Self-Realization Fellowship Blog

Paramahansa Yogananda on Preparing Yourself to Receive the Joy of Christmas

December 20, 2022

Paramahansa Yogananda in Encinitas for Dec 22 Newsletter with lotus

As we approach Christmas we can feel the year has sped by quite fast. But you also may be aware of a palpable feeling during this season — of peace, of blessedness — an urgent prompting from within.

“As we near the Christmas season, perhaps you all feel, as I do, an increased spiritual fervor and joy, and a more intense longing for God,” Sri Daya Mata once said, adding, “I don’t want to waste my time in this life.”

Sincerely practicing scientific methods of meditation, such as those given by Paramahansa Yogananda in the SRF teachings, can ensure we make the most of the precious time we have, and are able to observe, as Paramahansaji advised, a celebration of “spiritual Christmas” that will infuse our social festivities with purpose and depth. What that means, he said, is to experience in deep divine communion the universal Christ Consciousness — the loving divine intelligence of Spirit pervading all creation — which was manifest in Jesus and all other liberated masters down the ages, and is latent in our own souls.

“Remember that Christ can be born again every Christmas, or at any other time, in your meditation-awakened consciousness,” Paramahansaji has assured us. “Make the unknown Christ known to you by communing with him as the ever-new, ever-increasing joy of your daily deep meditation.”

Would you like to begin now — to prepare yourself to receive more and more joy daily, and to take full advantage of what this season holds as a promise for you?

From the talks and writings of Paramahansa Yogananda:

The true celebration of Christmas is the realization in our own consciousness of the birth of Christ Consciousness.

The love that most persons feel for dearest family and friends, Jesus felt for the whole world and every living being. The Christ Consciousness that encompasses everything in its love was born in the body of Jesus, in the body of Krishna, in the body of Buddha.

I urge you to celebrate truly the birth of Jesus: by realizing within yourself his universal love, forgiveness, character, renunciation, and devotion, and by feeling Christ-love for all brother races and all living creatures.

Add to your social festivities the bringing of Christ a second time — in your meditative consciousness. There is only a suggestion of Christ in Christmas festivities; but in the cradle of divine ecstasy in meditation he is seen and felt as an everlasting, ever joyous reality.

[Note: In 1931 Paramahansa Yogananda inaugurated in SRF the custom of holding an all-day meditation service during the Christmas season, which will be held this year on December 17. Speaking from a state of divine communion at one of these all-day meditations, Paramahansaji expressed:] Experiencing the bliss of God, you see that there is no such thing as time, and know you shall never die. Every day I enjoy that consciousness. I don’t like to show it outwardly. Indeed I can’t show it — it is too delicate and precious. I have caught Him in the net of love. I hope you all have felt the presence of Jesus the Christ this day as I have felt it. Jesus appeared to me at one time today as a little boy; but then he didn’t appear in form any more, remaining with me instead as formless Joy eternal, Light eternal.

This is my Christmas Song to you, that by daily meditation you so prepare the cradle of your consciousness that you behold the Infinite Baby Christ laid there anew. During this holy season pray deep and long until every day becomes a true Christmas occasion of divine communion.

By striving to commune with God, Christ, and the great ones at Christmastime, you will prepare yourself for the way you are going to spend the new year that is shortly to come. It is a wonderful way to enter a new year.

Would you like to know additional practical and wise steps Paramahansaji gave to help you feel, and absorb, the life-transforming blessings of this season?

Please read “Prepare Yourself Now to Celebrate Christmas in the Real Way” on the SRF blog, an excerpt from one of the Guru’s Christmas messages published in The Second Coming of Christ: The Resurrection of the Christ Within You.

It can be a helpful tool for you, providing ways to spiritualize your consciousness in preparation for joining in the all-day meditation or in attaining greater balance and strength at this time.

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