of science. Readers will choose for themselves whether the story was imagined or fictionalized by Yogananda, or whether they should heed Hamlet’s assertion to Horatio that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in their philosophy. On July 25, 1920, Yogananda said, the ageless Babaji showed up at 4 Garpar Road to put an end to his wavering. Early that morning, Yogananda began to pray, determined to keep at it until he heard from God. By noon, he said, “my head was reeling under the pressure of my agonies.” His entreaties had yielded no heavenly response. Then there was a knock at the front door. He opened it to find a radiant ascetic who reminded him of the young Lahiri Mahasaya. In the house, speaking in Hindi, the sadhu responded to Yogananda’s unspoken thought: he was, indeed, Babaji, and he had a message from the Almighty: Go to America, as your guru told you to, and have no fear because you are under protection. He added, after a pause, “You are the one I have chosen to spread the message of Kriya Yoga in the West.”



On Yogananda's Early Days in America  (starting in Boston)

Bostonians have always been a strange mix of progressives and conservatives, and many at the time had trouble adjusting to the East European Jews and Irish and Italian Catholics who had swarmed into the city in the preceding decades, much less foreigners with dark complexions and bizarre clothing. Yogananda’s stature was that of an average American male: five-feet-eight on official documents, but two inches shorter by the estimates of some who knew him, and about 150 pounds. But he was longhaired and orange-robed nearly half a century before hippies and Hare Krishnas pranced in the Commons, and he was brown skinned in a city whose baseball team would be the last one to integrate. He endured sneers, glares, stone throwing, and name-calling,   

For a man with his mission, there could be no better place to begin life in America ….. It was in Boston that Rev. William Emerson published articles about India and its philosophies in the Monthly Anthology, and where his son, Ralph Waldo, absorbed Eastern ideas that changed the course of his, and America’s, future. In and around Boston, the New Thought movement of Theosophists, Christian Scientists, and other metaphysical explorers set the tone for the uniquely American spirituality that the scholar Frederic Spiegelberg called “the religion of no religion.” In Cambridge, America’s first Sanskrit scholars took root at Harvard, and William James wrote The Varieties of Religious Experience and befriended Vivekananda, who lectured on campus.

Now began the formidable task of translating the wisdom of the Himalayan rishis into the American idiom and the American ethos, with its breezy informality, its egalitarianism, its antiauthority brass, its manic striving, its spunk, and all that jazz.

On February 18, 1923, the Boston Post ran a half-page article about Yogananda …..  the piece illustrates a phenomenon familiar to anyone following the history of yoga in the West: physicality, health, and fitness attract more ink, and more eyes, than the deeper, higher, spiritual aspects of the perennial teachings. The writer, Oliver Light, calls Yogananda “the man who exercises without exercising” and describes him using willpower to cause his biceps to “do a shimmy without moving his forearms.” Yogananda is pictured three times. In one photo he sits on a tiger skin, looking directly into the camera with his deep dark eyes, bending forward with his hands grasping his toes. In another, he is wearing a one-shoulder leopard skin, his beefy arms and chest exposed, sitting comfortably in lotus position. The third shot is a straight-on portrait with an amused smile and his chin resting on the head of a tiger. Readers must have been taken by the exotic image of a pleasant-looking young man with bronze skin, a wrestler’s body, and a woman’s hairdo, decked out in jungle accessories  .....  Yogananda tells the reporter that “I soon found that my message to America, to be complete, must include something of physical development as well,” hence the demonstrations of muscle control and the Yogoda system that combines “the basic laws of the ancient yogis with modern physiological science.”

The roar of the ’20s was not yet full throttle but it was growing louder by the day. New York City was the center of that manic universe, a frenzy of stock market fever and materialist fantasies; speedy autos, racing pedestrians, and zooming subways; hot jazz, Charleston dancing, and bootleg booze—an oddly perfect place for an envoy of inner peace who said, “Where motion ceases, God begins.”

The ’20s roared because Americans were letting loose after the fear, death, and deprivation of wartime. A new spirit of freedom had arisen ….. just as the mysteries of the universe were being unraveled by physicists in a series of quantum mechanical revelations and the mysteries of the unconscious were being unearthed by Freud and other mind miners. Nothing was as it appeared to be, even space and time.

By now, Yogananda had acquired a feel for America’s regional differences. Each city, he said, vibrated differently. Bostonians asked, “How much do you know?” New Yorkers, “How much have you got?” and Philadelphians, “Who are you?” When asked that last question in the pedigree-minded city, he replied, “I come from a very high family headed by the Almighty Father.”



On the many Obstacles Yogananda had to Overcome in America

“Despite some successes,” he said in a speech 20 years later, “I experienced troubles of every kind and went through periods of greatest poverty. When we hadn’t enough to buy food, we would fast for a few days. Then one day—it was in 1924—I knelt down and asked God and the Masters: ‘Why have you brought me here to America?’ I felt that I was not fully accomplishing my mission, and I asked for Their guidance. The answer came, and then a vision, in which I saw myself in Los Angeles.”

As it had been on the East Coast, and as it would always be, Yogananda’s success was accompanied by annoyances, obstructions, and difficulties.  …. He would never stop longing to be free of such travails, but he also would never stop pushing on despite them.

He was up against a perfect storm of America’s worst defects: media sensationalism, religious bigotry, ethnic stereotyping, paternalism, sexual anxiety, and brazen racism. Yogananda was well aware of the racism he and his fellow countrymen had to contend with. “God does not like to be insulted when He wears His dark suits,” he once said.

Yogananda admitted there were times when he prayed to be relieved of his worldly duties. On one occasion, he said, he beseeched Divine Mother: “Free me. Let me go back to India to serve you there.”

Late in his life, Yogananda reminisced about those times he prayed to be relieved of his missionary burden. “Every time,” he said, “Divine Mother takes me by the ear and says, ‘Go back.’”

In his commentary on Chapter 2, Verse 38 of the Bhagavad Gita, Yogananda says of this apparent paradox, “The devotee of divine fortitude remains unchanged like a stainless steel—alike whether under the sunshine of happiness, gain, or victory, or under a corroding vapor from a sea of melancholy, loss, and failure!” Note that he doesn’t say an accomplished yogi does not experience life’s slings and arrows, only that he also remains stationed in the Transcendent, a silent witness to the madness we think of as “reality.”

it is clear that Yogananda was trying to resolve the central tension in his life between the lure of heavenly silence and his earthly calling, with all its relentless imperatives.

He often spoke of his trials in starkly dramatic terms, invoking comparisons to the impediments the cosmos placed before Jesus and other religious leaders. He portrayed those challenges as the necessary darkness that reveals the Divine Light, and the requisite evil that allows us to apprehend the Cosmic Good. He rallied his troops like a general up against a formidable foe, and beseeched the Lord for deliverance. As the Depression deepened and his travails intensified, shafts of light broke through. Acts of Grace materialized. His organization not only survived but managed to build a foundation strong enough to support future growth.


On Yogananda's Respect for Jesus

Every guru who’s come to the West has expressed the highest esteem for Jesus. He is regarded as a great holy man at the very least, or as a rare jagadguru (world teacher), or even as an avatar, an incarnation of God, like Krishna and Rama. Yogananda took the veneration of Christ a step further, producing a massive volume of written and spoken commentary on Jesus and his teachings.

The most important point about Yogananda and Christ is this: part of his stated mission was to revive “Original Christianity,” along with the original and authentic teachings of Yoga. ….. He told his American audiences that the true teachings of both Christ and the Indian rishis had been lost, and his assignment was to resurrect both.

(in a letter to an advanced disciple following a visit to Palestine in 1935, Yogananda wrote): “His name is alive as before; only the Jesus that was and walked and suffered in the streets of Jerusalem very few people see. He was with me everywhere; and a very special communion I had in Bethlehem . . . He touched me as I entered the ancient menagerie where Mary brought him into the world.”


On the Human Side of Yogananda

The memoirs of devoted disciples, typically lavish in praise of their guru, are indispensable witnesses, but they are no more complete than a loving child’s eulogy to a parent. Bearing that in mind, the portrait that takes shape is of an exceptional human being, similar in early middle age to the teenager who came of age in Calcutta. He was a serious man with a serious and singular mission, a determined, disciplined, demanding dynamo who slept only three or four hours a night and kept his disciples hopping, and yawning. He was also fun loving, playful, mischievous, and childlike, with an easy, infectious laugh, a practical joker who liked silly gags.

In a culture where religious leaders were often somber and grave, it must have been refreshing, if not revelatory, to find one who could, on the one hand, raise the rafters like a Hindu Southern Baptist who preached in stentorian tones and beseeched God in antique “Thee”s and “Thou”s, and also guffaw over Charlie Chaplin, pour water on the heads of disciples below his window, and turn a love song like “Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life” into a devotional chant.

In his later years, newfangled recording devices preserved his voice the way film preserved his image. The recordings offer invaluable documentation of his speaking style, vocal quirks, and personality, revealing a commanding figure who at times exuded an endearing humility and deep affection for his disciples, and at other times rose up and roared theatrically—on the one hand a warm, jocular, sometimes sentimental raconteur, and on the other hand a thunderous preacher.


On a Previous Yogananda Incarnation

[Yogananda] sometimes told disciples what he believed their previous identities had been, and he revealed some of his own. One, according to Kriyananda and Durga Mata (as well as disciples I’ve interviewed), was as Arjuna, the warrior hero whose dialogue with Krishna is depicted in the Bhagavad Gita.



Final Thoughts
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Note - The difficulties that great spiritual leaders often face reminded me of a quote attributed to the 16th century Spanish mystic, St. Teresa of Avila.

The following excerpt  is taken from a translation of the book The Life of Saint Teresa;

“Oh, my Lord!” she exclaimed, with her usual loving familiarity, “when wilt Thou cease from scattering obstacles in our path?” “Do not complain, daughter,” the Divine Master answered, “for it is ever thus that I treat My friends.” “Ah, Lord, it is also on that account that Thou hast so few!”


To the many reviews above of the book The Life of Yogananda, I add my own;

Like most new books that I encounter, I tend to do a first perusal by thumbing through the pages and reading random selections. This helps give an initial intuitive feel about the general content. Doing so with this book initially caused me to stop reading any further.

The issue had nothing to do with the author but instead was all about me. As one who considers Yogananda to be one of the most illustrious spiritual giants to have graced this planet, I had a hard time reading about the "human" side of this great master and all the difficulties, betrayals and problems that he faced, particularly during his many years in America.

Then I recalled the many difficulties encountered by other great spiritual leaders who had been given a world mission, e.g. Jesus and Buddha, and realized that this is all just part of the drama of this crazy dream that we call reality (see the note in the column on the left).

I then went back to reading The Life of Yogananda and was deeply impressed. The backdrop of American society during the 1920s through 1940s that Goldberg describes is indispensable to the story of Yogananda's work in America. The impressive research that the author has done reveals much new information about the great master's work, particularly during the years in America. 

"No book can capture the true essence of a soul like Yogananda, but it can describe the footprints he left on the sands of time and space. My goal was to render an accurate, fact-based description of those exceptional footprints." ~ Philip Goldberg

Philip Goldberg fully achieved his goal, and then some. As one of the book reviewers wrote, he "shines a light on Yogananda’s humanity and his divinity." And he has done so with a smooth flowing style so richly described by another reviewer, "Goldberg’s prose is a marvel, going down as easily as ice cream on a hot day."

A loving undertaking and an insightful journey. A masterful achievement, Mr. Goldberg.


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Who Are We?   (April 2021)

Most of us are completely caught up in the drama of our daily lives. There always seems to be something to fully occupy our minds - family and other relationships, work, school, meals, household chores, finances, health, etc. We deal with a whole myriad of emotions, happiness, sadness, anxiety, depression, grief, loneliness, anger, fear, desire, hope, amusement and excitement, amongst others.

Rarely do we stop, step off the treadmill and ask ourselves some fundamental questions, e.g. Who are we? Is this body-form that I call myself my true identity? If so, what happens when this body-form dies?

Luckily for us, there are answers to these questions. Over the ages, a number of individuals have penetrated to the core of reality and have discovered just who we are.


This posting consists of the following sections:

1 - Introduction
2 - Quotations from Paramahansa Yogananda

3 - Quotations from Sri Yukteswar
4 - Quotations from Swami Abhayananda
5 - Quotations from Others
6 - How to Re-Discover Who We Are?
7 - Final Thoughts


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Introduction
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Each of us is a god. Each of us has a soul. The soul is our true self - immortal, boundless, formless awareness of indescribable bliss.

So say those remarkable individuals who over the ages and in all lands have directly experienced the ultimate Truth - the mystics who have pierced the veil of illusion and discovered our true identity.

In order for us to play the game in this universal playground, we are under the spell of cosmic hypnosis that makes us believe that these body-forms which we occupy are who we are. But it is not so. It is all an illusion.

You may protest and say that it is obvious that your body-form is your true self. Well then, you must accept that you are a vibrating mass of light energy of almost no substance - 99.999999999% empty space. For that is what modern science says the body is. Things are not what they seem.

Each of us is a god. Each of us has a soul. The soul is our true self.

Each of the quotations below from modern day mystics contains the word "soul." In concert, the quotations tell the story of our true existence.


Quotations from Paramahansa Yogananda
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Paramahansa Yogananda
20th century spiritual giant

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On our true essence as gods (souls)

Man is not a body confined to a point in space but is essentially the omnipresent soul.

God created each man as a soul, dowered with individuality, hence essential to the universal structure.

The world’s scriptures declare man to be not a corruptible body but a living soul.

For man, truth is unshakable knowledge of his real nature, his Self as soul.

The rishis taught that each human being has been created by God as a soul that will uniquely manifest some special attribute of the Infinite before resuming its Absolute Identity.

God, the Cosmic Dreamer, has separated His consciousness ..... with souls individualized from His own One Being endowed with the egoity to dream their personalized existences within the  ..... drama of the Universal Dream.

The Gita dialogue concerns itself with the process by which  ..... man may reascend from the limited consciousness of himself as a mortal being to the immortal consciousness of his true Self, the soul, one with the infinite Spirit.


Spirit projects the desire to create an individualized expression of Itself. The soul becomes manifest and projects the idea of the body in causal form.



On the bodies that each god/soul occupies in its journey through creation

God intended man to behold the human body and mind as delusive thought-forms that provide the soul with a means to experience the Lord’s cosmic drama.

Human beings were created by God with a unique endowment possessed by no lower forms: awakened spiritual centers of life and consciousness in the spine and brain that gave them the ability to express fully the divine consciousness and powers of the soul.

Man’s soul consciousness - the realization of his oneness with the eternal, all-blissful Spirit - has descended through various gradations into mortal body-consciousness.

The very tenuous first covering of the soul, which individualizes it from Spirit, is one of pure consciousness; it is composed of God’s thoughts or ideas that cause the other two sheaths. Thus it is referred to as the causal body.


The soul thinly clothed in the causal has vast realizations of power.

[Man's] astral and physical body have evolved from a causal body of consciousness, which is the fine covering that gives individual existence and form to the soul.


Every soul is garbed with its own unique individuality. When a soul changes its fleshly garment from one incarnation to the next, donning a newly inherited racial and familial appearance, it is no longer recognizable to those who look only to physical features. But  ...... [there are] telltale indications in the eyes, facial features, and bodily characteristics that reveal certain similarities to the soul’s garb in a former existence ..... The eyes, especially, change very little, for they are the windows of the soul.

At death of the physical body, a soul garbed in its astral form ascends to the astral heavenly level merited by the balance of that person’s good and evil actions on earth. ..... While persons of wicked deeds are attracted to astral nether regions and may experience something akin to periodic dreadful nightmares, the majority of souls awaken in a luminous land of incredible beauty, joy, and freedom, in an atmosphere of love and well-being.


When the astrally garbed soul leaves the astral world, at the end of its astral life, it is attracted to parents and an environment on earth (or to similar inhabited planets in other island universes) which are suited to the working-out of that individual’s store of good and bad karma.

The earth memories of astral beings gradually fade, but they meet and recognize many of their loved ones lost to them on earth—so many mothers, fathers, children, friends, spouses, of so many incarnations; it becomes difficult to isolate special feelings for one over another. The soul rejoices to embrace them all in its consciousness of universal love.

