Paramahansa Yogananda: 'Remember the best shelter is In the silence of your soul, The Purpose of Life - circa 1920-25

Paramahansa Yogananda arrived in Boston in 1920, he embarked on a successful transcontinental speaking tour before settling in Los Angeles in 1925.

When you look at your body, when you look at the world, it seems that you are engaged with everything, but you have no time for God, but every night it dissolves your body in the subconscious fear and makes you realise that you are not a man, not a woman, but a piece of consciousness, A reflection of His Consciousness, sleeping in space. Enjoy. The drama of sleep gave me the greatest faith in God. When anybody told me I am made in the image of God I laughed, because I couldn't see in this frail body the image of God, but Master said, in this subconscious mirror of sleep you find that you are infninite. That every night you become the infinitive. You are not man or woman, you are joyous and happy and consicous. For when you wake up you have always know that you were never unconscious in sleep. You exactly know how you sleep, only you are not conscious of your body, but you are conscious of your real self and the nest of your troubles starts with the body.

So all the gifts and kindness that you have given to me, I want to give this gift to you. Remember these two natures in you. The nature as a man, as a human being during the day and the nature as God at night. And I often say we are all gods at night, but we become devils during the day. And if we can be gods during the day, we are gods all the time. And this purpose of life must not be drowned in the various engagements. But matter. We must remember if God says 'I have no time for you and stop sticking in your heart.' All your engagements have to be cancelled immediately. For one of the great sayings in India is — he's the cleverest who finds God. He's the cleverest who gives time to find God. He's the cleverest who finds that Supreme happiness within. And he can who can stand unshaken amidst the crash of breaking worlds.

He whose peace, the riches of peace cannot be taken away by all the robbers of circumstances and trials. For in this spiritual family, you all remind me by your actions of one who millions forget, and that's why they suffer.

I remember one day I was in the movies. Movies have one fascination because I see the whole world as movies. I was in the booth and I saw the operator was reading a novel. And I saw this automatic machine was going on and the beam was causing on the screen a terrible horror picture. And I said, 'Lord, how is it?' I have the whole show of the universe in front of me. You are this operator who is thinking of new plays and your nature is throwing this beam in this sky. And I see the hero and the villain are nothing but pictures. Nobody is killed. Many are being killed and shot in this picture but I saw from the booth, it was the light that had created the villain and the light had created the hero. And the voice said, remember, the villain is created so that you don't become the villain, but that you love the hero. If you become the villain, your throat has to be cut.

And now you see that there is no villain, no hero. They are both pictures of my beam. After getting away from the villain and evil or tasting poison honey, taste the honey of goodness and then come into the beam and you'll realise that all this world that you see of terrible wars and troubles, is nothing but a picture show, cosmic motion picture show in the sky, you'll be surprised. You never analysed that as soon as you sleep and dream, you can create a world like this, with people suffering from cancer and disease and wars, and some smiling babies born, old men dying —then when you wake up, you see that all those things were made of your dream consciousness. So remember this is the same, nothing different. And until you find that out, this world is a terrible show. I said to God, as he was talking to me, 'But Lord, look at the audience. They are howling and screeching downstairs at this horror show. I see that it's nothing but pictures and light. Cause I see the invisible beam. There are no murderers in the beam, no heroes, nor villains in the beam, but Lord, what about the audience? They don't know it.

Then the voice said, 'Tell them all to look at my beam within. And they will realise that this show was given to entertain them, not to get mixed up with it.' That's why remember, every night he makes you a God, every night he withdraws you from this movie, cosmic movies, and makes you realise you are the son of God You are made in his image. You cannot be violated or hurt by stones. Nor bombs, nor machine guns, nor atomic bombs. Remember the best shelter is In the silence of your soul.

And if you can develop that silence, nothing in the world, nothing in the world can touch you. And you can say [Hindi] ... 'having which no other gain becomes greater, then you can stand unshaken amidst the crash of breaking worlds. Then you are not in any way touched by cold and heat, pleasure and pain. But as soon you are touched by these you are with the movies. So I realise this world with terrible wars and troubles, when I see the injustices, I cannot, I cannot uphold the fire. But when I see that light dancing around me, the picture show, then I take glory into the fire. So remember, on one little piece of thought is the whole universe resting and when we rub up that thought at night, the whole universe stumbles away, You do not realise that the ocean is present in every doubt and that great power of God is present in every heart. And I do hope that in your kindness to me, you remember this that I told you, 'Do not get mixed up with this movie, this terrible movies of God. There's one purpose, to get to the beam. Get away from the villain and villainess action and poison honey of evil. Drink with the hero, the good honey of virtue, then get to the bees. Then you will suddenly realise it was only a show. History has no meaning for me. Where God can divide the past and the present and the present and the future, there is no time, nor space. Everything is happening In your own thought.

If you realise that, you'll realise the infiniteness of God and the love of God.



Robert Rabbin: 'I don’t care if cancer is still with me or not, because I’m living with something truer', response to terminal cancer diagnosis - 2015

To listen to this speech, select track three in this list.

13 April 2015, Los Angeles, California, USA

I don’t know what you were doing in November 2011, but I was in Bali, teaching a weeklong retreat based on my eighth book, The 5 Principles of Authentic Living. For six months prior to Bali, I had suffered from muscle spasms in my back that would buckle my knees, drop me to the floor, and blind me with pain. I could scarcely walk, but I had committed to teaching in Bali, so I loaded up on painkillers and flew from L. A. to the retreat site.

