Reviews for Metaphysical Meditations

The average rating for Metaphysical Meditations based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2016-01-12 00:00:00 Ellen Fitzgerald According to a 2014 survey by CBS News, the preferred Beatles in the United States are Paul and John. The least popular is George (though I'd have thought it was Ringo). And although I do have my John moments (he's definitely my second favorite, and sometimes my first), I'm always drawn back to George. It's a bit unconventional, I admit, but I think that George Harrison is my favorite Beatle. Yes, this shocking confession is true. I am among the 8% of Americans who favors George over the other Beatles. And it was probably this esteem for George Harrison (and his friend Ravi Shankar) that first put Paramahansa Yogananda on my radar. I had later read that Paramahansa Yogananda's Autobiography of a Yogi was not only one of George's favorites, but was also listed as one of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs' most cherished reads. Several years ago I went to the Self Realization Center in Encinitas, CA and although I considered picking up a copy of Yogananda's autobiography at the time, I didn't. In fact, I passed it up on many occasions, and though I'd intended to read the book for some years, I still haven't done so. I didn't even buy it until very recently, at the Self Realization Center in Los Angeles. I've yet to read the autobiography (it's currently in my immediate to-read pile, which means I'll probably get to it in a few weeks or maybe months). In the meantime I also picked up this little book, Metaphysical Meditations, one of many texts written by the prolific Paramahansa Yogananda, and pushed it to the front of my to-read queue. It's a useful little book filled with meditations to help focus one's thoughts and clear the mind, some very beautifully written, with lines like "Mother Divine, draw aside Thy glittering veil of cosmic motion pictures . . .," "I am the prince of peace playing in a drama of sad and happy dreams on the stage of experience" and "The man of initiative creates something from nothing; he makes the impossible possible by the great inventive power of spirit" (and I was reminded of George's music and of Jack Kerouac's The Scripture of the Golden Eternity, and also of a number of 19th and 20th century poets who have dabbled in Eastern religions and philosophies). There is nothing overtly profound in the collection, but it could be said that the work is profound in its simplicity. For initiates in the art (or science, as Yogananda prefers) of meditation this is a good introduction, as it includes a brief discussion on how to meditate and also provides readers with several guided meditations. For those already familiar with meditation and the general ideas espoused by those like Yogananda it's a good little refresher, with some beautiful language that blossoms to the surface every now and again, much like a sacred lotus flower. It's a short little read and is good for focusing the mind. Yogananda's influence is not easy to ignore; he made these Eastern thoughts accessible to Westerners perhaps more so than any before him. But his influence probably seems minute today, with Yoga studios on every other corner and corporations sponsoring weekend meditation retreats, just as the influence and inventiveness of films like Citizen Kane and Hiroshima, Mon Amour may be unappreciated by modern viewers who fail to trace the techniques and ideas they have become so familiar with to their roots. But although one may be a pioneer, another may take the ideas still further, make them more accessible, more artistic, more valuable. Better than anything written here by Yogananda I think are the words of George, especially when set to music: Try to realise it's all within yourself No one else can make you change And to see you're really only very small And life flows on within you and without you With George on the sitar (plus the other instrumentation), it's really sublime. In a way, perhaps George (himself a Westerner, with his influence as a Beatle) made these Eastern thoughts accessible to an even greater number than Yogananda and helped expand the consciousness of millions. Then again naysayers may argue that it was just the effects of the LSD.

Review # 2 was written on 2020-10-28 00:00:00 Jose Cordoba A nice little book