HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN QUOTES

When the human heart becomes conscious of God, it becomes like the sea: it extends its waves to friend and foe. Man's greatest privilege is to become a suitable instrument of God. The heart of the Holy One is the gate of God's shrine.
The wave is the sea itself yet, when it rises in the form of a wave, it is the wave and when you look at the whole of it, it is the sea.

How can the unlimited Being be limited? All that seems limited is in its depth beyond all limitations.
We are always searching for God afar off, when all the while He is nearer to us than our own soul.

Gentleness, mildness, respect, humility, modesty, self-denial, conscientiousness, tolerance and forgiveness are considered by the Sufi as the attributes which produce harmony within one's own soul as well as within that of another.
What is called sympathy, kindness, mercy, goodness, pity, compassion, gentleness, humanity, appreciation, gratefulness, and service - in reality, it is love.

He who expects to change the world will be disappointed; he must change his view. When this is done, then tolerance will come, forgiveness will come, and there will be nothing he cannot bear.
How can one explain spiritual progress? What is it? What is it like? Spiritual progress is the changing of the point of view.

In order to learn forgiveness, man must first learn tolerance.
Forbearance, patience and tolerance are the only conditions which keep two individual hearts united.
Great tenderness and watchfulness is required from each one of us.

All will help you if you will help yourself.
He who can quicken the feeling of another to joy or to gratitude, by that much he adds to his own life.
He who makes room in his heart for others, will himself find accommodation everywhere... Heart talks to heart.

The work of the inner life is to make God a reality, so that He is no more an imagination; that this relation that man has with God may seem to him more real than any other relation in this world. And when this happens then all relationships, however near and dear, become less binding. But atthe same time a person does not thus become cold, he becomes more loving.

Sadness comes from limitation in different forms, from lack of perception, from lack of power over oneself and over conditions, and from lack of that substance which is happiness itself and which is love.
The true ego does not know sorrow; its true being is happiness, for the real ego is God and God is happiness.
Happiness, which is sought after by every soul, has its secret in the knowledge of the self. Man seeks for happiness, not because happiness is his sustenance, but because happiness is his own being.

Throughout the whole journey on the spiritual path, the main thing that has to be accomplished is the forgetting of the false ego.
Spiritual attainment is attuning oneself to a higher pitch. As the shadow is evident yet non-existent, so is evil.

Do not bemoan the past, do not worry about the future, but try to make the best of today.

The universe is like a dome; it vibrates to that which you say in it, and answers the same back to you; so also is the law of action; we reap what we sow.

There is one God and one truth, one religion and one mysticism; call it Sufism or Christianity or Hinduism or Buddhism, whatever you wish. As God cannot be divided, so mysticism cannot be divided.
I have seen all souls as my soul, and realized my soul as the soul of all.
Seek Him in all souls, good or bad, wise and foolish, attractive and unattractive; in the depths of each there is God.

Some people look for a beautiful place, others make a place beautiful.
By our trust in the divine beauty in every person we develop that beauty in ourselves.
Instead of lamenting your fate, create your world.
Don't be concerned about being disloyal to your pain by being joyous.

There is no greater scripture than nature, for nature is life itself.

Every blow in life pierces the heart and awakens our feeling to sympathize with others; and every swing of comfort lulls us to sleep, and we become unaware of all... If it were not for pain, life would be most uninteresting, for it is by pain that the heart is penetrated.

Every person, however should be able to care for himself by prayer, by meditation, by silence, and to cherish that belief in perfect health and root out the belief in illness.

The Sufi’s tendency is to look at everything from two points of view: from his own and that of another.
What is Sufism? It is wisdom. To learn wisdom at every step on the path of life is the only work of the Sufi.

Every moment has its special message.
Everything in life is speaking in spite of it's apparent silence.

At death comes leisure. After death the mind comes to greater life, a life more real than here.

Love from above is forgiveness; from below, devotion.
Love lies in service; only that which is done, not for fame or name, not for the appreciation or thanks of those for whom it is done, is love's service.
Love is the divine Mother's arms; when those arms are spread, every soul falls into them.

Divine sound is the cause of all manifestation. The knower of the mystery of sound knows the mystery of the whole universe.

Until the heart is empty, it cannot receive the knowledge of God.

The external life is but the shadow of the inner reality.
No one will experience in life what is not meant for him.
Every man's path is for himself; let him accomplish his own desires that he may thus be able to rise above them to the eternal goal.

That person becomes conqueror of life who learns to control his tongue.
Fighting with another makes war, but struggling with one’s self brings peace.

Life is a continual battle. Man's constant struggle with outer things gives a chance to the foes who exist in his own being. And he alone is victorious who has conquered himself.
The final victory in the battle of life for every soul is when he has risen above the things which once he most valued.

Do not let your own mind be impressed by the depression of your friend. If you do, you will have taken the germ of his disease.

No-one has seen God and lived. To see God we must be non-existent.
If God is to be found anywhere, it is in man's heart, which is love.
The whole purpose of life is to make God a reality.
Above law is love; above love is the Beloved.

Happy is he who does good to others; miserable is he who expects good from others.
Good deeds, kindness, forgiveness, tolerance, acts of love, none of these are ever lost, and some day they will return to us.

A person however learned and qualified in his life's work in whom gratitude is absent, is devoid of that beauty of character which makes personality fragrant.

To weigh, to measure, to examine, to express an opinion on a great personality, one must first rise to the same development.

One is never so strong as when one is broken.
The heart is not living until it has experienced pain.
The heart sleeps until it is awakened to life by a blow; it is as a rock, and the hidden fire flashes out when struck by another rock.
The heart when it is not living and making its life a life of love, feels out of place; and all the discomfort of life comes from this... The soul feels suffocated when the doors of the heart are closed.

Joy and sorrow are the light and shade of life; without light and shade no picture is clear.

If there is anything that will bring satisfaction it is diving deep into Love, and then we shall realize that there is nothing which is not just; we shall never again say that anything is unjust. This is the point the wise reach, and they call it the culmination of wisdom.
Discussion is for those who say, what I say is right, and what you say is wrong. A sage never says such a thing hence, there is no discussion.

He who arrives at the state of indifference without experiencing interest in life is incomplete and apt to be tempted by interest at any moment; but he who arrives at the state of indifference by going through interest really attains the blessed state.

The true lover of God keeps his love silently hidden in his heart, like a seed sown in the ground, and if the seedling grows, it grows in his action towards his fellow-man. He cannot act except with kindness, he cannot feel anything but forgiveness; every movement he makes, everything he does, speaks of his love, but not his lips.

Love that is free from attachment is the love of sages.
The great teachers of humanity become streams of Love.
He who fights his nature for his ideal is a saint; he who subjects his ideal to his realization of truth is the master.

With the maturity of his soul, a man desires to probe the depths of life, he desires to discover the power latent within him, he longs to know the sources and goal of his life, he yearns to understand the aim and meaning of his life, he wishes to understand the inner significance of things, and he wants to uncover all that is covered by name and form. He seeks insight into cause and effect, he wants to touch the mystery of time and space, and he wishes to find the missing link between God and man — where man ends, where God begins.

Is a Sufi a follower of Islam? The word Islam means 'peace'; this is the Arabic word. The Hebrew word is Salem (Jeru-salem). Peace and its attainment in all directions is the goal of the world.

Be polite to all. Be prejudiced against no one. Bear no malice against your worst enemy. Blessed are they who make willing sacrifices in kindness. Consider your responsibility sacred. Do not look down upon the one who looks up to you. Do nothing which will make your conscience feel guilty. Extend your help willingly to those in need. Guard the secrets of friends as your most sacred trust. Influence no one to do wrong. Judge not another by your own law. Prove trustworthy in all your dealings.

In order to arrive at spiritual attainment two gulfs must be crossed: the sea of attachment and the ocean of detachment.
The solution to the problem of the day is the awakening of the consciousness of humanity to the divinity within.

It is the purity of the soul itself that gives the tendency towards cleanliness of body.
All forms of worship or prayer must draw man closer to God.

