From My Spiritual Diary-5:

* Truth can be realized only if one devotes oneself whole-heartedly to spiritual practice to the best of one's ability, day after day, month after month, year after year. There is no other path than this. There is no other way to Mukti.

* If one forms the habit of practising Japa and meditation steadfastly every day, it develops into a sort of craving in course of time.

* Try repeatedly to free the mind of all attachments to sense objects by prayers, by discrimination of good and evil, and by the repetition of the Mantra.

* One should not get up or engage in worldly talk immediately after meditation. One should try to make that mood last as long one can.

* Know the Mantra to be the source of great power and the very essence of the Chosen Ideal. One has to catch hold of the gross to reach the subtle; and through the subtle, one attains to the super-subtle, which is beyond the reach of mind and speech.

* If the mind is conquered, the world can be conquered. All spiritual practice and discipline are for that alone - the conquest of the mind.

* Our prayers are sure to be fulfilled if they come straight from the heart.

* What you intensely desire you are sure to get. But you have to work; nothing can be acquired without toil and travail.

* For householders, as Chaitanya said, the disciplines to be practiced are KINDNESS TO LIVING BEINGS, SERVICE TO THE DEVOTEES and CHANTING THE NAME OF GOD.

* The wealth of the miserly is squandered in these ways: first, litigation; second, thieves and robbers; third, physicians; fourth, their wicked children's extravagance.

Gems from Vedanta-1:

The bliss of the Self blurred by the impure mind is misery. The bliss of the Self reveals itself as such in the pure mind.

Courtesy: Daily Divine Digest by Swami Chidbhavananda.

From My Spiritual Diary-4:

* Man cannot see God on account of his ego. You cannot see the sun when a cloud rises in the sky. But that does not mean there is no sun; the sun is there just the same - Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa

* If a devotee prays to God with real longing, God cannot help revealing Himself to him.

* Bhakti is to adore God with body, mind and words. With body means, to serve and worship God with one's hands, go to holy places with one's feet, hear the chanting of the name and glories of God with one's ears, and behold the divine image with one's eyes, With kind means to contemplate and meditate on God constantly and to remember and think of His lila. With words means to sing hymns to Him and chant His name and glories.

* Devotion as described by Narada is suited to the Kaliyuga. It means to chant constantly the name and glories of God. Let those who have no leisure, worship at least morning and evening by whole-heartedly chanting His name and clapping their hands.

* Hanuman said, "O Rama, sometimes I find that You are the Whole and I a part; sometimes that You are the Master and I, Your servant;but, O Rama, when I have the Knowledge of Reality, I see that You are I and I am You."

* Cultivate the virtues of purity, self-control, detachment, truth and ahimsa in various forms and become a dharmatma.

* Worship your Ishta-Devata by every means in your power and acquire the grace of God.

* All men find themselves in this life in the toils of 'samsara' in accordance with their own 'karma'.

"WITHIN" - Srimat Swami Chidbhavanandaji Maharaj

When it rains, when storm sets in, when night comes, man keeps within. That act6 is a physical necessity for self-protection.

Being drawn within has several purposes. Birds and beasts keep to themselves in illness. Man withdraws within for repose. Repose is involuntary and retreat voluntary. To go within for spiritual illumination is the best and most profitable act that man can do. The knowing man is steady in the practice of it.

"He whose happiness is within, whose delight is within, whose illumination is within only, that yogi becomes Brahman and gain the Beatitude of Brahman" - Bhagavad Gita

Courtesy: Daily Divine Digest by Swami Chidbhavananda, Sri Ramakrishna Tapovanam, Tirupparaithurai, Trichy District, Tamil Nadu.

From My Spiritual Diary-3:

* If you want peace of mind, serve others.

* With him, to love meant to love actively, to serve, to help. And the loved one was not to be chosen, but was to be the nearest whosoever he happened to be, even the enemy in process of beating you, or the wicked or unfortunate - particularly7 such; for their need was the greatest.

* Unity is the test of truth. Everything that makes for Oneness is truth. Love is truth, and hatred is false, because hatred makes for multiplicity. It is a disintegrating power.

* You are weak because you wish to be.

* First have faith in yourselves. You yourself are the proof of God! "Thou art that!" Each of the pulsations of your blood sings it. "And the universe with its myriads of suns with one voice repeats the word: "Thou art that!"

If you cannot love your brother whom you have seen,m how can you love God whom you have not seen?