In the incarnate state it is the astral body that is the real body, the purveyor of life, sensory powers, consciousness—more tangible than the gross atomic form, and powerfully invulnerable to sickness, diseases, and troubles.



On man's struggles with ego/body-consciousness

There is constant conflict between the forces of the materialistic senses (engaging the consciousness in the pursuit of external pleasure) and the pure discriminative power that tries to return man’s consciousness to its native state of soul-realization.

Man stakes all his bodily kingdom, all his power of soul bliss, in gambling with the deceitful, matter-inclined senses, only to be overpowered by them—i.e., the pure discriminative intelligence of the soul is ousted from its reign over the bodily kingdom and sent into exile.


The soul, as the ego, ascribes to itself all the limitations and circumscriptions of the body. Once so identified, the soul can no longer express its omnipresence, omniscience, and omnipotence. It imagines itself to be limited—just as a rich prince, wandering in a state of amnesia in the slums, might imagine himself to be a pauper.

The soul, while dwelling within the body, becomes identified with its physical and mental experiences and forgets its divine nature; it masquerades instead as the body-circumscribed ego, the pseudosoul.

Gratifying the body and ego with material experiences and possessions can never compensate man for his lost infinite soul-happiness.

Man has falsely identified himself with the pseudo-soul or ego. When he transfers his sense of identity to his true being, the immortal Soul, he discovers that all his pain is unreal.

Souls, descending into form to experience the Lord’s cosmic drama of maya-creation ..... are diminished into limited egos entangled in mortal relationships, circumscriptions, and national and social identities. Blind attachments lead to selfishness, quarrelsomeness, delusion of permanent possession, inharmony, worries; and on a national scale produce commercial greed, desire of wresting the possessions of others, and terrible wars. After accumulating a bewildering collage of adventurous and often painful incarnations, the beleaguered soul cries, “Enough!” and a serious search for emancipation begins.

God intended His human children to live on earth with an awakened perception ..... and thus to enjoy His dream-drama as a cosmic entertainment. Alone among living creatures, the human body was equipped, as a special creation of God, with the instruments and capacities necessary to express fully the soul’s divine potentials. But ..... man ignores his higher endowments and remains attached to the limited fleshly form and its mortality.


The ordinary man ..... cognizes himself as so many pounds of flesh rather than as pure consciousness indwelling as the soul.

Through the small outer windows of the five senses, body-bound souls perceive nothing of the wonders beyond limited matter.


On the process of man's re-attainment of his god/soul-consciousness

When the soul is concentrated within rather than manifesting outwardly, it is one with the absolute Spirit, ensconced on the throne of ever new bliss within the thousand-petaled lotus, in a region beyond circumscription by the three bodies

In the first state of samadhi (sabikalpa), the devotee shuts off all sensory testimony of the outer world. He is rewarded then by sounds and scenes of inner realms fairer than the pristine Eden.  

The advanced yogi may rejoice in this blissful achievement of samadhi [union of soul and Spirit in cosmic consciousness] many times, yet find that he cannot maintain this union permanently. He is drawn down again into ego and body consciousness by his karma—effects of past actions—and by remnants of desires and attachments. But through each triumphant contact with Spirit, the soul consciousness becomes strengthened and more firmly in control of the bodily kingdom. At last, karma is overcome, the lower nature of desires and attachments is subdued, and ego is slain—the yogi attains kaivalya, liberation: permanent union with God.

The liberated yogi may then discard his three bodily encasements and remain a free soul in the ever-existing, ever-conscious, ever-new bliss of Omnipresent Spirit. Or if he chooses to descend again from his samadhi into the consciousness and activities of his body, he does so in the sublime state of nirvikalpa samadhi. In this highest state of externalized soul consciousness, he remains in his pure soul nature, untouched and unchanged, with no loss of God-perception.

By meditation, man’s consciousness is transferred from the body to the soul, and through the soul’s power of intuition he experiences himself not as a mortal body, but as immortal indwelling consciousness, one with the noumenal Divine Essence.



On the powers and bliss of our true selves as gods (souls)

As souls, individualized sparks of unconditioned Spirit, children of God are immortal, free from any dependence on materiality.

Within the soul is a source of infinite realization.

With the all-seeing intuitive perception of his soul he could see God in any aspect, materialized out of the Vibratory Light, or in divine oneness embrace his Father as the Formless Absolute.

God created a wondrous human form to be charged by cosmic energy, and to live in a free, unconditioned divine state .....  God made man immortal, to reign on earth as an immortal  .....   he was to return to the ..... Eternal Blessedness by consciously dematerializing his physical form.

To remain in the world of illusion while experiencing the indescribable bliss of the Sole Unmanifested Reality makes one’s hold on the body tenuous indeed ..... So even in the highest states of divine oneness, the outer nature of the God-united retains some degree of the individualized consciousness of egoity and delusion, just to keep body and soul together.

Through awakening the “sixth sense,” intuition,  ..... the soul’s consciousness, instead of being tied to the material plane, is free to roam in the boundless, eternally joyous empire of Spirit.


Quotations from
Sri Yukteswar

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Sri Yukteswar
Guru of Paramahansa Yogananda

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On our true essence as gods (souls)


Man is a soul, and has a body.


On the bodies that each god/soul occupies in its journey through creation

God encased the human soul successively in three bodies — the idea, or causal, body; the subtle astral body, seat of man’s mental and emotional natures; and the gross physical body.

Man as an individualized soul is essentially causal-bodied.

A soul, being invisible by nature, can be distinguished only by the presence of its body or bodies.

When the gross physical receptacle is destroyed by the hammer of death, the other two coverings — astral and causal — still remain to prevent the soul from consciously joining the Omnipresent Life. When desirelessness is attained through wisdom, its power disintegrates the two remaining vessels. The tiny human soul emerges, free at last; it is one with the Measureless Amplitude. 

Souls in the causal world recognize one another as individualized points of joyous Spirit.



On the process of man's re-attainment of his god/soul-consciousness

Completing there the work of redeeming all causal karma or seeds of past desires, the confined soul thrusts out the last of the three corks of ignorance and, emerging from the final jar of the causal body, commingles with the Eternal.

When a soul finally gets out of the three jars of bodily delusions, it becomes one with the Infinite without any loss of individuality.


On the powers and bliss of our true selves as gods (souls)

The soul expanded into Spirit remains ..... intoxicated with its ecstasy of joy in God’s dream of cosmic creation.


Quotations from Swami Abhayananda
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Swami Abhayananda
Modern day mystic

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On our true essence as gods (souls)

Each of us is an individual soul that is distinct and unique.

Here, for example, is the Muslim mystic-philosopher, Ibn Arabi (1165-1240): When the mystery of the oneness of the soul and the Divine is revealed to you, you will understand that you are no other than God.

The seers who authored the Upanishads had known in themselves the great Unity and had declared for all to come thereafter that the soul of man and the Lord of all creation were one and the same.



On the bodies that each god/soul occupies in its journey through creation

Individualized souls, we must not forget, are manifestations of the Divine. Nonetheless, while inhabiting or being associated with bodies, they pass through various experiences which may serve to forge a strong bond with the material world. However, over time, the indwelling Divinity instructs those ‘individualized souls’ by those very experiences in the errors of their ways and returns them by various and sundry ways to the awareness of their true nature.


On man's struggles with ego/body-consciousness

The soul’s excursion into the material realm is frought with difficulties and dangers and may bring with it many painful and binding impressions. These must be resolved and released in order for the soul to regain its blissful freedom. And so. the process of soul-evolution may be prolonged and stretched over a number of soul-incarnations.

The soul is identical with the transcendent Source of all, and is supremely, absolutely, free. In its transcendent aspect, it is always free, immutable and unaffected by the bodily conditions or worldly circumstances of individuals. However, when the soul identifies with the conditional, it is bound; it is subject to being carried along in the floodwaters of the archetypal forces of Nature. The habits of past karmic tendencies are very powerful in their influence; and they can lead us where we don’t necessarily want to go.



On the process of man's re-attainment of his god/soul-consciousness

Soul is able to search within itself and ascend in consciousness all the way to God. If it were not an expression of the Divine, it could not do that. When a soul rises to the vision of God, it is no longer soul, but is merged in and made one with God, so that it is ..... God Himself who is seeing Himself.



Quotations from Others
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Swami Vivekananda
19th century mystic

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On our true essence as gods (souls)

"We are in reality that Infinite Being, and our personalities represent so many channels through which this Infinite Reality is manifesting Itself." ~ Vivekananda

"The Atman within
[the individualized soul] is your real nature." ~ Vivekananda

"One should understand that the Atman is ..... distinct from the body, senses, mind and intellect  .....  and is the witness of their functions." ~ Shankara

"The mystic and the physicist arrive at the same conclusion; one starting from the inner realm, the other from the outer world. The harmony between their views confirms the ancient Indian wisdom that Brahman , the ultimate reality without, is identical to Atman , the reality within." ~ Fritjof Capra, in The Tao of Physics

"You don't have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body." ~ C. S. Lewis

I am not this hair,
I am not this skin.
I am the soul
that lives within.
~ Rumi



On the bodies that each god/soul occupies in its journey through creation

"The soul is immortal.  .....   Nothing is dead; men feign themselves dead, and endure mock funerals... and there they stand looking out of the window, sound and well, in some strange new disguise."~ Ralph Waldo Emerson


On the process of man's re-attainment of his god/soul-consciousness

The power of meditation separates ourselves from the body, and then the soul knows itself as it is – the unborn, the deathless, and birthless being." ~ Vivekananda


On the powers and bliss of our true selves as gods (souls)

Look within.
Within you is the hidden God.
Within you is the immortal soul.
Within you is the inexhaustible spiritual treasure.
Within you is the ocean of bliss.
Look within for the happiness which you have sought in vain.
~ Sivananda


"The soul advances and  ..... becomes one with the Divine Mind - but not to its own destruction: the two are one, and [yet] two." ~ Plotinus

"The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience." ~ Emily Dickinson



How to Re-Discover Who We Are?
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"Sooner or later, after a few or many painful incarnations, the soul in every human being will cry out to remind him that his home is not here, and he will begin in earnest to retrace his steps to his rightful heavenly kingdom." ~ P. Yogananda

The cosmic hypnosis of maya keeps us enthralled in this cosmic playground for many, many, many lifetimes - alternating between physical and astral body-forms. As noted above, at some point the search begins to find our true identity as gods, i.e. to re-discover our native souls - immortal, boundless, formless consciousness of indescribable bliss.

"At the end of each earthly sojourn the soul emerges from its fleshly prison, garbed in its heavenly causal and astral coverings of consciousness and life energy—an “angelic” contrast to the corruptible physical form. Astral freedom is temporary for those whose karma compels eventual return to physical incarnation; but those who transcend the self-woven cause-effect nets of earthbound desire progress by continuing spiritual effort through ever higher spheres of the astral heaven and the even finer causal heaven, eventually earning enrollment in the Heavenly Host of perfected beings. Thus does each soul rise to its source in Spirit." ~ P. Yogananda

We enter the virtual reality game of creation by donning body-forms and then become entranced with the body-forms and forget that we are gods. In order to re-discover our true selves as gods/souls, we have to put the virtual creation game on pause, on hold. Once the game is paused, we remember our true selves outside the game - i.e. we remember our true soul nature as gods.

How do we put the game on pause? We must temporarily stop the action by making the body perfectly still and by silencing the constant chatter of thoughts. When one tries to do that, one discovers just how restless the body-form is and just how relentless the stream of thoughts are. That is why the mystics of all ages and all lands have suggested that one should practice meditation. Meditation is the key to putting the creation game on pause.

Much more on this topic can be found in the Journey of Awakening section of this website, in particular The Path to Awakening page.


"From the heavenly causal and astral spheres every physically incarnate soul has descended, and every soul can reascend by retreating to the “wilderness” of interior silence and practicing the scientific method of lifting up the life force and consciousness from body identification to union with God." ~ P. Yogananda

"These souls, enamored of the material world, become disoriented, bound by their own attachment to matter; but by a deliberate reversal of its intention, an individualized soul is able to look within, examine itself, and ‘see’ its Origin, its higher Self, thereby regaining awareness of its true, eternal identity." ~ Swami Abhayananda


 
Final Thoughts
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Ralph Waldo Emerson
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"Every man is a divinity in disguise, a god playing the fool"

The essence of who we are is magnificently captured by the 12 word phrase above, written by the 19th century New England Transcendentalist poet and spiritual adept, Ralph Waldo Emerson.

In order to play the game of creation, Spirit creates souls/gods - individualized extensions of Itself. To make the game interesting,  the gods are given a split consciousness. Part of the consciousness of each of the gods knows that its real self is the soul - that it is a god, that it is Spirit Itself. Part of the consciousness of each of the gods thinks that it is the body-form. However, the intent is that each of the gods be able to easily switch between its pretend consciousness as a body and its true awareness as a god.

Unfortunately, the virtual creation game is so enthralling that the gods forget their true selves and are left with the sole awareness of the body-form.

Our mission is to recover that lost memory of our true selves; to recover our Paradise Lost. The mystics, who have re-discovered the blissful awareness of their true selves as gods, come to tell us, over and over again, that we are not the body, we are the soul. We are gods.


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"It is not the material form that constitutes our true and eternal identity, but it is, rather, our soul that is our true being, our eternal source of life and joy. ..... Our material form is merely a transient appearance that serves as our terrestrial vehicle."
~ Swami Abhayananda


"You are the soul, free and eternal." ~ Vivekananda

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Do Animals Have Souls?   (May 2021)

The last web posting, Who Are We? (April 2021), addressed the topic of the soul of man. In preparing that posting, a search on the word "soul" was carried out amongst the writings of various mystics.

Inadvertently, this search uncovered a number of references on the topic of the souls of animals, particularly from the writings of Paramahansa Yogananda.

Since this is a topic that is not commonly addressed and is one that is not only interesting in its own right but also in relation to the soul of man, it is briefly covered here.

This is by no means an exhaustive consideration, but merely a collection of quotations that were stumbled upon; all from the writings of Yogananda (unless otherwise noted).




Note -  All of the images in this posting (except for the first and last) were captured by the highly-acclaimed Spanish wildlife photographer Marina Cano, whose brilliant photographs capture her deep empathy with animals ("sometimes I really, really would love to feel what they feel, to be on the other side. I'd love to just become one of them and have that wild spirit inside"). Several images are from her book, "Wild Soul" (2020).


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Introduction

As a preface, and to put some context around the following quotations, perhaps it is useful to briefly review the basic premise of creation as described by the mystics, as follows;


  • There is only one entity that truly exists and that is Spirit - eternal, boundless, formless, infinite Awareness, existing alone in a state of indescribable bliss consciousness.
 
  • For entertainment purposes, Spirit creates and projects from Its consciousness an illusion, a universal playground of beautiful and wondrous frozen light forms – galaxies, planets, mountains, lakes, fields of flowers, etc.
 
  • The Unmanifested Spirit felt, "I am alone. I am conscious Bliss, but there is no one to taste the sweetness of My Nectar of Joy." Even as He thus dreamed, He became many.
 
  • …  emanating a spherical bundle of rays, invisible searchlights, which … produce … on the screen of space an endless variety of apparently real pictures.
 
  • Endless universes, tier upon tier, zone after zone, all revolving within him.
 
  • But the images are shadowy illusions; the only reality is God and His individualized consciousness in the forms that behold and interact in the play.
 
  • For entertainment purposes, Spirit then creates individualized extensions of Itself, i.e. souls or gods, that enter the phantasmagoria of creation.
 
  • To enter this dream world of creation, the souls or gods must put on a costume or disguise of frozen light, i.e. a body-form. These body-forms can take a variety of shapes, including that of birds, animals, humans, etc. As will be noted below, the human body-form differs from the others in one significant feature.
 
  • By cosmic hypnosis the gods or souls are partially fooled into believing that their body-forms are real, so that the entertainment of being in the created worldly illusion is enhanced.
 
  • Of course, all these body-forms are really souls or gods. And the souls or gods are really Spirit Itself, so in essence it is Spirit who is enjoying playing in Its universal dream of creation through each one of the souls or gods, dressed up in all the different costumes or disguises It has made.
 
