Top 50 Goswami Kriyananda Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “Leadership is an opportunity to serve. It is not a trumpet call to self- importance.”

— Goswami Kriyananda

2. “Trust life, even if you cannot trust people. For human nature is unreliable, but life itself is ruled by immutable law. Right action leads always, in the end, to victory.”

— Goswami Kriyananda

3. “If you want to know me, listen to my music.”

— Goswami Kriyananda

4. “Joy is not dependent upon outward circumstances. Joy is something that we can have under all circumstances when we are sad or happy. Outward circumstances are always neutral. They seem to be happy or sad according to the happy or sad attitudes of the mind.”

— Goswami Kriyananda

5. “Realize that to have friends one must first be a friend. Make friendship a priority in your life.”

— Goswami Kriyananda

6. “Your enemy is still yourself. You don’t have enemies. They may be self-styled. I have plenty of self-styled enemies. I don’t wish them harm.”

— Goswami Kriyananda

7. “Maturity is the ability to relate appropriately to other realities than one’s own.”

— Goswami Kriyananda

8. “Happiness is a question of attitude, not a question of what’s happening out there.”

— Goswami Kriyananda

9. “Live more quietly. Live more seeking God’s presence in your own heart.”

— Goswami Kriyananda

10. “Happiness is like a plant: It must be watered daily with giving thoughts and actions.”

— Goswami Kriyananda

11. “The greatest thing that will please God is that you maintain an attitude of unshakable joy.”

— Goswami Kriyananda

12. “Happiness is NOW! It isn’t tomorrow. It isn’t yesterday. Happiness is like a morning glory: Yesterday’s won’t bloom again; tomorrow’s hasn’t opened yet. Only today’s flower can be enjoyed today. Be happy this very moment, and you’ll learn how to be happy always.”

— Goswami Kriyananda

13. “Happiness is an attitude of mind, born of the simple determination to be happy under all outward circumstances.”

— Goswami Kriyananda

14. “Happiness is not a brilliant climax to years of grim struggle and anxiety. It is a long succession of little decisions simply to be happy in the moment.”

— Goswami Kriyananda

15. “Happiness is self-generated. It depends on one’s attitude of mind. The basis of happiness, is the simple fact that the deepest reality of our own nature is ever-existing, ever-conscious, ever-new joy.”

— Goswami Kriyananda

16. “The secret of friendship is expressing kindness with your eyes and through the tone of your voice, not only with words.”

— Goswami Kriyananda

17. “Don’t live to be unhappy, live to be happy. If you live to be happy you’ll find the things that make you happy. And as you do that you find that sharing with others makes you much happier than taking from them.”

— Goswami Kriyananda

18. “In a sense, each of us is an island. In another sense, however, we are all one. For though islands appear separate, and may even be situated at great distances from one another, they are only extrusions of the same planet, Earth.”

— Goswami Kriyananda

19. “Even-minded and cheerful. When things go bad, you’ll find that the same kind of attitude comes to you naturally.”

— Goswami Kriyananda

20. “Happiness is reverence for all life.”

— Goswami Kriyananda

21. “As you begin this day, tell yourself, Today I am incarnated anew! I am released from the hypnosis of my old habits and mistakes! Everything that I have long dreamed of doing I will accomplish in this, my new life.”

— Goswami Kriyananda

22. “There are realities we all share, regardless of our nationality, language, or individual tastes. As we need food, so do we need emotional nourishment: love, kindness, appreciation, and support from others.”

— Goswami Kriyananda

23. “I was always seeking truth from childhood. And I identified truth with many things, with science, with politics, with art, and I kept coming back to the thought that without God I can’t get to what I’m looking for.”

— Goswami Kriyananda

24. “Master said if you want to be happy no one in the world can take happiness from you; if you want to be unhappy, no one in the world can make you happy. So choose to be happy.”

— Goswami Kriyananda

25. “Attachment is the state of ignorance or forgetfulness, and thus clinging to a memory of enjoyment.”

— Goswami Kriyananda

26. “Happiness is a smile of comfort to the sorrowful.”

— Goswami Kriyananda

27. “If you begin to identify yourself with that inner awareness, and then you realize you’re not really doing anything. As long as there’s the thought, “I’m trying to wake up,” that thought of “I” is still there.”

— Goswami Kriyananda

28. “The “kingdom of heaven” to which he referred was the state of God-consciousness, not the beautiful astral heavens that most people visualize, where virtuous souls go after death.”

— Goswami Kriyananda

29. “Understand that there is no relationship between your inner happiness and your inner joy and the outer things that you experience and behold in the world, that it all begins with you, the world is a mirror to your own Self, when you can look at things and feel joy not in the things but in yourself.”

— Goswami Kriyananda

30. “If you want to do one good thing in the world, the best thing you can do is give other people joy.”

— Goswami Kriyananda

31. “Be thou a true yogi. A yogi who understands that everything he’s looking for is really inside himself. Learn to live more in the Self.”

— Goswami Kriyananda

32. “The secret of happiness is the determination to be happy always, rather than wait for outer circumstances to make one happy.”

— Goswami Kriyananda

33. “The real sign of His blessings is if you can have more and more happiness inside. Learn always to be happy; to be happy with the happiness of God. Even- minded and cheerful. This is the fastest route to divine bliss.”

— Goswami Kriyananda

34. “That’s what life is for, to find that joy in yourself.”

— Goswami Kriyananda

35. “Be able to laugh at difficulties.”

— Goswami Kriyananda

36. “Feel that you are happy without any cause for happiness.”

— Goswami Kriyananda

37. “A deliberate attitude that you have to hold in your mind as one of the basic rules of yoga is to remain even-minded and cheerful...”

— Goswami Kriyananda

38. “Happiness is understanding that friendship is more precious than mere things, more precious than getting your own way, more precious than being in situations where true principles are not at stake.”

— Goswami Kriyananda

39. “Take whatever cause for outward happiness you might have and take it within yourself, so that, if the sun should go out, you will not be any less happy; if the birds stop singing you will not be any less happy.”

— Goswami Kriyananda

40. “The mastery of any subject requires that one identify himself with the particular state of consciousness appropriate to that subject.”

— Goswami Kriyananda

41. “To be happy, you must live in, but not for, the present moment.”

— Goswami Kriyananda

42. “Spirituality means seeking experience. Not just belief.”

— Goswami Kriyananda

43. “The two-fold goal of all human striving is the avoidance of pain, and the fulfillment of happiness.”

— Goswami Kriyananda

44. “If anything or anyone distresses you, think how you’ll feel a week – a month – a year later. If you can imagine yourself being happy and peaceful then, why waste all that time? Be happy and peaceful now.”

— Goswami Kriyananda

45. “Whatever you experience outwardly, take it within yourself and say ‘I’m happy because I’m happy. I’m happy because God is in my heart.’”

— Goswami Kriyananda

46. “Those who walk, run, or slide downhill eagerly would rather not think about the long, hard climb back up the hill again.”

— Goswami Kriyananda

47. “The essence of Ananda is both personal and sociological. Personally for people who seek truth or identities of God, it helps to be with other people who share those ideals. Environment is stronger than willpower, and when you are with people who have high ideals, it helps you to grow in your ideals.”

— Goswami Kriyananda

48. “Laughter is a medicine you’ve got to use to drive away blues.”

— Goswami Kriyananda

49. “The secret of success is doing things not merely because they are popular, but because you deeply believe in them.”

— Goswami Kriyananda

50. “You can accept it that it may be true what somebody else says, but until you have experienced it, it is not dynamic to your own awareness.”

— Goswami Kriyananda