MOTIVATING TIPS

Paramahansa Yogananda

1893 – 1952 · Indian-American spiritual teacher and yogi

1 verified quote1 topicAll with editorial commentary

[ Life ]

Born Mukunda Lal Ghosh in Gorakhpur, India in 1893, Yogananda arrived in America on September 16, 1920, stepping onto Boston's docks with a suitcase and a mandate to share Hindu philosophy with the West. He established the Self-Realization Fellowship in Los Angeles in 1925, eventually headquartering it in a mansion overlooking the Pacific. His 1946 autobiography—*Autobiography of a Yogi*—became a quiet bestseller that Steve Jobs, George Harrison, and countless seekers would cite as life-altering. He died March 7, 1952, at the Hotel Beverly Hills.

[ Words & Works ]

Yogananda's genius was translation, not invention. He took the technical apparatus of Kriya Yoga and rendered it accessible to American readers without sentiment or oversimplification. His collected talks, published across dozens of volumes by the Self-Realization Fellowship, remain precise and unsentimental about spiritual practice. His words endure because he refused the guru costume—he talked about God the way a scientist talks about gravity: observable, repeatable, empirical.

Frequently asked

What are the best Paramahansa Yogananda quotes?

Paramahansa Yogananda is best known for quotes on On Anxiety & Quiet Days. Among the most cited: "Stillness is the altar of spirit." from Where There Is Light.

How many Paramahansa Yogananda quotes does MotivatingTips have?

MotivatingTips has 1 verified Paramahansa Yogananda quote, each with editorial commentary and source verification. Quotes are organized across On Anxiety & Quiet Days.

What book are Paramahansa Yogananda's quotes from?

Quotes on MotivatingTips are sourced from Where There Is Light.

Are these Paramahansa Yogananda quotes verified?

Every Paramahansa Yogananda quote on MotivatingTips includes verified attribution with source, book, chapter, or speech reference where available.

Best Paramahansa Yogananda Quotes

Hand-picked, verified, and explained.

Stillness is the altar of spirit.

VerifiedWhere There Is Light, Chapter 8, Self-Realization Fellowship, 1988 (compiled from his lectures)
Why This Matters

Yogananda is suggesting something more demanding than mere silence—he's describing stillness as an *active condition*, a deliberate offering rather than a passive absence. Most of us assume spiritual experience requires effort, striving, intensity, yet here we're told the opposite: that the divine meets us in repose, in the surrendering of our constant motion. A person sitting in rush-hour traffic, learning to stop fidgeting with their phone and simply breathe, touches this altar not through transcendence but through one small refusal to move—and discovers the spirit was always there, waiting.

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Paramahansa Yogananda Quotes. (n.d.). MotivatingTips. Retrieved May 13, 2026, from https://www.motivatingtips.com/authors/paramahansa-yogananda

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Paramahansa Yogananda Quotes. MotivatingTips, DSS Media, 2026. https://www.motivatingtips.com/authors/paramahansa-yogananda, accessed May 13, 2026.

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