The first reason for people's slavery is our ignorance, and above all, our ignorance of ourselves.

The stalks of water flowers are proportionate to the depth of water; so is people’s growth proportionate to their goals.

Flint has the potential to produce fire, and gems have intrinsic value. We ordinary people can see neither our own eyelashes, which are so close, nor the heavens in the distance. Likewise, we do not see that the Buddha exists in our own hearts.

People who don't see their own nature and imagine they can practice thoughtlessness all the time are liars and fools.

Most people are unhappy; and they are unhappy because there is no love in their hearts.

People say that they understand what I say and I am simple. I am not simple, I am clear.

Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark. In effect, the people who change our lives the most begin to sing to us while we are still in darkness. If we listen to their song, we will see the dawning of a new part of ourselves.

Do not hold grain waiting for higher prices when people are hungry.

A tyrant... is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader.

We are decorated with the ornaments of endless desires. They are around our necks — my neck, everyone’s neck. However, these ornaments are not visible to ordinary people, only to the wise. We have decorated ourselves with a garland of endless desires mistakenly thinking that we would be happy if we had a nice house, a nice job, and nice clothes.

There is a message to the community that a non-governmental process is underway to bring about social change, it's a public one, and people like Margaret Thatcher, George Bush, and Mikhail Gorbachev are throwing their weight behind it. In a world where there's a lot of cynicism and despair, this has a candle-lighting effect.

There are two kinds of witnesses. One kind is the people that surround you. You are constantly aware that you are being watched, witnessed. With so many eyes watching you, you are reduced to an object... And you are afraid because they may not appreciate you. They may not feed your ego, they may not like you, they may reject you. Now you are in their hands.

Much of the violence that humanity suffers in our times is rooted in misunderstanding as well as in the rejection of the values and identity of foreign cultures. Tourism improves relationships between individuals and peoples; when they are cordial, respectful, and based on solidarity they constitute, as it were, an open door to peace and harmonious coexistence

I have now come to a stage of realization in which I see that God is walking in every human form and manifesting Himself alike through the sage and the sinner, the virtuous and the vicious. Therefore when I meet different people I say to myself, “God in the form of the saint, God in the form of the sinner, God in the form of the righteous, God in the form of the unrighteous.”

The police have enough work to keep them busy regulating automobile traffic, preventing robberies and crimes of violence and helping lost children and little old ladies find their way home. As long as the police confine themselves to such activities they are respected friends of the public. But as soon as they begin inquiring into people's private morals, they become nothing more than armed clergymen.

Due to individual karma, people must be sent away from a saint. How this is done varies. When the time for the association ends, the separation must occur.

Saints did Jap (japa) and Sadhana for 10,000 years… only then they could succeed in Jap, Meditation and Yoga. But people want to be expert within 5-7 months only.

Many people absorbed in the external world forget the soul and spend their precious lives unnecessarily without earning their divine salvation.

All your seriousness is about sandcastles. And you yourself will leave them one day, trampling them down, and you will not look back. The people who take it seriously miss the beauty of playfulness.

I will never allow one of my people to escape from me.

To make a revolution is not in the grain of our people's nature.

Many people think they cannot have knowledge or understanding of God without reading books. But hearing is better than reading, and seeing is better than hearing. Hearing about Benares is different from reading about it; but seeing Benares is different from either hearing or reading.

It is easier to bridge the oceans that lie between continents than it is to bridge the gap between individuals or the peoples.