Spirit’s projection of the illusion of a universal playground may be said to be similar to that of someone in today’s world putting on a Virtual Reality headset and enjoying a VR game. In both cases, the players enter an illusory world that has been created from light energy and assume a body-form within the game (in Spirit’s case, a countless variety of body-forms). The player's true self exists outside of the game, but within the virtual environment they get to enjoy pretending to be entities other than their true selves.





The Evolution of the Soul

In the quotations below, Yogananda includes minerals and plants amongst the forms that Spirit assumes within Its virtual creation and describes a process of evolution from one form to another. The term “superman” is used below to denote the evolution of a “normal” human into one who has regained the awareness of his true nature as a god.

Note that the quotations come from several different writings of Yogananda and as such there is some repetition of ideas below. The repetition may help with comprehension of this esoteric topic.

As individualized souls, Spirit progressively unfolds Its power of knowing through the successive stages of evolution: as unconscious response in minerals, as feeling in plant life, as instinctive sentient knowledge in animals, as intellect, reason, and undeveloped introspective intuition in man, and as pure intuition in the superman.

In the course of evolution, the soul sleeps in stones, awakes drowsily in the trees, becomes conscious vitality in animals, and expresses self-conscious discriminative vitality in man. In the superman, the soul manifests its true nature of superconsciousness and omnipresence.

Spirit expresses Itself as beauty and magnetic and chemical power in minerals and gems; as beauty and life in plants; as beauty, life, power, motion, and consciousness in animals; as comprehension and expanding power in man; and again returns to Omnipresence in the superman.

The soul evolves from the mineral kingdom through the plant and then the animal kingdoms before reaching incarnation in a human form. Thereafter, through repeated cycles of human births and deaths, with their intermittent lessons, the soul ultimately finds perfect expression in the superman, the man of God-realization.

It is said that after eight million lives traveling the successive steps of upward evolution like a prodigal son through the cycles of incarnations, at last the soul arrives in a human birth.

As a person under hypnotic influence can be made to act as if he were a different personality, so God evolves souls out of Himself and hypnotizes them by delusion (maya) into perceiving themselves as encased in animal or human bodies. The hypnotized person cannot get out of his unreal state without being dehypnotized. By wisdom and self-analysis and by the grace of God, man can get himself dehypnotized from cosmic delusion and forever forsake his recurring dreams of incarnations. He can then return to the perception of the pure soul, united to the Spirit in the dreamless state of blessedness.

Each evolutionary phase thus manifests a fuller measure of Spirit. The animal is freed from the inertia of minerals and the fixity of plants to experience with locomotion and sentient consciousness a greater portion of God’s creation. Man, by his self-consciousness, additionally comprehends the thoughts of his fellow beings and can project his sensory mind into star-studded space, at least by the power of imagination. The superman expands his life energy and consciousness from his body into all space, actually feeling as his own self the presence of all universes in the vast cosmos as well as every minute atom of the earth. In the superman, the lost omnipresence of Spirit, bound in the soul as individualized Spirit, is regained.





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Souls Occupying Animal Forms

The following quotations relate to souls occupying animal forms.

Animals, bound by instinct, have very limited intelligence.

Animals have perceptions and consciousness, but not the intellect to discriminate between right and wrong.

Animals are instinct-guided; unlike men, animals have no power of free will.

An animal’s life is predestined; man’s is not.

As animals have no free will, being guided primarily by instinct, they accrue no karma for their actions.

Animals, not subject to individual karma, are under the sway of group or mass karma.

The cells of flowers, plants, animals, and human beings were intended by God to live recharged by Cosmic Energy and not by cruelly feeding on one another.

Sensitivity was given to man only to protect the body; without sensation, one could cut himself badly and not know it. Sensitivity was never intended to cause pain. Animals have not developed this faculty to the degree that man has, hence they experience less pain. Otherwise, the cruelty practiced on animals in some methods of killing would be intolerable.


As a young man in India, Yogananda started a school that taught a mix of academics and spirituality. At one time, the school had a pet deer that the students loved. One day, the deer became ill and Yogananda used his yogic powers to keep the deer alive. The following quotation relates to this;

According to the mass karma that guides and regulates the destinies of animals, the deer’s life was over, and it was ready to progress to a higher form. But by my deep attachment, which I later realized was selfish, and by my fervent prayers, I had been able to hold it in the limitations of the animal form from which the soul was struggling for release. The soul of the deer made its plea in a dream because, without my loving permission, it either would not or could not go. As soon as I agreed, it departed. 




The Human body-form vs the Animal body-form

Though the physical body of man was generally patterned after the physiological and anatomical instrumentalities that had resulted from the long process of evolution of animal species, human beings were created by God with a unique endowment possessed by no lower forms: awakened spiritual centers of life and consciousness in the spine and brain that gave them the ability to express fully the divine consciousness and powers of the soul.

The human body was therefore not solely a result of evolution from beasts, but was produced through an act of special creation by God. The animal forms were too crude to express full divinity; man was uniquely given the potentially omniscient ‘thousand-petaled lotus’ in the brain, as well as acutely awakened occult centers in the spine. (Sri Yukteswar quote)

You don’t know how fortunate you are to have been born as a human being. In that you are blessed more than any other creature.

At one end of the human scale, we find brutelike individuals, those just evolved from animal bodies; at the other, and glorious, end of the evolutionary chain, the great masters and Godlike sages appear. The mass of humanity lies sandwiched between these two extremes.


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God is equally present in every being - human or animal.

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Destiny and Free Will - Revisited   (September 2021)

This topic was first addressed in the webpage Destiny and Free Will as part of Our Adventures in Wonderland section of this website.

A follow-up to this was a web posting in September 2016 entitled Another Look at Destiny and Free Will on the What's New webpage.
This is the third time this topic is being addressed. This latest look was prompted by a series of email exchanges between Swami Abhayananda** and myself beginning in January of this year. The exchange started with Swami Abhayananda sending me a revision to one of his articles that he thought I might find interesting. The article contained the line, “All things move together of one accord. Assent is given throughout the universe to every falling grain.”
It was not the first time I had seen this line. It is sprinkled throughout his books and articles. It is one of the few lines from all of his writings that has not resonated with me. To me, it appears to negate the concept of free will. I decided that I should finally address this with him. So, I sent him back the following question;

"How do you reconcile the free will that is assigned to each soul with the statement, “All things move together of one accord. Assent is given throughout the universe to every falling grain?"

Swami Abhayananda responded by sending me an excerpt from one of his books. It didn't help.  Anticipating this, he sent me another selection from his writings. Again, it did not resonate.

I knew I would need some time to let the topic of destiny and free will once again percolate within my consciousness. While doing so, I spent time researching the views of other mystics. While I had done just that as part of my initial postings on this subject, this follow-up review went deeper.

This is not as easy a topic as I had initially thought. A Google search on "destiny and free will” yields results that are all over the map. The views of philosophers and scientists can be dismissed - the intellectual mind is no match for this question. The mystical mind is required. But even here, the views of the mystics did not seem to converge.
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Much effort was expended to reconcile what appeared to be different views amongst the mystics. And just to complicate things, conflicting statements were sometimes given by the same mystic at different times. How can that be?

Finally, it became intuitively clear that the solution to the dilemma lay in who was being referred to when addressing whether or not we have free will. Each of us has more than one identity; one identity may have free will while another may not.

This posting consists of the following sections:
1 – Who Am I?
2 – Man as Spirit
3 – Man as a god
4 – Man as a vehicle of the gods
5 – Man identified as a body
6 - Final Thoughts
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**  Swami Abhayananda is a modern day mystic whom I have quoted extensively in this website.  A  collection of quotations selected from his many books and articles was posted in April 2019 as The Writings of Swami Abhayananda  on the What's New webpage.
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Note:  After completing this posting, I sent the link to Swami Abhayananda. He sent me back a reply that included the following words:
 
“Let me emphasize to you how valuable your examination of the free will question is. You have done a masterful job of revealing the many sides of this topic, and you deserve the highest praise and gratitude of everyone who is privileged to read your treatment of this issue ….. please accept my heart-felt thanks.”
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​Who Am I?
In order to answer the question on the left, it may be useful to begin by briefly reviewing the basic premise of creation, as espoused by the mystics.

According to mystics, there exists an entity that is unfathomable to the normal human mind. This entity can be referred to as Spirit. The closest that Spirit can be described is that It is an infinite consciousness without form - boundless awareness, ever-existing, omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent.

During periods of no creation, only Spirit exists - infinite awareness of ever-new joy. All alone. Nothing else.
For entertainment purposes, Spirit conjures within Itself the idea of a creation that would consist of various dream structures.
When you’re drawn up to the One,
You’ll find yourself alone.
…  Wherever You look,
You see none else but You.
…  There’s none else but You anywhere.
In such a lonely timeless life,
What else is there to do but dream
Up worlds and populate them
With imaginative forms caught up
In crazy, impossible plots and toils?
What else would You do
When there’s none else but You?
~ Swami Abhayananda
This dream of creation exists entirely within the consciousness that Spirit is. 

Spirit takes on a dream form and enters Its dream creation in order to enjoy creation from within. This form is often referred to as Ishvara, God within creation. And then, in order to enhance Its enjoyment of the dream creation, Spirit creates unique, individualized extensions of Itself in untold numbers. These are the souls, the gods. The gods initially enter creation in the very subtle and adaptable causal forms. Later they assume fixed, ethereal astral forms and later, the much more rigid physical forms. In whatever form they assume, the gods are given free will and co-creation powers so that Spirit can enjoy and grow Its dream creation through each of the god-souls. The forms that the god-souls assume are merely the vehicles by which they experience creation. Although the forms are equipped with a limited ego-consciousness of their own, their original and primary purpose is
to follow the direction of the higher consciousness of the god-souls. In this highest level of creation, the body-forms are the means by which the gods exercise their free will within creation. As such, the body-forms themselves do not exercise free will. Their actions are determined by the god-souls.

However, in order to make Its dream creation more interesting, Spirit puts the god-souls under a spell of maya, or cosmic hypnosis, such that the gods forget their true identity and for a time believe that the body-forms that they occupy are their true selves. They now believe that the body-forms are real, autonomous, separate entities that operate under their own volition.

This situation remains over the course of many, many lifetimes until the body-forms eventually regain their original status as the vehicles of the gods. More on this in other sections of this website, including the recent posting Who Are We? ( April 2021) which includes the following quotations from Paramahansa Yogananda:


The soul, as the ego, ascribes to itself all the limitations and circumscriptions of the body. Once so identified, the soul can no longer express its omnipresence, omniscience, and omnipotence. It imagines itself to be limited—just as a rich prince, wandering in a state of amnesia in the slums, might imagine himself to be a pauper.

The soul, while dwelling within the body, becomes identified with its physical and mental experiences and forgets its divine nature; it masquerades instead as the body-circumscribed ego, the pseudosoul.


In our original state, each one of us is a god. Under the spell of maya​, each of us comes to believe that our body-form is our identity. After many, many lifetimes, alternating between physical and astral body-forms, the higher consciousness of our god-selves eventually awakens and we regain our awareness as gods.

During the period that we believe our identity to be the body-form, our higher god-mind is pushed to the background and the lower ego-mind comes to the fore.


As such, we can deduce that we have various identities as we travel through the dreamland of creation, as follows;

1 - Man as Spirit - Our ultimate identity beyond creation. Eventually each of the souls acquires the full consciousness of Spirit. 

2 - Man as a god - Our true existence within creation. Unlimited awareness. Unlimited free will to experiment and experience creation.

3 - Man as a vehicle of the gods - The intended role of the body-form that man assumes within creation. The body-form is intended to be the means by which one's unlimited god-self experiences creation. In this role, the limited consciousness of the ego-mind that is associated with the body-form is held in check and controlled by the higher consciousness of one's god-self. The god-self makes the free will choices. The body-form is happy to forgo ego-mind choices in favour of the unlimited bliss attained by following the choices of one's god-self.   
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4 - Man identified as a body - Forgetful of one's true self, man loses access to the unlimited awareness of his true self. Man now thinks that the body is his self and he follows the dictates of the lower ego-mind. The ego-mind has free will, but it is constrained by the strong impulses of the senses that push it in often unwanted directions. As well, man identified as a body falls under the law of karma. As such, many occurrences in his life are the pre-determined destiny of his karma from the past and are not free will choices.
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​​In the sections below, we look at each of mankind's identities listed above and hear what the mystics have to say about it, as regards free will and destiny. While most of the quotations are from Swami Abhayananda, Ramana Maharshi and Paramahansa Yogananda, the words of a few other mystics are also included.
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Man as Spirit
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Swami Abhayananda
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​Our ultimate identity beyond creation. Eventually each of the souls acquires the full consciousness of Spirit. Creation is a free will act of Spirit.

Swami Abhayananda addresses our ultimate identity, our
quintessential self, in the following quotations. Spirit and mankind are not two, but one; ergo, Spirit's free will and mankind's free will are ultimately one and the same.

"It is only a linguistic quandary that we fall into when we regard ourselves and God as separate entities and consider one to be determining the other.  There is only One in this universe; it is He who, as us, is freely making all the choices. Each individual being (soul) chooses according to his or her evolutionary development, but it is He alone who is manifesting as each individual at every step on the evolutionary scale.  Therefore, we must admit that everything is determined by God’s Will." 

"We have the sense that our individual will is free because we are, in fact, not merely an individual soul; we are the one Consciousness who is determining everything, who truly is free. In other words, while we may believe ourselves to be separate individual entities responsible for our individual actions, the fact is that our true, eternal, identity is God, who is alone the one responsible for every action."

"The notion of an individual self apart from the one eternal Self, is merely an illusion. The ‘ego’, or ‘I’ awareness, is not a thing that afflicts us; it is simply an illusory perspective in which one believes oneself to be a singular and independent being among a multitude of beings and objects—as opposed to the view which identifies with all of existence as one indivisible Self. And it is ‘mystical experience’, or ‘the grace of God’, that provides a glimpse into the egoless state, where there is only the one conscious continuum, where there is only the One Being, and the awareness that It is who you are!"

"He manifests the universe of His own free will, as a play, or sport."

"Our essence, the one Divine Consciousness, is the only true ‘I’ in all the universe and beyond; It is everyone’s eternal Identity." 

"When we speak of the free will of the soul, we forget that the One is all inclusive - He includes all wills  ..... From the standpoint of God, the entire unfoldment of the universe, including all choices made, is one ..... 'All things move together of one accord; assent is given throughout the universe to every falling grain.'” 


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Man as a god
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Paramahansa Yogananda
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​Our true existence within creation. Unlimited awareness. Unlimited free will to experiment and experience creation.

In the quotations below, Paramahansa Yogananda addresses mankind's role as a god, as a soul, and outlines the free will that comes with this role.


"A dreamer is the creator and sustainer of the destiny—both good and bad—of the images in his dream. Similarly, in the cosmic dream, the Divine Dreamer is the Creator and Sustainer of all beings, and the Dispenser of their destiny through their good and bad karma. In this sense, God predetermines to a great extent the happenings in His cosmic dream and the parts to be played therein by His dream actors. This doesn’t mean, however, that man’s fate is wholly predestined by an authoritarian Deity. God is the Maker of destiny, but He has given man the power to react upon destiny. Each human being receives from God the gift of free choice by which he can make changes in himself and his world environment. This very power of free will is an expression of the image of God in man, the image in which man is made—the soul or individualized consciousness of God." 

​"By the power of maya or delusion, the Spirit similarly assumes many forms, manifesting Itself as numerous human beings endowed with free choice, working their way through various evolutionary stages—good or evil, bound or free, attached or nonattached, desireful or desireless. It is only because of restless delusion that men feel themselves apart from Spirit, and do not perceive His immanence within themselves and all Nature." 

​"The Lord sustains the human soul but gives it full liberty and free choice either to identify itself temporarily with the body and its egoistic experiences or to identify itself with His transcendental Spirit." 

"All souls come from God—individualized rays of pure Spirit—and evolve back to their native perfection by exercise of their God-given free will." 

“All happenings are determined by a conjunctive effort between God the macrocosmic Creator, and God the microcosmic creator through individualized expression in man.” 

