Self-Realization Fellowship Blog

The following guided meditation from Paramahansa Yogananda was previously published in Self-Realization magazine in the winter of 2010, as a section of the article “Opening the Heaven That Lies Within Us: Guided Meditations for the Christmas Season.” We hope you can use this guided experience, at Christmastime or any other time of the year, to deepen your understanding and perception of that universal divine love that is perpetually seeking to be awakened within your heart.

Please enjoy this audio recording of this guided meditation, read by a Self-Realization Fellowship monk.

Close your eyes, put your attention on the heart, and feel the greatest love that you ever felt for another person. Let that love saturate every cell of your body. 

Now expand the feeling of love, like an encircling sphere embracing your family, friends, all your loved ones. 

Feel your love ever-increasing; include in that sphere all the people in your city, then all of your country. 

Now everything in the world is bathed in that love. The whole earth, the solar system, the far-flung galaxies and island universes — everything is floating in this vast sphere of love. 

Feel, meditate on, merge yourself in that love which permeates and upholds the infinitudes of manifestation — a demonstrable presence of God’s heartbeat of bliss, setting the pace of cosmic harmony and unity, and known to the devotee as the All-in-all fulfillment. 

The love felt in the heart at the beginning of this visualization is human love. And the love that expanded until it encompassed everything is the universal love of Christ, the infinite love of God. 

Let us this night make the effort to know Him: “Father, come to us, make us feel Thee within.” Close your eyes, and mentally pray that, again and again, deeper and deeper, until you feel you are saying it with your whole soul. “Father, be with us, make Thyself real to us this night.” 

Concentrate on the region of the heart and feel great love coming into it. Visualize that love — north, east, south, west — all space is filled with love. The Great Reservoir of Love is right here, within your soul and surrounding you in every direction; but you have never tasted of its silent depths. The heart is the door through which that Love will flow. Concentrate there and say: “Father, open the door of my heart; pour Thy love through that door!” Feel the great love of God is flowing through you, consciously filling your body, mind, and soul, and flooding all humanity and all creatures. 

Concentrate on this thought: “Father, be with us as Love; Father, be with us as Love.” Tune your soul; go on directing all your thoughts and feelings into that prayer, just as the conductor of the symphony orchestra leads the musicians in playing and playing until the music reaches a climax. Let not your mind wander; feel yourself in the midst of the joy of that infinite love. “Father, Father, Father, be with us!” 

Deepen your concentration; pray again and again: “Father, Father, manifest to us as love, Almighty Love. Open the door of our hearts; open the door of our hearts; open the door of our hearts. Let Thy love flow through; let Thy love flow through; let Thy Christ love flow through. Reveal Thyself to us as Love; flood our consciousness with Thy love, O Glory Divine!” 

Now feel you are relaxed, floating on an ocean of love; your body and mind, thoughts and feelings, are all buoyed in Spirit, wafting toward the farthest shores of the universe. 

Feel that every being is receiving the vibrations of that Infinite Love that bathes all creation. “Love to all nations and races; love to all creatures; love to all living things.” 

“The love that we feel for all, Father, we lay at Thy feet. Almighty Father, the love of friends, the love of those we love, comes from Thee and belongs to Thee, our Father. Teach us to break the boundaries of our human love and feel Thy infinite love.” 

May Christ have a Second Coming, within your own consciousness! That is my humble prayer for you today. And I am giving this special blessing to you all, that if you will meditate deeply during the Christmas period, you will feel the presence of Christ.... 

At this moment I perceive the light of the Infinite Christ, the light of Eternal Spirit. In that light I bless you and baptize you. 

May your life, forever awake in Christ Consciousness, be a true messenger of that Light.