In the Sanctuary of the Soul: A Guide to Effective Prayer

Rating:
Summary: THE MOST LASTING GIFT-INSPIRATION !
Review: It is wonderful that this universally appealing guide to the sacred art of Prayer is published in a Gift edition. With ecumenical expression and clear instruction, Yogananda shows the reader of any faith how one can successfully commune with God through Prayer. How to really get results in doing so, and how to become a more devoted folower of your chosen spiritual path. Yogananda's wisdom can effectively take one's faith from a surface to an inner and real experience. All you gain from the teasures of this book will be with you and bless you always. The author is a great Yoga Master who speaks from his own direct experience. Whoever receives this gift "In the Sanctuary of the Soul" could have a life transforming experience.

Also be sure to read, " Enter the Quiet Heart" by Daya Mata, and "Autobiography of a Yogi"(by Self-realization Publishers) by Paramahansa Yogananda.

Rating:
Summary: Rings with truth and authority ; love and compassion
Review: Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, writes with the depth, love, compassion AND spiritual authority of Yogananda. One can especially feel his compassion and love for those he wrote for: all of us who appreciate his teachings. For over 60 years his writings still have a resonance that can only come from first-hand experience and intimacy with the Divine. Why settle for a second-hand-intellectual-knowledge-only new age book when you can read an author who literally talked with God. Doubt it? Good! Yogananda never asked for mindless belief or to worship him. He only asked you to try to prove him right...or wrong, and choose a path even if it wasn't his. Then begin to try to replicate the claimed results of said path and then, based on your first-hand results, perhaps you too could speak with spiritual authority.

Rating:
Summary: Speaking Intimately with Divine Power
Review: Perhaps you are wondering how a mortal could presume to be an authority on how to "get the ear" of the Creator? Then you have probably not read Yogananda's "Autobiography of a Yogi" ( ISBN 0876120834 ), because he describes there his life-long (and successful) search for communion (and union) with The Infinite. During his search, Yogananda made insightful study of the great world scriptures, especially those of India and Judeo-Christianity; more importantly, he studied for ten years directly under one of the most revered yoga masters of India. From Yogananda's search, from his own relentless prayer and meditation, and from his personal experience teaching other seekers he concluded that there is no approach to God has the spiritual potency of this prescribed combination: yoga-deepened meditation plus devotional practice. This handsome little introduction to the highlights of Yogananda's teaching culls from his numerous published works scores of explosive insights for dynamiting difficulties along your spiritual climb. Unlike authors that parrot wisdom they have heard from others, Yogananda speaks from the authority of one who has experienced the view from the mountain top - and the glimpses he gives you of the view will take your breath away. The yoga master's guidance is divided into six sections:

I. Real prayer is a demand of the soul; and the soul has only one need: re-union with its Creator. Wants and wishes are endless... and unreliable. Attuning to and encouraging the need of the soul to realize its immortality, its divinity empowers your prayer. Yogananda urges the reader to cultivate prayer from that depth and explains the vastness of the power you tap thereby.

II. Concentrate the mind's force through yoga. In Shakespeare's HAMLET, even the fratricidal Claudius can see the meaningless of seeming to pray by merely mouthing words -- without the mind and feeling really focusing there [ "My words fly up; my thoughts remain below. Words without thoughts never to Heaven go." ]

III. Know what to pray for. While conceding that you are free to ask for anything from your loving Creator, Yogananda argues persuasively for enabling the Omniscient One to help you pray wisely.

IV. Have a clear conception of God: a conception that you can love, that you can trust, that you can feel intimate with; a God whose essence is love and who is readier to help you than you are to ask.

V. Praying with dynamic will power. Yogananda was a teacher of irrepressible determination to adhere to the highest principles and accomplish the greatest service to humanity. As an Eastern teacher in the conservatively Christian America of the 20's and 30's, the obstacles to his mission were Himalayan. His advice on developing super-human *dynamic* will is based on the principles that he used to establish against all odds a world-wide community of spiritual education that continues vibrantly fifty years after his passing.

VI. Reclaiming your inner sanctuary. The last pages contain some of Yogananda's most beautiful guidance on how to cultivate and sustain your inner peace, your connectedness with omnipresent Spirit -- the state from which prayer becomes natural, intimate, and essentially one with the divine response.

Besides making a superb gift for a friend who may be struggling spiritually, the gems in this collection are excellent to keep at the desk or bedside of a seasoned spiritual aspirant: ideal for random opening to see what encouragement Spirit has for any moment.

Rating:
Summary: Speaking Intimately with Divine Power
Review: Perhaps you are wondering how a mortal could presume to be an authority on how to "get the ear" of the Creator? Then you have probably not read Yogananda's "Autobiography of a Yogi" ( ISBN 0876120834 ), because he describes there his life-long (and successful) search for communion (and union) with The Infinite. During his search, Yogananda made insightful study of the great world scriptures, especially those of India and Judeo-Christianity; more importantly, he studied for ten years directly under one of the most revered yoga masters of India. From Yogananda's search, from his own relentless prayer and meditation, and from his personal experience teaching other seekers he concluded that there is no approach to God has the spiritual potency of this prescribed combination: yoga-deepened meditation plus devotional practice. This handsome little introduction to the highlights of Yogananda's teaching culls from his numerous published works scores of explosive insights for dynamiting difficulties along your spiritual climb. Unlike authors that parrot wisdom they have heard from others, Yogananda speaks from the authority of one who has experienced the view from the mountain top - and the glimpses he gives you of the view will take your breath away. The yoga master's guidance is divided into six sections:

I. Real prayer is a demand of the soul; and the soul has only one need: re-union with its Creator. Wants and wishes are endless... and unreliable. Attuning to and encouraging the need of the soul to realize its immortality, its divinity empowers your prayer. Yogananda urges the reader to cultivate prayer from that depth and explains the vastness of the power you tap thereby.

II. Concentrate the mind's force through yoga. In Shakespeare's HAMLET, even the fratricidal Claudius can see the meaningless of seeming to pray by merely mouthing words -- without the mind and feeling really focusing there [ "My words fly up; my thoughts remain below. Words without thoughts never to Heaven go." ]

III. Know what to pray for. While conceding that you are free to ask for anything from your loving Creator, Yogananda argues persuasively for enabling the Omniscient One to help you pray wisely.

IV. Have a clear conception of God: a conception that you can love, that you can trust, that you can feel intimate with; a God whose essence is love and who is readier to help you than you are to ask.

V. Praying with dynamic will power. Yogananda was a teacher of irrepressible determination to adhere to the highest principles and accomplish the greatest service to humanity. As an Eastern teacher in the conservatively Christian America of the 20's and 30's, the obstacles to his mission were Himalayan. His advice on developing super-human *dynamic* will is based on the principles that he used to establish against all odds a world-wide community of spiritual education that continues vibrantly fifty years after his passing.

VI. Reclaiming your inner sanctuary. The last pages contain some of Yogananda's most beautiful guidance on how to cultivate and sustain your inner peace, your connectedness with omnipresent Spirit -- the state from which prayer becomes natural, intimate, and essentially one with the divine response.

Besides making a superb gift for a friend who may be struggling spiritually, the gems in this collection are excellent to keep at the desk or bedside of a seasoned spiritual aspirant: ideal for random opening to see what encouragement Spirit has for any moment.