“Although life is governed by a cosmic plan, we have freedom to change our part in the drama.” 

“We can say that God made this earth not only as a hobby, but also because He wanted to make perfect souls that would evolve back to Him. He sent them out under the cloak of delusion, or maya, but endowed with freedom. That is the greatest gift of God.” 


 “All aspects of my life, the minute details of my plans and actions, are governed by the influence of the will of God on the free choices made by my will." ~  Jesus of Nazareth (paraphrased by Paramahansa Yogananda)​


Man as a vehicle of the gods
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Ramana Maharshi​
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​The intended role of the body-form that man assumes within creation. The body-form is intended to be the means by which one's unlimited god-self experiences creation. In this role, the limited consciousness of the ego-mind that is associated with the body-form is held in check and controlled by the higher consciousness of one's god-self. The god-self makes the free will choices. The body-form is happy to forgo ego-mind choices in favour of the unlimited bliss attained by following the choices of one's god-self.  

In the quotations below, Ramana Maharshi addresses the identity of man as a vehicle of the gods.

Questioner: Are only important events in a man’s life, such as his main occupation or profession, predetermined, or are trifling acts in his life, such as taking a cup of water or moving from one place in the room to another, also predetermined?
Ramana Maharshi: Yes, everything is predetermined.  
[see Note One below] 

“It is true that the work meant to be done by us will be done by us. But it is open to us to be free from the joys or pains, pleasant or unpleasant consequences of the work, by not identifying ourselves with the body or that which does the work. If you realise your true nature and know that it is not you that does any work, you will be unaffected by the consequences of whatever work the body may be engaged in." 

​“'Not an atom moves except by His Will” expresses the same truth, whether you say 'Does not move except by His Will' or 'Does not move except by karma'. As for freedom for man, he is always free not to identify himself with the body." 

​"If the agent upon whom the karma depends, namely the ego, which has come into existence between the body and the Self, merges in its source and loses its form, how can the karma which depends upon it survive? When there is no ‘I’ there is no karma." 

​Question: I don’t understand what work I should do and what not.
Ramana Maharshi: Don’t bother. What is destined as work to be done by you in this life will be done by you.


[Note One] - The teachings of Ramana Maharshi were primarily formulated by his disciples recording his  responses to questions. Ramana Maharshi became well-known in Europe following the publication of Paul Brunton's book, A Search in Secret India (1934). Many visitors from England and elsewhere made their way to India to seek spiritual answers from Ramana. He graciously took the time to respond to their queries and his words were then recorded by his disciples.

Some confusion arose from this practice, in that Ramana would provide answers consistent with the spiritual development of his questioner. As such, he sometimes gave different answers to a spiritual novice as compared to a spiritual adept. For example, it was known that Ramana provided three different descriptions of creation, depending on who was asking. He would say that all three answers were correct within the context of the questioner's consciousness.

And this confusion is apparent in the answers that he gave on the topic of free will vs predetermination. In this case, compounding the confusion was that Ramana Maharshi would also consider the different identities of man in giving his answers. He usually referred to man in his native state as a god and would say that the ego was "non-existent." As such, if he didn't say which identity of man he was referring to in giving an answer, it was likely man's native state as a god. As such, the body was merely the soul's vehicle, as in the quotation here.

In some cases, Ramana Maharshi specifically said which identity of man he was referring to (see quotations in the section below) and the answer regarding mankind's free will was quite different.


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Man identified as a body
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​ Forgetful of one's true self, man loses access to the unlimited awareness of his true self. Man now thinks that the body is his self and he follows the dictates of the lower ego-mind. The ego-mind has free will, but it is constrained by the strong impulses of the senses that push it in often unwanted directions. As well, man identified as a body falls under the law of karma. As such, many occurrences in his life are the pre-determined destiny of his karma from the past and are not free will choices.
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As noted below,  mystics acknowledge the gift of free will that is given to mankind, even during the periods of time when man falsely identifies himself as the body;

"Free will exists together with the individuality. As long as the individuality lasts, so long is there free will. All the scriptures are based on this fact and advise directing the free will in the right channel." ~ Ramana Maharshi

"Destiny is the result of past action; it concerns the body ..... Why are you concerned with it? Why do you pay attention to it? Free-will and Destiny last as long as the body lasts. But wisdom transcends both." ~ Ramana Maharshi

"There is one spiritual issue on which science, secular society, and the various religious traditions all agree: the freedom and accountability of the human will." ~ Swami Abhayananda

"[Edgar] Cayce would repeatedly say that even the Lord of Lords could not accurately predict future events because human free will can alter and change the future.” ~ Kevin Williams  (author and researcher on Cayce and NDEs)

"Individualized selves possessing the instrumentalities of a human body and mind are gifted with the power of free choice and independent action." ~ Paramahansa Yogananda

“If you have faith and do not doubt, if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ it will happen, and nothing will be impossible for you.” ~ Jesus of Nazareth (paraphrased)

"If Jesus were sure that all his twelve disciples were prisoners of destiny and that eleven were ordained to remain faithful to him, he would not have asked: “Will ye also go away?” Jesus knew that the disciples, though influenced by karma and cosmic law, still had free will to be with him or to forsake him." ~ Paramahansa Yogananda
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As mentioned above, man identified as a body falls under the law of karma. Good and bad choices result in good and bad karma respectively. Karma's primary purpose is to be a "prod to remembrance" of man's true nature as a god.

"We humans are of a two-fold nature; we are, in essence, identical with the divine Consciousness, our Divine Self, which assures us of a free will; and we are only secondarily products of the creative Power (Nous or Brahma) which begets the material body-mind complex along with its accompanying karmic tendencies." ~ Swami Abhayananda

"Thus, the immortal soul-images of God forgot their already perfect immortality. They began to exercise their free will in pursuit of a desire for temporal fulfillment. But desire begets a brood of desires, enticing immortals into a mortal labyrinth of cause and effect comings and goings, earthly births and deaths." ~ Paramahansa Yogananda

"Man is endowed with free will and should not abdicate his freedom of choice and action. To ensure right action, the challenge to the seeker after Self-realization is to overcome prenatal and postnatal bad habits with good habits, and to increase actions that are initiated solely by wisdom-guided free choice, emancipated from all karmic, habitual, and environmental influences." ~ Paramahansa Yogananda

"God had planned to liberate the human soul after a short wisdom-experience on this earth. Through misuse of his free will, however, man became earthbound, involving himself needlessly in a prolonged series of reincarnations." ~ Paramahansa Yogananda

​"Endowed with free choice, man has misused his independence and identified himself with a transient body and a cosmos of antithetical organized chaos. He should train his mind away from restlessness to the perception of changelessness. The ordinary individual, through restlessness, perceives only the tumultuous universe. The man following the art of yoga (inner calmness) perceives the immanent-transcendent ever tranquil Spirit." ~ Paramahansa Yogananda

“What does it avail you to attribute the cause of misery to the happenings of life when that cause is really within you?” ~ Ramana Maharshi
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The karmic load that each of us carries varies according to the deeds one has performed in this and previous lifetimes;

​​​“Some souls can freely choose their own conditions in which to be born and complete their missions. Other souls who have made too many mistakes in past lives and who have become dangerously influenced by worldly desires, are incarnated into conditions chosen by law of karma at a time and under circumstances best suited to help them with their karmic debt.” ~ Edgar Cayce

​"An intrinsic quality of the soul is free will; the fully illumined yogi is a man of free will. The brutish man is bound, almost like an animal, to his instincts or unthinking material habits bequeathed by Nature. The higher an individual rises in the scale of evolution, the more he exercises his soul prerogative of free will." ~Paramahansa Yogananda

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As described below, each of us ultimately controls our own destiny by our own resolve and the strength of our free will. It is assuring to know that a determined will is more powerful than karma. 
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“Karma is the destiny created for oneself by one's free actions. In actions are included thoughts and sensations, motives, good or bad emotions, etc. While working out an old destiny one is bound to create a new one by the manner in which one reacts to its operation. Here then comes the place of free-will. We are not free to alter the trend of an old karma, for example, in the choice of our parents, country, the circumstances of our birth and environments; or our physical and mental fitness and abilities. These are forced on us: we cannot change them. What we can change is the manner in which we receive and work them out. We are all agreed that there are many things in which the decision lies in our hands: the decision is ours, the action is ours, the motive behind the action is ours, the mental attitude with which we do the action is ours too. This then is the field in which we are allowed freedom of will, and it contains the seeds of our future destiny. We can shape that destiny as we will.”
~ Ramana Maharshi

"With a determined dependence on and identification with the Divine Self, the individual will has the free and final word on the course of the life it rules." ~ Swami Abhayananda 

"Karma is governed by one’s will power. What is to be does not necessarily have to be. Man’s free will and divine determination can change the course of events in his life." ~ Paramahansa Yogananda

"Even the recorded experiences of the past which hold such a grip on us from lifetime to lifetime may be overcome and thwarted by our own determined will, since that will has sprung from a universal and divine Will." ~ Swami Abhayananda 

“Do not blame karma, or anybody else, for what you are. You can undo what has been done, through the exercise of a determined will.” ~ Papa Ramdas

"It is the coward and the fool who says this is his fate. But it is the strong man who stands up and says I will make my own fate."  ~ Swami Vivekananda

“Each man, by his thoughts and actions, becomes the molder of his destiny.” ~ Paramahansa Yogananda
​
​"When man is disillusioned by the lesser temptations of sense pleasures, he seeks the supreme temptation of life, God’s bliss. In this way man learns to use His divine gifts of discrimination and free choice to find the Reality behind the appearances of life." ~ Paramahansa Yogananda

​"Eventually, the inner magnetism of Spirit will cause that individualized consciousness to seek the way to ascension through the choice of right action that links it to the uplifting divine power inherent in Nature’s laws." ~ Paramahansa Yogananda

“What he has done, he can undo. None other than himself was the instigator of the causes of whatever effects are now prevalent in his life. He can overcome any limitation, because he created it by his own actions in the first place.” ~ Sri Yukteswar

​"Christlike masters by inner vision can discern the exact influence of the effects of already performed actions in men through many incarnations. However, the karmic outcome is conditional on certain circumstances; events can be changed by the interjection of the strong influences of free will." ~ Paramahansa Yogananda



Final Thoughts
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​As noted at the beginning of this posting, the topic of free will vs destiny is not an easy one. In the quotations below, Swami Abhayananda captures the ambiguity and confusion that is often associated with this subject;

​"But there is that other perspective which sees that God (the Divine Mind), who is the Driver, is in fact the very Consciousness that knows Itself as ‘I’ within the individual soul; It is indeed the very Self and essence of man, comprising his real identity. Intuitively we sense our own infinite freedom of will, or something close to it, and reason as well seems to demand a freedom and independence upon which to base individual responsibility for our acts. "If every event in our lives is determined by God," we ask, "where then is our freedom of choice? Where is the possibility for virtue, for choosing the path of righteousness over the path of evil? And how is it even possible to progress morally and spiritually by one's own efforts if all is in God's hands? How could we be held responsible for our acts if every sentiment, emotion, thought, or act is determined by God?" 

"Just as light and matter, photons and electrons, viewed from different perspectives, appear to be either wavular or particulate, our identities, viewed from different perspectives, may appear to be either contained in and identical with the universal Consciousness or manifest as distinct individual souls. Likewise, viewed from those different perspectives, we may appear to be either totally determined by universally interconnected causal factors or independently free to choose our own actions." 

"The free will that we experience during our brief imaginary existence is really His freedom of will ... The only ‘I’ was His all along ... we exist in Him, and what we think is ours is truly His. ‘I’ and ‘Him’ are ultimately not two; and so, there is no contradiction here." 

"We may picture the entire array from The One to manifested universe as a 'raying out' or a 'projection' from an interior center—a sort of telescoping outward of a projected image, becoming at its "screening" in the phenomenal world a something elaborately conditioned, though it is unconditioned at its single source. At the source, it is one, eternal, unconditional; at the other end of the projection it is a multitude of souls, all intricately conditioned. Soul has, therefore, two aspects, two identities: in its origin it is eternal Divinity; in its temporal display, coupled with matter, it is still Divine, but it is also a thing limited and burdened by conditions." 

​"These are questions which must occur to anyone who thinks deeply about such matters. But these questions are framed on a presumption of duality where none in fact exists. For we and God are ultimately not two. And it is only a linguistic quandary that we fall into when we regard ourselves and God as separate entities, and consider one to be determining the other." 

"The question of "free will" is one which has fascinated the minds of men since first man looked to the heavens and deduced a Creator. And, though the answer to the problem is very simple, it is difficult for most minds to assimilate which have not gotten in the habit of allowing for two answers to be true which appear to logically contradict each other. Such an attitude is required of physicists for whom light, and energy itself, must be seen as both a particle (quanta) and a wave, whose respective qualities are mutually exclusive. What is required is the ability to freely shift one's viewpoint from one frame of reference to another." 

"We consist of waves on the one ocean of Consciousness, and are, at the same time, individualized entities, independent souls—we are both free and causally determined at the same time. Such an understanding, acknowledging that these two apparently opposing notions are in fact complementary to one another—however challenging that may be to our current worldview and to everyone’s sanity—would go a long way to resolving the long-standing metaphysical dispute concerning who we are—the One or the many." 



And finally, we come back to the quotation that was the impetus behind this posting, i.e. “All things move together of one accord. Assent is given throughout the universe to every falling grain.”

"Sometimes we forget that all that exists in this world is created and controlled by God. All things do indeed move together in accord with His Divine Will, and assent is given throughout the universe to every falling grain. This is an unmistakable truth, experienced by the mystic, but I understand that for all others, it is not at all evident, and must remain merely a matter of faith." 

​"The apparent contradiction between the words “all things move together of one accord” and the declaration that man possesses a “free will” is resolved when it is understood that these two viewpoints pertain to the perspectives of God and Man, respectively. From the perspective of Eternity, all things do indeed move together of one accord (in fact, these words were spoken from that perspective); and from the perspective of man, he does indeed possess a free will by virtue of his derivation from the absolute freedom of God. Both of these statements, as well as both of these perspectives, are true and correct, and not, as they seem, ultimately contradictory." 
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​The following quotation from Paramahansa Yogananda is perhaps a good way to wrap up this posting. It offers a ray of hope for those who may sometimes feel powerless in the face of obstacles of destiny that may be encountered on the pathway of life. 


"The karmic law of cause and effect projects into the ether vibratory potentials of future events that are a probable outcome, or effect, of previously initiated causes. Future events forming in the ether from causes originated by human actions are not always inevitable; they evolve and can change dramatically according to the transmuting power of man’s free-will actions integrating into those karmic vibrations."
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*** i.e. not waiving Intellectual Property rights to vaccine patents. If IP rights were waived, the vaccine would have been more readily available to those in poorer countries around the world.
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To a Dear Friend - Part 2  (January 2022)

Recently, I received my annual Christmas email greeting from a dear friend. It included the wish that "these turbulent and unprecedented times would be over soon and our fellow human beings would have better days ahead of them." A wonderful sentiment.

However, at the end of his email, he added the following;

"This pandemic proved what I always believed. The human race is selfish beyond words. They do not share (not waiving vaccine IP*** to prevent millions of people in poor countries from dying) and they do not care about each other (not wearing a mask or getting a vaccine or staying home). What one likes, one does and to hell with others! No wonder God does not show his face. If you were him and you had created this sorry human race, would you want to show your face? I know I would have been in hiding too! As I have said before, I am ashamed of my own species."

These remarks reminded me of the brilliant comedian, author and social critic George Carlin, who eventually became so disillusioned by the actions of his fellow human beings that he declared “I no longer see myself as a part of this species." Some additional quotations from George Carlin appear in  the left column of the section below.

And so, are the views of my dear friend and George Carlin correct? Are humans little more than uncaring, selfish beings?  To get the answer, we need to examine the words of the mystics who have penetrated to the core of reality and have provided much insight on this topic.

This posting consists of the following sections;

1 - The Ego-Self
2 - The Higher-Self
3 - The Evolving-Self
4 - Final Thoughts


Note - This posting is called "Part 2" because a previous posting was written 5-years ago, once again in response to a Christmas email from my dear friend, i.e. To a Dear Friend (January 2017). It appears on the What's New?  webpage herein.








