An introduction:
When you look around, and online, do you wonder how we as a world can get to a place of peace? It’s natural to feel exasperated at times when the stories about life we are hearing are often framed in terms of agitation and ire. But know this: Looking in a different direction, looking within, even for a brief time, can bring tremendous hope.
Substitute for a moment this story — this hidden truth — expressed by Paramahansa Yogananda: “Peace is everywhere. You are swimming in an ocean of peace. Just as blood circulates in every tissue, so peace flows through every cell of the body.”
You are swimming in peace, but you have to learn to practice peace, “distilling it in your heart” by spiritually scientific methods such as those taught by Paramahansaji, before you can realize it.
Each September the UN International Day of Peace is honored around the world, holding up the ideal of peace for humanity. But Paramahansaji, and all great souls, have taught that to reach that goal we have to start with ourselves.
And ultimately we need — we crave as souls — more than just an occasional taste of peace, in the same way that we need more than just an occasional taste of nourishing food. We need more peace — abundant, healing, deeply reassuring, strengthening, and satisfying peace — and not just for one day or one month even, but every day and as much as we can hold, until peace becomes our way of being in this world.
We invite you consciously set worries aside and experience divine peace today — or any day — by absorbing Paramahansaji's wisdom in the quotes below and drawing new resources from the wealth of peace that resides within your soul.
From the talks and writings of Paramahansa Yogananda:
Peace in the world starts with peace in individual hearts.
You have to find peace by distilling it in your heart. Meditation is the process. You may try everything else to find peace and yet you won’t feel it; but meditate and immediately you become aware of divine joy. Meditation is the spring from which God’s peace flows into your soul.
Every night in sleep you have a taste of peace and joy. While you are in deep slumber, God makes you live in the tranquil superconsciousness, in which all the fears and worries of this existence are forgotten. By meditation you can experience that holy state of mind when you are awake, and be constantly immersed in healing peace.
Once you have found that peace within, then it flows out as a blessing to your environment and the world. Harmony within, harmony without, harmony everywhere!
Fix your mind inwardly between the eyebrows [as in meditation] on the shoreless lake of peace. Watch the eternal circle of rippling peace around you. The more you watch intently, the more you will feel the wavelets of peace spreading from the eyebrows to the forehead, from the forehead to the heart, and on to every cell in your body. Now the waters of peace are overflowing the banks of your body and inundating the vast territory of your mind. The flood of peace flows over the boundaries of your mind and moves on in infinite directions.
If you can hold your peace and be calmly active and actively calm in all you do, you have identified yourself with your real Self that dwells always in the inner chamber of peace.
Everything you do should be done with peace. That is the best medicine for your body, mind, and soul. It is the most wonderful way to live.
One of our goals for the SRF Blog is making sure you have tools to put Paramahansa Yogananda’s farseeing and all-embracing wisdom immediately into practice. It was Paramahansaji’s intent — when bringing India’s imminently practical science of spirituality to the world — that each person could know the peace, love, and joy of his or her soul, by applying simple yet powerfully efficacious methods of yoga.
Below you will see a link to a “Toolkit for Experiencing Peace Today,” which provides you with instructions on relaxation and several videos of guided experiences so you can practice knowing, as your schedule allows, the unending peace within you.
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Sadguru shree shree yukteshar giri jee shree charno mei pranam koti koti naman om shanti shanti
I am so very thankful for guruji's teachings. Everything stated above does come forth. It is so beautifully stated for I am a grateful witness to these truths. The peace, joy and love I feel daily fills me with a sense of surreality that becomes stronger with each wave. Jai Gurji
I deeply appreciate the introductory paragraphs that weave the Guru's writings into a contemporary context- it invites greater and more active engagement and encouragement to apply the teachings in the here and now, rather than in the abstract. (atleast for me). (And thank you to the Lake Shrine Instagram handle for doing this so well right from the start, with that one question that used to be posed at the end of the extract being shared of the Guru's words, that would encourage personal reflection based on that extract!)