The Best Way to Benefit
from the Teachings on this Website

Lahiri Mahasaya

He only is wise who devotes himself to realizing,
not reading only.

Solve your problems through meditation. Exchange unprofitable speculation for actual God-communion.
Clear your mind of dogmatic theological debris; let in the fresh, healing waters of direct perception.
Attune yourself to the active inner Guidance; the Divine Voice has the answer to every dilemma of life.

— Lahiri Mahasaya
(from Autobiography of a Yogi)

Sri Yukteswar

Sri Yukteswar directed the study of his own disciples by the same intensive method of one-pointedness.

"Wisdom is not assimilated with the eyes, but with the atoms," he said.

"When your conviction of a truth is not merely in your brain but in your being, you may diffidently vouch for its meaning."
He discouraged any tendency a student might have to construe book-knowledge as a necessary step to spiritual realization.
"The rishis wrote in one sentence profundities that commentating scholars busy themselves over for generations," he remarked. "Endless literary controversy is for sluggard minds. What more liberating thought than

'God is'- nay, 'God'?"

— From Autobiography of a Yogi

Paramahansa Yogananda

I could have meetings here with you every day, but that won't necessarily help you, unless you put into practice what you hear.

It is your duty to practice in your daily life all that you have learned. Scriptures are dead quotations. They live only when their lessons are lived in life by someone.

Self-Realization Fellowship was not brought into existence to give only glimpses of God through words, but to enable earnest aspirants to know Him through direct experience.

Self-Realization Fellowship teaches this great art of personal God-communion, of coming into conscious touch with the Source of all light, all power, all bliss.

— Paramahansa Yogananda

True Knowledge

The acquisition of true knowledge (veda), truth realization, comes not from scriptural tenets or outward rituals, but from inner intuitive perception.

When by

meditation,
interiorization,
the mind is tranquil (samana),
the attention of the yogi focuses at the Kutastha center of universal consciousness in the forehead; and
through the omniscient intuitive vision of the spiritual eye,

the devotee becomes a seer of veda, truth.

—The Bhagavad Gita X:22 More...

We Have a Choice

We always have a choice. We can look at the picture above and just see the colors. We may read the words. We may read and think about the deeper meaning of the sentence.

Everything in this world is part of something bigger. Again we have a choice...

The signpost is not a destination so we don't just stand in front of the signpost and just re-read it. If we want to get to the destination we need to follow the directions. We need to apply the wisdom we read in our own life by practice.

Let me give you a few more illustrations of the challenges we face.

Over the ages the spiritual teachers warn us again and again about the pitfalls of superficially following the teachings.

An ancient analogy of the "finger pointing to the Moon" illustrate that.

The teachings is the finger. We can look at the finger as long as we want but unless we follow the instruction we would never see the Moon.

Sri Daya Mata

Sri Daya Mata:

There is a fruit of great sweetness called cherimoya. It is round, with a green skin; the inside is a soft white pulp, throughout which are large black seeds. I have described this fruit to you, but do you actually know what a cherimoya is and how it tastes? Not if you have only heard my description of it, but have never seen or eaten the fruit. So it is with the Lord. Saints and rishis have described their experiences of God, but the mere reading of their accounts will not enable you to know Him. We cannot realize God merely through a description given to us by others. We ourselves must experience His presence in the great state of ecstasy that comes from prolonged and deep meditation.

The Method of Applying the Truths You Read

STUDY
ABSORB
ASSIMILATE
APPLY