PARAMAHANSA YOGANANDA: Real spiritual truth in a nation or an individual is distinguishable as scientific knowledge of life and of the art of living in attunement with cosmic laws; and as greater contact and divine communion with God as Spirit. Such spiritual development does not come from swallowing theological ideas, but from assimilating the truth behind theology. One must be able to shave the husk of dogma and theory from the kernels of truth. The Divine Romance
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Bro. Satyananda on the deeper law of physical intimacy
Host: That’s really the message that I want to convey on the show, that’s why it’s called Intuitive Living, is because it’s about tapping into that innate inner wisdom and use that as our guidance in our life.
Bro. Satyananda: Yogananda outlines beautifully what he calls cosmic laws, and he says that if we understand certain laws not only of the physical universe but also of the metaphysical universe then we can begin to truly live a spiritual life that’s connected with that fundamental truth.
Host: Yes, and I think that’s one of the things about SRF teachings also, is that it’s not based on dogmas and rules like many religions are but it’s founded on spiritual truth, that universal spiritual truth for everyone.
Bro. Satyananda: Yes, that’s right. You know, teenagers come to me and they talk about sex before marriage and they’re concerned about, well, is this a sin? And I’m telling them, you know, it’s more a transgression of a deeper spiritual law, that if you’re really striving for a meaningful intimacy with another person, if you get involved sexually too quickly before you really learn to love, then your relationship is at great risk. And when I explain it to them in terms of spiritual principles and applying them in the proper way, it makes a lot of sense, and then they know why they should wait.
Host: And they learn to make decisions not based out of fear but to really go within and follow that inner guidance.
Bro. Satyananda: Exactly.
Host: And that’s one of the greatest gifts we can teach them.
Bro. Satyananda: It’s very important, very important.
excerpt from a radio interview
“Blessed is Radha who alone saw Me hiding behind the various disguises,” Sri Krishna
“Conjugal Love,” The Divine Romance, Paramahansa Yogananda
[Yogananda Site: ‘conjugal’ means ‘married’]
At its most idealistic, conjugal love can be one of the greatest expressions of human love. Jesus implied this when he said: “For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife.”* When man and woman genuinely and purely love one another, there is complete harmony between them in body, mind, and soul. When their love is expressed in its highest form, it results in a perfect unity. But this love, too, has its flaw; it can be tainted by the abuse of sex, which eclipses divine love. Nature has made the sex impulse very strong so that creation might go on; therefore, sex has its place in the marital relationship between man and woman. But if it becomes the supreme factor in that relationship, love flies out the door and disappears completely; in its place come possessiveness, overfamiliarity, and the abuse and loss of friendship and understanding. Though sexual attraction is one of the conditions under which love is born, sex in itself is not love. Sex and love are as far apart as the moon and the sun. It is only when the transmuting quality of true love is uppermost in the relationship that sex becomes a means of expressing love. Those who live too much on the sex plane lose their way and fail to find a satisfying marital relationship. It is by self-control, in which sex is not the ruling emotion, but only incidental to love, that husband and wife can know what real love is. In this modern world, unfortunately, love is too often destroyed by overemphasis on sex experience. …
Paramahansaji story of a man finding Divine Love through love for his wife
I met a man [who] deeply loved his wife, so much so that his love for her became transmuted into divine love. After she died, he wandered for years, seeking a way to find her again. At last he did succeed. In the end, he found God through his love for her. This is the story as he told it to me:
In his wanderings after her death, he sought out a great saint in the Himalayas. He persuaded the holy man to promise to give spiritual initiation to him and his wife together. After assuring him of his promise, the saint asked, “Where is your wife?” The husband then told him that she was dead. The saint nevertheless kept his promise to give initiation to the two together. He instructed the man to sit in meditation, and began to invoke the presence of the wife. Suddenly she appeared. For a long time she talked with her husband. Then the two sat together and received initiation from the saint. Afterward, the holy one blessed them, and the wife departed. From that moment, the husband realized that the beloved form he had known as his wife was in reality an individualized manifestation of the consciousness of God—as is every human being. The true meaning of divine love, which is behind and responsible for every ideal human relationship, was revealed to him. His was a unique and true experience.
from HOW TO CULTIVATE DIVINE LOVE, The Divine Romance
See Also~ BRO. SATYANANDA TALKS, list
Yogananda Site 