All the disharmony of the world caused by religious differences is the result of man's failure to understand that religion is One, truth is One, God is One; How can there be two religions?
The aim of all religions and philosophies is the understanding and the realization of unity.Your work in life must be your religion, whatever your occupation may be.
Insight into life is the real religion, which alone can help men to understand life.
The religion of the mystics is a steady progress towards unity….In the first way he sees himself in others, in the good, in the bad, in all; and thus he expands the horizon of his vision. This study goes on throughout his lifetime, and as he progresses he comes closer to the oneness of all things

I work simply, not troubling about results. My satisfaction is in accomplishing the work which is given to me, to my best ability, and I leave the effects to the cause.
There should be a balance in all our actions is to be either extreme or lukewarm is equally bad.

He who is looking for a reward is smaller than his reward; he who has renounced a thing has risen above it.

The desire of an infant to look at a thing, to tear it to pieces and see what is inside it, shows that it is the soul's desire to look into life, to understand life.
Through matter the soul attains to its highest realization; therefore, the physical body is a necessity for the fulfillment of its purpose.
The question, "What is the purpose of manifestation?" may be answered in one word: satisfaction, the satisfaction of God.

Self-pity is the worst poverty; it overwhelms man until he sees nothing but illness, trouble, and pain.
Self-pity is the worst poverty. When a person says, "I am to be pitied," before he says anything more he has diminished himself by half; and what is said further diminishes him totally.
Worry comes from self-pity. When the self is forgotten, there is no worry. Worry comes also from fear, and fear comes from the clouds of ignorance. Light breaks the clouds.

Do not boast of your good deeds. Do not reproach others, making them firm in their faults. Do not spare yourself in the work which you must accomplish. Do not take advantage of a person's ignorance. Harm no one for your own benefit. Make no false claims. Render your services faithfully to all who require them. Seek not profit by putting someone in straits. Speak not against others in their absence.

It is not our situation in life, but our attitude towards life that makes us happy or unhappy.
Right and wrong depend upon attitude and situation, not upon the action.
The right attitude in life is to keep a balance between justice and kindness.

Mastery lies not merely in stilling the mind, but in directing it towards whatever point you desire.
The soul is either raised or cast down by the effect of its own thought, speech, and action.

Verily the man who considers human feelings is spiritual.
The awakened heart says, "I must give, I must not demand." Thus it enters a gate that leads to a constant happiness.

Every thought, speech and action that is natural, sound and loving, is virtue; that which lacks these qualities is sin.
The words that enlighten the soul are more precious than jewels.

One can never think too many times of the wish one has. Dream about it, think about it and imagine it, keep it in mind, retain it in mind and do everything possible towards its fulfillment - but with poise, with tranquility, with patience, with confidence, with ease, and not by thinking hard about it.

While man rejoices over his rise and sorrows over his fall, the wise man takes both as the natural consequences of life.
With trust in God, with good will, self-confidence, and a hopeful attitude towards life, man will always win his battle, however difficult.

When one praises the beauty of God, one's soul is filled with bliss.
God is truth, and truth is God.
No man has the power to teach another the truth; man must discover it himself.
The person, who is in tune with the universe, becomes like a radio receiver through which the Voice of the universe is transmitted.

To love is one thing, to understand is another. He who loves is a devotee, but he who understands is a friend.
Every person desires that there would be in the world someone who understands him well, at least as well as he understands himself.

When speech is controlled, the eyes speak; the glance says what words can never say.
As one can see when the eyes are open, so one can understand when the heart is open.
For the value of everything exists for man only so long as he does not understand it. When he has fully understood, the value is lost, be it the lowest thing or the highest thing.

The sea of life is in constant motion, no one can stop its ever-moving waves. The Master walks over the waves, the wise man swims in the water, but the ignorant man is drowned in his effort to cross.

Behind us all is one spirit and one life; how then can we be happy if our neighbour is sad?
The service of God means that we each work for all.

When the mind and body are restless, nothing in life can be accomplished. Success is the result of control.
My intuition never fails me, but I fail whenever I do not listen to it.
Let courage be thy sword and patience be thy shield, my soldier.
When man rises above the sense of duty then duty becomes his pleasure.

Foundational principles of Universal Sufism:
1. There is one God; the Eternal, the Only Being; None exists save He.
2. There is one master; the guiding spirit of all souls that constantly leads all followers toward the light.
3. There is one holy book; the sacred manuscript of nature, the only Scripture that can enlighten the reader.
4. There is one religion; unswerving progress in the right direction toward the Ideal, which fulfills every soul's life purpose.
5. There is one law; the law of reciprocity, which can be observed by a selfless conscience, together with a sense of awakened justice.
6. There is one brotherhood; the human brotherhood which unites the children of earth indiscriminately in the fatherhood of God. This was later adapted by followers to; "There is one Family, the Human Family, which unites the Children of Earth indiscriminately in the Parenthood of God."
7. There is one moral; the love which springs forth from self-denial and blooms in deeds of beneficence. ... (later alternative; "which springs forth from a willing heart, surrendered in service to God and Humanity, and which blooms in deeds of beneficence").
8. There is one object of praise; the beauty which uplifts the heart of its worshipper through all aspects from the seen to the unseen.
9. There is one truth; true knowledge of our being, within and without, which is the essence of Wisdom.
10. There is one path; annihilation of the false ego in the real (later alternative; "the effacement of the limited self in the Unlimited"), which raises the mortal to immortality, in which resides all perfection.

ZOROASTER QUOTES

A thousand people cannot convince one by words to the extent that one person can convince a thousand by action.

With an open mind, seek and listen to all the highest ideals. Consider the most enlightened thoughts. Then choose your path, person by person, each for oneself.

Satisfaction linked with dishonor or with harm to others is a prison for the seeker.
Happiness comes to them who bring happiness to others.
Doing good to others is not a duty, it is a joy, for it increases our own health and happiness.
He who sows the ground with care and diligence acquires a greater stock of religious merit than he could gain by the repetition of ten thousand prayers

Turn yourself not away from three best things: Good Thought, Good Word, and Good Deed.
Taking the first footstep with a good thought the second with a good word and the third with a good deed I entered Paradise

The three greatest concerns of men are these: to make him who is an enemy a friend, to make righteous him who is wicked, and to make the ignorant learned.
Be good, be kind, be humane, and charitable; love your fellows; console the afflicted; pardon those who have done you wrong.

Suffer no anxiety, for he who is a sufferer of anxiety becomes regardless of enjoyment of the world and the spirit, and contraction happens to his body and soul. Hearken with your ears to these best counsels, reflect upon them with illumined judgment. Let each one choose his creed with that freedom of choice each must have at great events.
When you doubt, abstain.

A reflective, contented mind is the best possession.
Abiding happiness and peace is theirs who choose goodness for its own sake - without expectation of any reward.

All flows out from the Deity, and all must be absorbed in Him again.

MOTHER TERESA QUOTES

When Mother Teresa received the Nobel Prize, she was asked, ?What can we do to promote world peace? She answered - Go home and love your family.?

When a poor person dies of hunger it has not happened because God did not take care of him or her. It has happened because neither you nor I wanted to give that person what he or she needed.
We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty. We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty.

The fullness of our heart is expressed in our eyes, in our touch, in what we write, in what we say, in the way we walk, the way we receive, the way we need. That is the fullness of our heart expressing itself in many different ways.

Let's concentrate on a worthwhile goal: that no child be unwanted, that no person go unloved. And let's not stop smiling at whomever we meet, especially when it's hard to smile.

Keep the corners of your mouth turned up. Speak in a low, persuasive tone. Listen; be teachable. Laugh at good stories and learn to tell them...For as long as you are green, you can grow.

Service means an unceasing and wholehearted labor in making ourselves available so that He may live, in and through us, His life of infinitely tender, compassionate and merciful love, for the spiritually and materially poorest of the poor.
We are to be all love, all faith, all purity for the sake of the poor we serve.
The poor are our brothers and sisters... They are the people in the world who need love, who need care, who have to be wanted.
Speak tenderly to them. Let there be kindness in your face, in your eyes, in your smile, in the warmth of your greeting. Always have a cheerful smile. Don't only give your care, but give your heart as well.

