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Tag: Awakening

Poems

Dreamers All

by Paramhansa Yogananda

I am only awake

When I enter the chamber of slumber.

Then I forsake all dreams of wakefulness

Or nocturnal dreams of fancy.

I am awake when I silence my mind

And its dreams of this cosmic puzzle.

The dreams of sleep are one dream for me

And the dream of wakefulness is another dream.

When both these dreams

Disappear from my mental stream

Then alone I am awake.

At night I may have many dreams,

But every day during wakeful hours

I dream I live in a temple of flesh

And have eyes, ears, smell, taste, and touch,

And that I have to live or die.

But when I sleep I awake in blissful vastness

Forgetting all my dream titles of the day.

All those who think they are born are dreaming.

All those who died have been dreaming too.

Those who thought they were sick,

And those that gloated o’er health,

Were dreamers all.

Those who thought they were man or woman

Ah, all dreamed,

For when they sleep, die or melt in God

They are really awake from this dream of life.

— From Inner Culture Magazine, June 1940

Poems

Beneath the ocean vast
Of intuition, deeply cast
Yourself. You touch the Cause Supreme,
Spread with pearly wisdom’s beam;
And watch tumultuous difference and want retreat,
When your soul the Supreme Soul would meet.

Armoured by will of steel,
Untouched by lamentation, worry sharks.
Moving in deep wisdom’s light,
Your darkness disappears.
Soul solace will appear.
With heart made pure and clear,
You will see Him everywhere,
One, one Living Sea, eternal, near.

The storm of breath
Has roused the waves in stealth,
Over thy mental sea.
Speak thy Command,
“My storm be calm,
All, all waves to melt in One-Soul-Sea.”

I said,
“It was but in a dream
That I found myself
Soaring through clouds of life and death.
I am awake.
For me there is neither birth nor death.
The form of the dream-vase will go,
Its too-little-living-space within
Vanished into the Greater Space.”

— June 1927

Poems

My Littleness Changed

by Paramhansa Yogananda

When I woke in You
And my body-dream was no more,
I found my littleness changed
into Thy vastness,
My body into Thy body.
My eyes I found
In every speck of space.
My hands I found
Working in all energies.
I found all space
The sensitive derma
Of my vast body.
And I can feel
All creatures
Of creation
Crawling all over me.
I hear the music of the spheres.
I see everything
With my eyes omnipresent.
I feel
The sensations of all life
Through the nerve-threads of my love.
I dreamed and saw
That I was a little body
And I woke to find
I am You,
You are all.

— September 1937

Poems

Leaving Thy Vow

by Paramhansa Yogananda

Blossoms come and seasons change,
They all speak of Thee.
The moon slightly shows Thy smile,
The sun holds Thy lamp of life.
When wilt Thou talk to Me,
Leaving Thy vow of silence?
Wake! Wake! from Thy sleep
Speak to me now, O Lord.
I have been swimming for Thee
In the sea of my tears.
In the arteries of leaves
I see Thy blood flowing,
In every thought of mine
Thy heart is beating loud.
Throw away the shroud of Nature,
Wake from Thy sleep, O Lord.

— September 1937

Poems

The Awakening

by Paramhansa Yogananda

Make me transparent with purity, that Thou mayest shine through me.

Make me luminous with wisdom, that I may behold Thee in me.

Still the moving mirror of my mind, that I may behold Thy

Mooned Face, undistorted by my restlessness, ever reflected there.

Open all the windows of Faith, that I may behold Thee in the

Mansion of Peace.

Fling open the Doors of Silence, that I may enter Thy Temple

of Bliss.

Awaken the memory of past Incarnations,(no cap on I?) wherein I sought

Thee and loved Thee.

Remember when I met Thee in the bower of the Milky Way

and worshipped Thee in the ever-changing, living Temple of Nature(?)

Beloved Divine, make me know at once and forever that Thou

hast always been mine, ever mine.

My error dreams are past and buried beneath the sepulcher

of oblivion, and I am awake basking in the sunlight of Thy

Awakening.

While I slept this sleep of earthly life,

I dreamt this Nature dream.

I awoke, and now I dream of Thee alone.

I was the small bee seeking the honey of Thy Happiness,

So I drank from the many blossoms of human life and Nature,

But it was when I drank the fragrant sweetness from Thy Lotus Feet,

That I hummed with desires no more.

— From East-West Magazine, March 1934

Letters by Yogananda

A Christmas Letter to Students, All Individuals, and All Nations

by Paramhansa Yogananda

Dear Friends:

Let us decorate the growing Christmas Tree of Civilization with the flaming flags of all brother nations. Let us drown our differences and behold the branches of our National Life spreading out from the tree of one International Life. Let us demand that America, India, Germany, Russia, France, China, Japan, Austria, Italy, Switzerland, Sweden, Mexico, Egypt, and all nations, learn to decorate their flags on the Christmas Tree of Brotherhood and celebrate the coming of the United Nations of the World through their awakening in Christ.

Let all brother nations contribute their best to make a League of Hearts and a League of Wisdom in preparation for their coming Union. Let all nations consider themselves as Children of God, with different names only. May the love of nations be the twinkling lights with which to decorate the Christmas Tree of World Union.

Let us obliterate the oddities of dogmatism and behold all religions as the branches of the One Tree of Truth. Let all sects celebrate around this One Christmas Tree of Universal Religion in the coming United States of the World.

Let us behold the soft twigs of our temporary joy-loving senses, not projected away from, but joined together to the everlasting Christmas Tree of Divine Joy.

May we all learn to climb up the Spinal Tree of Life and pass by the starry knots into the Infinite Kingdom of Christ.

In this coming Christmas, we shall celebrate the coming of One Kingdom, One Religion, One Brotherhood, One Human Nationality, One Wisdom, One Ever-New Happiness, One Language, One Race, One Universal Law, One Freedom, contact of One God, and One Understanding for all human brothers.

May this Christmas and New Year time fill you with the adamantine determination to improve yourself and others, as Christ would wish you to do, to usher in Paradise on Earth.

Very sincerely yours,

Swami Yogananda

— December 1933