"Remain calm, serene, always in command of yourself. You will then find out how easy it is to get along"
About this Quote
A soft command dressed as reassurance, Yogananda’s line takes the language of self-help and gives it a spiritual spine. “Remain calm, serene” isn’t merely about good manners; it’s a directive to relocate authority inward. For a teacher who brought yoga and Vedantic thought to early-20th-century America, “always in command of yourself” is a secular-sounding translation of a devotional premise: mastery of the mind is the first form of freedom, and it’s available regardless of external chaos.
The subtext is quietly radical. Social harmony, he implies, doesn’t start with better people or fairer conditions but with a nervous system you can govern. That’s why the payoff is phrased almost casually: “You will then find out how easy it is to get along.” The ease is not because the world becomes kinder; it’s because your reactivity stops handing other people the steering wheel. Yogananda is selling a kind of sovereignty that looks like politeness from the outside.
Context matters here: he’s speaking into a modernity defined by speed, immigration, and social churn, where “getting along” is both a moral aspiration and a survival skill. The sentence is structured like a practice, not a platitude: calm -> command -> discovery. It’s also a subtle rebuke to the culture of grievance without denying suffering. The promise isn’t that conflict disappears; it’s that it loses its power to own you.
The subtext is quietly radical. Social harmony, he implies, doesn’t start with better people or fairer conditions but with a nervous system you can govern. That’s why the payoff is phrased almost casually: “You will then find out how easy it is to get along.” The ease is not because the world becomes kinder; it’s because your reactivity stops handing other people the steering wheel. Yogananda is selling a kind of sovereignty that looks like politeness from the outside.
Context matters here: he’s speaking into a modernity defined by speed, immigration, and social churn, where “getting along” is both a moral aspiration and a survival skill. The sentence is structured like a practice, not a platitude: calm -> command -> discovery. It’s also a subtle rebuke to the culture of grievance without denying suffering. The promise isn’t that conflict disappears; it’s that it loses its power to own you.
Quote Details
| Topic | Self-Discipline |
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