Kind words can be short and easy to speak but their echoes are truly endless.
Kindness has converted more people than zeal, science, or eloquence.

Peace begins with a smile.
If you want to make peace, you don't talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.
I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.
If we really want to love, we must learn to forgive before anything else.
Pause and ponder. Think before you act. Be patient. Forgive and forget. Love one and all.
Whenever you share love with others, you'll notice the peace that comes to you and to them.

We shall never know all the good that a simple smile can do.
Every time you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing.
Let us always meet each other with smile, for the smile is the beginning of love.
Intense love does not measure, it just gives.
Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier. Be the living expression of God's kindness: kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile.

We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature - trees, flowers, grass- grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence... We need silence to be able to touch souls.
Listen in silence, because if your heart is full of other things you cannot hear the voice of God.
God speaks in the silence of the heart, and we listen. And then we speak to God from the fullness of our heart, and God listens. And this listening and this speaking is what prayer is meant to be: oneness with God.
Love Him trustfully, without looking back and without fear. Give yourself fully --He will use you to accomplish great things on the condition that you believe much more in His love than in your weakness.

Our poor people are great people, a very lovable people, They don't need our pity and sympathy. They need our understanding love and they need our respect. We need to tell the poor that they are somebody to us that they, too, have been created, by the same loving hand of God, to love and be loved.
Our life of poverty is as necessary as the work itself. Only in heaven will we see how much we owe to the poor for helping us to love God better because of them.

Spiritual people are not perfect people, They are only imperfect people who have put the Lord first.
What is our spiritual life? A love union in which the divine and the human give themselves completely to one another.
If I ever become a Saint ? I surely be one of "darkness". I will continually be absent from Heaven - to lit the light of those in darkness on earth.
We must have a real living determination to reach holiness. "I will be a saint" means I will despoil myself of all that is not God; I will strip my heart of all created things; I will live in poverty and detachment; I will renounce my will, my inclinations, my whims and fancies, and make myself a willing slave to the will of God.

Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies.
There is a tremendous strength that is growing in the world through... sharing together, praying together, suffering together and working together.

The greatest science in the world, in heaven and on earth, is love.
Love begins at home, and it is not how much we do... but how much love we put in that action.
Love begins by taking care of the closest ones - the ones at home.
I believe we must look for holiness, joy, and love in our own homes.

I want you to find the poor here, right in your own home first. And begin love there. Be that good news to your own people.
Poverty comes into our homes to give us the chance to love. Here is where love finds its place. Are we there, open and willing to offer support and affection?
Keep the joy of loving God in your heart and share this joy with all you meet especially your family. Be holy? let us pray.

There is a terrible hunger for love. We all experience that in our lives - the pain, the loneliness. We must have the courage to recognize it. The poor you may have right in your own family. Find them. Love them.
It is easy to love the people far away. It is not always easy to love those close to us. It is easier to give a cup of rice to relieve hunger than to relieve the loneliness and pain of someone unloved in our own home. Bring love into your home for this is where our love for each other must start.
What is important is that we are able to smile at one another in our families. With a generous and cheerful smile, we should be able to accept everything that happens, both the joyful things and the sad things.
Let us make one point, that we meet each other with a smile, when it is difficult to smile. Smile at each other, make time for each other in your family.

Let everyone sweep in front of his door and the whole world will be clean.
There should be less talk; a preaching point is not a meeting point. What do you do then? Take a broom and clean someone's house. That says enough.

When you don't have anything, then you have everything.
When you have nothing left but God, you have more than enough to start over again.
With God, nothing is impossible.

Why can't there be love that never gets tired?
Love is a fruit in season at all times, and within reach of every hand.
If you want a love message to be heard, it has got to be sent out. To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it.
In loving one another through our works we bring an increase of grace and a growth in divine love.

Each one of them is Jesus in disguise.
It takes humility to recognize the greatness of God shining through us.
We learn humility through accepting humiliations cheerfully.
Each one of us is what he is in the eyes of God.
We must all work together. We are all one in this unity.

If you can't feed a hundred people, then feed just one.
Small things, done in great love, bring joy and peace.
I do not agree with a big way of doing things. What matters is the individual. If we wait till we get numbers, then we will be lost in the numbers and we will never be able to show that love and respect for the person.
What we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But if that drop was not in the ocean, I think the ocean would be less because of that missing drop. I do not agree with the big way of doing things.

Somebody loves us, too - God Himself. We have been created to love and to be loved.
Let us touch the dying, the poor, the lonely and the unwanted according to the graces we have received and let us not be ashamed or slow to do the humble work.

I want you to be concerned about your next door neighbor. Do you know your next door neighbor?
Today, if we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other-that man, that woman, that child is my brother or my sister. If everyone could see the image of God in his neighbor, do you think we would still need tanks and generals?

There is always the danger that we may just do the work for the sake of the work. This is where the respect and the love and the devotion come in - that we do it to God, to Christ, and that's why we try to do it as beautifully as possible.
Success will win you false friends and true enemies - succeed anyway.

Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.
The greatest disease in the West today is not TB or leprosy; it is being unwanted, unloved, and uncared for. We can cure physical diseases with medicine, but the only cure for loneliness, despair, and hopelessness is love. There are many in the world who are dying for a piece of bread but there are many more dying for a little love. The poverty in the West is a different kind of poverty -- it is not only a poverty of loneliness but also of spirituality. There's a hunger for love, as there is a hunger for God.

It is impossible to walk rapidly and be unhappy.
Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls.
One filled with joy preaches without preaching.
I slept and I dreamed that life is all joy, I woke and I saw that life is all service. I served and I saw that service is joy.

Let us more and more insist on raising funds of love, of kindness, of understanding, of peace. Money will come if we seek first the Kingdom of God - the rest will be given.
Every creative act of ours in relation to other people -- an act of love, of pity, of help, of peacemaking -- not merely has a future but is eternal.
The good God has given Himself to us? Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say to you, rejoice.

Let us not be satisfied with just giving money. Money is not enough, money can be got, but they need your hearts to love them. So, spread your love everywhere you go.
God is in every human being. When I wash the leper's wounds, I feel I am nursing the Lord himself. Is it not a beautiful experience?
I try to give to the poor people for love what the rich could get for money. No, I wouldn't touch a leper for a thousand pounds; yet I willingly cure him for the love of God.

The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread.
One of the greatest diseases is to be nobody to anybody.
The most significant ailment in the world today is "spiritual deprivation."

Life is an opportunity, benefit from it.
Life is beauty, admire it.
Life is a dream, realize it.
Life is a challenge, meet it.
Life is a duty, complete it.
Life is a game, play it.
Life is a promise, fulfill it.
Life is sorrow, overcome it.
Life is a song, sing it.
Life is a struggle, accept it.
Life is a tragedy, confront it.
Life is an adventure, dare it.
Life is luck, make it.
Life is too precious, do not destroy it.
Life is life, fight for it.

People are unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered. Love them anyway. If you do good, people will accuse you of having selfish ulterior motives. Do good anyway. If you are successful, you will gain false friends and true enemies. Succeed anyway. The good you do today will be forgotten by tomorrow. Do good anyway. Honesty and bluntness make you vulnerable. Be honest and blunt anyway. What you spend years building can be destroyed overnight. Build it anyway. People really need help but may attack you if you help them. Help them anyway. Even if you live your life, you will die someday. Live your life anyway. Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth. Give the world the best you have anyway.

A sacrifice to be real must cost, must hurt, and must empty ourselves. Give yourself fully to God. He will use you to accomplish great things on the condition that you believe much more in his love than in your weakness.
If we accept that a mother can kill her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill each other? Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, rather, to use violence to get what they want.
Give that child to me. I want it. I will care for it. I am willing to accept any child who would be aborted and to give that child to a married couple who will love the child and be loved by the child.

