From My Spiritual Diary-22:

· Keep your heart free and clean and humble, then God will enter.

· Service, humility and purity are the foundation of character. Without them, no spiritual growth is possible. So one must practice these qualities with earnestness and sincerity, and God will come. When we know that great Spirit, whom we call Father or Mother, as our own, all pride, fear and turbulence vanish and we find peace. As our heart becomes free from blemish, we feel the presence of the Divine within us and we are able to reflect it in our outer life; but we do not keep it to enjoy selfishly, we give it to others in every word, act and thought. (Swami Paramananda)

· Compassion, love of God, and renunciation are the glories of true knowledge. (Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa)

· The miseries of life actually help us. Evil is sometimes a blessing in disguise. Rise above your troubles. Troubles are good if they make us think of the Lord. Face the troubles and rise above them. Do not brood over troubles. That only makes matters worse. Try to get over the trouble calmly, in a balanced way. (Swami Yatiswarananda)

· Go to sleep in a prayerful mood. Meditate with a clear mind. Six hours sleep is sufficient. Read and study daily two hours at the minimum. (Swami Yatiswarananda)

· Everyone in this world is mad! Some are mad for money, some for creature comforts, some for name and fame and you are mad for God. (Bhairavi Brahmani to Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa)

· From our very birth, we have eight fetters of hatred, shame, lineage, pride of good conduct, fear, secretiveness, caste and grief. (Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa)

From My Spiritual Diary-21:

^ Moksha or liberation has no particular dwelling house; it is neither like going to another village; Moksha means only the destruction of the knots of the heart, consisting of ignorance and spiritual blindness. (Siva Gita)

^ He who does work for Me, who looks on Me as the Supreme, who is devoted to Me, who is free from attachment; who is without hatred for any being; he comes to Me. (Bhagavad Gita, XI.55)

^ When God is with us, who is against us? When God is not with us, who is for us? - This maxim is worth pondering over and to be pursued in life. (Swami Chidbhavananda)

^ Give with earnestness. Give liberally. Give with concern that your gift may not become useless. Give with all modesty. Give studying the merit of the case. (Vedanta)

^ Our body, mind and heart, instead of working in unison go in opposite directions that is why we accomplish little. When we write we write with all our faculties, we gain the power of penetration. (Swami Paramananda)

^ Not a particle of Truth can ever be lost not a single effort to realize the Truth can be unfruitful. Only thing required of us is to have patience and perseverance and unshaken trust in the Divine Worship of Truth brings great strength of conviction and absolute fearlessness. (Swami Paramananda)

^ Humility, unostentatiousness, non-injury, forgiveness, simplicity, purity, steadfastness, self-control; this is declared to be wisdom; what is opposed to this is ignorance. (Bhagavad Gita)

From My Spiritual Diary-20:

Ø One must have regular physical exercise every day. Our scriptures say: “A good physique is the first requisite of spirituality.” For spiritual advancement, one must first make the body strong: “Mens sana in corpore sano” – a Sound Mind in Sound Body”. (Swami Shivananda, Divine Life Society)

Ø One can escape from the clutches of misery only if one always thinks of the ultimate results that his acts may bring. Who can remove the misery of one who fails to learn even by repeated experience? (Swami Vrajananda)

Ø Whatever you do is karma. Not only what you do is karma, but also what you say or think is karma; even breathing is karma. If you say to yourself that you will murder somebody, that is almost as bad as if you have already murdered him. First thought, then action. What you think is important, for it is out of your thinking springs what you do later. So you have to watch every thought in your mind. Thinking makes you,. What you are. If you go on thinking bad thoughts, you will soon end up doing bad deeds also. Thinking and doing are not far apart. (Swami Lokeswarananda)

Ø Excessive routine activities stifle mental activity and creativity. (Silvano Arietti)

Ø The soul is neither young nor old. If only know how to draw energy from the soul, the body would also be rejuvenated. After intense meditation, there comes a rush of energy. (Swami Yatiswarananda)

From My Spiritual Diary-19:

Ø Seekers of wisdom discover sublime truth, seekers of love and devotion get transported into ecstasy; aspirants after perfection get inspiring ideals and examples; seekers of dirt end up in finding what they are after. The swan gets the milk, the crow the filth. (Swami Sastrananda)