1 - The Ego-Self
George Carlin Quotations

"When you're born you get a ticket to the freak show. When you're born in America, you get a front row seat"

"Conservatives are really something, aren't they? They're all in favor of the unborn. They will do anything for the unborn. But once you're born, you're on your own. Pro-life conservatives are obsessed with the fetus from conception to nine months. After that, they don't want to know about you. They don't want to hear from you. No nothing. No neonatal care, no daycare, no head start, no school lunch, no food stamps, no welfare, no nothing."


“If it’s true that our species is alone in the universe, then I’d have to say the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little.”

“This is a moral question, not rhetorical, I am looking for the answer: what is the moral difference between cutting off one guy’s head, or two, or three, or five or ten – and dropping a big bomb on a hospital and killing a whole bunch of sick kids… when you get right down to it, human beings are nothing more than ordinary jungle beasts.”

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“They are no more than unconscious players in the egoic game, a game that looks so important yet is ultimately devoid of true purpose. It is, in the words of Shakespeare, “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” ~ Eckhart Tolle

If asked who you are and the answer is "I am this mortal body and the thoughts within my mind. My life is contained within the local portion of the universe that my senses detect," then, for purposes of this posting, you are the ego-self.

The ego-self is the state of the vast majority of people on this planet. The ego-self can have different levels. The evolving ego-self will be addressed below.

This section will address the ego-self at or near its lowest level. At this stage, the ego-self sees itself as totally separate from everyone else. It has no idea where it came from or why it's here. Its primary motivation is to provide for the body - i.e. food, shelter, protection, sense pleasures, etc. It cares very little for others, unless they can be of assistance.

At this basic level, the ego-self is not pretty. Modern day mystics have eloquently described this state as outlined on the webpage Ego-consciousness and God-consciousness on this website. Below are a few quotations from mystics who have experienced a much higher level of awareness.


“We human beings are what we have been for millions of years - colossally greedy, envious, aggressive, jealous, anxious and despairing, with occasional flashes of joy and affection. We are a strange mixture of hate, fear and gentleness; we are both violence and peace.” ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

“If the history of humanity were the clinical case history of a single human being, the diagnosis would have to be: chronic paranoid delusions, a pathological propensity to commit murder and acts of extreme violence and cruelty against his perceived “enemies” - his own unconsciousness projected outward. Criminally insane, with a few brief lucid intervals.”
~ Eckhart Tolle

“As long as you are run by the egoic mind, you are part of the collective insanity. Perhaps you haven’t looked very deeply into the human condition in its state of dominance by the egoic mind. Open your eyes and see the fear, the despair, the greed, and the violence that are all-pervasive. See the heinous cruelty and suffering on an unimaginable scale that humans have inflicted and continue to inflict on each other as well as on other life forms on the planet. You don’t need to condemn. Just observe.” ~ Eckhart Tolle

 
“It is a great marvel to me that, despite the fact that we are all the embodiments of the Divine, of God Himself, the most predominant trait of all human beings is that they so hatefully despise each other, and constantly criticize and seek to harm one another.” ~ Swami Abhayananda

Simply put, the base nature of the ego-self is nothing to be proud of. The observations of George Carlin and my dear friend cannot be refuted.

However, is this the only state of existence for mankind? Is there a higher nature that each of us can aspire to? Is there a higher destiny?







2 - The Higher-Self
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The good news is we do indeed have a higher-self. Mystics who have attained this higher-self have universally declared that such a state is the ultimate destiny of all mankind.

In our native state, we are each created as an individualized extension of Spirit. A god. A soul. Pure consciousness with unbounded awareness. We begin playing in the phantasmagoria of creation as this higher-self using the body-form merely as a vehicle by which to enter the playground. At that stage, the body form is seen as merely frozen light - essentially an illusory creation used solely for playing in creation. The higher-self has no particular affinity to any body-form. In fact, the higher-self has played in creation using untold numbers of different body-forms at different levels of creation.

The problem arises when the higher-self becomes so enamoured with this game of creation that at some point it forgets its true nature as formless consciousness and begins to see the body-form of light as not only something real but also as  its true identity. A colossal mistake.

Thereafter, the higher-self has to work at recovering its true identity. In doing so, it is fighting against the cosmic hypnosis mentioned many times on this website that works to keep the higher-self in this state of delusion. A tough game.

Some souls have managed to see through the cosmic hypnosis and have fully recovered the knowledge of their true selves. These are the mystics. Once again, they know themselves as immortal, boundless awareness and realize that the body-forms they occupy are not real - just vehicles of frozen light that allow an experience within creation. The body-forms have no sustaining reality. In fact, the higher-selves at some point leave the game of creation altogether and reside as infinite awareness of ever-new joy. Pure consciousness.

Let's hear what those who have recovered their higher-selves have to say on this topic. Once again, most of the quotations below come from the Ego-consciousness and God-consciousness webpage.

"Every man is a divinity in disguise, a god playing the fool"
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson


“The most common ego identifications have to do with possessions, the work you do, social status and recognition, knowledge and education, physical appearance, special abilities, relationships, personal and family history, belief systems, and often political, nationalistic, racial, religious, and other collective identifications. None of these is you.” ~ Eckhart Tolle

“The state of consciousness that is considered normal and that has been running human history for thousands of years is not the only possible state of consciousness. It’s also not the most advanced state possible for humans. It’s nothing new. All the great teachings and teachers have pointed to the fact, since the normal state of consciousness is a state that is extremely deficient, a state that in the ancient teachings has been called suffering. The Buddha called it suffering, Jesus called it a state of sin and illusion, and the Hindus call it a state of illusion. So, all ancient teachings agree that the normal human state of consciousness is, as I call it, a state of insanity. Anybody can verify this for themselves if they look at human history, 90 percent of which - really, if you look at it objectively - would be called the history of collective insanity, with the enormous amount of suffering inflicted by humans on other humans and on themselves and other species.” ~ Eckhart Tolle

"In normal everyday usage, "I" embodies the primordial error, a misperception of who you are, an illusory sense of identity. This is the ego. The illusory sense of self is what Albert Einstein, who had deep insights not only into the reality of space and time, but also into human nature, referred to as "an optical illusion of consciousness.” ~ Eckhart Tolle

“Throw off the mask that enshrouds your real Divine nature and reveal yourself in all your magnificence.” ~ Papa Ramdas

"It sometimes happens that a man, when bathing in the river, steps upon a wet rope and imagines that it is a snake. Terror will overcome him, and he will shake with fear, anticipating in his mind all the agonies caused by the serpent’s venomous bite. What a relief does this man experience when he sees that the rope is no snake. The cause of his fear lies in his error, his ignorance, his illusion. If the true nature of the rope is recognized, his tranquility of mind will come back to him; he will feel relieved; he will be joyful and happy. This is the state of mind of one who has recognized that there is no ego, and that the cause of all his troubles, cares, and vanities is a mirage, a shadow, a dream.” ~ Buddha


“We live in confident certainty of our (illusory) individuality, regarding as "self" that kaleidoscope of transient mental impressions which is presented to our conscious awareness. But, say the mystics, this superficial play of thoughts, memories, sense impressions, upon the screen of awareness is but a mirage.”
~ Swami Abhayananda

“Because you wrongly identify yourself with the body, you see the world outside you and its suffering becomes apparent to you; but the world and its sufferings are not real.” ~ Ramana Maharshi


“Thinking that you are the physical form that you’re occupying, with its psychological make-up, and the stories that it tells itself about who it is and what has happened to it during its lifetime, is an illusion.” ~ Eckhart Tolle

“That illusory separate identity, or individual ego, common to all embodied souls, is an extremely subtle and deceptive mirage. It masks the nondual reality … separating us from the awareness of our true Self.”
~ Swami Abhayananda

“Plotinus acknowledges, as do the Upanishads, that the soul is capable of remaining blind to its Divine nature, its innate capacity, attributing an illusory ‘I’ to its transient embodiment, and thereby living a superficial life concerned only with sensual and emotional pleasures, promoting its own aggrandizement and individual welfare. But eventually it must revise its outlook; for, understand, the soul is nothing else but the Divine - as a ray of sunlight is nothing but sun. Its only real identity is Divine Consciousness. Its association with body establishes an ego-sense, the illusion of an ‘I’, a personal identity, associated with one particular physical entity in a spatio-temporal universe.” ~ Swami Abhayananda

“You identify with the mental activity and the transient worldly forms, and, forgetting your real Identity, you become swept away in the agitated currents of the mind. It is just this false identification which is the source of all your woes and troubles.” ~ Swami Abhayananda

“When you think about your mortal life and all your troubles and identify with them, you do an injustice to the consciousness of God within you. Affirm and realize "I am not a mortal being; I am spirit." ~ P. Yogananda

“You are not the body. You are Pure Consciousness.” ~ Ramana Maharshi

“You are not a drop in the ocean, you are the ocean in a drop.” ~ Rumi

“The devotee realizes that he is not the mortal body; he is the immortal spirit that became the body. This perception frees him from all sorrow. He realizes that, like spirit, he is ever-existing, ever-conscious, ever-new joy.” ~ P. Yogananda

“Know that you are not this restless mind, but that you are the immortal, all blissful, and changeless Spirit.” ~Papa Ramdas

"He [man] has become so accustomed to thinking of himself as existing solely in the separate form with which he is associated that he has great difficulty in releasing his identity from the individualized body, mind and intellect. This “ego,” this individualized awareness of oneself as identical with these appendages is stubbornly insistent; it is this stubborn ego-identification that has been referred to as “bondage” in the Vedantic tradition. To become enlightened to the knowledge of one’s eternal, all-pervading Self is to know “liberation.”
~ Swami Abhayananda

“From the time we are infants and discover this body and mind that manipulates us and in turn is manipulated by us, we feel certain that this body and mind is ourself, is who we are. That identification becomes so strongly rooted in us, that never once do we doubt that we are this particular mind and body limited in space and time, and any suggestion to the contrary strikes us as bizarre and absurd. But, say the seers, the Buddhas, it is merely a case of mistaken identity; that which is born, thrives for awhile, and then decays, is not who you are." ~ Swami Abhayananda


Simply put, we are not the ego-self. The ego-self is an illusory state that seems real because of the state of cosmic hypnosis, or maya,  that we are under. It is a very powerful hypnosis, but over the course of many lifetimes occupying many different forms, the hypnosis eventually loses its power and we each re-acquire our higher state.





3 - The Evolving-Self
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“The evolution of His cosmos brings into being sentient creatures, the most intricately evolved of these creatures being human beings. These beings inherit the eternal Consciousness of their Creator; but they also possess a false sense of individuality (called the ego) … This ego-soul continues to evolve in intelligence and awareness through numerous lifetimes, until at last it is awakened to its true Identity…. Having evolved, and having awakened to their true Self, such individualized souls are released from the need for further human birth, and live in the freedom and bliss of the one eternal Consciousness.” ~ Swami Abhayananda

The world is not black and white. In between the lowest levels of the ego-selves and the highest level of the god-selves are found various levels of human beings at different stages of evolution.

Take my dear friend as an example. In spite of saying, "I am ashamed of my own species, "  he prefaced that statement by wishing that "these turbulent and unprecedented times would be over soon and our fellow human beings would have better days ahead of them."

Compassion, caring, empathy - all qualities of the evolving soul returning home.

Other traits that signal progress on the way home include; forgiveness, kindness, honesty, sharing, love, humility, patience, calmness and harmonious living.


The evolving-self also distinguishes itself by using its inherent creative powers to add to the beauty and advancement of creation, for example scientific discoveries (e.g. electricity, quantum physics, relativity, etc.); technological advancements (e.g. computers, the Internet, communications devices, transportation systems, space travel, etc.); magnificent artistic creations (e.g. paintings, music, photography, literature, etc.); majestic architectural structures, and so on. From mankind's earliest days walking this planet, the evolving-self has taken many impressive steps, many giant steps, and has manifested multitudes of glorious creations.



4 - Final Thoughts
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Suddenly, as though lifted on a wind divine,
I was elevated to a heavenly plane
Where I was not the man I’d been before.
.....
My mind descended once again to self and those I’d left
Still struggling in the darkened cave,
Still unimagining what bright place lay just above.
.....
And as I went among the dreary folk,
My eyes still brightened by the light I’d found,
I told them of my discovered land

..... But none believed me. I was an embarrassment
To friends and family who thought I’d lost my mind.

..... And though I tried to focus on the customary tasks
Incumbent on the dwellers here below,
I could not wholly give myself to thoughts
And purposes of men enslaved,
Nor take delight in shadows playing on the walls.
..... I
saw a world
More real, more glorious than this shadowed one below.

..... And, though I’m here among the rest, I stand there still,
Immersed in light, delighting in the far-flung landscape that I saw.
For in my heart my home is there; I’ll live there evermore.
~ Swami Abhayananda


"Like an odyssey … I was born very far from where I’m supposed to be, and so, I’m on my way home" ~ Bob Dylan

To my Dear Friend,

I expect you will have no trouble agreeing to the first part of this posting.

Given your strong beliefs, I suspect the second part will not resonate with you. But, who knows.

In any case, five yours ago, you inspired me to write a posting to this website and you have done so again.

All of the traits that I listed above for the evolving-self - you have them all. It is a privilege and honour to know you.

Warm regards,
Ken

PS - I can almost hear you saying that the second part above is just based on beliefs. It is not. It is based on intuitive knowledge which goes far beyond mere beliefs.

PPS - There have been and continue to be many, many examples of individuals who have re-attained their higher-self. Some have tried to tell their fellow man about this higher existence, but they meet with resistance and lack of interest from most (with the exception of those who have grown so tired of this lower existence that they are ready to accelerate their journey home).

It is much like the allegory of the caveman from Plato's Cave (as described elsewhere on this website). The story postulates a caveman who, like his fellow beings, has spent all of his life in the dim confines of a deep cave. The only light comes from a fire which casts shadows on the cave walls and as such represents the only reality the cavemen know. One caveman decides to make the arduous climb up the top of the cave and out into the spectacular world outside the cave. He is stunned by the beauty of this world that he had never even imagined. Rushing back down into the desolate cave, he tries to tell his fellows about this marvelous world outside the cave. He has a hard time finding the right words, since caveman language has no words for things such as the sun, flowers, trees, oceans, mountains, etc. Most of his fellow cavemen are not interested in his story and remain convinced that the world within the cave is the only reality. However, a few adventurous souls do make the climb out of the cave and revel in the magnificent higher world outside.


“I wish I could give a description of at least the smallest part of what I learned, but, when I try to discover a way of doing so, I find it impossible; for, while the light we see here and that other Light are both light, there is no comparison between the two.” ~ Saint Teresa of Avila

“In the world of physics we watch a shadowgraph performance of the drama of familiar life. The shadow of my elbow rests on the shadow table as the shadow ink flows over the shadow paper. It is all symbolic, and as a symbol the physicist leaves it. ... The frank realization that physical science is concerned with a world of shadows is one of the most significant of recent advances.” ~ Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington (highly regarded British astronomer, physicist, and mathematician, 1882 – 1944)

“The outstanding achievement of twentieth century physics is not the theory of relativity with its welding together of space and time, or the theory of quanta with its present apparent negation of the laws of causation, or the dissection of the atom with the resultant discovery that things are not what they seem; it is the general recognition that we are not yet in contact with the ultimate reality. We are still imprisoned in our cave, with our backs to the light, and can only watch the shadows on the wall.” ~ Sir James Jeans (highly regarded British physicist, astronomer, and mathematician, 1877 – 1946)


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A Glimpse into Paradise  (March 2022)

Recently I was made aware of the IMERE website (
imere.org) that contains brief accounts of mystical experiences. Many of these experiences are based on published accounts of well-known mystics and poets but also included many otherwise "ordinary" folks. Over 100 accounts in all.

In addition, the IMERE website invites readers to provide information on mystical experiences that they may have had at some point in their lives. To date, over 100 people have responded with their own accounts.

With over 200 mystical accounts described, the website provides a wealth of information on the mystical experience.

As such , I thought it might be interesting to see if there were some common features or themes found amongst these experiences. Below is the summary of these investigations.


