Paramhansa Yogananda
Poems

Freedom

Brave cords bind me hand and foot

Yet lo, I am free, ever free.

Disease, try your tortures,

Yet, I am free, ever free.

Health, try your lures,

Yet, I am free, ever free.

Death, destroy my body-prison if you will,

Yet, I am free, ever free.

Long chains of desires

Forged in the furnace of incarnations

Have tried to bind me,

But I escaped from life to life

And I am at last free, ever free.

I enter through the rainbow

Into the free skies

I am free, ever free.

None can bind me

Unless I bind myself.

None can free me

Unless I know I am free —

When I know naught exists

To ever bind me,

Then I know I am free, ever free

— From Inner Culture Magazine, August 1937