Description
Inspired by his own direct experience of the Divine, Paramahansa Yogananda composed many songs in the tradition of India’s devotional chanting. This book contains words and music to more than fifty of his original chants.
Excerpts From the Prelude by Paramahansa Yogananda
“Popular songs are usually inspired through sentiment or passing interests. But a song born out of the depths of true devotion to God and continuously chanted, audibly or mentally, until response is consciously received from Him in the form of boundless joy, is a spiritualized song.
“Such songs like live matches produce the fire of God-awareness whenever they are struck on the foundation stone of devotion. Ordinary songs are like wet matches that do not produce any spark of divine realization.
“Each of the Cosmic Chants in this book has been spiritualized; that is, at various gatherings each song has been sung aloud and mentally until the chanters found actual response from God. It is hoped that every reader will sing these chants, not as ordinary music to please the ear or emotions, but as soul-saturated songs to be used for divine communion.
About the author
Paramahansa Yogananda (1893–1952) is widely regarded as one of the preeminent spiritual figures of our time. Born in northern India, he came to the United States in 1920, where for more than thirty years he taught India’s ancient philosophy and science of yoga meditation and the art of balanced spiritual living. The first great master of Yoga to live and teach in the West for an extended period of time, he traveled and lectured extensively throughout North America and abroad, speaking to capacity audiences in major cities and revealing the underlying unity of the world’s great religions. He has inspired millions through his acclaimed life story,
Autobiography of a Yogi, his groundbreaking commentaries on the scriptures of East and West, and his numerous other books. Paramahansa Yogananda’s spiritual and humanitarian work continues to be carried on today by Self-Realization Fellowship, the international society he founded in 1920 to disseminate his teachings worldwide.
