Divine Quotes

Sri. Swami Sivananda – Quotes (THOUGHT POWER)

• This world is your best teacher. There is a lesson in everything. There is a lesson in each experience. Learn it and become wise. Every failure is a stepping stone to success. Every difficulty or disappointment is a trial of your faith. Every unpleasant incident or temptation is a test of your inner strength. March forward hero!”
  
  
• “There is something good in all seeming failures. You are not to see that now. Time will reveal it.”

• “Rise above the deceptions and temptations of the mind. This is your duty. You are born for this only; all other duties are self-created and self-imposed owing to ignorance.”
  
  
• “Let each man take the path according to his capacity, understanding and temperament. His true guru will meet him along that path.”
  
  
• “Put your heart, mind, intellect, and soul even to your smallest acts. This is the secret of success”
  
  
• “An evil man is a saint of the future. See good in everything. Destroy the fault / evil-finding quality. Develop the good-finding quality. Rise above good and evil.”
  
  
• “Do not brood over your past mistakes and failures as this will only fill your mind with grief, regret and depression. Do not repeat them in the future.”
  
  
• “Illness begins with "I", Wellness begins with "we”
  
  
• “Modern civilization is complicated and artificial. Simple folk live in a world of love and peace. Let no one hate another or harm another.”
  
  
• “Crave for a thing, you will get it. Renounce the craving, the object will follow you by itself.”
  
  
• “Put your heart, mind, intellect and soul even to your smallest acts. This is the secret to success.”
  
  
• “If you think about disaster, you will get it. Brood about death and you hasten your demise. Think positively and masterfully, with confidence and faith, and life becomes more secure, more fraught with action, richer in achievement and experience.”
  
  
• “Let a man lift himself by his own Self alone, let him not lower himself; for the Self alone is the friend of oneself and this Self alone is the enemy of oneself (5).”
  
  
• “It is Maya that makes you feel, “This man is inferior and the other man is superior.”
  
  
• “The difficulty in weaning the mind from worldly thoughts, from external objects, and fixing it on God is the same as in making the Ganga flow towards Gangotri instead of its natural flow towards Ganga-Sagar. It is like rowing against the current of the Yamuna.”
  
  
• “Put your heart, mind, and soul into even your smallest acts. This is the secret of success. Fewer the thoughts, greater the peace.”

• “Man is not a creature of circumstances. His thoughts are the architects of his circumstances.”
  
  
• “Do not store in your brain useless information. Learn to unmind the mind. Unlearn whatever has been of no use to you. Then only can you fill your mind with divine thoughts.”
  
  
• “Thoughts are giant-powers. They are more powerful than electricity. They control your life, build your character, and shape your destiny.”
  
  
• “You create your future by your thoughts now; if you think nobly, you will be noble in conduct. If you think basely no environment will make you different. Thus, thoughts and actions are interdependent. Be vigilant and allow only good thoughts in your mental field.”

• “Give up all sorts of fears, worries, anxieties and cares. Do not be dis- heartened by failures and setbacks. Draw strength and courage from God dwelling in the chamber of your heart. Pain is the best thing in the world. It is an eye-opener. It awakens your dormant faculties. Never forget this.”
  
  
• “Isavasyamidam Sarvam: every content of the universe is throbbing with the Life of the Lord. Smile with the flowers and the green grass. Smile with the shrubs, ferns and twigs. Develop friendship with all neighbors, dogs, cats, cows, human beings, trees, in fact, with all nature’s creations. You will have a perfect and rich life.”
  
  
• “Sattva brings non-attachment and infuses in the mind discrimination and renunciation. It is the Rajasic mind that causes the ideas ‘I’ and ‘mine’ and the difference of body, caste, creed, color, order of life, etc.”

Quotes by Gurudev Sri Swami Krishnananda

• "He who knows, knows not; he who knows not, knows." means who has realized the Truth, has no personality-consciousness, and who has it knows not the Truth.

