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Keep Centered in God – Not in Matter
by Paramhansa Yogananda,
Super Advanced Course 1930
When you act in the world, forgetting God, you have changed your center
from God to matter. And this grafted material nature will throw you into
the whirlpool of change and will stifle you with worries and sorrows.
Now revert to your own nature. Change your center from material desires
to desire for God. These material nature beggaries are only your grafted
nature, so the only way you can forget these is to remember God as Peace
and Bliss in your heart always. Ask God to make your peace, silence, joy
and meditation his holy altars, where your soul may meet and commune with
Him in the holy of Holies. Let your prayer be: “Make my understanding
the temple of Thy guidance!”
Invoke God as power in the temple of consciousness during the day. Let every action and every word that you utter be tinged and tipsy with God-love intoxication. Talk and act sensibly as a man who drinks a lot and yet keeps his senses awake and in command. Be drunk with God and let every action of your daily life be a temple of God’s memory. Perform every action to please Him; and in the indestructible shrine of your devotion God will listen in every thought.
Carry your love of God deep in your heart before you sleep. Cradle it there, so that when you dream you may dream of Him as resting on the fragrant altar of sleep, as Krishna or Christ or Peace or Bliss. In the temple of Sleep or Dreams, feel God as Peace or as ever-new Bliss.
Actually, God embraces you on His Bosom as Peace and Joy when you go to sleep in your subconscious chamber or your temple of dreams. Then you are sleeping locked in His Arms of Tranquillity. So, before you fall asleep, realize that you are going to embrace Him in sleep and dreams.
And when you are deeply sleeping or meditating, feel Him embracing you as the Omnipresent Bliss. The Great Omnipresence touches you in sleep and meditation, and through His Bliss-touch He wants to make you forget your little, painful, worrying memories, mental and physical aches and Spiritual agonies, which you garnered during your truant stay, in the slums of matter.
Hold fast to your once lost spiritual treasure of joy. Now that it is regained, increase it by giving it freely to others and generously investing it in other hearts. Remember that whatsoever we selfishly keep for self is lost; and whatsoever we freely give in love to others, that treasure cannot be lost but yields its ever-increasing harvest of happiness without end. Worry and selfishness are highwaymen on the roadways of life, and they hold us up and rob us of our wealth of joy and peace. So, determine to hold fast to joy, no matter if death shall frown at your doors or your own subconscious mind may tell you that “all is lost.”
Drown all confusing noises in the silent, sweet harmony of your perfect, invincible joy.
Remember this, my beloved: With Her veil of sleep and peace, Mother Divine wipes away the dark sorrows of her ignorance-besmirched children. Go then to your dreams as a child to its mother’s arms. Divine Love will be enshrined in all your memories of past incarnations and present thoughts.
And then you will find that evil and misery were only your own imaginary dream-creations. You slept and dreamed a nightmare of evil; you awake in God and feel only joy and good existing everywhere.
And then you will pray the only prayer that I pray for myself: “Heavenly Father, may Thy love shine forever on the shrine of my devotion. May my devotion for Thee forever burn on the altar of my memory, and may I be able to kindle love for Thee on all altar-hearts.”
For information and reservations:
info@ananda.it Tel: +39 0742-81.36.20 Fax: +39 0742-81.35.36
Ananda is located in the tranquil hills of Umbria, Italy on “Strada Statale 444” between Assisi and Gualdo Tadino. It is the largest retreat center in Europe for Yogananda’s teachings.
Ananda Associazione • Via Montecchio, 61 • I-06025 Nocera Umbra (PG) • ITALY