sri yukteswar giri (left) with his disciple paramhansa yogananda
swami sri yukteswar giri was an enlightened mystic and guru of paramhansa yogananda. he was an adept in kriya yoga and was an disciple of enlightened mystic lahiri mahasaya, who was disciple of ageless yogi babaji. it is believed that babaji is still living in etheric or energy body and is over 1600 years old.
kriya yoga tradition came into limelight after yogananda wrote his world famous spiritual book “autobiography of a yogi”. it is one of the bestseller in spiritual category. the book has transformed the life of millions of people including steve jobs who was a big fan of this it. sri yukteswar giri gave lot of emphasis on practicing kriya yoga and living a honest, disciplined, simple and religious life.
sri yukteswar giri knew the deeper meaning of bhagavad geeta and bible. he was also an expert astrologer and astronomer. sri yukteswar giri mentioned that mankind is not living in kali yuga as believed by most hindus. according to him, kali yuga has ended. many of his theories are getting researched now.
swami sri yukteswar giri quotes:
- everything in future will improve if you are making a spiritual effort now.
- forget the past. the vanished lives of all men are dark with many shames. human conduct is ever unreliable until anchored in the divine. everything in future will improve if you are making a spiritual effort now.
- attachment is blinding; it lends an imaginary halo of attractiveness to the object of desire.
what a person imagines he hears, and what the speaker has really implied, may be poles apart. - remember that finding god will mean the funeral of all sorrows.
- a beggar cannot renounce wealth. if a man laments: ‘my business has failed; my wife has left me; i will renounce all and enter a monastery,’ to what worldly sacrifice is he referring? he did not renounce wealth and love; they renounced him!”
- ordinary love is selfish, darkly rooted in desires and satisfactions. divine love is without condition, without boundary, without change. the flux of the human heart is gone forever at the transfixing touch of pure love.
- the lord responds to all and works for all. just as he sent rain at my plea, so he fulfills any sincere desire of the devotee. seldom do men realize how often god heeds their prayers. he is not partial to a few, but listens to everyone who approaches him trustingly. his children should ever have implicit faith in the loving-kindness of their omnipresent father.
- saintliness is not dumbness! divine perceptions are not incapacitating! the active expression of virtue gives rise to the keenest intelligence.
- a man of realization does not perform any miracle until he receives an inward sanction. god does not wish the secrets of his creation revealed promiscuously. also, every individual in the world has inalienable right to his free will. a saint will not encroach upon that independence.
- so long as you breathe the free air of earth, you are under obligation to render grateful service. he alone who has fully mastered the breathless state is freed from cosmic imperatives.
- forget you were born a hindu, and don’t be an american. take the best of them both. be your true self, a child of god. seek and incorporate into your being the best qualities of all your brothers, scattered over the earth in various races.
- if man’s sleep be deep and dreamless, for several hours he is able to transfer his consciousness, or sense of i-ness, to the causal body; such sleep is revivifying.
- all dream-bubbles must eventually burst at a final wakeful touch. differentiate, my son yogananda, between dreams and reality!
- forget the outward symbols of renunciation, which may injure you by inducing a false pride.
- there is a deeper astrology, not dependent on the testimony of calendars and clocks. each man is a part of the creator, or cosmic man; he has a heavenly body as well as one of earth. the human eye sees the physical form, but the inward eye penetrates more profoundly, even to the universal pattern of which each man is an integral and individual part.
- nothing matters except your steady, daily spiritual advancement; for that, use kriya yoga.