What Yogananda Really Thought About the Law of Attraction
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BY HARV BISHOP
The great Indian sage Yogananda popularized Hindu philosophy to a US audience, inspired a Beatle, and kept company with New Thought luminaries.
To reach an American audience, he framed Indian teachings in a positive thinking style with such books as Scientific Healing Affirmations (1924) [#CommissionsEarned] and The Law of Success (1944) [#CommissionsEarned]. His influence on New Thought cannot be underestimated. Yogananda dined with Ernest Homes, founder of the Science of Mind philosophy. He initiated Joel Goldsmith, author of Beyond Words and Thoughts, into Kriya Yoga practices. His classic book, Autobiography of a Yogi, [#CommissionsEarned] has served as an inspiration for generations and influenced everyone from George Harrison to Steve Jobs, who arranged for everyone who attended his memorial service to receive a copy.
Yet Yoganada had significant differences from some American New Thought and success literature. Below are three major areas where he diverged from traditional approaches to mind power as seen in his books Scientific Healing Affirmations and The Law of Success.
1) Not all thoughts are powerful enough to shape our reality
The Law of Attraction, that what we talk about and think about becomes our reality, is often expressed, in its most extreme form, as “there are no accidents.” In other words, if illness and misfortune are your life, you brought it about through your thoughts; conscious or unconscious.
Yogananda, however, wrote that not all thoughts are powerful enough to shape reality. Prayers and thoughts that come from the ego are “lifeless” and not “impregnated by soul force,” he wrote in his book, Scientific Healing Affirmations. Such prayers and thoughts, he taught, were “just like shooting bullets out of a toy gun, without the gunpowder.” He wrote, “Words without soul force are husks without the corn.”
His recommended practice included affirmations chanted kirtan-style with great intensity while focusing on the body’s spiritual energy centers including the heart chakra, the seat of love; the Third Eye, the seat of the higher will, and the medulla, at the base of the brain and top of the spine where the life force is said to enter the body.
2) Our thoughts alone don’t make us sick
Yogananda suggests that mental attitudes, conscious and subconscious, don’t draw illness out of the ethers. He repeatedly emphasizes that only intense spiritual practice activates the Super Conscious where thoughts and words can affect reality. What then is the point of affirmations? He believed that affirmations and beliefs can reprogram the subconscious and motivate one to pursue “certain habits of disease or health.” He doesn’t differ from the American mental healing pioneers on that point.
But he did differ and encouraged caution with some mental healing practices. Yogananda taught that we live under the laws of the physical universe. He also taught that spiritual laws could transcend physical laws, but not always. Transcending physical laws took a highly developed consciousness and trained mind. Absent that, “metaphysical fanatics” denying the reality of physical laws were courting trouble.
3) Having money is not a success unless you use it for good
Yogananda advocated honoring both the Divine and material reality, conscious effort and Divine Law, modern medicine and spiritual healing. “Ambition for making money should be utilized to improve society, country, and the world,” he wrote. “Make all the money you can by improving your community or country or the world, but never do so by acting against their interests.
***Tim Botta’s prints of mystics and metaphysical teachers can be seen at Fine Art America***
Thoughts on Yogananda’s thoughts 🙂
1) It’s not so much about your thoughts, but your beliefs.
2) Again, not so much with your passing thoughts, but those that become habitual and are backed by a consistent feeling and acceptance, which then, when they become part of your consciousness and are incorporated into your beliefs, they are what the Law is listening to, manifesting through and what eventually is showing up in your life.
3) Though I believe we should use all of our time, talent and treasure for good, positive and constructive endeavors, and with a love of life, community and planet; success is a relative and subjective term.
btw – Love the blog.
Blessings…
The New Thought Guy
Thanks for your comments Jay (aka NTG). Your point about deeply beliefs and feelings versus passing thoughts is well taken. I think the SCM approach to LOA is more sophisticated via Dr. Holmes than more pop culture conceptions of change your thinking change your life. I agree on point three about relative definitions about success. I think Yogananda was addressing the me first, individual acquisition emphasis that shows up in US culture in many eras. The culture at Enron would be one example.
Blessings,
Harv
A favorite “guru” of Dr. Holmes, Sri Aurobindo, takes us from “New Thought” to “No Thought.” While thoughts are creative and have an attractive quality, they can also be an obstacle to moving from the purely “Mental Plane” of existence to the higher plane of Spiritual Light. Theosophist and early 20th century Buddhist teacher Christmas Humphreys tells us in his book Western Approach to Zen that “. . . thought can never take the Pilgrim to the goal of ultimate awareness . . .” Aurobindo says that thought is secondary in the spiritual order and calls it a lower mind activity; thoughts are usually of our lower or egoic nature and can create obstacles to our obstacles to the Higher Mind, thus we need to move beyond thought to No Thought. This is difficult, says Aurobindo because our natures do not want to let go and allow the Light into our Minds/Hearts. When can move beyond thought to No Thought, Aurobindo says we encounter a greater force — “a Mind no longer of higher Thought but of Spiritual Light.”
Humphreys tells us, “Remember the link between each thought, whether or not charged with feeling, and the father-mind. All thoughts make karma, that is produce an effect which will react on the thinker and then on all mankind. What Aurobindo calls our “Thought-Mind” is the seat of imperfection and ignorance, i.e. tied to this Mental Plane of existence, and to move beyond thought in order to be freed from the ego that thought-forms create.
To go beyond is in fact to cease to cease to cling to the realm of thought forms, and be liberated from thought, from the duality of Samsara, from attachments and desires that bind us to the Mental Plane. Meditation is one way in which we can learn to do this. I know too many New Thoughters who are stuck constantly in their “thoughts” and thus cannot move higher to the Light.
I think I know why Dr. Holmes loved Aurobindo’s writings so much!
Thanks for this Clare. I was recently contacted by a writer working on a book about Aurobindo and looking for information on the Holmes/Aurobindo connection. There was little to point him towards. Given how important this was to Holmes in his later years it deserves serious study and consideration.
Yes! Thank you Clare
Hi Harv.
So I got to this maybe a little late but I couldn’t pass up commenting. I got my intro to Paramahansa Yogananda when I was in high school and started attending the Sunday service at the SRF center in Hollywood. I carried a copy of “Auto Biography of a Yogi” with me through my adventures as a participant in the Southeast Asia War Gas curtesy of Uncle Sam. Although I moved onto other spiritual journeys that lead me to where I am today it was the insights, concepts and spiritual ideas that I learned then that in one way or another has influenced my understanding of the Divine I have today.
I just discovered this article. My gratitude to you and to Yogananda for this depth of insight. It provides clear guidence in addressing those who would suggest that wearing a mask or taking precautions at this time shows a lack of faith or poor consciousness. My answer being that unless one has done the work to rise beyond the physical laws, one best heed them until deep clarity and confidence emerges.
Well said Robert! Thank you.
Exactly! Thank you Robert!
And thank you Harvey for this post. I love Yogananda´s ideas about LOA, they make so much sense and explain why our thoughts do not always seem to create our reality.
Harv, great piece. I’ve been spending a lot of time with Yogananda over the last couple of years and it has been eye and heart opening. There’s a great new book out now called You Are More Than You Think You Are by Kimberly Snyder that gives a contemporary look at Gurji’s work. Might want to check it out. – Gary
Sounds awesome Gary. I will check it out!