The unalloyed happiness I find in communing with the Lord no words can describe. Night and day I am in a state of joy. That joy is God. Paramahansa Yogananda, Man's Eternal Quest, P.110.
When the divine joy comes, immediately my breath is still and I am lifted into the Spirit. I feel the bliss of a thousand sleeps rolled into one, and yet I don't lose my ordinary awareness. This is universally the experience of those who go deep in the superconscious state. When the profound ecstasy of God falls over you, the body becomes still, the breath ceases to flow, and the thoughts are quiet - banished, every one, by the magic command of the soul. Then you drink of God's bliss and experience an intoxication of joy that not a thousands draughts of wine could give you. Paramahansa Yogananda, Man's Eternal Quest, P.161.
The essential proof of Self-realization - of God's consciousness in you - is to be truly and unconditionally happy. If you are receiving more and more joy in meditation, without cessation, you may know that God is making manifest His presence in you. Paramahansa Yogananda, Man's Eternal Quest, P.162.
The superconscious is that state in which you can consciously, during wakefulness or sleep, produce any sensation in your body at will, without any external stimulus. That is the proof. (...) in the superconscious state you can see and know anything that you wish to - not by imagination but in reality. I can sit in this chair and transfer my mind to India and see exactly what is going on in my old home there. Paramahansa Yogananda, Man's Eternal Quest, P.163.
The advancing devotee progresses through three stages of spiritual awareness, the Sacred Trinity: First he experiences superconsciousness, oneness with the creative power in creation: Aum, "God the Holy Spirit." Next comes Christ Consciousness, merging in the Infinite Intelligence within creation: Tat, "God the Son." Finally, he attains the highest, Cosmic Consciousness, the Truth beyond creation, the ineffable Absolute: Sat, "God the Father." Paramahansa Yogananda, Man's Eternal Quest, P.164.
In the Christ-conscious state you don't have to visualize things first in order to experience them. You don't have to picture India - you are there; you are aware of all creation. That experience is an endless expansion of consciousness. You are in the blade of grass and on the mountaintop; and you can feel every cell of your body and every atom of space. Paramahansa Yogananda, Man's Eternal Quest, P.164.
Last updated: 2001/07/29