If I were to give you the gift that I would like best of all to offer you, it would be the right attitude toward God and Guru; toward life; toward your work; toward the others of your group. But the best gifts cannot be purchased and given. The gifts and graces of the soul must be acquired by patient, daily practice. All will surely be yours in time, for if you do not obtain them in the position to which God has called you, where, in all the world, are they to be found?

- Sri Gyanamata “God Alone: The Life and Letters of a Saint”

These three instructions, plus meditation, contain the only rule of life that any disciple needs: detachment; realization of God as the Giver; and unruffled patience. As long as we fail in any one of these three, we still have a serious spiritual defect to overcome. -

Sri Gyanamata “God Alone: The Life and Letters of a Saint”

Paramahansa Yogananda in a memorial tribute to Sister Gyanamata: “I had never seen, never heard Sister criticize anybody; never heard a cross word from her lips. All the disciples whose good fortune it was to know her felt a new inspiration, and they all said: ‘She is indeed a saint.’”

- Sri Sri Paramahansa Yogananda “God Alone: The Life and Letters of a Saint”

Live only in the present, not in the future. Do your best today; don’t look for tomorrow. - Sri Sri Paramahansa Yoga­nanda “Yogoda Satsanga Magazine”

Don’t concern yourself with the faults of others. Use the scouring powder of wisdom to keep the rooms of your own mind bright and spotless. By your example, other ­persons will be inspired to do their own housecleaning.

- Sri Sri Paramahansa Yogananda “Sayings of Paramahansa Yogananda”

When you are told you are good, you should not relax but should try to become even better. Your continuous improvement gives happiness to you, to those around you, and to God.

- Sri Sri Paramahansa Yoga­nanda “Sayings of Paramahansa Yogananda”

I do not expect anything from others, so their actions cannot be in opposition to wishes of mine.

- Sri Sri Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri “Autobiography of a Yogi”

Avoid a negative approach to life. Why gaze down the sewers when there is loveliness all around us? One may find some fault in even the greatest masterpieces of art, music, and literature. But isn’t it better to enjoy their charm and glory? Life has a bright side and a dark side, for the world of relativity is composed of light and shadows. If you permit your thoughts to dwell on evil, you yourself will become ugly. Look only for the good in everything, that you absorb the quality of beauty.

- Sri Sri Paramahansa Yogananda “Sayings of Paramahansa Yogananda”

See nothing, look at nothing but your goal, ever shining before you. The things that happen to us do not matter; what we become through them does. Each day, accept everything as coming to you from God. At night, give everything back into His hands.

- Sri Gyanamata “God Alone: The Life and Letters of a Saint”

You cannot be free unless you have burned the seeds of past actions in the fire of wisdom and meditation. -

Sri Sri Paramahansa Yogananda “Yogoda Satsanga Magazine”