                                                                       The posting consists of the following sections:

1 - The Nature of the Mystical Experience
2 - To Whom does the Mystical Experience Occur
3 - Words are Inadequate
4 - Common Themes
  • The Presence of God
  • Connection with God
  • Connection with All Things
  • All is Love
  • Bliss
  • Peace that Surpasses all Understanding
  • The Ego and the Soul
  • Everything becomes No-Thing
  • All is Consciousness
  • Timelessness and Eternity
  • The Universe Revealed
  • The Many-Hued Light of Divinity
  • I was Home - No More Suffering, Death or Fear
  • Knowledge of All There is to Know
  • Reality and Illusion
5 - The Desire to Ever Remain in the Newly Revealed Paradise   
6 - Summary


Note#1 - Some elements of this topic were first considered on The Mystic Vision page of this website. Some material from that web page has been incorporated into this posting.

Note#2 - this posting features quotations (shown in purple) from many of the 200 mystical accounts mentioned above. Unlike other postings on this website, the source of the quotations are not identified, as there are so many and, in some cases, the names were not provided.

Note#3 - I have quoted extensively from the magnificent writings of Swami Abhayanada throughout this website. Shortly after posting this, I sent him the link, as he was the one who had introduced me to the website mentioned above. He graciously sent the following response;
"You gathered all that material and fashioned of it a masterpiece of evocative vision. The descriptions of all of those mystic experiences together, like a bouquet of flowers, enhanced the beauty and power of each person's individual description, and presented for all souls a fabulous garden of divine majesty, color and glory. Well done!"  Since Swami Abhayananda himself has been blessed with a direct encounter with God, his response holds considerable value.



1 - The Nature of the Mystical Experience
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To understand the nature of the mystical experience, it is perhaps best to go back to the fundamental view of creation, as espoused by the mystics. This has been covered in other parts of the website, so just a brief overview will be provided here.

In periods of no creation, the only being that exists is Spirit. As best as can be described in human language, Spirit is ever-existing formless awareness - pure blissful consciousness without form.

During periods of creation, Spirit creates a host of individualized extensions of Itself. Each of these unique individualizations of Spirit is known as a soul. A god. And each one of us is just that - a god, a unique, individualized soul.

Spirit also creates a dream world of light energy into which the gods can enter to play. To enter the dream world, each god must take on a dream form, or body. Each of the gods is, in essence, Spirit in form. Creation can be looked upon as a means of entertainment by which Spirit can enjoy Itself through this host of unique gods.

In order to make creation more interesting, Spirit introduces a form of cosmic hypnosis, by which part of the consciousness of each of the gods thinks that the dream creation and their dream bodies is actually real. This is the ego-self, or ego-consciousness of the gods. As well, part of the consciousness of each god retains the native knowledge of its true nature of being fully connected to Spirit; in fact, of being Spirit Itself. This is the god-self, or god-consciousness of the gods.

While playing in the wondrous phantasmagoria of creation, the gods can pretend their bodies and the created world around them are real - all the while knowing that this is just an illusion. The problem arises when the gods get so infatuated while playing in creation that they forget their true nature as Spirit. They become dominated by their ego-selves and now actually believe that their pretend bodies are real and that the play world around them is real.

At this point, the gods must find their way back to their true existence as Spirit. Such is the drama of creation. Each of the gods must find its way back home.

A mystical experience occurs when one of gods, i.e. one of us, breaks through the cosmic hypnosis and re-acquires awareness of one's lost god-consciousness. During the experience, the memory of one's true nature of being fully-connected to God and being pure consciousness without form returns.

The mystical experience may last for minutes, hours or even longer and then a return to the ego-self follows. However, the memory of the mystical experience remains and the belief of being a body-form is modified by the knowledge of one's true god-self. It is a wondrous experience and provides a glorious Glimpse into Paradise for those so blessed. Some may have many mystical experiences. In fewer cases, the mystical experience is continuous.

The depth of the mystical experience can be explained by referring to the story of the caveman from Plato's Cave, an allegory that has been referenced many times on this website. If the caveman only remains a short time outside the cave before returning, he may only take in a small portion of the vastness of the existence outside the cave. The longer the visit, the more the caveman can take in. If the caveman makes several visits outside the cave, then his understanding of the wondrous world outside will grow. The wondrous existence revealed during the mystical experience follows a similar pattern.

And, just like the caveman who ultimately leaves the dim cave existence altogether to live always in the magnificent world outside the cave, so it is that the ultimate goal of mankind is to forsake the dim world of the ego-self and live always in the indescribable bliss of one's god-self.



2 - To Whom does the Mystical Experience Occur
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The mystical experience has occurred to people from all walks of life and in all lands. People of all ages, including children, have reported mystical occurrences.

To some it occurs while watching a sunset, or walking in the woods, or simply working in their garden at home. For most, the Glimpse of Paradise comes seemingly out of nowhere while for others, the experience is earnestly sought and attained after deep meditation.

As such, it may seem that the granting of the blessed mystical experience is largely the result of serendipity by a capricious God. But it is not so. Based on the testimony of world-renowned spiritual teachers, the mystical experience only comes to those who have prepared for it. Those who seem to have randomly received a mystical experience had done such preparation in previous lives. For example, the twentieth-century spiritual leader Ramana Maharshi had his first mystical experience as a teenager in India, seemingly out of nowhere. But he acknowledged in his teachings that the experience must be earned - in his case, in a previous life.

Paramahansa Yogananda also taught the same - the experience must be earned. Having said that, Yogananda, Swami Abhayananda and others also emphasized that the blessing of God is paramount in attaining the Glimpse of Paradise. Without attracting the grace of God, the experience does not come. However, Yogananda also said that for those seeking the experience, the grace of God is usually already there and the missing component is the necessary preparation by the individual (typically via dedicated meditation practice).



3 - Words are Inadequate
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When Plato's caveman returned deep into the dim recesses of the cave to tell his fellow cavemen about the magnificent world he had experienced outside the cave, he struggled to find words. Caveman language does not have words for mountains, oceans, sunshine, trees, flowers, rivers, etc.

And so it is when someone returns from a mystical experience and tries to convey the occurrence to others. Human language is inadequate to express the magnificence of the mystical experience;  e.g.

  • "it was quite impossible to describe"
  • "it is hard – impossible really – to put into words"
  • "it is overwhelming – no words describe this"
  • "there is no language for it at all"
  • "any description that I could provide of the experience will be inadequate at best. Worse, my words are as likely to obscure and mislead as they are to inform and illuminate."
  • "it was utterly beyond words"
  • "words don’t get close to describing the immensity of the experience"
  • "I must stress very strongly that words in no way do this justice. It was truly ineffable."
  • "this description does not even begin to tell what the experience is like"
  • "there are no words I know to describe this"
  • "it is indescribable"
  • "it cannot be told by the words of the mouth. It cannot be written on paper. It is like a dumb person who tastes a sweet thing—how shall it be explained?"
  • "that Pure Love cannot be described by our limited English language"
  • "it is impossible to describe since it transcends the mind. It can only be experienced.”

Despite the significant limitations of human language in describing mystical experiences, much useful information can be obtained, as evidenced in the sections below. Inadequate or not, these descriptions provide a powerful insight into the mystical experience.



4 - Common Themes

Based on a review of the over 200 mystical experiences mentioned above, a number of common features emerged. These are addressed below. In each case, short quotations from the mystical accounts are provided.
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The Presence of God

Perhaps the most overwhelming feature of the mystical experience is the awareness of God's presence. During the experience one becomes keenly aware of being in the presence of the formless, infinite consciousness of God. It is a remarkable and awe-inspiring event; e.g.
  • "it’s hard to explain… But I KNEW it was God…. And He wasn’t out there – well, He was – but He was IN me… Or WAS me… and I was him…. And I WAS peace, and love and joy"
  • "this was not the Biblical God I had been raised to believe, it was a Consciousness"
  • "it was as if suddenly the greatest peace and love poured into me like an enormous waterfall.  I had come into contact with an eternal Consciousness, not a personified God, but something far more immense, infinite."
  • "there was immediate recognition on my part that it was God. I felt I was in the presence of my creator"
  • "I saw and knew the being of all things"
  • "I was absorbed in this Presence"
  • "There is absolutely nothing in ordinary human experience to compare with the joy of the Presence of the Love of God."
  • "God walked with me in the garden as He did before the Fall.  Whether I sat, whether I walked, He was there – radiant, burningly pure, holy beyond holy."
  • "God/Spirit revealed to me “Who” he is. I was allowed to SEE the whole picture. More than that, I could FEEL it. I felt universally united spiritually with everything – and everyone"
  • "I could feel the deep loving connectedness of all things and realized I was joining God or God consciousness"
  • "There was no time.  There was no world… There was just GOD. Or me…. Or God IN me"
  • "The wonderment of God is so all-encompassing and enormous that it surpasses all possible imagination"
  • "I felt this powerful Presence literally cradling me with love"
  • "It was something that cannot be explained…. Unbroken joy, peace, and love combined…. Completely devoid of fear…. No one else other than me…. No world other than me… no body, no parents, absolutely nothing… no light. Also, no time, and, unquestionably, it was God, and it was home"
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Connection with God

The feature of the mystical experience that is mentioned most often is "connectedness,"  the feeling that everything is "one;" that there is a unity of everything within creation and beyond. This would seem natural in that in their native state, all souls are connected to God and the mystical experience is a soul experience. The primary connection is with God Itself; e.g.
  • "I and Thou became indistinguishable"
  • "I am He - there is no difference between us"
  • "there was a feeling of oneness with God"
  • "I was so immersed in this feeling that I thought I was God!"
  • "I had attained to a union with the primal being or the godhead"
  • "the soul becomes of one substance with Him, and He with it"
  • "God restores the soul to that pure state from which it first issued"
  • “O wonder of wonders, am I this immortal Being, happy beyond measure”
  • "the self (personal ego) dissolves into the Self, it is experienced as a great expansion from limited, transitory, and vulnerable to immortal, infinite Allness that transcends all worlds and universes"
  • "most wonderful of all, there is a oneness with that which permeates all and binds all together and gives life to all.  A oneness with that which many would call God."
  • “the soul advances and is taken into unison, and in that association becomes one with
    the Divine Mind - but not to its own destruction: the two are one, and [yet] two”
  • "it was as if I were seeing as this Presence saw, and for one instant we were as one"
  • "I could feel the deep loving connectedness of all things and realized I was joining God or God consciousness"
  • "Thou art I, I am Thou"
  • '"the will of the two is one will, and thus God’s operation and the soul’s is one"
  • "I and my Father are One"
  • "the oneness of the soul and the Divine is revealed to you … you are no other than God"
  • "I saw You through myself and found we were identical …  I was You"
  • "Divinity, is not separate and distinct from you but your own self, holding you in an embrace that is rapturous beyond all description”
  • "I am Brahman myself"
  • "I was at one with an intelligent, conscious divinity permeating everything in existence.  A blissful unity."
  • "in all truth, I am God"
  • “Some people think that they will see God as if He were standing there and they here. It is not so. God and I, we are one"
  • "suddenly the “veil was pulled back” and for a few minutes I perceived the unity of all things in God. This unity is impossible for me to put into words.  It is not a unity where we lose our identity and merge into the Absolute, yet we are all one in God individually and corporately"
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Connection with All Things

The connection or union that is mentioned so often includes a "one-ness" with all that exists, including the entire universe and everything in it;  e.g.
  • "I felt that the entire universe was a unified whole in which everything related to everything else, and that I, myself, was one with it"
  • "I was freed from separateness, feeling one with the universe"
  • "there was a blissful awareness of unity, of being in all, all being in me"
  • "not only was I all that existed in this universe, I was the center of all, the divine Mind from which all emanated forth"
  •  “a swelling glory within me began to envelop towns, continents, the earth, solar and stellar systems, tenuous nebulae, and floating universes. The entire cosmos, gently luminous, like a city seen afar at night, glimmered within the infinitude of my being.”
  • "I stood at the door of Infinity … and then, in deeper ecstasy, I became united with the indescribable Infinite"
  • "the important part of it was the realization of the oneness of all creation"
  • "the whole world seemed to be within me"
  • "all creation and I are one"
  • "I felt connected with the universe - like all the world around me and myself are one"
  • "I was a part of everything and in every place simultaneously"
  • "all ‘things’ existed as ‘one thing’"
  • "there was a Oneness and Connection to all there is"
  • "I felt universally united spiritually with everything – and everyone"
  • "me and everything were all the same"
  • "there was a most beautiful feeling of oneness with an undivided, connected-to-all-things light"
  • "I was a part of everything and everyone - there was no separation"
  • "any sense of myself as an entity separate from everything else utterly disappeared"
  • "all was contained in me - all worlds, universes and endless existence"
  • "I was connected with everything. It was all one"
  • "I understood how everything and everyone was One"
  • "It was a truly overwhelming sense of oneness with everything"
  • "There was no separation between myself and that which ‘I’ observed; I had become one with everything"
  • "I had the realization that we are all one"
  • "I felt as though I had become one with everything that existed"
  • "I felt connected to every living being'
  • "I was merged like a drop of quicksilver in the Whole, yet I was still separate as a grain of sand in the desert"
  • "I felt one-ness with everything around me"
  • "everything is connected, everything is alive, everything is one"
  • "I now see that the spirit, alone in space with its ever new joy, has expressed itself as a vast body of nature. I am the stars, I am the waves, I am the life of all; I am the laughter within all hearts, I am the smile on the face of flowers and in each soul.”
  • "I seemed to witness, in the wholeness of my vision, the movements of the body of all humanity"
  • "I left any semblance of ego behind and fully embraced that we are all connected"
  • "I thought of a certain place far away, and immediately, I was there"
  • "my 'soul' thrilled and swelled and I kept expanding until I found myself among and within the stars and planets. I understood that I was the whole universe!"
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All is Love

Those who experience God describe being immersed in a sea of overwhelming, unconditional love; e.g.
  • "I was surrounded by unfathomable, unconditional, and insuperable love"
  • "the love that was emanating from the light ..... was not a human kind of love. It was not within the framework of our human experiences."
  • "there was an intense and buoyant feeling of 'Love':  I felt as though I were breathing love"
  • "a continuous stream of love flows from me to all of creation"
  • "I was Love"
  • "there was a wonderful, secret and pure Love that flows from a conscious, One-pointed Infinite"
  • "there was a feeling of Love so intense that it was almost tangible"
  • "a wave of deep unconditional love came over me"
  • "an overwhelming sense of love pervaded my being ..... At some point, it seemed as if I would explode in this ecstasy."
  • "the best way that I can explain it is to call it an overwhelming tidal wave of the most intense, pure, powerful Love and Joy that I’ve ever experienced in my life. It was a deep unconditional saturating Love"
  • "in this eternal moment everything was just one thing and was made of love."
  • "I felt unconditional love for everyone and everything"
  • "I was bathed in a blanket of the most amazing love you can ever imagine"
  • "I felt waves of love crashing over me"
  • "I felt LOVE ..... Love unifies all in the universe. The universe is love"
  • "I was in a realm of pure love"
  • "I felt unconditional love for the first time"
  • "I was flooded with love"
  • "It was Love that dominated the experience. Not me loving someone, not someone loving me, just the experience of pure love, absolute love, love for its own sake. The magnitude and strength of this Love was beyond measure, infinite. It engulfed me, embraced me"
  • "more of this endless Love and Peace flowed into me, and was overflowing into the universe from me"
  • "I felt like I had merged with/was the greatest love imaginable"
  • "I experienced what I had heard and read of but never experienced: unconditional love"
  • "I was surrounded by an ocean of divine love…waves of love went out and in"
  • "I experienced the ultimate experience of love, which is unconditional"
  • "the peace and love was indescribable"
  • "I knew absolutely that I was created out of love as was all of the creation around me"
  • "Love was everywhere"
  • "I cannot emphasize enough the magnitude of the love that was during the experience.  To use an analogy, if human love is like a candle, then the conscious, eternal love that is God is like the sun."
  • "there was nothing and no one whom I did not love at that moment"
  • "I  felt Pure Love within each and every cell"
  • "I felt the totally unconditional love that is within absolutely everything in the universe and everyone"
  • "everything in the universe is made of love. Love is the molecular building block of all life and all things"
  • "I reached out to our universe and the vastness of universes beyond, and discovered this Pure Love was in absolutely every cell that exists absolutely everywhere"
  • "I felt the totally unconditional love that is within absolutely everything in the universe"
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Bliss

