Paramahansa Yogananda: Divine Poetry

I just read some of this yogi’s poetry, I take my hat off. I will post some of my own tonight but have to say I could see the lush refreshing beauty of his words. Eastern poets, they are extraordinary, my former partner was afghan and he was the most beautiful poet. English was his second language, but he was able to touch beauty in ways I can only dream about. Eastern people have a beautiful romantic heart, so loving and gorgeous. I feel inspired. I’ve just read the works, definitely divinely inspired. I can feel it. Wow

It is a joy to share his poetry with you.

Another Wakefulness
by Paramhansa Yogananda
Inner Culture, March 1938

I am in another wakefulness in Thee.
I am awake in another world.
Once in a while I dream of this earth and the drama of
I am awake in ceaseless blessedness
And my diurnal dream of mundane life
Is fragrant with the memory fragments
Of my ever-bubbling joyous wakefulness.
I am moving through the panorama of dream-decked life
Adorned with many scenic experiences,
And I carry the aromatic memory of my earthdreams
Into the awareness of the eternal spheres.
I weeded out the nightmares
From the garden of my dreams
And planted the roses of my inspirations.
There Thou must come
Lured by my devotion’s fragrances
And take me back
To Thy temple of everlasting, ever-new
Boundless blessedness.

Banks of Eternity
by Paramhansa Yogananda
Inner Culture, September 1939

At last I found the banks of eternity and there I sat, musing, to plunge, swim, and melt in that ocean of immortality. Melting myself within Myself ,I became the ocean of luminous light. All dream waves of many incarnations have melted into the sea of one flame.

All rivers of my desires have become one vast sea of desire for God. The loves of many lives have commingled to become one cosmic love. The joys of many centuries have gathered together and become the all-pervading joy.

Beloved of my heart, since Thou hast created me, it is in Thy power to release at once the atoms of my body into the freedom of Thy light. No longer do I want to play with this wave of life or with other waves of lives.

Bless me that I may expand this soul into Thy Spirit—expand my wisdom into Thy wisdom, and expand my bliss into Thy bliss. I, the tiny wave of life, must become the ever-expanding ocean of immortality.

God Alone! (1)
by Paramhansa Yogananda
Inner Culture, July 1934

Who is it who knows all the secrets of all the Souls who ever lived, dazzling the world, and who are now lost and gone?

God alone! God alone!

Who lived in the loneliness of the eternal void, before the atoms blinked their glittering eyes and danced through all Creation?

God alone! God alone!

We came out of Something, we know not what. We know that we live, laugh, and linger now, and most of us will not know what lies in the wilderness of the great Beyond when we fall asleep in the arms of peaceful death. Yet, who knows the secret of Life, both before and after this existence?

God alone! God alone!

All things are living; all things are dancing in the rhythm of eternal harmony. No one knows about the grand procession of Creation, which emerged from the mystic chamber of space. No one knows which part of this chamber of the endless void is occupied by objects and Beings, melted by the magic wand of death, except—

God alone! God alone!

Our loved ones love us, and vow to love us forever, and yet they forget us when they sink into the Great Sleep. Their memories become frozen anon. Yet, who loves us forever without ever telling us, and who remembers us when all others forget us?

God alone! God alone!

Life and death, stars and wind, love and hate, sorrow and pleasure, and man and beast dance and sleep on the Stygian stage of Time, hiding behind the scenes at death, and coming out to play again on the stage of Time in new costumes of flesh. No one remembers what he did before, or why he is so sure of this temporary rendezvous in this curious caravanserai except—

God alone! God alone!

Why God is playing this game, and why He keeps all this knowledge to Himself, only meagerly sharing it with us, His Children, is known by—

God alone! God alone!

Yet, if you roam no more, and come closer to the Infinite Shore within, and change yourself from the undesirable position of being a prodigal son to that of being a true celestial offspring, then you, too, may know all things that you want to know from none other than—

God alone! God alone!

Since He knows all things, when you change into a demanding Son Divine, you too shall know all things from—

God alone! God alone!

When all friends must leave you, who will be with you?

God alone! God alone!

Since no things and no one are really yours, learn to love—

God alone! God alone!