Our Quotes of the Day:
In a worldly life, as well as in spiritual life, you need a proper teacher, a proper guide.
Naturalness is the basis of effectiveness. If one poses to be something else, one loses the charm of naturalness. The result is that one accumulates stress.
On the yogic path, various experiences occur which help increase the sadhaka’s faith, courage, knowledge, enthusiasm, devotion to his Guru, devotion to yoga, and finally his or her devotion to God. Initially, the sadhaka gains an understanding of the lower chakras; later the understanding of the middle; and finally understanding of the higher chakras unfolds. Besides this, the understanding or various asanas (postures), mudras (gestures), pranayama (breath control), pratyahara (withdrawal from sense objects) and jyoti darshana (vision of divine light) is accessible through experience. Thus the practice of yoga itself unfolds the knowledge of more advanced states of yoga.
True, this world of ours is full of hatred and disbelief, but that is no reason why we should not love and why we should not believe. We must love and believe in order to empty the hatred-sea.
Evil company is always to be shunned; because it leads to lust and anger, illusion, forgetfulness of the goal, destruction of the will (lack of perseverance), and destruction of everything. (Narada Bhakti Sutra)
The river that flows in you also flows in me.
When Charity is deeply rooted in the soul it shows itself exteriorly: there is so gracious a way of refusing what we cannot give, that the refusal pleases as much as the gift.
Sri Yukteswar used to poke gentle fun at the commonly inadequate conceptions of renunciation."A beggar cannot renounce wealth," Master would say. "If a man laments: 'My business has failed; my wife has left me; I will renounce all and enter a monastery,' to what worldly sacrifice is he referring? He did not renounce wealth and love; they renounced him!"Saints like Gandhi, on the other hand, have made not only tangible material sacrifices, but also the more difficult renunciation of selfish motive and private goal, merging their inmost being in the stream of humanity as a whole.
There is nothing but water in the holy pools. I know, I have been swimming there. All the gods sculpted of wood or ivory can't say a word. I know, I have been crying out to them. The Sacred Books of the East are nothing but words. I looked through their covers one day sideways. What Kabir talks of is only what he has lived through. If you have not lived through something, it is not true.
You are embarking on the greatest adventure of your life - to improve your self-image, to create more meaning in your life and in the lives of others. This is your responsibility.
Wise is the one who learns from another’s mistakes. Less wise is the one who learns only from his own mistakes. The fool keeps making the same mistakes again and again and never learns from them.
He alone knows to whom He will reveal Himself under which form. By what path and in what manner He attracts any particular man to Himself with great force is incomprehensible to the human intellect. The Path differs indeed for different pilgrims.
Fail to honour people, they’ll fail to honour you.
Be a light unto yourself.
Worldly beautiful things are poisonous. If you see them outwardly, they attract you; but if you see them inwardly, then, they are renounced. This is maya, or restlessness.
Whatever you come across - go beyond
The degree of freedom from unwanted thoughts and the degree of concentration on a single thought are the measures to gauge spiritual progress.
Every explicit duality is an implicit unity.
As we develop a deeper self-awareness, we learn to acknowledge suffering without identifying with it. Eventually, we even transcend it.
When you begin to meditate on a regular basis, you will start to notice that thoughts and feelings that may have been building up inside of you are gently released and you reach the quiet place that was always there, waiting for you- the place of pure awareness. It is there that you will experience peace, healing, and true rejuvenation.
Love is the creative refinement of sex energy. And so, when love reaches perfection, the absence of sex automatically follows. A life of love, an abstinence from physical pleasures is called brahmacharya, and anyone who wishes to be free from sex must develop his capacity to love. Freedom from sex cannot be achieved through supersession. Liberation from sex is only possible through love.
The greatest step towards a life of happiness and simplicity is to let go. Trust in the power that is already taking care of you spontaneously without effort.
Close scrutiny will show that most of these everyday so-called “crisis situations” are not crises at all.