In addition to love, those who experience God also describe being immersed in a sea of overwhelming, ineffable bliss; e.g.
  • "I was caught up into an ecstasy which there are no words to describe"
  • "l was dancing in delight through the Path of Bliss'
  • "I had a sense of exultation, of immense joyousness"
  • "it filled me with joy"
  • "I was in an abiding state of ineffable ecstasy”
  • "I felt every atom, every particle of light, singing wildly in its joy"
  • "I was ecstatic"
  • "My individuality had merged into pure absolute bliss. I expanded. I became the universe. The feeling is indescribable. It was total bliss, total joy”
  • "There is absolutely nothing in ordinary human experience to compare with the joy of the Presence of the Love of God"
  • "I was filled with an indescribable sensation of joy, oneness, and blissful security"
  • "I abounded in joy"
  • "Joy! joy! joy! Tears of joy!"
  • "I was so overwhelmed with joy that I can’t really describe it in words"
  • "an oceanic joy broke upon calm endless shores of my soul"
  • "I had a deep, deep feeling of absolute bliss"
  • "there was an all-encompassing bliss, bliss, bliss.  I think bliss is the closest word I can use to describe it, but it’s not nearly good enough"
  • "I felt pure ecstasy and bliss"
  • "Bliss is the closest word I can use to describe the experience, but it was beyond words"
  • "there was pure and profound bliss and love that permeated this limitless expanse"
  • "I felt unbroken joy, peace, and love combined"
  • "there came a total feeling of bliss. I can’t describe the feeling, other than it was pure joy"
  • "It was infinite bliss'
  • "I felt such a tremendous ecstasy and reverence"
  • "I experienced profound bliss, happiness, joy, and ecstasy"
  • "smoldering joy burst into immortal flames of bliss"
  • "I was surrounded by all pervading bliss"
  • "all that is within me doth rejoice"
  • "I was in an all-embracing condition of supreme joy"
  • "I found the world wrapt in an inexpressible glory with its waves of joy and beauty bursting and breaking on all sides"
  •  “words cannot describe the joy … only those who experience this joy know what it is”
  • "my whole nature was adrift in this immense joy"
  • “there came upon me what was far more than elation or exhilaration; I was beside myself with an intensity of joy, an indescribable and almost unbearable joy"
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Peace that Surpasses all Understanding

In addition to love and bliss, those who experience God also describe being immersed in a sea of overwhelming, profound peace - "the peace that surpasses all understanding;" e.g.
  • "I was immersed in a sea of the profoundest peace"
  • "I felt a very profound sense of peace and calm come over me"
  • "there was overwhelming peace"
  • "I knew that this was the 'peace of God that surpasses all understanding'"
  • "it was peace and calm like I’ve never experienced"
  • "there was absolute peace"
  • "suddenly the greatest peace and love poured into me like an enormous waterfall"
  • "I was in perfect peace and harmony"
  • "I was completely at peace"
  • "I felt the peace of God that passes all understanding"
  • "I was immersed in ever new peace."
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The Ego and the Soul

One of the remarkable events that takes place during the mystic experience is that the lower ego-self is replaced by one's god-self - a return to one's native immortal, boundless, limitless, ecstatic soul consciousness. It is a magnificent and joyous experience - total freedom from the limited body consciousness; e.g.
  • "I was not the body and felt so free of it that I knew I could not die; in the real ‘I’ I would always be able to live for it was God"
  • "in that oneness with the Absolute, there remained no separate existence of my individual soul"
  • "when my limiting individuality was totally demolished, I assumed the universal form.  I was everywhere at one time, seeing everything, the micro, the macro, from the closest quarters, from the furthest range.  I was everywhere, all-pervading, formless, omnipresent, all-knowing and all-enjoying."
  • "I and my mind were boundless, limitless"
  • "the “I” ceases to exist because it has, by a kind of mental osmosis, established communication with, and been dissolved in, the universal pool. It is the process of dissolution and limitless expansion which is sensed as the “oceanic feeling,” as the draining of all tension, the absolute catharsis."
  • "I was no longer myself, or to be more accurate, no longer as I knew myself to be, a small point of awareness confined to a body, but instead was a vast circle of consciousness in which the body was but a point, bathed in light and in a state of exultation and happiness impossible to describe"
  • "I passed away into nothingness, I vanished, And lo, I was the All-living"
  • "the ordinary ‘I’ ceased to exist.  Nothing of me remained but a mere nugget of consciousness. It was a mystical moment of union with the mysterious infinite"
  • "I sped into the light and dissolved in an immense flood tide of joy"
  • "I surrendered to a warm, loving presence which so totally engulfed me that the “me” that it engulfed was no longer separate"
  • "the consciousness of individuality seemed to dissolve and fade away into boundless being"
  • "I dissolved and had no sense of myself as a body – I was dissolved into the universe"
  • "What I thought was “me” dissolved into infinity, into an underlying unified field of love"
  • "In a blaze, the dark husk of my body flakes away.  I become light.  I am one with the light.  I am the light, a fluid, radiant luminosity"
  • "I, the Cosmic Sea, watch the little ego floating in me"
  • "The regular “I” disappeared …  what was there was 'that'"
  • "I was all and nothing at the same time"
  • "I was experiencing everything as ‘me’. As if the whole world/universe was ‘me’"
  • "my personal self dissolved and I was at one with an intelligent, conscious divinity permeating everything in existence.  A blissful unity."
  • "I am Spirit transcending the body"
  • "your sense of a limited identity vanishes, and you know that you and God are one and the same …  There is no separate being"
  • "it was not a new Self I had become, but it was rather a revelation of the Self I had always been behind the illusion of a separate, independent self"
  • "the ‘third person’ is now no more. It is all One. There is neither me nor He"
  • "it was like my self had died but I was still alive"
  • "the best I can describe this experience is that it was one of just beingness in a vast infinite clear illumination of awareness. But it was not my awareness, as there was no individuation"
  • "I crossed over into this nothingness. It was peace and calm like I’ve never experienced. All my senses were still gone. My ego was gone"
  • "it was not the same ‘I’ as before.  It was an ‘I’ that knew with absolute certitude that the state of being an ‘I’ was less true than the state of being not ‘I’"
  • "any sense of myself as an entity separate from everything else utterly disappeared. All that was left was a kind of primary or universal consciousness with no ‘me’ in it whatsoever"
  • "I suddenly felt an absence of my sense of self. No sense of separation from anything. Everything just was, I just was"
  • "I left any semblance of ego behind and fully embraced that we are all connected"
  • "my body disappeared/merged with the universe"
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Everything becomes No-Thing

This is related to the experience described above of leaving behind the ego-self to become the god-self. Nothing remains of the ego-self's awareness. It is replaced by the awakening of the glorious new freedom of god-awareness; e.g.
  • "and then, there was nothing; no objects, no center, no perspective, no thought, no self, no darkness, no light, no source. The best I can describe this experience is that it was one of just beingness in of a vast infinite clear illumination of awareness"
  • "I became all things and no thing. (The wording of that is very important to me)"
  • "the world around me exploded into nothing. Nothing was pervasive and conscious. The no-thing was I. The no-thing was everything. I as everything saw all was contained in me. All worlds, universes and endless existence"
  • "I was completely devoid of fear…. no one else other than me…. no world other than me… no body, no parents, absolutely nothing. Unquestionably it was God, and it was home"
  • "I comprehended that all is nothing. That we are no thing"
  • "I crossed over into this nothingness. It was peace and calm like I’ve never experienced. All my senses were still gone. My ego was gone"
  • "the sensation of being large and small and then just nothing. There was no up, no down, no light, no dark, just nothingness, but it was a very significant nothing, and the nothingness was me, but without my body. I remember feeling so light and free"
  • "it was infinite bliss. The realization that we are all one. That all is love. That all is nothing. That we are nothing. Life is but a dream"
  • "I felt I was the Universe. I was all and nothing at the same time"
  • "the shoreless ocean of consciousness in which I was now immersed appeared infinitely large and infinitely small at the same time – large when considered in relation to the world picture floating in it and small when considered in itself, measureless, without form or size – nothing and yet everything"
  • "I passed away into nothingness, I vanished. And lo, I was the All-living"
  • "there was nothing anywhere except this effulgent light and my own small kernel of the self"
  • "nothing of me remained but a mere nugget of consciousness"
  • "the only reality is a blissful, utterly undifferentiated nothingness in which there is no ‘I.’”
  • "all at once you are free, with nothing left to hold onto"
  • "at last nothing remained but a pure, absolute, abstract Self. The universe became without form and void of content. But Self persisted, formidable in its vivid keenness"
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All is Consciousness

In the mystic experience, one attains the native state of soul-consciousness - formless, boundless awareness; e.g.
  • "I was now all consciousness without any outline, without any idea of corporeal appendage, without any feeling or sensation coming from the senses, immersed in a sea of light simultaneously conscious and aware at every point, spread out, as it were, in all directions without any barrier or material obstruction"
  • "the best I can describe this experience is that it was one of just beingness in of a vast infinite clear illumination of awareness"
  • "I had expanded in an indescribable manner into a titanic personality, conscious from within of an immediate and direct contact with an intensely conscious universe, a wonderful inexpressible immanence all around me"
  • "I became consciousness that took in everything without limit"
  • "at some point, the world disappeared and universal consciousness was present"
  • "and this awareness was pure knowing. Not knowledge. Not information. It was revealed truth which was innate to my very existence. I was one with it"
  • "I am calm awareness in a radiantly luminous field of joyfully dancing light. A moment/eternity passes"
  • "I was suspended outside of space and time looking in, with perfect understanding of the workings and purpose of it. I felt as though I had become eternal and infinite, much like the entire universe which I was gazing down on"
  • "I became pure consciousness, pure awareness"
  • "I felt the whole of life as one massive consciousness"
  • "consciousness is all there really is"
  • "I felt my consciousness spread all over the universe"
  • "my consciousness extends to the farthest boundary of eternity"
  • "I became the one Consciousness manifesting as the entire universe"
  • "I became "beingness" in of a vast infinite clear illumination of awareness. But it was not my awareness, as there was no individuation"
  • "I realized the cosmic joke. Space and time are illusory. All there is, is mind"
  • "everything was conscious. I sensed at the moment that this is the true nature of reality"
  • "it was as if suddenly the greatest peace and love poured into me like an enormous waterfall.  I had come into contact with an eternal Consciousness, not a personified God, but something far more immense, infinite."
  • "I spread everywhere, formlessly and unencumbered, an eternal witness.  I was pure and intelligent consciousness, seeing all and knowing all but not depending on the universe for sustenance"
  • "I was in another world, a new world of consciousness. All about me and through me there was a wonderful feeling of Presence"
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Timelessness and Eternity

One of the remarkable features of the mystical experience is the revelation of the illusory nature of time, i.e. present, past and future are actually a single continuum of an eternal present. The motion of time is an illusion - part of the cosmic hypnosis that the ego-mind is subject to. More on this topic can be found on the webpage, The Enigma of Time (July 2018); e.g.
  • "past, present, and future are there in the manner of a present and eternal moment, not as prophecy, which regards the future as a thing that is to come, but as everything is seen in the present in the eternal moment, in God himself; without knowing how one sees or knows it"
  • "time ceased to exist. I had a sense of eternity which I have never had before"
  • "past, present, and future, all phenomena of mind, exquisite, mysterious and deeply entertaining, but not real"
  • "with the cessation of time, the doors swing open to an eternity of joy"
  • "there is no longer the experience of “moments,” as there is only a continuous Now. Instead of sequence, there is the observation that everything is in a state of unfoldment"
  • "time and motion ceased"
  • "it was an experience of Timeless Reality"
  • "the events of millions of years gone by rose up within me"
  • "I had known timelessness"
  • "there is no time"
  • "I knew timelessness and spacelessness"
  • "time was not"
  • "there wasn’t any sense of time involved in the experience"
  • "time stood still: I had entered eternity"
  • "time seemed like it had stopped flowing… everything just 'was'"
  • "I realized that time and space were illusions"
  • "all of time was happening at once"
  • "there was no concept of past, present or future. It was all merged into one. There was no concept of time. It was like a fluid state"
  • "time no longer existed in this state. I was out of time"
  • "there is no time. There is no place. No before, no after. All that was, all that is, all that will be are one"
  • "I had absolutely no concept of time"
  • "eternity and I, one united ray"
  • "time and space have disappeared. There is no distance, inner or outer"
  • "present, past, future no more for me, but ever present I, I everywhere"
  • "I had become eternal and infinite, much like the entire universe which I was gazing down on"
  • "the Now stretched on into eternity. The illusion of time became a banal and obvious truth"
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The Universe Revealed

During the mystic vision,  one's infinitely expanded consciousness allows a view of the entire universe floating within the vast sea of space - a most thrilling panorama; e.g.
  • "I had expanded in an indescribable manner into a titanic personality, conscious from within of an immediate and direct contact with an intensely conscious universe"
  • "I found myself above the universe, not in the sense of leaving the physical body and being taken out of space, but in the sense of being above space, time, and causality"
  • "I felt that the entire universe was a unified whole in which everything related to everything else, and that I, myself, was one with it"
  • "I reached out to our universe and the vastness of universes beyond … I actually felt the vastness of space in the universe and space within each cell within the universe"
  • "the entire cosmos, gently luminous, like a city seen afar at night, glimmered within the infinitude of my being"
  • “flung out into the endless reaches of infinity, worlds upon worlds evolve, enact their tumultuous dramas, and then withdraw from the stage once more”
  • "I felt the unity of the universe"
  • "all space floats like an iceberg within my mental sea"
  • "I felt a thrilling liquidity of being and an indescribable sensation as if the whole universe was welling-out of me from some deep center"
  • "as if a curtain were drawn aside, I had a visual impression of the universe, a great wheel of stars and galaxies, suffused with the golden glow of billions of suns, floating in a sea of spirit"
  • "I had visions of inter-dimensional universes"
  • "the shoreless ocean of consciousness in which I was now immersed appeared infinitely large when considered in relation to the world picture floating in it"
  • "the divine dispersion of rays poured from an Eternal Source, blazing into galaxies, transfigured with ineffable auras. Again and again I saw the creative beams condense into constellations, then resolve into sheets of transparent flame.  By rhythmic reversion, sextillion worlds passed into diaphanous luster; fire became firmament"
  • “in the mystic’s experience it is revealed that there is nothing other than God. He is the one Mind in whom everything exists. In other words, He is absolutely alone. He has no other to talk with or to whom He may relate - ever. Apparently, that is just how Existence is. There’s only Him. Realizing that, we may better understand why He recurrently fashions a universe, a cosmos of clashing diversities, within Himself. Does this universe have some other purpose besides amusement? I don’t know.”
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The Many-Hued Light of Divinity

"And God said, Let there be light: and there was light" (Genesis 1:3).  Light is the elemental building block of creation. All of creation is frozen light. Our bodies are frozen light. Light is all there is. Spirit's fundamental state is formless consciousness. When Spirit chooses to be seen, It is seen as light - either pure light or shaped into a form of Its choosing; e.g.
  • "I was bathed in the many-hued light of Divinity"
  • "the world was transfigured with light"
  • "I could hear the singing of the planets, and wave after wave of light washed over me.  But this is wrong, because I was the light as well"
  • "I wanted to remain in the presence of this light forever! … that’s how incredibly beautiful the light was"
  • "the entire room was filled with a great golden light, the whole world was filled with nothing but light.  There was nothing anywhere except this effulgent light"
  • "this light can best be described as white, but it was all colors simultaneously, and it was bright beyond the brightest light imaginable"
  • "I watched as the light turned from silver to gold"
  • "I seemed to be enveloped in a cocoon of golden light"
  • "all I could see was this living light, beautiful beyond words"
  • "I became aware of an all-encompassing golden light"
  • "I saw a brilliant white light"
  • "I was enveloped by the brightest light ever possible"
  • "I found myself in what appeared to be a sea of light"
  • "I experienced the light of the world, which was everywhere radiant"
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I was Home - No More Suffering, Fear or Death

