How to Awaken Your True Potential
How to Awaken Your True Potential
Paramhansa Yogananda
Crystal Clarity Publishers
Nevada City, California
Crystal Clarity Publishers, Nevada City, CA 95959
Copyright 2015 by Hansa Trust
All rights reserved. Published 2015
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-56589-298-9
ePub ISBN: 978-1-56589-559-1
Printed in China
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Cover and interior design by Tejindra Scott Tully
L IBRARY OF C ONGRESS C ATALOGING-IN -P UBLICATION D ATA
Yogananda, Paramahansa, 1893-1952.
How to awaken your true potential / Paramhansa Yogananda.
-- 1st [edition]. pages cm
ISBN 978-1-56589-298-9 (quality pbk. : alk. paper) --
ISBN 978-1-56589-559-1 (epub)
1. Self-realization--Religious aspects--Self-Realization Fellowship. I. Title.
BP605.S4Y5439 2016
294.544--dc23
2015033132
www.crystalclarity.com
clarity@crystalclarity.com
800-424-1055
C ONTENTS
How to Awaken Your True Potential
C HAPTER
A S ACRED I NVITATION
C OME OUT of your closed chamber of limitation. Breathe in the fresh air of vital thoughts. Exhale poisonous thoughts of discouragement, discontentment, or hopelessness. Never suggest to your mind human limitations of sickness, old age, or death, but constantly remind yourself, I am the Infinite, which has become the body.
Take long mental walks on the path of self-confidence. Exercise with instruments of judgment, introspection, and initiative. Feast unstintingly on creative thinking within yourself and others.
Above all, cultivate the habit of meditation. This is the inner switch you turn on to connect yourself with the Infinite. Hold on to the after-effects of meditation by your attention. You will then find that you are a reservoir of power in body, mind, and soul. By constantly holding in mind the peaceful after-effects of meditation, by feeling immortality in the body, and by feeling the ocean of Gods bliss beneath the changeable waves of experiences, the soul can find perpetual rejuvenation.
You are all gods, if you only knew it. You must look within. Behind the wave of your consciousness is the sea of Gods presence. Claim your Divine Birthright. Awake, and you shall behold the glory of God.
Paramhansa Yogananda
Dear Reader ,
Paramhansa Yogananda offers a vision of who you are in truth. By following his wise counsel, you can free yourself from limiting thoughts and behaviors, and discover the freedom and bliss that await you in the inner stillness of your own being.
Meditation is widely recommended today by experts in many fields, from health professionals to sports heroes. Yogananda introduces you to meditation and helps you discover its enormous potential. Youll learn how meditation can take you beyond stress-free living, beyond even inner peace, to the realization of your own highest self, your true potential.
Yoganandas words, potent with soul inspiration, guide you through the essential steps to free yourself from limitations: to transform your daily habits, to discover the power of your mind, to use meditation to experience your true nature, and, finally, to make your outward life a reflection of your ever-expanding awareness.
As Yogananda loved to say: The time for knowing God has come!
Crystal Clarity Publishers
C HAPTER
C ONTROL Y OUR D ESTINY
1
Whatever you have made yourself in the past, that is what you are now. By the secret, invisible traces of your own past actions, you have been controlling the power of your present actions.
Through the law of cause and effect that governs actions, you have ordered yourself to be punished or rewarded. You have probably suffered enough. It is time now for you to parole yourself from the prison of your own past undesirable habits. Since you are the judge, if you are ready to liberate yourself, no jail of suffering, poverty, or ignorance can hold you.
2
If failures invade you repeatedly, dont get discouraged. They should act as stimulants and not poisons to your material or spiritual growth. The period of failure is the best season for sowing the seeds of success. Weed out the causes of failure, and launch with double vigor what you want to accomplish. The bludgeon of circumstances may bleed you, but keep your head unbowed.
Death in the attempt to succeed is success; refuse to harbor the consciousness of defeat. Try always once more, no matter how many times you have failed. Persevere one minute more in the race for success when you have done your best and think you can do no more.
To illustrate: A and B were boxing for a prize. A thought, I have punched and punched, and I cannot go on. B thought the same thing. But then A thought, I can give just one more punch. So A made one more effort, and down went B . That is what you must do. Just give one more punch .
3
Habit is an automatic mental mechanism for performing actions without the will power and effort involved in initiating new actions. Habits make the performance of actions easier. Good habits and virtues are eternal joy-making qualities.
Wrongly used, this mechanism becomes mans archenemy. Bad habits attract evil things. Bad habits and sin are temporary misery-making grafts on the soul.
It is lamentable to be compelled to do evil against ones will because of the strength of an evil habit, and then to have to suffer for ones evil actions. It is wonderful to habitually do what is right and thus multiply goodness and happiness.
The power of habit is supreme in the life of man. Most people spend their lives making good mental resolutions, but never succeed in following what is wholesome. We usually do not do what we wish to do, but only what we are accustomed to do.
Do not feel helpless if you have some undesirable habits. Now is the time to begin conquering them by developing will power and the habit of regular, right meditation. You can free yourself from the clutches of wrong habits and create habits of thought and action that will bring the results you desire.
4
If you havent enough will power, try to develop wont power. When you are at the dinner table and Mr. Greed tries to chloroform your self-control and lure you to eat more than you should, watch yourself. After partaking of the right quality and quantity of food, say to yourself, I wont eat any more, and get up from the table and run. When somebody calls: John, come back. Dont forget the delicious apple pie, just call back, I wont.
