Paramahansa Yogananda
Quotes on Healing
HEALING
A genuine smile distributes the cosmic current, prana, to every body cell. The happy man is less subject to disease, for happiness actually attracts into the body a greater supply of the universal life energy.
Disease is generally considered a result of external material causes. Few people realize that it comes through the inaction of the Life Force within. Medicine, massage and electricity merely help to stimulate the cells in such a way that the Life Energy is induced to return and resume its work of maintenance and repair.
All methods of healing are really indirect ways of rousing the life energy, which is the true and direct healer of all diseases.
Absolute, unquestioning faith in God is the greatest method of instantaneous healing.
To know God is the most important way to heal all disease--physical, mental, spiritual. As darkness cannot remain where light is, so also the darkness of disease is driven away by the light of God's perfect presence when it enters the body.
When modern science will discover how to go deep into the subtle electromagnetic constitution of man, it will be able to correct almost any medical condition in ways that would seem almost miraculous today. In the future, healing will be effected more and more by use of various types of light rays. Light is what we are made of—not gross physical light, but the finer spiritualized light of prana, intelligent life energy. That light is the real essence of everything. This earth is not "earth" as you see it; it is light. But you cannot perceive that until you know the underlying astral world.
There are three kinds of sickness:
physical,
mental, and
spiritual.
Physical sickness is due to different forms of toxic conditions, infectious diseases, and accidents. Mental sickness is caused by fear, worry, anger, and similar emotional inharmonies. Soul sickness is due to man's ignorance of his true relationship with God.
Ignorance is the supreme disease. When one banishes ignorance he has also banished the causes of all physical, mental, and spiritual disease.
Never allow your mind to entertain thoughts of illness or limitation; you will see your body change for the better. Remember that mind is the power that is creating this body and if the mind is weak, the body becomes weak. Don't grieve or worry about anything. (os)
Obedience to God's physical laws is the method for avoiding bodily ills.
Do not overeat. Most persons die as a result of greediness and of ignorance of right dietary habits. Obey God's laws of hygiene. The hygiene of keeping the mind pure is superior to physical hygiene. ...
Prevent hardening of the arteries by proper diet.
Save the heart from overwork; fear and anger overtax it. Give rest to the heart by the Self-Realization method, and cultivate a peaceful attitude of mind.
But while I speak of the power of medicine derived from the God-created elements of nature, I must add that medicine in itself has not that power of healing possessed by the mind if one knows how to use that mental power. Those who put all their confidence in medicine weaken their minds and find that they have to live by dependence on medicine, just as some people I have known seem absolutely dependent on periodic operations (though in certain cases operations are necessary to remove diseased tissue to prevent it from affecting healthy tissue).
But whatever mode of treatment one adopts, the mind in large measure may still determine the outcome, positive or negative. Doubt, depression, pessimistic thoughts, lack of will, weaken the flow of healing life energies; the conscious direction of the mind's powers by positive thoughts, prayers, affirmations, visualization, will, cheerfulness, stimulates the natural healing processes of the body with the vital life force necessary to aid in restoring health.
People should learn to draw more on the all-healing power of the mind, along with observance of healthful habits:
proper eating,
exercise,
fresh air and
sunshine,
hygiene,
physical and mental relaxation, and
conscious recharging of the life force.
The primary medicine of the future will be rays, the vibratory nature of which is more compatible with the molecular atomic nature of the human body. Healing rays can reach into the atomic disorder of cells in chronic diseases. There is also much healing energy in the sun's rays, though the harmful effects of overexposure must be avoided. (sc)
INTROSPECTION
Keep a Diary
All earnest students should keep a record, or at least a mental diary, of their changing tendencies, marking out their progress in the development of any good qualities which they may lack and which they are trying to cultivate. I used to make a record of how I had meditated daily and how deep I had gone. You should do likewise. If you will analyze yourself every day, you may notice how little you pray or meditate. You may also notice how your mind tends to wander, unless you are intense in your meditation and think of God all the time.
Before you go to bed each night, sit for a short time and review the day. See what you are becoming. Do you like the trend of your life? If not, change it. By self-analysis and constant watching of all your actions and thoughts and moods, you will gradually learn your true nature and how to express it flawlessly. (os)
The practice of introspection helps people in freeing their soul and will from ignorance, undesirable environmental influences, slavish customs, bad habits, and entanglements, by teaching them to understand and develop all the possibilities of their real soul nature, and by pointing out and eliminating their bad habits and tendencies. By analysis and introspection the serious spiritual student learns to know himself. The knowledge of how to improve will follow naturally. If one would know what he ought to be, let him first acquaint himself with what he is. (os)
Everyone should learn to analyze himself dispassionately. Write down your thoughts and aspirations daily. Find out what you are — not what you imagine you are! — because you want to make yourself what you ought to be. Most people don't change because they don't see their own faults.
Never concentrate on your faults. By doing so you identify yourself with them. You are the one who puts the veil of delusion in front of your wisdom’s eyes. Whatsoever you think, that is what you are.