Inspiration and Counsel from Paramahansa Yogananda

 

This month's inspiration from Paramahansa Yogananda is on the topic of introspection and personal growth. We recommend that you take a few moments to reflect on these words of spiritual guidance in the morning before you start the day and again in the evening before you retire.

Every day look at yourself in the mirror of introspection. That is a much clearer mirror than the one before which you groom yourself every morning. Not a day passes that I don't look in my own mental mirror. And I don't spare myself. If there is anything reflected there that I have done which is not up to my standard, I admonish myself severely. That is the way you can become flawless in the spiritual mirror of your soul, a living asset in the kingdom of God.

 

− Paramahansa Yogananda

Think and plan your life, and see how you will change. Try constantly to improve yourself. Seek out good company, company that reminds you of God and of the noble things in life. Be conscious every day of how you are going to change your bad habits; how you are going to schedule your day; how you are going to hold your calmness. And every so often inwardly ask, "Lord, am I wasting my time? How can I get a little free time every day just to be with You?" All the time I say that. And He responds, "You are with Me, for you are thinking of Me."

 

Start the morning in meditation and praying deeply to God; and after you have meditated, ask God to guide your life and all your noble efforts: "Lord, I will reason, I will will, I will act; but guide Thou my reason, will, and activity to the right thing I should do in everything." Determine to be better in every way that day. If you start in the morning and keep on working at trying to hold on to your calmness, or trying to put into effect some good habit that you want to acquire, thinking of God all the time, then when night comes you can go to sleep knowing that you have put the day to good use. You will know you are making progress.

 

Every time you meditate deeply on God, beneficial changes take place in the patterns of your brain. Suppose you are a financial failure or a moral failure or a spiritual failure. Through deep meditation, affirming, "I and my Father are one," you will know that you are the child of God. Hold on to that ideal. Meditate until you feel a great joy. When joy strikes your heart, God has answered your broadcast to Him; He is responding to your prayers and positive thinking. 
 
This is a distinct and definite method:
 
First, meditate upon the thought, "I and my Father are one," trying to feel a great peace, and then a great joy in your heart. When that joy comes, say, "Father, Thou art with me. I command Thy power within me to cauterize my brain cells of wrong habits and past seed tendencies." The power of God in meditation will do it. Rid yourself of the limiting consciousness that you are a man or a woman; know that you are the child of God. Then mentally affirm and pray to God:

 

"I command my brain cells to change, to destroy the grooves of bad habits that have made a puppet out of me. Lord, burn them up in Thy divine light."

 

And when you will practice the Self-Realization techniques of meditation, especially Kriya Yoga, you will actually see that light of God baptizing you.

 

 − Paramahansa Yogananda