Inspiring quotes from hinduism and other sources

One day when Baba Mahasaya, Ramahari Das Babaji, Madhava Das Babaji, and other mahatmas were sitting on the bank of a kunda and were engaged in talks on various subjects relating to lila, Rasika Das Babaji said, "I have a question, which has been bothering me for some time. Radharani went through several stages in separation from Krishna, which included unmad (dementedness), moha (unconsciousness), and even mrityu (death)! These states are mentioned in the shastras and I have also heard about them from saints. But I never heard that Radharani or any of the gopis, ever had the same state as Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, as for example, the disjoining of the joints and the lengthening of the body or shrinking of the limbs and the body becoming like a tortoise. Since Krishna appeared as Mahaprabhu by adopting the bhava and kanti of Radharani, the question is why Mahaprabhu was subjected to states and bhavas which Radharani never experienced?"

Baba's reply: -- ?

I have heard some different answers...always thought it an interesting question...

 

To be shameless, uninquisitive, loveless and uncaring
Are the fool's four failings.

No fool is more foolish than one who eagerly expounds
His learning to others while failing to follow it himself.

-Tirukkural 84:833-834

 

Here our selfless desires are hidden by selfish ones. They are real, but they are covered by what is false. Therefore whoever of our own departs from this life, not one can ever be brought back before our eyes. But all those we love, alive or departed, and all things we desire but do not have, are found when we enter that space within the heart; for there abide all desires that are true, though covered by what is false.

-Chandogya Upanishad

 

"Any pain that comes is to make you understand the nature of joy more deeply and bring you into joy."

"When you know that you are eternal you can play your true role in time. When you know you are divine you can become completely human. When you know you are one with God you are free to become absolutely yourself ..."

"One common mistake is to think that one reality is THE reality. You must always be prepared to leave one reality for a greater one."

"For the mind to flower it has to go beyond what it knows."

"The true experience of bliss is without words."

"In silence one can receive more because all one's activities become concentrated at one point. There is only one real rhythm; in silence you hear it. When you live to the rhythm of this silence, you become it, slowly; everything you do, you do to it." - Mother Meera

 

Q: How can the reason be developed?



Sweet Mother: Oh! By using it! Reason is developed like the muscles, like the will. All these things are developed by a rational use. Reason! Everyone possesses reason, only he doesn’t make use of it. Some people are very much afraid of reason because it contradicts their impulses. So they prefer not to listen to it. Then, naturally, if one makes it a habit not to listen to reason, instead of developing, it losses its light more and more.

To develop reason you must want to do it sincerely: if on one side you tell your self “ I want to develop my reason”, and on the other you don’t listen to what reason tells you to do, then you never come to anything, because naturally, if each time it tells you
“don’t do this” or “do this”, you do the opposite, it will loose the habit of saying anything at all.


From “The Sunlit Path”.

 

When did the flute have to worry about the audience
Or judge what to play next?
Be a flute in His hands.
Only when you are acting with ego can you
get exhausted physically,
upset emotionally, and confused
intellectually.
-Swami Chinmayananda

 

One day I decided to quit... I quit my work, my relationship, my spirituality... I wanted to quit my life. I went to the woods to have one last talk with God. "God", I said. "Can you give me one good reason not to quit?" His answer surprised me...

"Look around", He said. "Do you see the fern and the bamboo?" "Yes", I replied.

"When I planted the fern and the bamboo seeds, I took very good care of them. I gave them light. I gave them water. The fern quickly grew from the earth. Its brilliant green covered the floor. Yet nothing came from the bamboo seed. But I did not quit on the bamboo.

In the second year the Fern grew more vibrant and plentiful. And again, nothing came from the bamboo seed. But I did not quit on the bamboo."

He said, "In year three there was still nothing from the bamboo seed. But I would not quit. In year four, again, there was nothing from the bamboo seed. I would not quit."

"Then in the fifth year a tiny sprout emerged from the earth. Compared to the fern it was seemingly small and insignificant... But just 6 months later the bamboo rose to over 100 feet tall. It had spent the five years growing roots. Those roots made it strong and gave it what it needed to survive.

I would not give any of my creations a challenge it could not handle," he said to me.

"Did you know, my child, that all this time you have been struggling, you have actually been growing roots?" I would not quit on the bamboo. I will never quit on you."

"Don't compare yourself to others," he said. "The bamboo had a different purpose than the fern. Yet they both make the forest beautiful."

"Your time will come", God said to me. "You will rise high." "How high should I rise?" I asked.
"How high will the bamboo rise?" He asked in return. "As high as it can?" I questioned.

"Yes." He said, "Give me glory by rising as high as you can."

I left the forest and bring back this story. I realized that God will never give up on you. He will never give up on you!

 

Earth, fire and water,
The wind and the sky--
You are none of these.

If you wish to be free,
Know you are the Self,
The witness of all these,
The heart of awareness.

Set your body aside.
Sit in your own awareness.

You will at once be happy,
Forever still,
Forever free.

-Ashtavakra Gita 1:3-4

 

From the Rig Veda, trans. Sri Aurobindo:

Vanished the darkness, shaken in its foundation; Heaven shone out ; upward rose the light of the Divine Dawn; the sun entered the vast fields of the Truth beholding the straight things and the crooked in mortals. Thereafter indeed they awoke and saw utterly by the sun's separation of the straight from the crooked, the truth from the falsehood; then indeed they held in them the bliss that is enjoyed in heaven

Rig Veda IV.I. I7

May he the knower discern perfectly the Knowledge and the Ignorance, the wide levels and the crooked that shut in mortals; and, oh God, for a bliss fruitful in offspring , lavish on us Diti, and protect Aditi.

