Omnipresence Archives - Ananda India

Peace

by Paramhansa Yogananda

I obey Thee in the temple of discipline.
I love Thee in the temple of devotion.
I worship Thee in the temple of my love.
I touch Thy feet in the temple of stillness.
I behold Thy eyes in the temple of delight.
I feel Thee in the temple of emotions.
I fight for Thee in the temple of meditation.
I enjoy Thee in the temple of peace.
Peace flows through my heart, and blows through me as a zephyr.
Peace fills me like a fragrance.
Peace runs through me like rays.
Peace stabs the heart of worries and noise.
Peace burns through my disquietude.
Peace, like a globe of fire, expands and fills my omnipresence.
Peace, like an ocean, rolls in all space.
Peace, like red blood, vitalizes the veins of my thoughts.
Peace, like a boundless aureole, encircles my body of Infinity.
Peace flames blow through the pores of my flesh, and through all space.
The perfume of Peace flows over the gardens of blossoms.
The wine of Peace runs perpetually through the wine-press of all hearts.
Peace is the breath of stones, stars, and sages.
Peace is the ambrosial wine of Spirit flowing from the cask of Silence,
Which I quaff with my countless mouths of atoms.

— December 1932

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

Devotion and Prayer

God First

by Paramhansa Yogananda

Before the baby sky was born as the blue, out of the dark breast of Eternity, who existed? God first. It was He who with His omnipresent brush spread blue all over the ceiling of dark space. Who was it who peopled the hall of space with the family of planets? – God first. Naught could breathe without His first breath. That is why – God first.

The wind sighs after His sigh. The rain falls after He weeps for the parching throats of men and the dry earthly clouds. The sun shines when He warms the flesh of living creatures.

I saw His skiey face wrinkled all over with His smiling muscles of silver rays. I love His children, the frolicsome wind, the chattering liberal rain, the vitalizing sun, and the soothing moon, after I have loved – God first.

He first asked my father, and mother, and friends to love me, so I love God first. I breathe after He breathed through me; I throb after He flowed life into me; I think after He thought in me; I reason because He put reason in me; I will because He taught me how to use my will freely.

So the portals of my heart are open to God first. All my duties I can perform only after borrowing the powers of action from God, so my first duty is to love God first. The first thought of the morning, the first love of my heart, the first ambition of my Soul, the first desire of all desires, the first attraction of my feelings, the first and foremost effort of my reason and will is – God first.

If all my friends are taken away, I shall remember that God is my foremost friend, for He never leaves me even when I ignore Him. If dark death calls to free my caged Omnipresence from it prison cell of flesh, I shall not moan because I have to leave my brother prisoners, or the prison furniture, temporarily given to me to use. I shall repent of my vagrant wanderings, my prison-term due to intoxication of ignorance, and joyfully think of my long-left home of Omnipresence and my ever-welcoming Father-God first. When I am free, I shall ask my Father to help me, so that I may help my other brothers to free themselves.

— September 1934