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Showing posts from July, 2019

560. Swami Krishnananda

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06/07/2019 It may be that we try to remember God when we are comfortably placed. But the test as to whether He has really entered our hearts is whether we remember Him in sickness, suffering, opposition and times of temptation. To be able to realise God, you have first to want God. It is almost a question of supply and demand. To want God is not merely to ‘think’ but to ‘feel’ through your ‘whole being’ that you cannot exist without Him. The entire personality vibrates with a longing that cannot be satisfied by the beauty and the grandeur of the world. There is a want for ‘That’ alone, and nothing short of it. world is rooted in the belief in its existence. The form of the world changes when the consciousness reaches the different relative planes of the various degrees of reality. When consciousness expands into the truth of Pure Being, the world discloses its eternal nature of Pure Consciousness alone. Consciousness is the most positive of facts, the datum of all experience. ...

559. Swami Vivekananda

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06/07/2019 STEPS TO REALISATION : First among the qualifications required of the aspirant for Jnâna, or wisdom, come Shama and Dama, which may be taken together. They mean the keeping of the organs in their own centres without allowing them to stray out. I shall explain to you first what the word "organ" means. Here are the eyes; the eyes are not the organs of vision but only the instruments. Unless the organs also are present, I cannot see, even if I have eyes. But, given both the organs and the instruments, unless the mind attaches itself to these two, no vision takes place. So, in each act of perception, three things are necessary — first, the external instruments, then, the internal organs, and lastly, the mind. If any one of them be absent, then there will be no perception. Thus the mind acts through two agencies — one external, and the other internal. When I see things, my mind goes out, becomes externalized; but suppose I close my eyes and begin to think...

558. Swami Sivananda

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05/07/2019 Aspirants should direct their whole attention in the beginning towards the removal of selfishness by protracted service to the Guru. Serve your Guru with divine Bhava. The cancer of individuality will be dissolved. The captain of a ship is ever alert. A fisherman is ever alert. A surgeon in the operation theatre is ever alert. Even so, a thirsting hungry disciple should be ever alert in the service of his Guru. Live to serve the Guru. You must watch for opportunities. Life is the soul's vehicle, for the soul's evolution. Life's worth and glory depends not upon the number of years you have lived on earth, but upon what you have made of it, how well you have utilized it for the purpose of the supreme aim of rediscovering Eternity, how you thought and felt and acted on earth. If, when the present span of life is about to be closed, your balance sheet shows that you have given more than you have received, and you have added to your spiritual assets, indeed yo...

557. A Sannyasin's Life - Swami Chinmayananda

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05/07/2019 *SunshineSunday *KeepSmiling When an ardent *devotee first came in contact with Gurudev in the mid-1970s, he was amazed to see how many bhikshas Gurudev attended at which his devotees, #disciples, and admirers offered him sumptuous meals. “Unaccustomed to this, I used to look at the whole thing with a certain degree of *curiosity,” says the devotee. “I even began to think that a sannyasin’s life was pretty good.” Around 1979, he and his wife went to India. They joined Gurudev in *Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh, where he was holding a jnana yajna, with lectures every morning and evening. On a particular Sunday, Gurudev's schedule between morning class and noon included an inauguration of a local Chinmaya Mission Centre some 25 miles from Tirupati, a lecture at an ancient *temple, and a bhiksha at the home of a devotee. “Knowing of the busy morning schedule, the host served an adequate breakfast to Swamiji,” says the devotee. “We, too, were the beneficiaries, as...

556. The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna.

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04/07/2019. God laughs …"The whole universe belongs to Me, but they say they own this portion or that portion." Women are, all of them, the veritable images of Sakti. The devotee of God wants to eat sugar, and not become sugar. Brahman and Sakti are identical. If you accept the one, you must accept the other. One cannot think of the Absolute without the Relative, or of the Relative without the Absolute. One should not think, "My religion alone is the right path and other religions are false." God can be realized by means of all paths. If by the grace of the guru one's ego vanishes, then one sees God. Who may be called a paramahamsa? He who, like a swan, can take the milk from a mixture of milk and water, leaving aside the water. The waves belong to the Ganges, not the Ganges to the waves. All will surely realize God. All will be liberated, All, without any exception, will certainly know their real Self. The one essential thing is bhak...