Rig Veda IV.2.1

Now as the seven seers of Dawn, the Mother, the supreme disposers of the sacrifice, may we beget for ourselves the Gods; may we become the Angirasas, sons of Heaven, breaking open the wealth-filled hill, shining in purity.

Rig Veda IV.2.15

We have done the work for thee, we have become perfect in works, the wide-shining Dawns have taken up their home in the Truth, in the fullness of Agni and His manifold delight, in the shining eye of the God in all His brightness.

Rig Veda 1V.2.19



__________________

 

Imagine the sun rising in your heart. Imagine all the flower buds blossoming into beautiful flowers. There are many butterflies blissfully flying about, drinking the nectar of the flowers. Now, imagine the hearts of all beings in the world becoming filled with love, peace and happiness.-- Amma's New Year Message

 

This is very beautiful.

 

Birth decrees to all men who live a common circumstance.
Diverse actions define their unique specialness.

Lowly men are never high, even when elevated.
High souls are never low, even when downtrodden.

-Tirukkural 98: 972-73

 

With Every Breath

With every breath I take today,
I vow to be awake;

And every step I take,
I vow to take with a grateful heart--

So I may see with eyes of love
into the hearts of all I meet,

To ease their burden when I can
And touch them with a smile of peace.


Buddhist
source: Blue Iris Sangha

 

Is not modesty the jewel of the great? Without it,
Is not their strut an affliction for the eye to behold?

Those men who for others' disgrace and their own
feel equally ashamed
Are regarded by the world as the abode of modesty.

-Tirukkural 102:1014-1015

 

This is from 'Mother-The Divine Materialism' by Satprem.



We talk of the power of the atom, the power of Nature, electrical, intellectual or spiritual power, but there is only one Power, not two. These are different levels or degrees of brightness – different intensities – of one and the same Current that takes on one vibration or another depending on the medium it goes through. That Power rose through the ages and the centuries. It built ever more complex instruments, covered itself with one shell or another, ever aspiring, ever in search of more space, more light, more earth and bodies to embrace, ever ascending towards some ineffable totality of itself. It built trap upon trap to annex even more world to its totality, invented love to bind beings together and the millions of species to its earth – it was love itself, the fire burning within, the need to be ever more, to embrace ever more, to live everywhere and in everything. It cast forth galaxies as it cast forth innumerable little animals, as it cast forth man just a little while ago. With him, it reached the conscious knot of its evolution. It strove to grow more, always, through the senses as well as the heart and mind, capture ever more world within its huge net of love-fire, conquer and dominate. It even soared to the clouds with ascetics and saints, was dissolved for a few seconds in their contemplation, only to show up somewhere else and renew its old, ceaseless conquest. It is the Flame without respite, the need to be that cannot stop so long as it has not become all and forevermore. Some call it Desire, Evil, and they try to stifle it to find nameless peace at last; some call it Intelligence, Power, and they try to harness it to their Machine, to stifle themselves beneath the very weight of their inventions. But it shatters all the traps it has built, breaks men and the very constructions it has erected, topples Intelligence, topples the Spirit, topples Desire even when they tie it to a stake, smelts and re-smelts its earthly ore until it has found its own secret – it is Shakti, the Driver of the worlds, the Realization, and without Her, none lives and none aspires. She is the Fire in the atom and the Fire of the yogi; She is death always coming undone into life, Nirvana exploding into a million new galaxies only to find Her again. Paradises come apart, species come apart, millions of machines, tricks, traps and inventions come apart only to find Her endlessly. That Fire is inextinguishable. From age to age few have known Her secret. But even that secret She breaks and buries until all is ready to experience and build Her Secret, for She is ONE in a million forms. She is the Mother of the worlds and everything is equally Her child.

 

Know him to be the primal source of life,
Whose glory permeates the universe:
Who is beyond time and space, and is seen
Within the heart in meditation.

Know that he is beyond the tree of life,
He whose power makes the planets revolve:
Who is both law and mercy, and is seen
Within the heart in meditation.

Know him to be the supreme Lord of lords,
King of kings, God of gods, ruler of all,
Wihout action or organs of action,
Whose power is seen in myriad ways.

-Shvetashvatara Upanishad

 

Those who aspire to the state of yoga should seek the Self in inner solitude through meditation. With body and mind controlled they should constantly practice one-pointedness, free from expectations and attachment to material possessions.

-Bhagavad Gita 6:10

 

From Essays on The Gita.

The Supreme, the all-conscious Self, the Godhead, the Infinite is not solely a spiritual existence remote and ineffable; he is here in the universe at once hidden and expressed through man and the gods and through all beings and in all that is. And it is by finding him not only in some immutable silence but in the world and its beings and in all self and in all Nature, it is by raising to an integral as well as to a highest union with him all the activities of the intelligence, the heart, the will, the life that man can solve at once his inner riddle of self and God and the outer problem of his active human existence. Made Godlike, God-becoming, he can enjoy the infinite breadth of a supreme spiritual consciousness that is reached through works no less than through love and knowledge. Immortal and free, he can continue his human action from that highest level and transmute it into a supreme and all-embracing divine activity,—that indeed is the ultimate crown and significance here of all works and living and sacrifice and the world's endeavour.

Sri Aurobindo.

 

Never upset your mind
With yes and no.
Be quiet.
You are awareness itself.
Live in the happiness
Of your own nature,
Which is happiness itself.

-Ashtavakra Gita 15:19

 

Discourse on Lovingkindness

Let your love flow outward through the universe,
To its height, its depth, its broad extent,
A limitless love, without hatred or enmity.
Then as you stand or walk,
Sit or lie down,
As long as you are awake,
Strive for this with a one-pointed mind;
Your life will bring heaven to earth.

- The Buddha