Many people mistake our work for our vocation. Our vocation is the love of Jesus.
The joy of the Lord is our strength.
The miracle is not that we do this work, but that we are happy to do it.
True holiness consists in doing God's will with a smile.

All of us must cling to God through prayer and sacrifice.
From now on you must pray for your people and yourself three times a day.
Prayer is not asking. Prayer is putting oneself in the hands of God, at His disposition, and listening to His voice in the depth of our hearts.
If we pray, we will believe; If we believe, we will love; If we love, we will serve.
The Simple Path: Silence is Prayer. Prayer is Faith. Faith is Love. Love is Service. The Fruit of Service is Peace.

I find the rich much poorer- sometimes they are more lonely inside.
Even the rich are hungry for love, for being cared for, for being wanted, for having someone to call their own.

If you give what you do not need, it is not giving.
We have to give until it hurts. We need to give from the resources we would like to keep for ourselves. We need to give to the point of sacrificing. We must give something that we find hard to give up.
Everything that is not given is lost.
A life not lived for others is not a life.

Never be so busy as not to think of others.
One must really have suffered oneself to help others.
If you judge people, you have no time to love them.
The true way and the sure way to friendship is being open to each other, accepting each other just as we are, knowing each other.

Let's not pray long, drawn-out prayers, but let's pray short ones full of love.
Prayer, to be fruitful, must come from the heart.
Prayer unites us. Simply open your hearts to Him. Also, simply accept what He sends you. With a big smile, generously give Him what He asks of you. God will do the rest, never fear.

What greater love is there than God's love for each one of us? His love isn't a fantasy. It is real.
I am for God and God for me. I live for God and give up my own self, and in this way God lives for me.

I just take one day. Yesterday is gone and tomorrow has not yet come; We have only today, we must live each day as if it were our last so that when God calls us we already, and prepared, to die with a clean heart.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives; be kind anyway. If you are successful, you will win some false friends and true enemies; succeed anyway. If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you; be honest and frank anyway. If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous; be happy anyway. The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow; do good anyway… You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God; it was never between you and them anyway.

I prefer you to make mistakes in kindness than work miracles in unkindness.
Let nothing perturb you, nothing frighten you. All things pass. God does not change. Patience achieves everything.
I can do things you cannot, you can do things I cannot; together we can do great things.

How wonderful it is to think that we have all been created for a purpose! We have not come into the world to be a number; we have been created for a purpose, for great things: to love and be loved.
I am not sure exactly what heaven will be like, but I know that when we die and it comes time for God to judge us, he will not ask, 'How many good things have you done in your life?' rather he will ask, 'How much love did you put into what you did?
I'm a little pencil in the hand of a writing God, who is sending a love letter to the world.

The best day - today.
Biggest obstacle - fear.
Easiest thing - to fool.
Biggest misconception - that another is guilty of failure you.
Most difficult - to achieve your dreams.
Most unattainable - to please everyone.
Most stupid thing - justification.
Biggest mistake - you fall spirit.
Biggest defeat - to surrender without a fight.
Root of all evil - selfishness.
Best Entertainment - work.
Most useful thing - experience.
Most useless thing - laziness.
Worst defeat - despair.
Most needed - the hearth.
Most faithful friends - parents.
Biggest donors - the teachers.
Best teachers - children.
Your biggest enemy - you yourself.
Most dangerous man - a hypocrite.
Worst Wizard - anger.
Most treacherous feelings - hatred and envy.
Greatest happiness - to be useful to others.
Biggest success - to eradicate its shortcomings.
Most unpleasant drawback - bad mood.
What you cannot escape - the problems.
Most essential - communication.
Shortest path - right.
Longest time - to bring foreign brains.
Most beautiful gift - forgiveness.
Most best defense - smile.
Most pleasant feeling - inner peace.
Greatest pleasure - their duty.
Biggest disappointment - betrayal.
Most depersonalization - imitation.
Nobody can take you: education, experience and memories.
Most important thing you carry with you - mind.
Best medicine - optimism.
Most powerful force in the world - faith.
Most stimulating gift - hope.
Reality only - love.

There must be a reason why some people can afford to live well. They must have worked for it. I only feel angry when I see waste. When I see people throwing away things that we could use.

Find the sick, the suffering, and the lonely right where you are and in your own homes and in your own families, in your workplaces and in your schools.
Hungry for love, He looks at you. Thirsty for kindness, He begs of you. Naked for loyalty, He hopes in you. Homeless for shelter in your heart, He asks of you. Will you be that one to Him?

We draw the circle of our family too small.
If I look at the mass I will never act. If I look at one, I will.
I never look at the masses as my responsibility; I look at the individual. I can only love one person at a time - just one, one, one. So you begin. I began - I picked up one person. Maybe if I didn't pick up that one person, I wouldn't have picked up forty-two thousand....The same thing goes for you, the same thing in your family, the same thing in your church, your community. Just begin - one, one, one.

I perceive the infinite greatness that we can tap into. I see how he can work through us. Because you and I have nothing on our own we need him. As the Bible says, God waits and looks. Will we respond?

May today there be peace within. May you trust that you are exactly where you are meant to be. May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith in yourself and others. May you use the gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you. May you be content with yourself just the way you are. Let this knowledge settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love. It is there for each and every one of us.

Love, tenderness, and compassion are real justice. Justice without love is not justice. Love without justice is not love.
The most important medicine is tender love and care.
It is only by frequent deaths of ourselves and our self-centered desires that we can come to live more fully.

Keep in mind that our community is not composed of those who are already saints, but of those who are trying to become saints. Therefore let us be extremely patient with each other's faults and failures.

If you cannot love the person whom you see, how can we love God, whom we cannot see?
May God break my heart so completely that the whole world falls in.
The more we empty ourselves, the more room we give God to fill us.
Unless you become like a little child, you cannot enter into heaven. And what is being a little child? It is having a clean heart, a pure heart.
Try to be more in tune with God and more open to Him, so that you will be able to see His face.
The whole of our life must come to that one word "yes." Yes to God: that is holiness. We allow God to take from us whatever He wants and we accept whatever He gives with joy. That is yes in action.

These are the few ways we can practice humility: To speak as little as possible of one's self. To mind one's own business. Not to want to manage other people's affairs. To avoid curiosity. To accept contradictions and correction cheerfully. To pass over the mistakes of others. To accept insults and injuries. To accept being slighted, forgotten and disliked. To be kind and gentle even under provocation. Never to stand on one's dignity. To choose always the hardest.

SWAMI VIVEKANANDA QUOTES

Fear is death, fear is sin, fear is hell, fear is unrighteousness, fear is wrong life. All the negative thoughts and ideas that are in the world have proceeded from this evil spirit of fear.
If there is one word that you find coming out like a bomb from the Upanishads, bursting like a bombshell upon masses of ignorance, it is the word fearlessness.

Have faith that you are all, my brave lads, born to do great things! Let not the barks of puppies frighten you, no, not even the thunderbolts of heaven, but stand up and work!
Have you got the will to surmount mountain-high obstructions? If the whole world stands against you sword in hand, would you still dare to do what you think is right?

The different forms of Yoga that we teach are adapted to the different natures and temperaments of men. We classify them in the following way, under four heads:(1) Karma-Yoga -- The manner in which a man realizes his own divinity through works and duty. (2) Bhakti-Yoga -- The realization of the divinity through devotion to, and love of, a Personal God. (3) Raja-Yoga -- The realization of the divinity through the control of mind.(4) Jnana-Yoga -- The realization of a man's own divinity through knowledge. These are all different roads leading to the same centre -- God.

Not even the deepest sleep will give you such a rest as meditation can. The mind goes on jumping even in deepest sleep. Just those few moments in meditation your brain has almost stopped. … You forget the body. … You feel such pleasure in it. You become so light. This perfect rest we will get in meditation.

All nature is bound by law, the law of its own action; and this law can never be broken. If you could break a law of nature, all nature would come to an end in an instant. There would be no more nature. He who attains freedom breaks the law of nature, and for him nature fades away and has no more power over him. Each one will break the law but once and forever, and that will end his trouble with nature.
Man begins to struggle and fight against nature. He makes many mistakes, he suffers. But eventually, he conquers nature and realizes his freedom. When he is free, nature becomes his slave.

