I’ve been rummaging around online trying to find that elusive quote in the Self-Realization Fellowship lessons on the ringing in the ear and came across a rich treasure trove of talks by Paramahansa Yogananda. Here is one that sounds as if it could have come from Saul. I highly recommend Yogananda’s writings, by the way.
It Is A Dream
https://www.yogananda.com.au/pyr/pyr_attitude1.html#introspection
Don’t take life so seriously. This world is a terrible place; there is no safety here. But what are we to do? We must stop talking life so seriously. Delusion can be overcome by holding steadfastly to one philosophy: everything here is nothing more than God’s motion picture.
Don’t make a fuss about anything. Whenever you worry, remember, you are deepening the cosmic delusion within you. It is your own dreams that frighten you. In every form of sense experience you must remind yourself, ‘IT IS A DREAM!’ So don’t be attached to the passing dreams of life. Live for God and God alone.
Therefore, it doesn’t matter whether we scrub floors, or whether we are leaders of great nations; unless we know that we are merely playing a part on the stage of time, we will suffer from the dualities inherent in the consciousness of being identified with these different stations and conditions. Stage actors do not bemoan their particular parts, but enact their roles to the best of their ability, knowing they are temporary portrayals. Do you see? It is only when we take life too seriously that we suffer.
If in a dream you strike your dream head on a dream wall, you will have a dream skull fracture. Wake up and you are healed of your dream injury.
Sri Mrinalini Mata and others were meditating with Yogananda once. After a while he opened his eyes and began to laugh, saying: ‘It is such a joke that Divine Mother is playing on you all. You think this is so real!‘
Then he looked at the disciples sitting around him, and he said with tears of compassion in his eyes: ‘But I feel for you all, because to you, it is yet real. Don’t take it so seriously.’