• Our prosperity, friends, bondage and even our destruction are all
  rooted in our tongue."

• "He is called a 'man' who, when anger rises forcibly within, is able to subdue and cast it out as a snake throws away its slough with ease."

• Only fool thinks that the world has any regard for him and is really in need of him.

• It may be that we try to remember God when we are comfortably placed. But the test as to whether He has really entered our hearts, is whether we remember Him in sickness, suffering, opposition and times of temptation.

• Manu says that 1/4 of one's knowledge comes from the Teacher, 1/4 from study, 1/4 from co-students and 1/4 by experience in the passage of time.

• The pain generally felt at death is due to the force of the desires with which one continued to live in the physical body. The more is the love for the Universal Being entertained in life, the less would be the pain and agony of departing from the body.

• Even those things, acts or words which are normally good and useful become bad, useless and even harmful when they are out of place, time and circumstance. Knowledge of this fact is an essential part of wisdom.

• Material amenities and economic needs and the satisfaction of one's emotional side are permissible only so long as this law and order of this eternal truth of the liberation of the Self in universality of being regulates their fulfilment.

• The temptation from the evil one comes, first, in the form of unsettled thinking which makes one immediately forget the existence of God. This is at once followed by the implementation of the evil move, whether in the shape of passion or anger. When the deed is done and the matter has ended, the remembrance of God might come in, but it rarely appears in the presence of things which we either love or hate.

• "Do the best and leave the rest." This does not mean being foolish or going hasty without thought on consequences, but the harnessing of one's full resources to the execution of a noble ideal which is calculated to aid one in the realization attainment of God. To 'leave the rest' is to resign the results of the work to God, for, when even the best that one can do falls short of the effort needed to achieve a desired result, the mind is likely to get upset, which is not the spirit of Karma Yoga. All work is God's,—even the Sadhana that we do.

• The more we try to depend on God, the more He tests us with the pleasures of sense and the delights of the ego. Finally, the last kick He gives is, indeed, unbearable. Those who bear it are themselves gods.
• Poison is not real poison. Sense-objects are the real poison. Poison kills one life, but sense-objects can devastate a series of lives.

• These persons don’t get sleep, says Vidura: Those who are sick or have been over -thrown by others and are deprived of power and assistance from any side or who are afflicted with lust, and those who are scheming to deprive others of their possessions.

• Absolute of philosophy should include the variety and struggle of practical life, in order to be real and not merely an object of theory.

• There is suffering, that there is a cause for suffering, that there is a way out of suffering and that there is a state beyond suffering are proof enough to show that he was not a pessimist but a practical man who wants to do something than merely imagining about Truth and its realization.

• The more one becomes fit for the practice of Vedanta, the less is the consciousness of the body and world around.

• "Man proposes; God disposes," says an old saying. It does not mean that God is always opposing whatever man does. But when man exerts through his egoism in a manner which violates the eternal law of God, he naturally feels frustrated, being beaten back by the law of Truth.

• It is difficult to live in society with mental peace, because it is difficult to be charitable in nature. Charity of things is of less consequence than possession of charitable feelings, and resorting to charitable speech, charitable manner, and charitable actions through a general charitable temperament. This is, in short, what is called self-sacrifice, for it involves parting with some part of the delights of the ego.

• Krishna was a person of great enjoyments. Vasishta was devoted to rituals. Janaka was a king. Jadabharata was looking like an idiot. Suka was famous for his Calmness. Vyasa was busy in teaching and writing.But all these are regarded as equal in knowledge. Different forms serve different purposes, but their essential being is one.

• Just as, when we touch a live wire, the electric force infuses itself into our body, when we deeply meditate on God the power of the universe seeks entry into our personality.

• No saint has been able to maintain the spiritual balance throughout his life. There have been occasional reversals though these might not have left any impression on their minds any more than the mark left by a stick drawn on water. But the mark is there when it appears. Such is the difficulty of leading the spiritual life.
  