How has all the knowledge in the world been gained but by the concentration of the powers of the mind? The world is ready to give up its secrets if we only know how to knock, how to give it the necessary blow. The strength and force of the blow come through concentration. There is no limit to the power of the human mind. The more concentrated it is, the more power is brought to bear on one point; that is the secret.

Talk to yourself at least once in a Day.. Otherwise you may miss a meeting with an EXCELLENT person in this World.

Mentally repeat: Let all beings be happy; Let all beings be peaceful; Let all beings be blissful. So do to the east, south, north and west. The more you do that the better you will feel yourself. You will find at last that the easiest way to make ourselves healthy is to see that others are healthy, and the easiest way to make ourselves happy is to see that others are happy. After doing that, those who believe in God should pray---not for money, not for health, not for heaven; pray for knowledge and light; every other prayer is selfish.

Experience is the only teacher we have. We may talk and reason all our lives, but we shall not understand a word of truth until we experience it ourselves.
Everything can be sacrificed for truth, but truth cannot be sacrificed for anything.

All knowledge that the world has ever received comes from the mind; the infinite library of the universe is in your own mind. The external world is simply the suggestion, the occasion, which sets you to study your own mind, but the object of your study is always your own mind.
All minds are the same, different parts of one Mind. He who knows one lump of clay has known all the clay in the universe. He who knows and controls his own mind, knows the secret of every mind, and has power over every mind.

Do not look back upon what has been done. Go ahead!
Don't look back—forward, infinite energy, infinite enthusiasm, infinite daring, and infinite patience—then alone can great deeds be accomplished.

If a man with an ideal makes a thousand mistakes, I am sure that the man without an ideal makes fifty thousand. Therefore, it is better to have an ideal.
Live for an ideal, and leave no place in the mind for anything else.
Fill the brain with high thoughts, highest ideals, place them day and night before you, and out of that will come great work.
Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life - think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success.
Hold the ideal a thousand times, and if you fail a thousand times, make the attempt once more.
If you have assimilated five ideas and made them your life and character, you have more education than any man who has got by heart a whole library.

Everyone must work in the universe. Only those who are perfectly satisfied with the Self, whose desires do not go beyond the Self, whose mind never strays out of the Self, to whom the Self is all in all, only those do not work. The rest must work.

Education is not filling the mind with a lot of facts. Perfecting the instrument and getting complete mastery of my own mind [is the ideal of education]. If I want to concentrate my mind upon a point, it goes there, and the moment I call, it is free [again].
Education may be described as a development of faculty, not an accumulation of words, or, as a training of individuals to will rightly and efficiently.

Prayer is divine love alone. When this highest ideal of love is reached, philosophy is thrown away. Who will then care of it? Freedom, salvation, nirvana- all are thrown away. Who cares to become free while in the enjoyment of divine love?

Discriminate within yourself between the real and the unreal. Have you not read the Vedanta? Even when you sleep, keep the sword of discrimination at the head of your bed, so that covetousness cannot approach you even in dream. Practicing such strength, renunciation will gradually come, and then you will see the portals of heaven are wide open to you.

It is always for greater joy that you give up the lesser. This is practical religion—the attainment of freedom, renunciation. Renounce the lower so that you may get the higher. Renounce! Renounce! Sacrifice! Give up! Not for zero. Not for nothing, but to get the higher.

Are you unselfish? That is the question. If you are, you will be perfect without reading a single religious book, without going into a single church or temple.
All the great systems of ethics preach absolute unselfishness as the goal. Supposing this absolute unselfishness can be reached by a man, what becomes of him? He is no more the little Mr. So-and-so; he has acquired infinite expansion. That little personality which he had before is now lost to him for ever; he has become infinite, and the attainment of this infinite expansion is indeed the goal of all religions and of all moral and philosophical teachings.

Go on doing good, thinking holy thoughts continuously; that is the only way to suppress base impressions... The chaste brain has tremendous energy and gigantic will-power.
Go on saying, I am free. Never mind if the next moment delusion comes and says, I am bound. Dehypnotize the whole thing.

Doing good to others is virtue (Dharma); injuring others is sin. Strength and manliness are virtue; weakness and cowardice are sin. Independence is virtue; dependence is sin. Loving others is virtue; hating others is sin. Faith in God and in one's own Self is virtue; doubt is sin. Knowledge of oneness is virtue; seeing diversity is sin. The different scriptures only show the means of attaining virtue.

Hold to the idea, I am not the mind, I see that I am thinking, I am watching my mind act, and each day the identification of yourself with thoughts and feelings will grow less, until at last you can entirely separate yourself from the mind and actually know it to be apart from yourself.

I want each one of my children to be a hundred times greater than I could ever be. Everyone of you must be a giant— must, that is my word. Obedience, readiness, and love for the cause— if you have these three, nothing can hold you back.
If you are really my children, you will fear nothing, stop at nothing. You will be like lions. We must rouse India and the whole world. No cowardice. I will take no nay. Do you understand?

As soon as I think that I am a little body, I want to preserve it, to protect it, to keep it nice, at the expense of other bodies; then you and I become separate.
Always discriminate--your body, your house, the people and the world are all absolutely unreal like a dream. Always think that the body is only an inert instrument. And the Atman within is your real nature.
As body, mind, or soul, you are a dream; you really are Being, Consciousness, Bliss (satchidananda). You are the God of this universe.
As long as I feel pain, I have identified myself with the body. When I feel joy or pleasure, I have identified myself with the body. But the high state will look with the same pleasure or blissfulness upon pleasure or upon pain...Every meditation is direct super-consciousness.

Man is an infinite circle whose circumference is nowhere, but the centre is located in one spot; and God is an infinite circle whose circumference is nowhere, but whose centre is everywhere.

Whenever darkness comes, assert the reality and everything adverse must vanish. For after all, it is but a dream. Mountain-high though the difficulties appear, terrible and gloomy though all things seem, they are but Maya. Fear not, and it is banished. Crush it, and it vanishes. Stamp upon it, and it dies.

In everyone is God, the Atman; all else is but dream, an illusion.
This is no world. It is God Himself. In delusion we call it world.
Delusion will vanish as the light becomes more and more effulgent, load after load of ignorance will vanish, and then will come a time when all else has disappeared and the sun alone shines.

The man who becomes angry never does a great amount of work, and the man whom nothing can make angry accomplishes so much. The man who gives way to anger, or hatred, or any other passion, cannot work; he only breaks himself to pieces, and does nothing practical. It is the calm, forgiving, equable, well-balanced mind that does the greatest amount of work.

Ask nothing; want nothing in return. Give what you have to give; it will come back to you, but do not think of that now.

It is our own mental attitude which makes the world what it is for us. Our thought make things beautiful, our thoughts make things ugly. The whole world is in our own minds. Learn to see things in the proper light. First, believe in this world, that there is meaning behind everything. Everything in the world is good, is holy and beautiful. If you see something evil, think that you do not understand it in the right light. Throw the burden on yourselves!

If you can think that infinite power, infinite knowledge and indomitable energy lie within you, and if you can bring out that power, you also can become like me.
Infinite patience, infinite purity, and infinite perseverance are the secret of success in a good cause.

I, for one, thoroughly believe that no power in the universe can withhold from anyone anything they really deserve.

If a man does not get food one day, he is troubled; if his son dies how agonising it is to him! The true Bhakta feels the same pangs in his heart when he yearns for God. The great quality of Bhakti is that it cleanses the mind, and the firmly established Bhakti for the Supreme Lord is alone sufficient to purify the mind.

Bhakti is intense love to God. When a man gets it he loves all, hates none; he becomes satisfied for ever. This love cannot be reduced to any earthly benefit, because so long as worldly desires last that kind of love does not come.

Blows are what awaken us and help to break the dream. They show us the insufficiency of this world and make us long to escape, to have freedom.

