By Nayaswami Padma McGilloway
By Nayaswami Padma McGillowayParamhansa Yogananda came to the West in 1920 bringing with him the art and science of meditation and the essential precepts of India’s ancient revelations from the body of teachings known as Sanatan Dharma, the “Eternal Teaching (or Religion).” This body of revelation, based on individual realization of universal truths by great sages down through ages, views “light” as the inner light (jyoti), also spoken of in the book of Genesis (the Bible) and other scriptures, by which God initiates, sustains and withdraws all things in creation.
From Autobiography of a Yogi, Chapter 30, Law of Miracles, Paramhansa Yogananda wrote:
“Among the trillion mysteries of the cosmos, the most phenomenal is light….A yogi who through perfect meditation has merged his consciousness with the Creator perceives the cosmical essence as light; to him there is no difference between the light rays composing water and the light rays composing land. Free from matter-consciousness, free from the three dimensions of space and the fourth dimension of time, a master transfers his body of light with equal ease over the light rays of earth, water, fire, or air. Long concentration on the liberating spiritual eye has enabled the yogi to destroy all delusions concerning matter and its gravitational weight; thenceforth he sees the universe as an essentially undifferentiated mass of light.”
From Whispers from Eternity (a collection of prayers and poems) by Paramhansa Yogananda:
Our One Father, we are traveling by many true paths unto Thy one abode of Light. Show us the one highway of common realization, where all bypaths of theological beliefs meet. Make us feel that the diverse religions are branches of Thy one tree of truth. Bless us that we enjoy the intuition-tested, ripe, luscious fruits of self-knowledge hanging from all the branches of manifold scriptural teachings.