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If you contact God within yourself, you will
know that He is in everyone, that He has become the children of
all races. Then you cannot be an enemy to anyone. If the whole
world could love with that universal love, there would be no need
for men to arm themselves against one another. By our own Christlike
example we must bring unity among all religions, all nations,
all races.
— Paramahansa Yogananda in
Man’s Eternal Quest
Wherever different minds meet in the spirit of fellowship, there
we find a great harmony, peace, happiness, understanding, and
cooperation in life’s activities. With so many troubles plaguing
this earth of ours...never before was there a greater necessity
for peace than now.
I believe there will always be wars, until perchance we all become
so spiritual that by the evolution of our individual natures we
will make war unnecessary. No matter what their differences, if
great minds such as Jesus, Krishna, Buddha, Mohammed, sat together,
they would never use the engines of science to try to destroy
each other. Where there is understanding, peace reigns. Why must
people feel it necessary to fight? The power of guns evokes no
wisdom, nor has it ever accomplished lasting peace.
War is like poison in the system. When we have toxins in our
body, that impurity has to get out somehow. So we suffer from
disease. Likewise, when there is too much selfishness in the international
system, that poison breaks out in the world as the disease of
war. Many people are killed, and then for a little while there
is a lull. But war comes again — and will come again and
again — so long as there will be ignorance, and so long as
the individual man has not become a perfect citizen of the world.
God gave us intelligence, and He placed us in an environment
where we must use that intelligence. The universe is like a shell,
and we are like little chicks moving about within it. But what
is beyond this shell of matter?...
We should use our intelligence to analyze the mysteries of life
and to explore the secrets the Heavenly Father has hidden behind
nature. How much better use of intelligence this would be, than
the creation of bigger and more destructive instruments of war.
We must use our intelligence to have peace among ourselves....
Love
the World as You Love Your Nation and Family
International understanding is much clouded by lack of realization
that individual happiness is included in family happiness, family
happiness in community happiness, community happiness in national
happiness, and national happiness in international happiness.
Love of family is inherently strong. Through family love, God
became the father to love you through wisdom, and He became the
mother because He wanted to give you unconditional love. God became
the lover and the beloved to unite souls in an expanded love.
He became the friend to unite souls in a pure, impersonal love
that makes no demands. In friendship there is no compulsion; it
comes through the choice of the heart. Such friendship should
exist between husband and wife, child and parent, in all human
relations. Friendship is a great factor in bringing peace in the
international family of the world.
No one can love his nation without learning the first lesson
in love, which is to love his family. The baby’s initial cries
are for milk, but soon it invests its love in the mother and father.
Then, as it grows older, it learns to love its country. When that
soul becomes Christlike, it begins to love the world.
You are a member of the worldwide human race. Don’t forget it.
You must love the world as you love your nation and your family.
This is difficult to learn, but the task of Self-Realization Fellowship
is to show you how. We teach that it is by fellowship with God
that fellowship with man must be established; because only when
you know God and see Him in all can you love the Jew and Christian,
Muslim and Hindu, with the same spirit. I was taught this as a
child, but it was more or less a forced intellectual concept.
It wasn’t an understanding from within. I tried to love the whole
world, but it was not easy. As soon as I looked at my family,
my love lost itself there. But one by one, many of those dearest
to me died. I thought that nature was very cruel. Then I began
to realize that my love was undergoing discipline; that I was
to expand my love, not limit it to my family. God showed me that
it was He whom I loved in my loved ones. Then, from within, my
love began to expand to all. I could no longer feel partiality
toward family. When I returned to India in 1935, I saw that this
was true....
Therefore, through family life and then through national life,
God is schooling every individual to understand his international
family, that we may have a United States of the World with Truth
as our guide.
International
Understanding Dissolves Divisive Boundaries
We are all aliens here. No territory belongs permanently to any
country. The hand of time eventually erases all nations. Their
boundaries don’t last, because they represent divisions that have
been carved out by force. I believe a time will come when in greater
understanding we shall have no boundaries anymore. We shall call
the earth our country; and we shall, by a process of justice and
international assembly, distribute unselfishly the goods of the
world according to the needs of the people. But equality cannot
be established by force; it must come from the heart. The greatest
blessing would be to develop international understanding by which
we may realize this truth.
These ideals should be taught in all the schools. Just as it
would be a sin to teach everyone to "love your family; it doesn’t
matter what happens to your country," so it is a sin to teach
love of country that militates against your greater world family.
When in every school love of country is overemphasized, it sows
the seeds of misunderstanding and even hatred toward other nations.
How dare we spoil children by teaching them the kind of patriotism
in which there are seeds of hatred! Unless you love your country,
you cannot love the world; but children should be taught also
to love other countries as they love their own. That is the principle
of God.
Peace
Will Come When We Learn to See God in All
So you see, we must dissociate our wisdom from all environmental
influences. If we can learn to understand others, and to free
our minds from all prejudices born of environment, we begin to
express the perfect image of God within us and to find it in all.
"But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become
the sons of God." The light of the sun falls equally on the diamond
and the charcoal; but the diamond, by its transparency, reflects
the sun more. Bhagavan Krishna taught that because the wisdom
in man is covered by ignorance, and because man chooses to misuse
his independence to nurture that ignorance, he doesn’t reflect
the true image of God that is within him. But in all those who
use the power of the mind to be good, the power of Spirit will
manifest. If we can receive that power of Spirit, then
we become true sons of God. And we must learn to see the light
of God falling on both His good and bad children. Peace will come
when we discipline our hearts to see God in all, not just in those
who love us or whom we think of as our own.