Everything in time, space, and causation is bound. The soul is beyond all time, all space, all causation. That which is bound is nature, not the soul.
Man is born to conquer nature and not to follow it.

God is still established upon His own majestic changeless Self. You and I try to be one with Him, but plant ourselves upon Nature, upon the trifles of daily life, on money, on fame, on human love and all these changing forms in Nature which make for bondage.

After every happiness comes misery; they may be far apart or near. The more advanced the soul, the more quickly does one follow the other. What we want is neither happiness nor misery. Both make us forget our true nature; both are chains--one iron, one gold; behind both is the Atman, who knows neither happiness nor misery. These are states, and states must ever change; but the nature of the Atman is bliss, peace, unchanging. We have not to get it, we have it; only wash away the dross and see it.

Great undertakings are always fraught with many obstacles.
Great work requires great and persistent effort for a long time. … Character has to be established through a thousand stumbles.

Have charity towards all beings. Pity those who are in distress. Love all creatures. Do not be jealous of anyone. Look not to the faults of others.

Comfort is no test of truth; on the contrary, truth is often far from being comfortable.

Concentration is the essence of all knowledge; nothing can be done without it. Ninety percent of thought force is wasted by the ordinary human being, and therefore he is constantly committing blunders; the trained man or mind never makes a mistake.
Concentration of the powers of the mind is our only instrument to help us see God. If you know one soul (your own), you know all souls, past, present and to come. The will concentrates the mind, certain things excite and control this will, such as reason, love, devotion, breathing, etc. The concentrated mind is a lamp that shows us every corner of the soul.

Condemn none: if you can stretch out a helping hand, do so. If you cannot, fold your hands, bless your brothers, and let them go their own way.
All condemnation of others really condemns ourselves. Adjust the microcosm which is in your power to do and the macrocosm will adjust itself for you.

Why are people so afraid? The answer is that they have made themselves helpless and dependent on others. We are so lazy, we do not want to do anything ourselves. We want a Personal God, a Savior or a Prophet to do everything for us.

All the actions that we see in this world, all the movements in human society, all the works that we have around us, are simply the display of thought, the manifestation of the will of man.

The true Bhakta's love is this burning madness, before which everything else vanishes for him. The whole universe is to him full of love and love alone; that is how it seems to the lover. So when a man has this love in him, he becomes eternally blessed, eternally happy; the blessed madness of divine love alone can cure for ever the disease of the world that is in us.

Where can we go to find God if we cannot see Him in our own hearts and in every living being.
God is to be worshipped as the one beloved, dearer than everything in this and next life.
Devotion to duty is the highest form of worship of God.

Self-realization is to be attained by renunciation, by meditation—renunciation of all the senses, cutting the knots, the chains that bind us down to matter.
Self-sacrifice, not self-assertion, is the highest law of the universe....Religion comes with intense self-sacrifice. Desire nothing for yourself. Do all for others. This is to live and move and have your being in God.

You, as body, mind, or soul, are a dream, but what you really are, is Being, Consciousness, Bliss. You are the God of this universe. You are creating the whole universe and drawing it in.
You are in all, and you are all. Whom to avoid, and whom to take? You are the all in all. When this knowledge comes, delusion immediately vanishes.

To talk of evil and misery is nonsense, because they do not exist outside. If I am immune against all anger, I never feel angry. If I am proof against all hatred, I never feel hatred.

Do you love your fellow men? Where should you go to seek for God-- are not all the poor, the miserable, the weak, gods? Why not worship them first? Why go to dig a well on the shores of the Ganga?

In this external world, which is full of finite things, it is impossible to see and find the Infinite. The Infinite must be sought in that alone which is infinite, and the only thing infinite about us is that which is within us, our own soul. Neither the body, nor the mind, nor even our thoughts, nor the world we see around us, is infinite.
In this world of many, he who sees the One, in this ever-changing world, he who sees Him, who never changes, as the Soul of his own soul, as his own Self, he is free, he is blessed, he has reached the goal.
From Whom all beings are projected, in Whom all live, and unto Whom they all return; that is God.

I fervently wish no misery ever came near anyone; yet it is that alone that gives us an insight into the depths of our lives, does it not? In our moments of anguish, gates barred forever seem to open and let in many a flood of light.

If there is no strength in body and mind, the Atman cannot be realized. First you have to build the body by good nutritious food—then only will the mind be strong.

Everything that we perceive around us is struggling towards freedom, from the atom to the man, from insentient, lifeless particle of matter to the highest existence on earth, the human soul. The whole universe is in fact the result of this struggle for freedom.

Give up all argumentation and other distractions. Is there anything in dry intellectual jargon? It only throws the mind off its balance and disturbs it. Things of subtler plane has to be realized. Will talking do that? So give up all vain talk. Read only those books which has been writted by persons who have had realization.
Give up all desire for enjoyment in earth or heaven. Control the organs of the senses and control the mind. Bear every misery without even knowing that you are miserable. Think of nothing but spiritual freedom.
Give up jealously and conceit. Learn to work unitedly for others.
Give up the burden of all deeds to the Lord; give all, both good and bad. Do not keep the good and give only the bad. God helps those who do not help themselves.

Be perfectly resigned, perfectly unconcerned; then alone can you do any true work. No eyes can see the real forces; we can only see the results. Put out self, forget it; just let God work, it is His business.

The world is the great gymnasium where we come to make ourselves strong.

Do not hate anybody, because that hatred which comes out from you must, in the long run, come back to you. If you love, that love will come back to you, completing the circle.

He alone who is always awake to the idea of freedom, becomes free; he who thinks he is bound, endures life after life in the state of bondage.
We must always bear in mind that we are not going to be free, but are free already. Every idea that we are bound is a delusion.

In a conflict between the heart and the brain, follow your heart.

If you seek your own salvation, you will go to hell. It is the salvation of others that you must seek and even if you have to go to hell in working for others, that is worth more than to gain heaven by seeking your own salvation.

Be free; hope for nothing from anyone. I am sure if you look back upon your lives you will find that you were always vainly trying to get help from others which never came.

Our duty is to encourage every one in his struggle to live up to his own highest idea, and strive at the same time to make the ideal as near as possible to the Truth.

Do not go for glass beads leaving the mine of diamonds. This life is a great chance. What, seekest thou the pleasures of the world? He is the fountain of all bliss. See for the highest, aim at that highest, and you shall reach the highest.

That man has reached immortality who is disturbed by nothing material.
Tremendous purity, tremendous renunciation, is the one secret of spirituality. Neither through wealth, nor through progeny, but through renunciation alone is immortality to be reached, say the Vedas. Sell all that thou hast and give to poor, and follow me, says the Christ. So all great saints and prophets have expressed it, and have carried it out in their lives. How can great spirituality come without renunciation?

He who sees in this world of manifoldness that One running through all, in this world of death, he who finds that One Infinite Life, and in this world of insentience and ignorance, he who finds that One Light and Knowledge, unto him belongs eternal peace. Unto none else, unto none else.

In language and literature, in poetry and in arts, in everything we must point out not the mistakes that people are making in their thoughts and actions, but the way in which they will gradually be able to do these things better. Pointing out mistakes wounds a man's feelings. You have to grow from inside out. None can teach you, none can make you spiritual. There is no other teacher but your own soul.

Karma-Yoga teaches us how to work for work's sake, unattached, without caring who is helped. and what for. The Karma-Yogi works because it is his nature, because he feels that it is good for him to do so, and he has no object beyond that. His position in this world is that of a giver, and he never cares to receive anything. He knows that he is giving and does not ask for anything in return and therefore he eludes the grasp of misery.

If you think that you are bound, you remain bound; you make your own bondage. If you know that you are free, you are free this moment. This is knowledge, knowledge of freedom. Freedom is the goal of all nature.

Man is not bound by any other laws excepting those which he makes for himself.

Each is responsible for the evil anywhere in this world....All that unites with the universal is virtue. All that separates is sin. You are a part of the Infinite. This is your nature. Hence you are your brother's keeper....Not one can attain liberty until every being (ant or dog) has liberty. Not one can be happy until all are happy. When you hurt anyone you hurt yourself, for you and your brother are one.

