Man's Eternal Quest: Collected Talks and Essays - Volume 1 (Self-Realization Fellowship) (English Edition)

Nice book. I have a copy since 10 to 15 years now . Am reading again and again and stil feel inspired every time .

I am not looking for any other book. This book was the end of my search. I love it. It's my Guru. Go and read seriously for yourself. You will become a different person. Even though we petty readers should not even try to Judge such a great book, I would give this book 10 Star. I am going through Other books "Divine Romance" & "Journey To Self Realization". But I think reading this one is all that one needs to improve his or her life. Go and Enjoy your reading. Good Luck.

The most eloquent down to earth writing on holiness available to the masses on God's green earth. A must for those who seek love, for this books warm monologue will bring you closer to realizing your own joy that is within. Take time out and read this book! It is good food for your soul!

This collection of fifty public talks and reflective essays spans an amazing universe of human issues from the perspective of a yoga master who was trained in his youth by one of the most revered sages of India and who went on to Europe and the Americas to train tens of thousands of westerners in the practicalities and spiritualities of RAJA YOGA. Raja Yoga means literally, 'royal' or complete yoga - not just the calisthenics of the average superficial class taught in a modern gym. Raja Yoga subsumes the same essence of ethical, cosmological, and practical teaching that runs like a silver thread through the original fabrics of Judeo-Christian, Buddhist, Islamic, and Hindu teachings (though ignored by dogmatic sectarians and muscle-bound materialists alike). Take as a first gift, chapter one: How Seekers First Found God. For perhaps the first time in the English we have a clear explanation and follow-up to Christ's puzzling pair of directions: Seek first The Kingdom / The Kingdom of God is within you. Yogananda gives us an unsurpassed overview of thousands of years of yoga experimental scientists studied HOW to "seek the kingdom within:" Here we learn WHY we are instructed to "be still and know that I am God" (PS 46:10) -- because stillness is necessary for us to go deeper (and higher) than sense perception to hear the omnipresent whispering of Spirit to our souls. Because the press of "civilization" urges us to be active and outer-directed, we are strangers to the very qualities that would help us experiences our soul-natures and our souls' yearning to express its divinity. The yoga methods of relaxation for body, breath and mind are beneficial to pursuers of ALL religions -- even to those of NO religion who yearn to awaken a higher level of functioning in mind and purer health in body -- for yoga is truly the original WHOLISTIC system. Raja Yoga shows how ALL human functioning can be optimized, including (if you're so inclined) the human search for its divinity.Throughout the variegated chapters of this volume you will find that the lotus of yoga blossoms in every realm of human existence: health, personal relationships, psychotherapy, and all spiritual searches. As the "complete" yoga instruction, Raja Yoga considers the importance of evolving your human work as spiritual work: in outer activity, heart-felt devotion, and discriminative rationality. But Yogananda always takes the reader back to the unique CORE of Raja Yoga: deep, single-pointed meditation upon the Unifying Source of our beings. It is impossible to describe the volume because it is so EXPANSIVE in the applications it makes of yoga teaching. Yet it offers a fundamental yoga lesson because it is also FOCUSED... in ever returning you to the unifying principle of all religions, all human yearnings, all quests: the empowerment of your being with the experience, knowing, and love of the soul. PS: You might reasonably doubt the authority of any author to offer advice

I think this is the best of the books written by Yogananda (that I have read). The essays taken from his talks inform the reader about spirituality in simple and profound ways, but the real focus is upon experiencing this on one's own rather than memorizing the words of others or relying on them for proof. This book, as well as the others that I have read by the same writer, demonstrates the importance of finding God despite the distractions in everyday life, so I disagree with one reviewer's assertion that this occurs in caves, nature, etc. While it would be nice to get away from it all, the very practical nature of Yogananda's lessons shows what everyday people can do to improve their lives, one small step at a time.