Ø So long as we have no ideal to follow, we will have to heed to the calls of our lower nature; a characterless man is a slave to all worldly enjoyments. Whatever appears to him to be pleasant at first sight, he blindly follows, without caring for the after-effects. (Swami Ramakrishnananda)

Ø Meditation is not an easy thing. Eat a bit more and your mind will not settle that day. When lust, anger, greed and the whole host of evil passions are kept under control, then and then alone does meditation become possible. If any one of these asserts itself, meditation will be impossible. (Swami Brahmananda)

Ø In this ever-changing evanescent world, union coexists with separation, prosperity with adversity, happiness with misery, fortune with misfortune, enjoyment with disease, property with strife. Each follows the other like a shadow that passes. (Swami Vrajananda)

Ø A tree is known by the fruit it bears. If love for a stone image of Kali can produce a Ramakrishna, why not then try it? Ramakrishna proves what love for an ideal can achieve, even when that ideal is seen in a form beyond human understanding. God as a person may or may not exist; as an ideal, He certainly exists. (Swami Lokeswarananda)

From My Spiritual Diary-18:

Ø Universal vision gives us a conception of Divine Being. Through universal vision we approach nearer and nearer to the Supreme. We cannot have freedom of life, if we have any crookedness or narrowness in our thought or habit. We cannot have access to God without sincerity and directness. Only absolute dependence and absolute trust – will enable us to establish a living relationship with God. (Swami Paramananda)

Ø Mother Nature is bounteous to the man who is established in non-covetousness.

Ø The tendency to grab another’s property is inborn in man. It is the legacy of the animal instinct from which man has evolved. Aiding the others acquire wealth is sure means of reaching the state of non-covetousness. Pilfering, stealing, deceiving, profiteering, appropriating the found and unclaimed articles – these are all marks of covetousness. Man must earn his living by honest means. He must be satisfied with his own earnings. This is non-covetousness. (Swami Chidbhavananda)

Ø One who is a friend to himself is a friend to the world and the whole world is a friend to him. (Swami Vrajananada)

Ø Repeat the MANTRA ten thousand times every day; it will do you immense good; and continue this at least for a year. (Swami Brahmananda)

Ø He who has mastery over the mind is the monarch of himself (Buddha)

From My Spiritual Diary-17:

Ø You must draw up a routine before you start your spiritual practices. And you must not take upon yourself any work which may stand in the way of following the routine. (Swami Shivananda)

Ø Silence simply prolongs life; religion deepens it. (Inscription below the bust of Dr.Y.Subba Row in Lederle Labs, Bulsar, Gujarat)

Ø The disciplining of the mind is to be pursued with dauntless and cheerful determination, just like the determination to empty the ocean, drop by drop, by the tip of a kusa grass. (Gudapada in ‘Mandukya Karia’)

Ø In spiritual life, the bait that we fix to the hook of our mind is love of God and purity of character and sincerity in our search for God, which alone can attract God. (Swami Ranganathananda)

Ø The spirit behind both pure science and religion is the same, namely, PERSISTENT SEARCH FOR TRUTH. (Swami Ranganathananda)

Ø One concentrated, fully conscious, sincere utterance of the MANTRA is equivalent to hundreds of its absent-minded repetitions. Out of a thousand repetitions, only one may have been properly done. That is why you are asked to repeat the name of the Lord so many times. (Swami Yatiswarananda).

Ø Our words are not consistent with our thoughts. The first step in religion is to be sincere to the core. Shri Ramakrishna used to say that this is the foremost requisite in spiritual life. (Swami Saradananda).

Ø Weakness breeds all sorts of meanness. It is the source of all sins. (Swami Saradananda)

Gems from Swami Vivekananda-7:

This is the gist of all worship : TO BE PURE AND TO DO GOOD TO OTHERS.