If a man works without any selfish motive in view, does he not gain anything? Yes, he gains the highest. Unselfishness is more paying, only people have not the patience to practise it. It is more paying from the point of view of health also. Love, truth and unselfishness are not merely moral figures of speech, but they form our highest ideal, because in them lies such a manifestation of power.

All expansion is life, all contraction is death. All love is expansion, all selfishness is contraction. Love is therefore the only law of life. He who loves lives, he who is selfish is dying. Therefore love for love’s sake, because it is law of life, just as you breathe to live.

Go on! Do not look back if you think you have done something that is not right. Now, do you believe you could be what you are today, had you not made those mistakes before? Bless your mistakes then. They have been angels unawares. Blessed be torture! Blessed be happiness! Do not care what be your lot. Hold on to the ideal. March on!

God is merciful to those whom He sees struggling heart and soul for realization. But remain idle, without any struggle, and you will see that His grace will never come.

Each one of our Yogas is fitted to make man perfect even without the help of the others, because they have all the same goal in view. The Yogas of work, wisdom, and of devotion are all capable of serving as direct and independent means for the attainment of Moksha.

When we come to nonattachment, then we can understand the marvelous mystery of the universe: how it is intense activity and at the same time intense peace, how it is work every moment and rest every moment.

A tremendous stream is flowing toward the ocean, carrying us all along with it; and though like straws and scraps of paper we may at times float aimlessly about, in the long run we are sure to join the Ocean of Life and Bliss.

It is criticizing each other that is at the root of all mischief. That is the chief factor in breaking down organizations.

Even the least work done for others awakens the power within; even thinking the least good of others gradually instills into the heart the strength of a lion.

In a day when you don't come across any problems — you can be sure that you are traveling in the wrong path.

Money does not pay, nor name; fame does not pay, nor learning. It is love that pays; it is character that cleaves its way through adamantine walls of difficulties.

If it is impossible to attain perfection here and now, there is no proof that we can attain perfection in any other life. -Swami Vivekananda, http://globalholisticmotivators.blogspot.com, www.truthbliss.com

Realize your true nature. That is all there is to do. Know yourself as you are—infinite spirit. That is practical religion. Everything else is impractical, for everything else will perish. -Swami Vivekananda, http://globalholisticmotivators.blogspot.com, www.truthbliss.com

Love is always mutual and reflective. You may hate me, and if I want to love you, you repulse me. But if I persist, in a month or a year you are bound to love me. It is a well-known psychological phenomenon. -Swami Vivekananda, http://globalholisticmotivators.blogspot.com, www.truthbliss.com

Anything that makes you weak physically, intellectually and spiritually, reject as poison. -Swami Vivekananda, http://globalholisticmotivators.blogspot.com, www.truthbliss.com

All the powers in the universe are already ours. It is we who have put our hands before our eyes and cry that it is dark.
All power is within you; you can do anything and everything. Believe in that, do not believe that you are weak; do not believe that you are half-crazy lunatics, as most of us do nowadays. You can do any thing and everything, without even the guidance of any one. Stand up and express the divinity within you. -Swami Vivekananda, http://globalholisticmotivators.blogspot.com, www.truthbliss.com

If faith in ourselves had been more extensively taught and practiced, I am sure a very large portion of the evils and miseries that we have would have vanished. -Swami Vivekananda, http://globalholisticmotivators.blogspot.com, www.truthbliss.com

Every one of us will have to become a prophet, and you are that already. Only know it. Never think there is anything impossible for the soul. It is the greatest heresy to think so. If there is a sin, this is the only sin — to say that you are weak, or others are weak. -Swami Vivekananda, http://globalholisticmotivators.blogspot.com, www.truthbliss.com

God is the ever-active providence, by whose power systems after systems are being evolved out of chaos, made to run for a time and again destroyed. -Swami Vivekananda, http://globalholisticmotivators.blogspot.com, www.truthbliss.com

If you are really pure, how do you see the impure? For what is within, is without. We cannot see impurity without having it inside ourselves. This is one of the practical sides of Vedanta, and I hope that we shall all try to carry it into our lives. -Swami Vivekananda, http://globalholisticmotivators.blogspot.com, www.truthbliss.com

Neither numbers nor powers nor wealth nor learning nor eloquence nor anything else will prevail, but purity, living the life, in one word, anubhuti, realisation. Let there be a dozen such lion-souls in each country, lions who have broken their own bonds, who have touched the Infinite, whose whole soul is gone to Brahman, who care neither for wealth nor power nor fame, and these will be enough to shake the world.

We reap what we sow. We are the makers of our own fate. None else has the blame, none has the praise.
Blame none for your own faults, stand upon your own feet, and take the whole responsibility upon yourselves. Say, This misery that I am suffering is of my own doing, and that very thing proves that it will have to be undone by me alone.

He is free, he is great, who turns his back upon the world, who has renounced everything, who has controlled his passion, and who thirsts for peace. One may gain political and social independence, but if one is a slave to his passions and desires, one cannot feel the pure joy of real freedom.

Work a little harder at meditation and it comes. You do not feel the body or anything else. When you come out of it after the hour, you have had the most beautiful rest you ever had in your life. That is the only way you ever give rest to your system. -Swami Vivekananda, http://globalholisticmotivators.blogspot.com, www.truthbliss.com

However we may receive blows, and however knocked about we may be, the Soul is there and is never injured. We are that Infinite. -Swami Vivekananda, http://globalholisticmotivators.blogspot.com, www.truthbliss.com

Come out into the universe of Light. Everything in the universe is yours, stretch out your arms and embrace it with love. If you every felt you wanted to do that, you have felt God.
All is the Self or Brahman. The saint, the sinner, the lamb, the tiger, even the murderer, as far as they have any reality, can be nothing else, because there is nothing else.
And what becomes of a man when he attains perfection? He lives a life of bliss infinite. He enjoys infinite and perfect bliss having obtained the only thing in which man ought to have pleasure, namely God, and enjoys the bliss with God. -Swami Vivekananda, http://globalholisticmotivators.blogspot.com, www.truthbliss.com

You must practice at least twice every day, and the best times are towards the morning and the evening. When night passes into day, and day into night, a state of relative calmness ensues. The early morning and the early evening are the two periods of calmness. Your body will have a like tendency to become calm at those times. We should take advantage of that natural condition and begin then to practise.
Whose meditation is real and effective? Who can really surrender to the will of God? Only the person whose mind has been purified by selfless work. -Swami Vivekananda, http://globalholisticmotivators.blogspot.com, www.truthbliss.com

By means of the constant effort to do good to others we are trying to forget ourselves; this forgetfulness of the self is the one great lesson we have to learn in life. Man thinks foolishly that he can make himself happy, and after years of struggle finds out at last that true happiness consists in killing selfishness and that no one can make him happy except himself.
Blessed are they whose bodies get destroyed in the service of others.

Oh, to live even for a day in the full light of freedom, to breathe the free air of simplicity! Isn't that the highest purity?
Out of purity and silence comes the word of power.

It (Truth) has to be made practical, to be made simple (for the highest truths are always simple), so that it may penetrate every pore of human society, and become the property of the highest intellects and the commonest minds, of the man, woman, and child at the same time...Let us try to make things simpler and bring about the golden days when every man will be a worshipper, and the Reality in every man will be the object of worship.

The Vedanta recognizes no sin it only recognizes error. And the greatest error, says the Vedanta is to say that you are weak, that you are a sinner, a miserable creature, and that you have no power and you cannot do this and that.

If a piece of burning charcoal be placed on a man’s head, see how he struggles to throw it off. Similar will be the struggle for freedom of those who really understand that they are slaves of nature.

Awake, awake, great ones! The world is burning with misery. Can you sleep? Let us call and call till the sleeping gods awake, till the god within answers to the call. What more is in life? What greater work?

Say So'ham, So'ham whatever comes. Tell yourself this even in eating, walking, suffering. Tell the mind this incessantly—that what we see never existed, that there is only I. Flash--the dream will break! Think day and night, this universe is zero, only God is. Have intense desire to get free.