In the mystical experience, the soul returns to its native state as an individualized extension of God. It has come home.  All the suffering, fear and death associated with the ego-body disappears; e.g.
  • "I felt as if I was 'home'"
  • "I had the feeling that I had 'come home'"
  • "to be at last truly and finally home is profound"
  • "one has returned to one’s Source … It is as though one had awakened from a dream"
  • "I knew I was Home"
  • "unquestionably, it was God, and it was home"
  • "every vapor of sorrow is gone"
  • "I had the revelation that everything is an illusion in this life, including all pain and suffering"
  • "In the Presence of God, all suffering ceases"
  • "all fear left me"
  • "all fears are revealed to be groundless"
  • "then there was a sudden elimination of all fear"
  • "there were no fears"
  • "I was completely devoid of fear"
  • "I felt absolutely no fear, nor have I felt fear since"
  • "I was timeless, fearless and free"
  • "the soul of man is immortal"
  • "there is no death"
  • "there was a  disclosure of the Colossal substance of Immortality"
  • "the body dies but the Spirit that transcends it cannot be touched by death"
  • "I am the deathless Spirit"
  • “those who have not experienced that ‘mystical’ union may argue the question of the immortality of the soul, but for those who have been graced with that unitive experience, no question remains”
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Knowledge of All There is to Know

Since one of the attributes of Spirit is omniscience, when one is in contact with Spirit during the mystic experience, that all-encompassing knowledge becomes accessible - revelation after revelation; e.g.
  • "I attained an intellectual illumination quite impossible to describe"
  • "I learned things that no study could ever have taught"
  • "in that state I knew things that today I haven’t even the wit to ask questions about … I know that I saw into the structure of the universe"
  • "I had the impression of knowing beyond knowledge and being given glimpses into ALL - I capitalize because of the feebleness of words"
  • "I sensed a truth of which mainstream science is merely a small fraction"
  • "I seemed to comprehend a veritable library of Knowledge"
  • "wave upon wave of extraordinary revelation swept through me"
  • "I was near-bursting with a tremendous, non-conceptual, understanding of life – like a balloon which expanded to its utmost capacity – so that my mind was strained with this great, formless ‘knowing’"
  • "I was shown more knowledge than anything this world could have taught me a million times over"
  • "I understood everything so clearly"
  • "I fully understood the nature of things"
  • "I seemed to know everything"
  • "there was absolute knowledge"
  • "I knew just how everything worked. There are no words I know to describe this, but I had this overwhelming sense that I knew exactly how life functioned"
  • "I knew all, as God knows all"
  • "I had an amazing sensation of total knowledge"
  • "It began with an overwhelming awareness that I understood everything about everything, and that the Universe wasn’t complex at all, but beautifully, exquisitely simple – although not, of course, describable in any terms that we know"
  • “It is so simple and unencumbered that it cannot be conveyed in speech"
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Reality and Illusion

The cosmic hypnosis makes us think that the world our ego-selves live in is real. But it is not. Reality is what our god-selves experience, which is the state of mind of the mystic experience. The world of our ego-selves in comprised of frozen light forms - an illusory dream world that appears real but is not. It's like watching a movie in which you have a role - entertaining but not real. Life is but a dream; e.g.
  • "I felt as if I had suddenly come alive for the first time – as if I were awakening from a long deep sleep into a real world"
  • "what I experienced was more real than anything I have experienced in this physical life, making my life feel as though it is just a play or stage show which we act out"
  • "I entered an ultimate reality—infinitely more real than normal consciousness"
  • "gone was the mirage of our earthly existence"
  • "I realized that I was not my body. What appeared to be my body was not real"
  • "The world but seems to be,
    Yet it is only a blending of light and shade"
  • "the veils of light and shade vanished"
  • "I discovered that the cause of all my troubles and cares is a mirage, a shadow, a dream"
  • "one realizes the unreality of the world and the sole reality of the Silence"
  • "it was the only reality, all else illusion"
  • "the experience has been the one abiding reality of my life"
  • "I realized the cosmic joke. Space and time are illusory. All there is, is mind."
  • "I had the revelation that everything is an illusion in this life, including all pain and suffering"
  • "Life is but a dream … I have never fully believed in the dream since then. I play my part and I get lost in my mind still. I forget and think I am a person, but I know I am not."
  •  “afterwards, I felt as though I had been thrust back into a dream”
  • "instantly I “know” and see the illusion of the material world"
5 - The Desire to Ever Remain in the Newly Revealed Paradise
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Whether one has a single or many mystical experiences, a common wish is expressed by all - the desire to remain evermore in the wondrous new existence that they were blessed to enjoy. Like Plato's caveman, once they experience this new indescribably beautiful existence, they never want to return to their former world.

When they do return to their former world, there is keen disappointment; e.g.
  • "with a disappointment almost unbearable, I realized that my infinite immensity was lost. Once more I was limited to the humiliating cage of a body"
  • "I felt as though I had been thrust back into a dream from which I had no power to awaken. My only thought was to return to that state I had known the night before ... I sat there praying, with tears running down my cheeks, for Him to take me back into Himself"
  • "I wanted to remain in the presence of this light forever"
  • "I searched desperately for about two years, looking for a way to return to that enlightened state of consciousness, without success"
  • "I tried so hard to get it back through pure awareness meditations"
  • "I longed to return to this awareness, this beauty, love and joy"
  • "I wished I could remain with this “knowingness” always"
  • "all I wanted was to be connected to, to be joined with that consciousness, the state of being, the bliss"
  • "I returned to dull common consciousness with a sense of diminution"
  • “I returned from a smiling, brightly lit Garden of Paradise to the humdrum existence of a prosaic world”

However, the memory of the wondrous mystical experience remains always and has a life-changing impact going forward; e.g.
  • “I had been thoroughly transformed.  I was never the same again.  I had been given an enlightening knowledge that affected my vision of the world and myself forever.”
  • "it altered my life permanently Any work that I did thereafter was done not as a personal achievement, but as an offering to that Other whom I now recognized"
  • "I have had ever since an intuitive awareness of being ‘companioned' [by a spiritual Presence]"
  • "I knew that the revelation would be with me for the rest of my life, imperfectly remembered yet always within. A source of strength on which I could draw."
  • "I took full possession of a love and confidence that have not yet forsaken me"
  • "these experiences convinced me of the existence of a miraculous, powerful, unfathomable reality that was hidden from everyday sight"
  • "the experience filled me with a direct certainty that a higher order of reality existed, and that it alone invested existence with meaning"
  • "that extraordinary experience on a late summer day in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky is always with me – closer, more reliable, and more important than the beating of my own heart"
  • "it served to impress upon my growing nature the phantasmal unreality of all the circumstances which contribute to a merely phenomenal consciousness"
  • "the experience so initiated has been the one abiding reality of my life"
  • "all I can say of it is that it gives meaning to life, that it is the supreme consolation, the supreme inspiration"
  • "I have never fully believed in the dream since then. I play my part and I get lost in my mind still. I forget and think I am a person, but I know I am not.
  • "it was more real than anything in this physical life, making my life feel as though it is just a play or stage show which we act out"
  • "it altered my life permanently"

6 - Summary
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The mystic experience, in which one's everyday ego-consciousness is temporarily transferred to the consciousness of one's native god-self, is an awesome and wondrous life-changing event. As outlined above, the mystic experience is characterized by several remarkable and glorious features, as summarized below;

The awareness of the presence of God
  • "It’s hard to explain… But I KNEW it was God…. And He wasn’t out there – well, He was – but He was IN me… Or WAS me… and I was him…. And I WAS peace, and love and joy"
  • "this was not the Biblical God I had been raised to believe, it was a Consciousness"
  • "It was as if suddenly the greatest peace and love poured into me like an enormous waterfall.  I had come into contact with an eternal Consciousness, not a personified God, but something far more immense, infinite."
  • "Divinity is not separate and distinct from you but your own self, holding you in an embrace that is rapturous beyond all description”

The feeling of unity with God, of actually being God
  • "I perceived the unity of all things in God. This unity is impossible for me to put into words.  It is not a unity where we lose our identity and merge into the Absolute, yet we are all one in God individually and corporately"
  • "He was IN me… Or WAS me… and I was him"
  • “Some people think that they will see God as if He were standing there and they here. It is not so. God and I, we are one"
  • “O wonder of wonders, am I this immortal Being, happy beyond measure”

The feeling of being directly connected with everything in existence
  • "all was contained in me - all worlds, universes and endless existence"
  • "there was a blissful awareness of unity, of being in all, all being in me"
  •  “A swelling glory within me began to envelop towns, continents, the earth, solar and stellar systems, tenuous nebulae, and floating universes. The entire cosmos, gently luminous, like a city seen afar at night, glimmered within the infinitude of my being.”

An overwhelming awareness that a state of supreme love permeates everything
  • "an overwhelming sense of love pervaded my being ..... at some point, it seemed as if I would explode in this ecstasy."
  • "a feeling of Love so intense that it was almost tangible"
  • "I cannot emphasize enough the magnitude of the love that was during the experience.  To use an analogy, if human love is like a candle, then the conscious, eternal love that is God is like the sun."

An overwhelming feeling of indescribable bliss
  • "I was caught up into an ecstasy which there are no words to describe"
  • "there was an all-encompassing bliss, bliss, bliss.  I think bliss is the closest word I can use to describe it, but it’s not nearly good enough"
  • "My individuality had merged into pure absolute bliss. I expanded. I became the universe. The feeling is indescribable. It was total bliss, total joy.”

An overwhelming feeling of profound peace
  • "I was immersed in a sea of the profoundest peace"
  • "it was peace and calm like I’ve never experienced"

A remarkable transformation of the lower ego-self into one's native, boundless, immortal, blissful soul consciousness
  • "I was everywhere at one time, seeing everything, the micro, the macro, from the closest quarters, from the furthest range.  I was everywhere, all-pervading, formless, omnipresent, all-knowing and all-enjoying."
  • "I was no longer myself, or to be more accurate, no longer as I knew myself to be, a small point of awareness confined to a body, but instead was a vast circle of consciousness in which the body was but a point, bathed in light and in a state of exultation and happiness impossible to describe"

A stunning awareness that the formless consciousness of one's awakened god-self contains all worlds, universes and endless existence. And that everything is conscious.
  • "the world around me exploded into nothing. Nothing was pervasive and conscious. The no-thing was I. The no-thing was everything. I as everything saw all was contained in me. All worlds, universes and endless existence"
  • "the shoreless ocean of consciousness in which I was now immersed appeared infinitely large and infinitely small at the same time – large when considered in relation to the world picture floating in it and small when considered in itself, measureless, without form or size – nothing and yet everything"
  • "I had expanded in an indescribable manner into a titanic personality, conscious from within of an immediate and direct contact with an intensely conscious universe"

A remarkable awareness that in this realm, time does not exist. Past, present and future merge into a continuous and fluid Now in which everything is in a state of timeless unfoldment. One has entered eternity.
  • "past, present, and future are there in the manner of a present and eternal moment, not as prophecy, which regards the future as a thing that is to come, but as everything is seen in the present in the eternal moment, in God himself; without knowing how one sees or knows it"
  • "There is no longer the experience of “moments,” as there is only a continuous Now. Instead of sequence, there is the observation that everything is in a state of unfoldment"
  • "there was no concept of past, present or future. It was all merged into one. There was no concept of time. It was like a fluid state"
  • "time stood still: I had entered eternity"

A comprehensive understanding of the remarkable workings of creation - the rhythmic bringing forth and dissolution of incredible galaxies of light energy
  • "as if a curtain were drawn aside, I had a visual impression of the universe, a great wheel of stars and galaxies, suffused with the golden glow of billions of suns, floating in a sea of spirit"
  • "the divine dispersion of rays poured from an Eternal Source, blazing into galaxies, transfigured with ineffable auras. Again and again I saw the creative beams condense into constellations, then resolve into sheets of transparent flame.  By rhythmic reversion, sextillion worlds passed into diaphanous luster; fire became firmament"
  •  “flung out into the endless reaches of infinity, worlds upon worlds evolve, enact their tumultuous dramas, and then withdraw from the stage once more”

An immersion into a sea of living light, beautiful beyond words
  • "I could hear the singing of the planets, and wave after wave of light washed over me.  But this is wrong, because I was the light as well"
  • "I wanted to remain in the presence of this light forever! … that’s how incredibly beautiful the light was"
  • "the whole world was filled with nothing but light.  There was nothing anywhere except this effulgent light"
  • "all I could see was this living light, beautiful beyond words"

A return home to the soul's native state as an individualized extension of God. Pure joy. And with it, the disappearance of all the suffering, fear and death associated with the ego-body.
  • "I knew I was Home"
  • "In the Presence of God, all suffering ceases"
  • "I am the deathless Spirit"
  • "I was timeless, fearless and free"

The astounding obtainment of an all-encompassing knowledge of all there is to know - wave after wave of revelations
  • "I attained an intellectual illumination quite impossible to describe"
  • "I had the impression of knowing beyond knowledge and being given glimpses into ALL - I capitalize because of the feebleness of words"
  • "wave upon wave of extraordinary revelation swept through me"
  • "It began with an overwhelming awareness that I understood everything about everything, and that the Universe wasn’t complex at all, but beautifully, exquisitely simple – although not, of course, describable in any terms that we know"

A glorious awakening that this new blissful existence is the sole Reality and that the illusory world of the ego-self is but a dream - a vivid dream, but not real
  • "I felt as if I had suddenly come alive for the first time – as if I were awakening from a long deep sleep into a real world"
  • "what I experienced was more real than anything I have experienced in this physical life, making my life feel as though it is just a play or stage show which we act out"
  • "Life is but a dream … I have never fully believed in the dream since then. I play my part and I get lost in my mind still. I forget and think I am a person, but I know I am not."
  • "it was the only reality, all else illusion"
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Whether one has a single or many mystical experiences, a common wish is expressed by all - the desire to remain evermore in the wondrous new existence. Like Plato's caveman, once they experience this new indescribably beautiful existence, they never want to return to their former world.
  • "with a disappointment almost unbearable, I realized that my infinite immensity was lost. Once more I was limited to the humiliating cage of a body"
  • "I felt as though I had been thrust back into a dream from which I had no power to awaken. My only thought was to return to that state I had known the night before ... I sat there praying, with tears running down my cheeks, for Him to take me back into Himself"
  • "I longed to return to this awareness, this beauty, love and joy"
  • “I returned from a smiling, brightly lit Garden of Paradise to the humdrum existence of a prosaic world”

However, the memory of the wondrous mystical experience remains and has a life-changing impact going forward;
  • “I had been thoroughly transformed.  I was never the same again.  I had been given an enlightening knowledge that affected my vision of the world and myself forever.”
  • "it altered my life permanently. Any work that I did thereafter was done not as a personal achievement, but as an offering to that Other whom I now recognized"
  • "the experience filled me with a direct certainty that a higher order of reality existed, and that it alone invested existence with meaning"
  • "I have never fully believed in the dream since then. I play my part and I get lost in my mind still. I forget and think I am a person, but I know I am not.
  • "it was more real than anything in this physical life, making my life feel as though it is just a play or stage show which we act out"

And so, based the accounts of the mystical experiences of over 200 individuals from all walks of life, it is evident that a magnificent and wondrous world awaits us once we re-awaken our native god-selves.

For some, they are always in that sublime world. For others, they have been granted a glorious Glimpse into Paradise.

May all be so blessed.

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"Realize the heaven within you, and all at once all the desires are fulfilled, all the misery and suffering is put an end to"

"I am without form, without limit, 
Beyond space, beyond time, 
I am in everything, everything is in me. 
I am the bliss of the universe, 
Everywhere am I. 
I am Existence Absolute, Knowledge Absolute, Bliss Absolute, 
I am That, I am That."

~ Swami Rama Tirtha

Rama Tirtha was an enchanting twentieth-century mystic who spent his later years living at the source of the Ganges River in the Himalayas. He was a renowned spiritual teacher, writer and poet. He existed in an ecstatic state of oneness with God.


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