Banks of Eternity
by Paramhansa Yogananda
Inner Culture, September 1939
At last I found the banks of eternity and there I sat, musing, to plunge, swim, and melt in that ocean of immortality. Melting myself within Myself, I became the ocean of luminous light. All dream waves of many incarnations have melted into the sea of one flame.
All rivers of my desires have become one vast sea of desire for God. The loves of many lives have commingled to become one cosmic love. The joys of many centuries have gathered together and become the all-pervading joy.
Beloved of my heart, since Thou hast created me, it is in Thy power to release at once the atoms of my body into the freedom of Thy light. No longer do I want to play with this wave of life or with other waves of lives.
Bless me that I may expand this soul into Thy Spirit—expand my wisdom into Thy wisdom, and expand my bliss into Thy bliss. I, the tiny wave of life, must become the ever-expanding ocean of immortality.
God Alone! (1)
by Paramhansa Yogananda
Inner Culture, July 1934
Who is it who knows all the secrets of all the Souls who ever lived, dazzling the world, and who are now lost and gone?
God alone! God alone!
Who lived in the loneliness of the eternal void, before the atoms blinked their glittering eyes and danced through all Creation?
God alone! God alone!
We came out of Something, we know not what. We know that we live, laugh, and linger now, and most of us will not know what lies in the wilderness of the great Beyond when we fall asleep in the arms of peaceful death. Yet, who knows the secret of Life, both before and after this existence?
God alone! God alone!
All things are living; all things are dancing in the rhythm of eternal harmony. No one knows about the grand procession of Creation, which emerged from the mystic chamber of space. No one knows which part of this chamber of the endless void is occupied by objects and Beings, melted by the magic wand of death, except—
God alone! God alone!
Our loved ones love us, and vow to love us forever, and yet they forget us when they sink into the Great Sleep. Their memories become frozen anon. Yet, who loves us forever without ever telling us, and who remembers us when all others forget us?
God alone! God alone!
Life and death, stars and wind, love and hate, sorrow and pleasure, and man and beast dance and sleep on the Stygian stage of Time, hiding behind the scenes at death, and coming out to play again on the stage of Time in new costumes of flesh. No one remembers what he did before, or why he is so sure of this temporary rendezvous in this curious caravanserai except—
God alone! God alone!
Why God is playing this game, and why He keeps all this knowledge to Himself, only meagerly sharing it with us, His Children, is known by—
God alone! God alone!
Yet, if you roam no more, and come closer to the Infinite Shore within, and change yourself from the undesirable position of being a prodigal son to that of being a true celestial offspring, then you, too, may know all things that you want to know from none other than—
God alone! God alone!
Since He knows all things, when you change into a demanding Son Divine, you too shall know all things from—
God alone! God alone!
When all friends must leave you, who will be with you?
God alone! God alone!
Since no things and no one are really yours, learn to love—
God alone! God alone!
__________________
God Alone (2)
by Paramhansa Yogananda
Inner Culture, September 1935
I drank the crushed beauty of a sextillion stars;
I sipped the sap of all sane pleasures;
I made a bonfire of all sorrows and basked in the
blaze of bliss.
I quaffed the commingled love of all hearts;
I mingled paternal, maternal, and fraternal love
together,
And drank that to the dregs.
I squeezed the Scriptures for a drop of peace;
I pressed poems from the winepress of Nature;
I stole the sweetness from the honeycomb of pleasures;
I stole gems from the mine of thoughts;
I read, I smiled, I worked, I planned, I throbbed,
I aspired
But naught was sufficient,—
Only nightmares of incompleteness, ever-receding
Will-o’-the-Wisps of promised happiness
precipitated and haunted my heart.
But when I cast all dreams away,
I sat in the sanctuary of Peace,
And my Soul sang, “ God alone! God alone!”
When I am Only a Dream
by Paramhansa Yogananda
Inner Culture, March 1940
I come to tell you all of Him,
And the way to encase Him in your bosom,
And of the discipline which brings His grace.
To those of you who have asked me
To guide you to my Beloved’s preseulturesilently talking mind,
Or speak to you through a gentle significant glance,
Or whisper to you through my love,
Or loudly dissuade you when you stray away from Him.
But when I shall become only a memory or a mental image,
Or silently speaking voice,
When no earthly call will ever reveal
My whereabouts in unplumbed space
When no shallow entreaty or stern stentorian command
Will bring an answer from me,
I will smile in your mind when you are right,
And when you are wrong, I will weep through my eyes,
Dimly peering at you in the dark,
And weep through your eyes, perchance;
And I will whisper to you through your conscience,
And I will reason with you through your reason,
And I will love through your love.
When you are able no longer to talk to me,
Read my Whispers of Eternity.
Eternally through that I will talk to you.
Unknown I will walk by your side
And guard you with invisible arms.
And as soon as you know my Beloved
And hear His voice in silence,
You will know me again more tangibly
Than you knew me in this earth plane.
And yet when I am only a dream to you
I will come to remind you that you too are naught
But a dream of my Heavenly Beloved,
And when you know you are a dream, as I know now,
We all will be ever awake in Him.
The Awakening
by Paramhansa Yogananda
East West, March 1934
Make me transparent with purity, that Thou mayest shine through me.
Make me luminous with wisdom, that I may behold Thee in me.
Still the moving mirror of my mind, that I may behold Thy Mooned Face, undistorted by my restlessness, ever reflected there.
Open all the windows of Faith, that I may behold Thee in the Mansion of Peace.
Fling open the Doors of Silence, that I may enter Thy Temple of Bliss.
Awaken the memory of past Incarnations, wherein I sought Thee and loved Thee.
Remember when I met Thee in the bower of the Milky Way and worshipped Thee in the ever-changing, living Temple of Nature.
Beloved Divine, make me know at once and forever that Thou hast always been mine, ever mine.
My error dreams are past and buried beneath the sepulcher of oblivion, and I am awake basking in the sunlight of Thy Awakening.
While I slept this sleep of earthly life,
I dreamt this Nature dream.
I awoke, and now I dream of Thee alone.
I was the small bee seeking the honey of Thy Happiness,
So I drank from the many blossoms of human life and Nature,
But it was when I drank the fragrant sweetness from Thy Lotus Feet,
That I hummed with desires no more.