Each soul is potentially divine. The goal is to manifest this Divinity within, by controlling nature, external and internal. Do this either by work, or worship, or psychic control, or philosophy — by one or more or all of these — and be free. This is the whole of religion. Doctrines, or dogmas, or rituals, or books, or temples, or forms, are but secondary details.

Stand up, be bold, and take the blame on your own shoulders. Do not go about throwing mud at others; for all the faults you suffer from, you are the sole and only cause.

By studying the lives of all these great messengers, we find that each, as it were, was destined to play a part, and a part only; that the harmony consists in the sum total, and not in one note.
Books are infinite in number and time is short. The secret of knowledge is to take what is essential. Take that and try to live up to it.

No one can teach anybody. The teacher spoils everything by thinking that he is teaching. Thus Vedanta says that within man is all knowledge -- even in a boy it is so -- and it requires only an awakening, and that much is the work of a teacher.

The moment I have realized God sitting in the temple of every human body, the moment I stand in reverence before every human being and see God in him - that moment I am free from bondage, everything that binds vanishes, and I am free.
The more we come out and do good to others, the more our hearts will be purified, and God will be in them.

Feel nothing, know nothing, do nothing, have nothing, give up all to God, and say utterly, 'Thy will be done.' We only dream this bondage. Wake up and let it go.

Desire, ignorance, and inequality—this is the trinity of bondage.

Do not believe a thing because you read it in a book! Do not believe a thing because another has said it so! Find out the truth for yourself.

Never loved a husband the wife for the wife's sake or the wife the husband for the husband's sake. It is God in the wife the husband loves, and God in the husband the wife loves. It is God in every one that draws us to the one we love, God in everything and in everybody that makes us love. God is the only love.

Doing work is not religion, but work done rightly leads to Freedom. In reality all pity is darkness, because whom to pity? Can you pity God? And is there anything else? Thank God for giving you this world as a moral gymnasium to help your development, but never imagine you can help the world.
Drill yourself to be thoroughly submissive. Get rid of the I. No humbuggism. Then you can get rid of the idea of duty; for all is His. Then you go on, naturally, forgiving, forgetting, etc.
Duty becomes a disease with us; it drags us ever forward... This duty, this idea of duty is the midday summer sun which scorches the innermost soul of mankind... The only true duty is to be unattached and to work as free beings, to give up all work unto God.

God is to be worshipped as the one beloved, dearer than everything in this and next life.
In one word, this ideal is that you are divine.

Every man is a slave except the Yogi. He is a slave to food, to air, to his wife, to his children, to a dollar, slave to a nation, slave to name and fame, and to a thousand things in the world. The man who is not controlled by any one of these bondages is alone a real man, a real Yogi.

The highest men are calm, silent and unknown. They are the men who really know the power of thoughts; they are sure that, even if they go into a cave and close the door and simply think five true thoughts and then pass away, these five thoughts of theirs will live through eternity. Indeed such thoughts will penetrate through the mountains, cross the oceans, and travel through the world.

The essence of Vedanta is that there is but one Being and that every soul is that Being in full, not a part of that Being.
The God in you is the God in all. If you have not known this, you have known nothing. How can there be difference? It is all one. Every being is the temple of the Most High; if you can see that, good, if not, spirituality has yet to come to you.

So long as there is desire or want, it is a sure sign that there is imperfection. A perfect, free being cannot have any desire.

Three great gifts we have : first, a human body. (The human mind is the nearest reflection of God, we are His own image.) Second, the desire to be free. Third, the help of a noble soul who has crossed the ocean of delusion, as a teacher. When you have these three, bless the Lord; you are sure to be free.

Stand up, be bold, and take the blame on your own shoulders. Do not go about throwing mud at others; for all the faults you suffer from, you are the sole and only cause.

The first sign that you are becoming religious is that you are becoming cheerful. When a man is gloomy that may be dyspepsia, but it is not religion. To the Yogi, everything is bliss, every human face that he sees brings cheerfulness to him. That is the sign of a virtuous man. What business have you with clouded faces? It is terrible. If you have a clouded face, do not go out that day, shut yourself up in your room. What right have you to carry this disease out into the world.

That which is nearest is least observed. The Atman is the nearest of the near, therefore a careless and unsteady mind gets no clue to the Atman. But one who is alert, calm, self-restrained, and discriminating, ignores the external world and, diving more and more into the inner world, realizes the glory of the Atman and becomes great.
The Background, the Reality, of everyone is that same Eternal, Ever Blessed, Ever Pure, and Ever Perfect One. It is the Atman, the Soul, in the saint and the sinner, in the happy and the miserable, in the beautiful and the ugly, in men and in animals; it is the same throughout. It is the Shining One.

What is the proof of God? Direct perception, Pratyaksha. The proof of this wall is that I perceive it. God has been perceived by all who want to perceive Him. But this perception is no sense perception at all; it is supersensuous, superconscious.

As gradually your heart gets purified by work, you will come to feel the truth that your own Self is pervading all beings and all things. Thus it is that doing good to others constitutes a way, a means of revealing one's own Self or Atman.

The conviction has grown in my mind after all my travels in various lands that no great cause can succeed without an organization.

The greatest help to spiritual life is meditation. In meditation we divest ourselves of all material conditions and feel our divine nature. We do not depend upon any external help in meditation. The touch of the soul can paint the brightest color even in the dingiest places; it can cast a fragrance over the vilest thing; it can make the wicked divine--and all enmity, all selfishness is effaced.

When once you consider an action, do not let anything dissuade you. Consult your heart, not others, and then follow its dictates.

The good live for others alone. The wise man should sacrifice himself for others. I can secure my own good only by doing you good. There is no other way ,none whatsoever.
This life is short, the vanities of the world are transient, but they alone live who live for others, the rest are more dead than alive.

Give love, give help, give service, give any little thing you can, but keep out barter.
It is said in the Shastra that those who serve the servants of God are His greatest servants. So you will bear this in mind...
What is now wanted is a combination of the greatest heart with the highest intellectuality, of infinite love with infinite knowledge.
Give me few men and women who are pure and selfless and I shall shake the world.
The nearer we are to God, the less we will have occasions to cry or weep. The further we are from God, the more will long faces come. The more we know God, the more misery vanishes.

There cannot be friendship without equality.

The disciple must have great power of endurance. Life seems comfortable; and you find the mind behaves well when everything is going well with you. But if something goes wrong, your mind loses its balance. That is not good. Bear all evil and misery without one murmur of hurt, without one thought of unhappiness, resistance, remedy, or retaliation. That is true endurance; and that you must acquire.

He who grumbles at the little thing that has fallen to his lot to do, will grumble at everything. Always grumbling he will lead a miserable life, and everything will be a failure. But that man who does his duty as he goes, putting his shoulder to the wheel, will see the light, and higher and higher duties will fall to his share.

We must overcome difficulty by constant practice. We must learn that nothing can happen to us unless we make ourselves susceptible to it.

To the person who desires nothing and does not get entangled in desires, the manifold changes of nature are one panorama of beauty and sublimity.

Side by side, in the child, should be developed the power of concentration and detachment.

Stand upon the Atman, then only can we truly love the world. Take a very, very high stand; knowing our universal nature, we must look with perfect calmness upon all the panorama of the world.

When you think you are a body, are apart from the universe; when you think; you are a soul, you are a spark from the great Eternal Fire; when you think you are the Âtman (Self), you are All.

When I Asked God for Strength He Gave Me Difficult Situations to Face When I Asked God for Brain & Brown He Gave Me Puzzles in Life to Solve When I Asked God for Happiness He Showed Me Some Unhappy People When I Asked God for Wealth He Showed Me How to Work Hard When I Asked God for Favors He Showed Me Opportunities to Work Hard When I Asked God for Peace He Showed Me How to Help Others God Gave Me Nothing I Wanted He Gave Me Everything I Needed.

We have seen that it is the subjective world that rules the objective. Change the subject and the object is bound to change; purify yourself, and the world is bound to be purified.