When it was over, I was finished: exhausted, weak, sick, and in pain. I knew I couldn’t make it back to L. A. Instead, I went to the much closer Australia, where I had recently lived for six years. I went downhill fast. Lying down, I couldn’t lift my legs; I could barely wiggle my toes. On December 24th, yes, Christmas eve, I was admitted to the ER of a local hospital.

I didn’t know that I was entering a school that would soon transform everything I had ever known or been. A few days later, I was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer — you know, the terminal kind. My spine, pelvis, and hips were riddled with tumors. I was rushed into a series of radiation treatments, which relieved the pressure on my spinal nerves and prevented me from losing my legs to paralysis.

That was the good news. The other news was that, statistically, I had six months to live. But seeing as how I’m standing before you this evening, it’s clear I’ve exceeded the doctors’ predicted expiration date by nearly three years. I’m quite happy about this; not so much because I’m still alive, but because I always take delight in doing what I’m not supposed to do.

And just for the record, I am not a statistic. When word got around that I had become a spring-break hotel for millions of cells-gone-wild, teachers and teachings came from everywhere. Oncologists, metaphysicians, friends, colleagues, students — all had suggestions as to how to fight cancer. I received tips about nutrition, emotional clearing, European and Mexican clinics, cannabis oil, breath work, psychic intervention, herbal supplements, and, of course, juicing.

I started thinking that if cancer didn’t kill me, this well-meaning but overwhelming tsunami of information would! But then I received a message from my meditation teacher, Swami Muktananda — with whom I had lived and studied for 10 years. Even though he had died in 1982, he managed to get this message to me: “Robert, don’t say you have cancer; if you must say something, just say that you are holding the space for cancer to visit you temporarily.”

That message triggered a game-changing epiphany. I decided that cancer was a condition, not my defining reality. I decided that my response to cancer would create my reality. So, I shifted the focus of my listening from outside to inside, where an irresistible voice started speaking to me from the depths of my being, but in silence.

This inner silence taught me many things — about cancer, the nature of self, and living authentically, which has been the focus of my life since I was 11. When I began “holding the space for cancer to visit me,” a lot of people started telling me what I should do.

It was tempting to simply obey the “experts,” thinking that they knew. Yes, they knew what they knew, but not what I was beginning to know, courtesy of silence. For example, not long after my last chemo treatment, my doctor asked how I was getting on with my life. I told him. I didn’t go out, socialize, exercise, or take walks on the beach. I didn’t have a pet; not even a houseplant. I hadn’t joined a cancer support group. I didn’t have any burning ambition or clear goals. I wasn’t having sex, with myself or anyone else.

He said I was clinically depressed and prescribed anti-depressants, which I assured him I would take, but I never did. He didn’t understand that in my solitude and silence, I was being taught important, maybe life-saving things. I did listen to the experts, but I didn’t automatically do what they said. I didn’t let them choose what I should do. I realized that it was up to me to choose.

So, I developed a discerning disposition. I questioned everyone and everything until I was satisfied. I wasn’t bullied or intimated by what anyone told me to do. I challenged the status quo of convention and popular opinion. For example, in all the messages I received, it was clear that no one wanted me to die. That was nice to find out. Everyone wanted me to fight hard and defeat cancer.

But I never felt that I should go to war and fight to survive. I thought it was better to become friends with cancer. I wasn’t afraid of dying, nor angry about this sudden turn of events. I was at peace with the prospect of moving on, even though there were still things I wanted to do, like teach what I had learned about authentic living and speaking truthfully.

Still, I felt that death was not my enemy; after all, it has been with me from the first moment of my existence. I know I disappointed many people when I told them I had made death my friend and that I wasn’t going to start a war against cancer. During the months of my chemotherapy treatments, I could only eat refried beans and fried eggs and drink watermelon juice. I dropped forty-five pounds. My body glowed with toxicity. I spent twenty-three hours a day in bed. I was barely a vegetable.

But my attention had turned from “terminal” cancer to inner silence. I started going on numerous trips to . . . I don’t know where. I called them pony rides to oblivion. My consciousness left me and went where I couldn’t track. Each time my consciousness returned, it came back with less of me than when it had begun that journey.

One day, I ceased to exist in the way I had existed up until that time. Those pony rides to oblivion devoured everything I had ever known as “me”: page by page, the history of my life was shredded — all the mental photos, memories and mementos — gone. Desires, goals, aspirations, fears, hopes, wishes — gone. Time disappeared. Conceptual language collapsed. Everything I had been, everything I had known, everything recognizable was gone — except silence, and what comes to life in silence.

It’s hard for me to say what came alive in silence, what is alive within me now. Since my pony rides to oblivion, words themselves don’t have the same power to convey meaning, though I love words and speaking: my professional motto for 30 years has been “Have Mouth, Will Travel.” What really matters now is where my words come from. I know the difference between speaking about, and speaking from, the difference between philosophy and embodiment. I can recognize the difference between surface and depth, between petty and profound, between trendy and timeless beauty.

I don’t care if cancer is still with me or not, because I’m living with something truer, something that silence installed in me as a kind of existential app that has erased all other programs, leaving me with this: I live from my soul. If I want to say something from my true heart, I say it now. If I want to do something from my molten center, I do it now. I live from deep silence, and that makes me happy because maybe now I can do what I’ve tried to do my whole life: be a blessing to myself and to everyone I meet, and bring some much needed grace into this world.