From My Spiritual Diary-16:

· Don’t ever consider yourself low and unworthy. The past is past. Do not worry over it. Clamour before Sri Ramakrishna. Demand like little children telling, “Why won’t you show yourself?” For, indeed, He is our very own, our nearest relation. (Swami Madhavananda)

· Sanctity never enters into a lazy life. If the mind becomes saturated with worldly thoughts and feelings, it grows dense, heavy, unresponsive. Even in the hour of devotion, our spiritual aspiration when we try to awaken it, does not respond, as our mind is dull and heavy. But this does not happen with people who live carefully and thoughtfully. They do not slacken in their ardour. They do not leave their spiritual practice for the last moment. All through the day, in everything they do, they are preparing themselves. When we do this, even our ordinary tasks can be full of lofty inspiration. (Swami Paramananda)

· No evil befalls a man who does good. (Bhagavad Gita)

· The true spirit of religion is whole and whole-some. It promotes unification and all inclusive integration. The mark of true devotion is it unifies man and God, man and man and the various limbs of creation and society. (Swami Sastrananda)

· One should not abandon one’s duty though it is attended with evil. All undertakings are enveloped by evil as fire by smoke. (Bhagavad Gita)

Q&A-22: "How to get peace of mind?"

Our sages and scriptures suggest simple methods, which if followed in our daily life, will bless us with peace of mind. A few of them are as follows:

1. Always think that we are only instruments in the hands of the Lord and accept whatever comes as the result of our actions as His 'Prasadam', which will do only good for us.

2. Try to reduce 'I' in our speech and actions because the general rule is that the lesser the 'I', the more the peace of mind we will enjoy.

3. Reduce our talk, wants and desires as much as possible.

4. Practise meditation daily for some time in the morning and night.

5. Try to be optimistic always and develop positive thinking so that we will be able to see the 'best' in the 'worst'.

6. Doing our best and leave the rest to God's will.

It is very easy to say these things but difficult to do. So let us always pray to God: "O Lord! I am your child. I want to be good and do good. Kindly bless me with a pure heart so that I will always live in you."

This is the sure way for peace of mind. Let this be our prayer for this whole year.

- Swami Swaroopananda

Courtesy: 'Imaya Geetam', Tamil monthly, January 2008. Published by Sivananda Charitable Trust, Sivananda Satsang Bhavan, 70, Pechiamman Padithurai, Madurai-625001, Tamilnadu, India

Gems from Swami Vivekananda-6:

We want to lead mankind to the place where there is neither the Vedas, nor the Bible, nor the Koran; yet this has to be done by harmonising the Vedas, the Bible and the Koran.

Mankind ought to be taught that religions are but the varied expressions of 'THE RELIGION', which is ONENESS, so that each may choose the path that suits him best.

Gems from Swami Vivekananda-5:

Drinking the cup of desire, the world becomes mad. Day and night never come together, so desire and the Lord can never come together.

Gems from Swami Vivekananda-4:

One idea that I see clear as daylight is that misery is caused by IGNORANCE and nothing else.

Gems from Swami Vivekananda-3:

Be you holy and, above all, sincere and do not for a moment give up your trust in the Lord and you will see the light. Whatever is truth will remain for ever; whatever is not, none can preserve. Whatever others think or do, lower not your standard of purity, morality, and love of God. No one who loves God need fear any jugglery. Holiness is the highest, and divinest power in earth and in heaven. 'Truth alone triumphs, not untruth'. Through truth alone is opened the way to God.' Do not care for a moment who joins hand with you or not, be sure that you touch the hand of the Lord.

Gems from Swami Vivekananda-2:

Those that want to help mankind must take their own pleasure and pain, name and fame, and all sorts of interests, and make a bundle of them and throw them into the sea, and then come to the Lord. This is what all the Masters said and did.

Q&A-21: 'Is a Spiritual Guru necessary?'

An engineer disciple asked the Master (Swami Sivananda, Founder of Divine Life Society), “Is a spiritual Guru necessary?”

“Is a teacher necessary for your secular branches of learning? – the Master questioned back. How did you learn reading, writing and engineering? Did you not need a teacher, instructor or helper? If you needed them, then how much more you would need a spiritual teacher on the path of Yoga, which is described as the razor’s edge?

‘How can I believe the truth of the sayings of the saints and the Guru?’, put in the engineer.

“Experiment personally,” advised the Master. “Take the trouble of going through the disciplines and then draw your conclusions. An armchair philosophy will not help anyone.”

Courtesy: Imaya Geetam, Tamil monthly, January 2008
(Published by Mr.T.K.Seshan for Sivananda Charitable Trust, Sivananda Satsang Bhavan, 70, Pechiamman Padithurai, Madurai-625001

Prayer of the day-12:

Sacred Heart of Jesus, today I wish to live in You, in Your grace, in which I desire at all costs to persevere.

