Ancient art has a specific inner content. At one time, art possessed the same purpose that books do in our day, namely: to preserve and transmit knowledge. In olden days, people did not write books, they incorporated their knowledge into works of art. We would find a great many ideas in the works of ancient art passed down to us, if only we knew how to read them.

What is illusion? M.: To whom is the illusion? Find it out. Then illusion will vanish. Generally people want to know about illusion and do not examine to whom it is. It is foolish. Illusion is outside and unknown. But the seeker is considered to be known and is inside. Find out what is immediate, intimate, instead of trying to find out what is distant and unknown.

We who have touched war have a duty to bring the truth about war to those who have not had a direct experience of it. We are the light at the tip of the candle. It is really hot, but it has the power of shining and illuminating. If we practice mindfulness, we will know how to look deeply into the nature of war and, with our insight, wake people up so that together we can avoid repeating the same horrors again and again.

To the philosophers of India, however, Relativity is no new discovery, just as the concept of light years is no matter for astonishment to people used to thinking of time in millions of kalpas, (A kalpa is about 4,320,000 years). The fact that the wise men of India have not been concerned with technological applications of this knowledge arises from the circumstance that technology is but one of innumerable ways of applying it.

We find the vast majority of people in every country believing that there will be a time when this world will become perfect, when there will be no disease, nor death, nor unhappiness, nor wickedness. That is a very good idea, a very good motive power to inspire and uplift the ignorant. But if we think for a moment, we shall find on the very face of it that it cannot be so. How can it be, seeing that good and evil are the obverse and reverse of the same coin? How can you have good without evil at the same time?

People often say to me, 'I understand what you are talking about intellectually, but I don't really feel it, I don't realize it,' and I am apt to reply, 'I wonder whether you do understand it intellectually, because if you did you would also feel it.'

When people live in accordance with Nature, the song of life becomes sweet.

Talking high philosophy often confuses people, but a look from an egoless person can lift the clouds of pain and despair.

The fool's standpoint is that all social institutions are games. He sees the whole world as game playing. That's why, when people take their games seriously and take on stern and pious expressions, the fool gets the giggles because he knows that it is all a game.

Speak to people according to the development of their consciousness, for if you speak all things to all people, some cannot understand you and so fall into errors!

Take it upon yourself where you live to make people around you joyful and full of hope.

Never worry about what other people say or think. Do the right. Have a clear conscience and roam about happily.

Basically, a human being is a social animal. So, if you create some short moment of happiness for people, you get deep satisfaction.

The criteria for success: you are free, you live in the present moment, you are useful to the people around you, and you feel love for all humanity.

Wonder, and its expression in poetry and the arts, are among the most important things which seem to distinguish men from other animals, and intelligent and sensitive people from morons.

Do not be proud of wealth, people, relations and friends, or youth. All these are snatched by time in the blink of an eye. Giving up this illusory world, know and attain the Supreme.

We are convinced that certain people have all the bad qualities we do not know in ourselves.

The more one studies the harmony of music, and then studies human nature, how people agree and how they disagree, how there is attraction and repulsion, the more one will see that it is all music.

People of this world are deluded. They're always longing for something, always, in a word, seeking. But the wise wake up. They choose reason over custom. They fix their minds on the sublime and let their bodies change with the seasons.

Successful people live well, laugh often, and love much. They've filled a niche and accomplished tasks so as to leave the world better than they found it, while looking for the best in others, and giving the best they have.

Our souls may lose their peace and even disturb other people's, if we are always criticizing trivial actions - which often are not real defects at all, but we construe them wrongly through our ignorance of their motives.

The high-minded man must care more for the truth than for what people think.

It is also in despair of being able to understand or make any productive contribution to the highly organised chaos of our politico-economic system that large numbers of people simply abandon political and social commitments. They just let society be taken over by a pattern of organisation which is as self-proliferative as a weed, and whose ends and values are neither human nor instinctive but mechanical.