METAPHYSICAL MEDITATIONS

Excerpts from Metaphysical Meditations by Paramahansa Yogananda

Select a meditation that meets your present need.

Meditation on Silence

All spiritually successful persons, such as Jesus, Babaji, Lahiri Mahasaya, Sri Yukteswar, Swami Shankara, and other masters are manifestations of our one Father, God. I am happy in the thought that my spiritual ambition to realize unity with God is one that has already been attained by all great masters. Each day I will meditate more deeply than yesterday.

Each tomorrow I will meditate more deeply than today. I will meditate during most of my leisure hours.

O Lord, with the soft touch of intuition I will tune my soul radio and rid my mind of static restlessness, that I may hear Thy voice of cosmic vibration, the music of atoms, and the melody of love vibrating in my superconsciousness.

Today I will seek Thee, O Father, as the ever-increasing bliss of meditation. I will feel Thee as boundless joy throbbing in my heart. Finding Thee, I shall find all things I crave through Thee.

Teach me to find Thy presence on the altar of my constant peace and in the joy that springs from deep meditation.

Bless me, that I may find Thee in the temple of each thought and activity. Finding Thee within, I shall find Thee without, in all people and all conditions.

Teach me to feel that it is Thy smile manifesting in the dawn, on the lips of roses, and on the faces of noble men and women.

God's Flaming Presence

I will do away with the mockery of parroting prayer. I will pray deeply until the darkness of meditation burns with Thy flaming presence.

Heavenly Father, I cannot wait until tomorrow for Thy song. Today I will broadcast my soul-call into the ether with such loving concentration that Thou must respond through the receiver of my silence.

I Am Not the Body

Beloved God, I know that I am not the body, not the blood, not the energy, not the thoughts, not the mind, not the ego, not the astral self. I am the immortal soul that illumines them all, remaining unchangeable in spite of their changes.

Eternal Youth of body and mind, abide in me forever, forever, forever.

More and more I will depend for energy upon the limitless supply of the inner source of cosmic consciousness, and less and less upon outer sources of body energy.

O Father, Thin unlimited and all-healing power is in me. Manifest Thy light through the darkness of my ignorance.

O Spirit, teach me to heal the body by recharging it with Thy cosmic energy; to heal the mind by concentration and smiles.

On Spreading Ripples of Peace

Fix your mind inwardly between the eyebrows 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.

With the sword of peace, O Lord, let me fight through the thick skirmish of trials.

I am the prince of perpetual peace playing in a drama of sad and happy dreams on the stage of experience.

Tune In with the Cosmic Sound

Listen to the cosmic sound of Aum, a great hum of countless atoms, in the sensitive right side of your head. This is the voice of God. Feel the sound spreading through the brain. Hear its continuous pounding roar.

Now hear and feel it surging into the spine, bursting open the doors of the heart. Feel it resounding through every tissue, every feeling, every cord of your nerves. Every blood cell, every thought is dancing on the sea of roaring vibration.

Observe the spreading volume of the cosmic sound. It sweeps through the body and mind into the earth and the surrounding atmosphere. You are moving with it, into the airless ether, and into millions of universes of matter.

Meditate on the marching spread of the cosmic sound. It has passed through the physical universes to the subtle shining veins of rays that hold all matter in manifestation.

The cosmic sound is commingling with millions of multicolored rays. The cosmic sound has entered the realm of cosmic rays. Listen to, behold, and feel the embrace of the cosmic sound and the eternal light. The cosmic sound now pierces through the heartfires of cosmic energy and they both melt within the ocean of cosmic consciousness and cosmic joy. The body melts into the universe. The universe melts into the soundless voice. The sound melts into the all-shining light. And the light enters the bosom of infinite joy.

Expansion in Eternity

Eternity yawns at me below, above, on the left and on the right, in front and behind, within and without.

With open eyes I behold myself as the little body. With closed eyes I perceive myself as the cosmic center around which revolves the sphere of eternity, the sphere of bliss, the sphere of omniscient, living space.

I feel the Lord like a gentle breath of bliss breathing in my body of universes. I perceive Him shining through the bright twinkles of all luminosity and through the waves of cosmic consciousness. I behold Him as the light of solar inspiration holding the luminaries of my thoughts in the rhythms of balance.

I feel Him as a bursting voice, leading, guiding, teaching secretly in the soul temples of all men and all creation.

He is the fountain of wisdom and of radiant inspiration flowing through all souls. He is the fragrance oozing from the incense vase of all hearts. He is a garden of celestial blossoms and bright thought-flowers. He is the love that inspires our love-dreams.

I feel Him percolating through my heart, as through all hearts, through the pores of the earth, through the sky, through all created things. He is the eternal motion of joy. He is the mirror of silence in which all creation is reflected.