* I do not believe in a God who will give me eternal bliss in heaven and who cannot give me bread here. (Swami Vivekananda)

Mahatma Gandhiji on Prayer

Our prayer is a heart search. It is a reminder to ourselves that we are helpless without His support. No effort is complete without prayer - without a definite recognition that the best human endeavour is of no effect if it has not God's blessing behind it. Prayer is a cal to humility. It is a call to self-purification, to inward search.

Courtesy: "Truth is God" by M.K.Gandhi, Navajivan Publishing House, Ahmedabad.

From My Spiritual Diary-2:

* Poise, self-control, forbearance, discrimination, steadiness in one’s dharma, truthfulness, compassion, memory of the past, contentment with what is available, giving of alms, dispassion, faith in God, feeling of shame for ill-conduct, simplicity, humility, absorption etc are the characteristics of SATTVA. (Bhagavad Gita)

* Knowledge leads to unity; ignorance to diversity.

* If you meditate on an ideal, you will acquire its nature. If you think of God day and night, you will acquire the nature of God.

* A broomstick is itself unclean, but it cleans dirty places.

* Unless a man is simple, he cannot realize God.

* As long as the baby plays with the toy and forgets everything else, its mother looks after her cooking and other household duties; but when the baby throws away the toy and cries, then the mother puts down the rice-pot and comes to the baby. (The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna)

* It is desirable to reduce the number of one’s duties and entanglements.

* The watchword of all well-being is not I, but thou. Who cares whether there is a heaven or hell, who cares if there is a soul or not? Here is the world and it is full of misery. Go out into it as Buddha did, and struggle to lessen it or die in the attempt. Forget yourselves, this is the first lesson to be learn, whether you are a theist or an atheist, whether you are an agnostic or a Vedantist, a Christian or a Mohammedan. (Swami Vivekananda)

From My Spiritual Diary-1:

(I started maintaining 'Spiritual Diaries' more than ten years ago. They were meant for my personal use only. As such, I did not bother to note down the source of the various materials. Now as I feel that they could be useful to other spiritual aspirants, I have started posting them in this blog. However, I shall try to indicate the source wherever possible. I am sorry for this inevitable omission.)

....

* The poison generated by hatred could kill twenty persons. So don’t hate anybody.

* Much more energy is used up in being angry once, than is expended in working the whole day.

* Finding fault will only generate poison within you.

* Give up vanity and pride.

* All troubles come to an end when the ego dies.

* Egotism is the nature of ‘tamas’. It is begotten by ignorance. It is futile to be egotistic. Neither the body nor wealth will last. (Bhagavad Gita)

* Egotism, sleep, gluttony, lust, anger and the like are the traits of people with ‘tamas’. (Bhagavad Gita)

* Men with ‘rajas’ entangle themselves in many activities.(Bhagavad Gita)

* A man endowed with ‘sattva’ is quiet and peaceful. He earns only enough money to give his stomach simple food. He never flatters men to get money. He does not hanker for name and fame. His worship, charity and meditation are done in secret; people do not know about them at all. (Bhagavad Gita)

* ‘Sattva’ is the last step of stairs; next is the roof. As soon as ‘sattva’ is acquired, there is no further delay in attaining God. One step forward and God is realized. (Bhagavad Gita)

* The entangled souls repeat those very actions that make them suffer so much.

The Importance of Prayer

Jesus told his disciples that men ought always to pray. He himself was always in prayer. We often forget this. Prayer, for any spiritually-minded person, is no part-time occupation. For a man who has faith in God, all activities are prayers of a sort - walking, sitting, working, eating, playing. Such a man lives, like Brother Lawrence, in the presence of God, and his actions are offerings of prayer unto Him.

Excerpted from "The Context of Meditation" by Swami Bhavyananda - "Meditation" published by Sri Ramakrishna Math, Mylapore, Chennai.

Grateful thanks to Sri Ramakrishna Math, Mylapore.

Prayer of the day-6 : 'A Prayer for Purity'

May my flesh and blood be purified.

May my skin and my bones be purified.

May the marrow of my bones be purified.

May all my body be purified.

May I be free from attachments.

May I be free from impurities.

May my organs of sense be purified.

May my organs of action be purified.

May all my actions be purified.

May my mind be purified.

May my vital energy be purified.

May the earth and the air be purified.

May fire, ether and water be purified.

May I be pure! May I be pure!

I am verily the Atman!

I am pure! I am free! I am blissful!

- Swami Premananda