You should increase the strength of your body and then increase the strength of your mind.

The best way to increase mental power is to try to accomplish something worthwhile every day. Choose some worthy task or project that you have been told you could not do, and try to do it. Each strive to accomplish something that you have always thought you could not accomplish.

~ Paramhansa Yogananda

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 Gyanmata, God Alone: The Life and Letters of a Saint

These three instructions, plus meditation, contain the only rule of life that any disciple needs:

1. Detachment
2. Realization of God as the Giver
3. Unruffled patience

As long as we fail in any one of these three, we still have a serious spiritual defect to overcome.

~ Sri Gyanmata, God Alone: The Life and Letters of a saint

A lump of sand cannot withstand the erosive effect of the ocean’s waves; an individual who lacks imperturbable inner peace cannot remain tranquil during mental conflict.

But as a diamond remains unchanged no matter how many waves swirl around it, so also a peace crystallised individual remains radiantly serene even when trials beset him from all sides.

Out of the changeful waters of life, let us salvage through meditation the diamond of unchangeable soul-consciousness, which sparkles with the everlasting joy of Spirit.

~ Paramhasa Yogananda, Inner Peace: How to be calmly active and actively calm

“Everything in future will improve if you are making a spiritual effort now.”

~ Sri Sri Swami Yukteshwar Giri, (guru of Paramhansa Yogananda) in Autobiography of a Yogi

“As you cannot broadcast through a broken microphone, so you cannot send out prayers through a mental microphone that has been disordered by restlessness.

By deep calmness you should repair your mind microphone and increase the receptivity of your intuition. Thus you will be able to broadcast to Him effectively and to receive His answers.”

~ Paramhansa Yogananda

“Don’t keep your mind engaged in too many activities. Analyse what you get from them and see if they are really important. Don’t waste your time!”

~ Paramhansa Yogananda