And so I came to understand why some masters sometimes say, "You are already enlightened."

Practice becomes firmly grounded when well attended to for a long time, without break, and in all earnestness. (Yoga Sutras)

Though music transcends language, culture and time, and though notes are the same, Indian music is unique because it is evolved, sophisticated and melodies are defined.

Times will change for the better when you change.

In love abides all knowledge. It is mankind's love and interest in things that in time reveals their secret.

When Bhagavan spoke like this he sometimes used the analogy of a besieged fort. If one systematically loses off all the entrances to such a fort and then picks off the occupants one by one as they try to come out, sooner or later the fort will be empty.

You don't develop courage by being happy in your relationships everyday. You develop it by surviving difficult times and challenging adversity.

If you can maintain the siege for long enough, a time will come when no more thoughts arise; or if they do, they will only be fleeting, undistracting images on the periphery of consciousness. In that thought-free state you will begin to experience yourself as consciousness, not as mind or body.

Writing a diary every evening before going to bed is a good habit. We can record in the diary how much time we have devoted to our spiritual practice. The diary should be written in a way that helps us see our mistakes and correct them. It should not be a mere document of other peoples' faults or our daily transactions.

Worthless are those who injure others vengefully, while those who stoically endure are like stored gold. The gratification of the vengeful lasts only for a day, but the glory of the forbearing lasts until the end of time. Though unjustly aggrieved, it is best to suffer the suffering and refrain from unrighteous retaliation.

We've got to be long distance runners on the spiritual path. We want to run as fast as we can, but at the same time realize that if God isn't at the end of that 100 yards, we don't fall flat of exhaustion. We've got to have whatever rhythm it takes to be able to go on for incarnations until we find that state of perfection we've been seeking.

All religions have some truth in them, but none has the whole truth; all are created in time and finally decline and perish. Mahomed himself never pretended that the Koran was the last message of God and there would be no other. God and Truth outlast these religions and manifest themselves anew in whatever way or form the Divine Wisdom chooses.

Yoga is known as Brahmavidya (knowledge of the supreme spirit). This great knowledge is ancient and extremely difficult to attain. For its accomplishment, many lifetimes are required. If it were evaluated objectively, it would be defined as the supreme religion, the global religion, the universal religion, the human religion or the eternal religion.

God has come again and again in various Forms, has spoken again and again in different words and different languages the Same One Truth - but how many are there that live up to it? Instead of making Truth the vital breath of his life, man compromises by making over and over again a mechanical religion of it - a handy staff to lean on in times of adversity, a soothing balm for his conscience or a tradition to be followed.

Certain situations are extremely painful and our intelligence fails to reason how this could be a blessing of the Lord. At such times we could try humbly submitting a prayer, Oh God, please give me the strength to see this situation as your mercy although my intelligence fails to see it so. This way we can tap the so far concealed grace of the Lord, and develop gratitude for all inconceivable situations that God arranges for us in our lives.

No one else can want for me. No one can substitute his act of will for mine. It does sometimes happen that someone very much wants me to want what he wants. This is the moment when the impassable frontier between him and me, which is drawn by free will, becomes most obvious. I may not want that which he wants me to want - and in this precisely I am incommunicabilis. I am, and I must be, independent in my actions. All human relationships are posited on this fact.

The final awakening is the embracing of the darkness into the light. That means embracing our humanity as well as our divinity. What we go from is being born into our humanity, sleep walking for a long time, until we awaken and start to taste our divinity. And then want to finally get free. We see as long as we grab at our divinity and push away our humanity we aren’t free. If you want to be free, you can’t push away anything. You have to embrace it all. It’s all God.

India has an unbroken tradition of nonviolence from times immemorial.

Sometimes people can hunger for more than bread. It is possible that our children, our husband, our wife, do not hunger for bread, do not need clothes, do not lack a house. But are we equally sure that none of them feels alone, abandoned, neglected, needing some affection? That, too, is poverty.

Millions of people in the world's poorest countries remain enslaved by the chains of poverty. It is time to set them free.

The puzzling thing is that there is really a curious coincidence between astrological and psychological facts, so that one can isolate time from the characteristics of an individual, and also, one can deduce characteristics from a certain time.

A person who thinks all the time has nothing to think about except thoughts. So he loses touch with Reality, and lives in a world of illusion.

If we really want to love, if we really want to live, we must love until it hurts . . . No Rotarian whose motto is Service Above Self, I think, should call himself a Rotarian if he does not make time to serve . . . If we love, we begin to serve.