About This Book
Throughout his early years in America, in the public lectures and classes he gave during extensive speaking tours and in later years at the Self-Realization Fellowship temples he founded Paramahansa Yogananda would often lead his audiences in an affirmation, visualization, or prayerful invocation. Reflecting the myriad ways in which the Infinite Spirit may be addressed and perceived, these metaphysical methods had a wide appeal. After 1925, when Sri Yogananda established in Los Angeles an international headquarters for his society and began publishing the magazine East-West (which he renamed Self-Realization in 1948), many such meditations were printed in the magazine; and in 1932 a collection of nearly 200 of them was published by Self-Realization Fellowship in Metaphysical Meditations. The book has been in continuous publication ever since, with expanded editions appearing in 1952 and 1964. Offering a wellspring of hope and inspiration, it has found a growing audience of appreciative readers among those of all faiths.
Copyright 1964 Self-Realization Fellowship
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The Yogoda Satsanga Society of India name and emblem shown above appear on all YSS books, recordings, and other publications, assuring the reader that a work originates with the society established by Sri Sri Paramahansa Yogananda and faithfully conveys his teachings.
Digital Rights Notice and Terms of Use
All rights in this digital edition of
Metaphysical Meditations
are reserved by Self-Realization Fellowship.
Subject only to any conditions established by the distributor from which you obtained this book, Self-Realization Fellowship welcomes you to download this edition onto any number of your own devices for your individual, non-commercial use; and to print excerpts for your own reference.
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Thank you for supporting our non-profit publishing endeavors in connection with the legacy of Paramahansa Yogananda.
Ebook edition, 2016.
ISBN: 978-81-89535-12-4 (paperback)
ISBN: 978-93-83203-59-8 (Kindle edition)
Contents
The Spiritual Legacy of
Sri Sri Paramahansa Yogananda
This Complete Writings, Lectures, and Informal Talks
Paramahansa Yogananda founded Yogoda Satsanga Society of India (YSS) in 1917 and Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF) in 1920 to disseminate his teachings worldwide and to preserve their purity and integrity for generations to come. A prolific writer and lecturer from his earliest years in America, he created a renowned and voluminous body of works on the yoga science of meditation, the art of balanced living, and the underlying unity of all great religions. Today this unique and far-reaching spiritual legacy lives on, inspiring millions of truth seekers all over the world.
In accord with the express wishes of the great Guru, Yogoda Satsanga Society of India/Self-Realization Fellowship has continued the ongoing task of publishing and keeping permanently in print The Complete Works of Paramahansa Yogananda. These include not only the final editions of all the books he published during his lifetime, but also many new titlesworks that had remained unpublished at the time of his passing in 1952, or which had been serialized over the years in incomplete form in Yogoda Satsanga Society of India/Self-Realization Fellowships magazine, as well as hundreds of profoundly inspiring lectures and informal talks recorded but not printed before his passing.
Paramahansa Yogananda personally chose and trained those close disciples who have headed the Yogoda Satsanga Society of India/Self-Realization Fellowship Publications Council since his passing, and gave them specific guidelines for the preparation and publishing of his teachings. The members of the YSS/SRF Publications Council (monks and nuns who have taken lifelong vows of renunciation and selfless service) honour these guidelines as a sacred trust, in order that the universal message of this beloved world teacher will live on in its original power and authenticity.
The Yogoda Satsanga Society of India/Self-Realization Fellowship emblem (shown above) was designated by Paramahansa Yogananda to identify the nonprofit society he founded as the authorized source of his teachings. The YSS/SRF name and emblem appear on all YSS/SRF publications and recordings, assuring the reader that a work originates with the organization founded by Paramahansa Yogananda and conveys his teachings as he himself intended they be given.
Yogoda Satsanga Society of India/
Self-Realization Fellowship
Prayer for a United World
By Sri Sri Paramahansa Yogananda
May the heads of all countries and races be guided to understand that men of all nations are physically and spiritually one: physically one, because we are the descendants of common parents the symbolic Adam and Eve; and spiritually one, because we are the immortal children of our Father, bound by eternal links of brotherhood.
Let us pray in our hearts for a League of Souls and a United World. Though we may seem divided by race, creed, colour, class, and political prejudices, still, as children of the one God we are able in our souls to feel brotherhood and world unity. May we work for the creation of a United World in which every nation will be a useful part, guided by God through mans enlightened conscience.
In our hearts we can all learn to be free from hate and selfishness. Let us pray for harmony among the nations, that they march hand in hand through the gate of a fair new civilisation.
Foreword: Learn to Meditate
Meditation is the science of God-realization. It is the most practical science in the world. Most people would want to meditate if they understood its value and experienced its beneficial effects. The ultimate object of meditation is to attain conscious awareness of God, and of the souls eternal oneness with Him. What achievement could be more purposeful and useful than to harness limited human faculties to the omnipresence and omnipotence of the Creator? God-realization bestows on the meditator the blessings of the Lords peace, love, joy, power, and wisdom.
Meditation utilises concentration in its highest form. Concentration consists in freeing the attention from distractions and in focusing it on any thought in which one may be interested. Meditation is that special form of concentration in which the attention has been liberated from restlessness and is focused on God. Meditation, therefore, is concentration used to know God.