Keep me from sin and strengthen my will by helping me to keep watch over my senses, my imagination and my heart.

Help me to correct my faults which are the source of sin.

I beg of You to do this, O Jesus, through Mary Your Immaculate Mother.

Amen.

Courtesy: 'DevotionalPrayers.com'
http://www.devotionalprayers.com/Prayers/daily-prayer-to-sacred-heart.htm
(Daily Prayer to Sacred Heart)

'150 Years of Silence' by Swami Lokeswarananda

In historian William Digby’s opinion, Ramakrishna was ‘uncultured and illiterate’. No one can object to this, for, sentiments apart, what else was he? But Digby mentions Browning and Ruskin in the same breath, which is rather surprising, for they are poles apart from Ramakrishna. Talking about Browning and Ruskin he says they are the finest fruit of British intellectual eminence. Of course they are, but what amazes us is the fact that he thinks that compared with Ramakrishna both Ruskin and Browning are ‘mere gropers in the dark!’ (Prosperous British India, 1901, p.99)

A high tribute indeed, but how can it be said that Ramakrishna deserved it? Digby himself answers the question – Ramakrishna, according to him, ‘revealed God to weary mortals’. Ramakrishna called out to everybody seeking God, and when such a one came how happy he was! But more often he himself went out to share with others his own joy from experiences with God. He begged, argued, cajoled that people try to have that joy for themselves. He himself was an illustration of what that joy was like and how it could be attained. He was both the means and the end in this respect. He taught no creed or dogma; he taught only that man may not stop short of God-realization, also known as Self-realization. But what is God-realization or Self-realization? It is difficult to define. Perhaps the safest thing you can say about it is that it is the experience that made Ramakrishna what he was. This is hardly a satisfying answer, but what else can you say about an experience which is essentially personal? Can you, for instance, describe what you feel when you listen to Beethoven’s moonlight sonata? To understand it you must enjoy it yourself. The experience must be direct and personal. You may not understand the experience, but you can see the changes it brings about in the personality of a man who has realized God. People examined Ramakrishna again and again till they were satisfied that he was what he appeared to be – extraordinary. It can truly be said about him that those who came to scoff remained to pray.

What is extraordinary about Ramakrishna is his silence. While others shout about what they have to teach, Ramakrishna is totally silent. He is no teacher in the sense others are – people who try to have a following of their own. He dislikes the idea that anybody should call him his ‘guru’, ‘father’, or ‘teacher’. Perhaps by this he suggests that each individual has to be his own teacher because each individual is unique. What is sauce for the goose may be poison for the gander. The best way to learn is to try one’s way about, to explore, never to cease trying even if one fails again and again. As Digby says, Ramakrishna does not teach, he ‘reveals’. This makes his silence more powerful than any eloquence one can think of. It is like sun which penetrates everywhere whether you like it or not. Ramakrishna may be silent but today, one hundred and fifty years after his birth, he is known everywhere. Known and also loved This has happened not because of his followers, for no one knows how many of them he has, if any at all. This has happened because he reveals God whose other name is Truth, Truth which is eternal and universal, Truth which is irresistible. In revealing God, Ramakrishna has revealed himself, for he is the best historical example of what happens when one reaches the summit in spiritual experience, one realizes God, one realizes Truth. Like Truth, he himself is now irresistible after one hundred and fifty years of silence.

Courtesy: ‘Religion and Culture’ by Swami Lokeswarananda. Published by The Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture, Gol Park, Kolkata-700029. (Page 5-6). Price: Rs.10/-

Science and Religion

All science is the search for unity. Vedanta discovered this unity in the Atman; it followed its own method relevant to this field of inquiry. But it illustrated its conclusions with whatever positive knowledge was avoidable at the time. In recent centuries, this knowledge has been advanced radically and vastly by modern science, the impact of which on Vedanta, however, has been most wholesome. In fact, Vedanta hopes for and welcomes further radical advances in modern science by which its own spiritual vision of the One in the many may be corroborated by positive scientific knowledge, so that the spirituality of science and the spirituality of religion may flow as a united stream to fertilize all aspects of human life. Referring to this fact and hope in his ‘Paper on Hinduism’ read at the Chicago Parliament of Religions on September 19, 1893, Swami Vivekananda says (Complete Works, Vol.I, Eleventh Edition, p.15):

‘All science is bound to come to this conclusion in the long run. Manifestation, and not creation, is the word of science today, and the Hindu is only glad that what he has been cherishing in his bosom for ages is going to be taught in more forcible language and with further light from the latest conclusion of science.’