Peace is not something that you and I or a few great souls can
create at once, by command. Even a million Christs or Krishnas
could not do it. Try as he would, Lord Krishna could not prevent
the great war between the Pandavas and Kauravas, which is described
in the Mahabharata. All humanity has to become Christlike
to bring peace on earth. When each one of us shapes his life according
to the wisdom and example of a Christ, a Krishna, a Buddha, we
can have peace here; not before. We must start now, with ourselves.
We should try to be like the divine ones who have come on earth
again and again to show us the way. By our loving each other and
keeping our understanding clear, as they taught and exemplified,
peace can come.
Peace
Begins at Home and in the Schools
Each individual in a family and community should strive to live
peacefully with others. Peace must begin in the home and in the
schools. In the classrooms we must teach international patriotism
— to love the world as Jesus, Krishna, and the great masters
have taught, and not to do anything that would lead to international
discomfort. It is not our nationality or our color that we should
be proud of, but our understanding. We should cultivate our understanding
and use it to determine what is truly best for family happiness,
national happiness, and international happiness. International
happiness should include the well-being of the nation, the community,
and the family. The standard of legislation should be merit, not
color of skin or any other class distinction. These are the ideals
to be taught to children.
So long as God’s children differentiate, "We are Indians and
you are Americans; we are Germans, you are English," so long will
they be bound by delusion and the world divided. Much war and
suffering and destruction will be prevented if we cease to emphasize
differences and learn to love all without distinction or prejudice.
Be more proud that you are made in the image of God than that
you are of a certain nationality; for "American" and "Indian"
and all the other nationalities are just outer coats, which in
time will be discarded. But you are a child of God throughout
eternity. Isn’t it better to teach that ideal to your children?
It is the only way to peace: Establish the true ideals of peace
in the schools, and live peace in your own life....
Yoga
Meditation Reveals Our Divine Nature
Out of the cosmic tomes of truth, India developed the Yoga system,
the science of oneness — oneness of the soul with God; oneness
with the principles of eternal righteousness; with the universe;
and with all mankind. The sage Patanjali formulated the Yoga system
into eight steps for achieving the goal:
| 1. |
Avoid unrighteous behavior —
yama.
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| 2. |
Follow certain moral and spiritual
precepts — niyama.
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| 3. |
Learn to be still in body and
mind, for where motion ceases, there begins the perception
of God — asana.
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| 4. |
While concentrating on the state
of peace, practice control of the life force in the body —
pranayama.
|
| 5. |
When your mind is your own, that
is, under your control through pranayama, then you can give
it to God — pratyahara.
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| 6. |
Then begins meditation: first,
concentrate on one of God’s cosmic manifestations such as
love, wisdom, joy — dharana.
|
| 7. |
What follows in meditation is
an expansion of the realization of God’s infinite omnipresent
nature — dhyana.
|
| 8. |
When the soul merges as one with
God, who is ever-existing, ever-conscious, ever-new Bliss,
that is the goal — samadhi. |
The joy of God can never be exhausted. He is sufficient; the
purpose and the aim of existence. True understanding comes when
we feel God as the great bliss of meditation. And peace is the
first proof of His presence.
To have peace we must love more, but we cannot love people unconditionally
unless we know God. The soul is absolutely perfect, but when identified
with the body as ego, its expression becomes distorted by human
imperfections. If human beings were only these imperfect bodies
and minds, there would be some justification for prejudices and
divisions. But we are all souls, made in God’s image. So Yoga
teaches us to know the divine nature in ourselves and others.
Through yoga meditation we can know that we are gods.
If
Everyone Learns God-Communion, Peace Will Reign
I believe that if every citizen in the world is taught to commune
with God (not merely to know Him intellectually), then peace can
reign; not before. When by persistence in meditation you realize
God through communion with Him, your heart is prepared to embrace
all humanity.
I am neither a Hindu nor an American. Humanity is my race, and
no one on earth can make me feel otherwise. Prejudice and exclusiveness
are so childish. We are here for just a little while and then
whisked away. We must remember only that we are children of God.
I love all countries as I love my India. And my prayer to you
is that you love all nations as you love America. God created
a diverse world to teach you to forget your physical differences
with other races; and, from the debris of misunderstanding and
prejudice, to salvage your understanding and use it to make an
effort to know Him as our one Father.
Therefore, my friends, resolve that you will love the world
as your own nation, and that you will love your nation as you
love your family. Through this understanding you will help to
establish a world family on the indestructible foundation of wisdom.
Follow the ways of God. Set a time apart each day to meditate
on Him. When you commune with God, you shall feel toward everyone
as toward your own. No one can ever make me feel he is not mine.
All human beings are God’s children, and He is my Father.
The selection
featured here is from A
World in Transition.
The complete talk, given in Los Angeles, February 26, 1939,
is published in The
Divine Romance (Collected Talks and Essays on Realizing
God in Daily Life, Vol. II) by Paramahansa Yogananda (Los
Angeles: Self-Realization Fellowship).
Please note: Copyright © Self-Realization Fellowship. All rights reserved. Except for your own personal use, or for brief quotations in reviews, no part of this page may be reproduced or transmitted without permission in writing from Self-Realization Fellowship.
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Insight and Inspiration