Vedanta is thus both religion and philosophy. As religion, it discovers the truths of the inner world, and fosters the same discovery by others; and as philosophy, it synthesizes this science of the inner world with the other sciences of the outer world, to present a unified vision of total reality, and to impart to human life and character the depth of faith and vision along with breadth of outlook and sympathy.

Religion, according to Vedanta, is supersensual knowledge; it is not supernatural, but only supersensual. Vedanta does not speak of any supernatural revelation. What lie within the sphere of the senses is not the concern of religion; nor has it the competence for it, says Vedanta, for that is the field of the positive sciences, the verdict of which will always hold in this field in preference to the verdict of religion. ‘Not even by a hundred statements of the ‘Sruti’ (body of supersensual knowledge, or scripture), can fire become cold’, says Sankara, because it goes against what has been ascertained by sense experience and positive knowledge. On the other hand, the positive sciences have no authority in the supersensual field of experience. They overreach themselves when they pronounce judgments on subjects like soul and God; they may, and often are, competent to provide hints and suggestions; but the inquiry itself is the concern of another science, the science of religion. Clarifying the position of these two types of sciences, Swami Vivekananda says (Complete Works, Vol.VI, Sixth Edition, p.81):

‘Religion deals with the truths of the metaphysical world just as chemistry and the other natural sciences deal with the truth of the physical world. The book one must red to learn chemistry is the book of (external) nature. The book from which to learn religion is your own mind and heart. The sage is often ignorant of physical science because he reads the wrong book – the book within; and the scientist is too often ignorant of religion, because he, too, reads the wrong book – the book without.’

- Excerpt from ‘THE MESSAGE OF THE UPANISADS’ by Swami Ranganathananda (7th edition)
- Published by Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Mumbai
- Pages 626
- Rs.80/-

Q&A-20: "What is the significance of the Gita?"

It is what you find by repeating the word, Gita, ten times. It is then reversed into 'tagi', which means a person who has renounced evrything for God. And the lesson of the Gita is: 'O man, renounce everything and seek God alone.' Whether a man is a monk or a householder, he has to shake off all attachment from his MIND. - Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa

Prayer of the day-11:

May all beings everywhere plagued
with sufferings of body and mind
quickly be freed from their illnesses.
May those frightened cease to be afraid,
and may those bound be free.
May the powerless find power,
and may people think of befriending
one another.
May those who find themselves in trackless,
fearful wilderness---
the children, the aged, the unprotected--
be guarded by beneficial celestials,
and may they swiftly attain Buddhahood.

- A Buddhist Prayer

Gems from the Bhagavad Gita-8:

Let one raise oneself by oneself, let not one lower oneself; for, one alone is the friend of oneself, one alone is the enemy of oneself.

Gems from Vedanta-6:

The core of man is unbroken bliss. It is delusion to think that it gets broken at intervals.

From My Spiritual Diary-15:

· Deficiencies can be made up by prayer and austerities. No defect, mental or physical, should discourage a man in respect of spiritual practice. (Swami Tapasyananda)

· Mentally take a vow that you will not do anything that is unethical. (Swami Madhavananda)

· See that no evil thought is relished and given a place in the heart. (Swami Madhavananda)

· Our egoism alone is root of all mischief.

· Only by simple faith, the Lord is obtained.

· Never think yourself low or weak.

· Only the pure heart with the eye of love can see the light that shineth from pure Spirit. (Swami Paramananda)

· Religion is our struggle towards perfection.

· All work, if could be done with the right attitude, becomes the worship of the Lord.

· God in His mercy has put into the mantra all power. With steadiness, assiduity and enthusiasm that mantra must be regularly repeated unremittingly. (Swami Madhavananda)

Gems from the Bible-11:

Speak that which is good. (I Kings 22:13)

Teachings of Holy Mother, Sri Sarada Devi-2:

Each has to get the results of his actions(karma). At least, a pin must prick where a wound from a sword was due.