  

Swami Vivekananda’s quotes

• Arise, awake, no stop until your goal is achieved.
• Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life – think of it, dream of it, and live on that idea. Let the brain be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success which great spiritual giants are produced.
• All love is expansion, all selfishness is contraction. Love is therefore the only law of life, just as you breathe to live. He who loves lives, he who is selfish is dying.
• The unselfish person, who asks for no return, is the most successful. They alone live, who live for others.
• The greatest religion is to be true to your own nature. Have faith in yourself. Truth is often far from being comfortable
• We reap what we sow we are the makers of our own fate. We make our own destiny. Neither seeks nor avoids, take what comes.
• Man is to become divine by realizing the divine. Idols or temples, or churches, are only the supports, the help of his spiritual childhood.
• “The brain and muscles must develop simultaneously. Iron nerves with an intelligent brain — and the whole world is at your feet.
• 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.
• All truth is eternal. Truth is nobody’s property; no race, no individual can lay any exclusive claim to it. Truth is the nature of all souls.
• Condemn none, if you can stretch out a helping hand, do so. Otherwise  fold your hands, bless your brothers, and let them go their own way.
• Our first duty is not to hate ourselves, because to advance we must have faith in ourselves first and then in God. Those who have no faith in themselves can never have faith in God.
• Look upon every man, woman, and everyone as God. You cannot help anyone, you can only serve: serve the children of the Lord, serve the Lord Himself, if you have the privilege.
• 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.
• Even the greatest fool can accomplish a task if it were after his/her heart. The intelligent ones can convert every work into one that suits their taste.
• The strength and force of the blow come through concentration.
• The Land where humanity has attained its highest towards gentleness, towards generosity, towards purity, towards calmness – it is India.
• This is the first lesson to learn: be determined not to curse anything outside, not to lay the blame upon anyone outside, but stand up, lay the blame on yourself. You will find that is always true. Get hold of yourself.
• This I have seen in life—those who are overcautious about themselves fall into dangers at every step; those who are afraid of losing honor and respect, get only disgrace; and those who are always afraid of loss, always lose.
• Those who work at a thing with their whole heart receive help from God. No power in the universe can withhold from anyone anything they really deserve. Believe in the world—that there is meaning behind everything.
• Face the terrible, boldly. The hardships of life fall back when we stop to escape from them.
• Desire, ignorance, and inequality—this is the trinity of bondage.
• Great work requires great and persistent effort for a long time. Character has to be established through a thousand stumbles.
• Learning and wisdom are superfluities but the heart is the seat of all power.
• Stand as a rock; you are indestructible. You are the Self, the God of the universe.
• If superstition enters, the brain is gone. The mind is but the delicate part of the body. You must retain great strength in your mind and words.
• 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.
• You have to grow from the inside out. None can teach you, none can make you spiritual. There is no other teacher but your own soul.
• 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.
• However we may receive blows, and however knocked about we may be, the Soul is there and is never injured. We are that Infinite.
• This life is hard, work your way through it boldly; the soul is stronger.
• When we let loose our feelings, we waste so much energy, shatter our nerves, disturb our minds, and accomplish very little work.
• The less passion there is, the better we work. The calmer we are the better for us and the more the amount of work we can do.
• We are ever free if we would only believe it, only have faith enough.
• Don’t look back – forward, infinite energy, infinite enthusiasm, infinite daring, and infinite patience. Then alone can great deeds be accomplished.
• The greatest religion is to be true to your own nature. Have faith in yourselves!
• You cannot believe in God until you believe in yourself. Truth is often far from being ‘comfortable.
• We are what our thoughts have made us; so take care about what you think. Words are secondary. Thoughts live; they travel far.
• Take up one idea, make that idea your life. This is the way to success.
• It is our own mental attitude which makes the world what it is for us. Our thought make things beautiful or ugly. Train your mind to see things in the proper light.
• Impurity is a mere super hassle under which your real nature has become hidden. But the real you is already perfect, already strong.
• Great things never done smoothly. Time, patience and strong will must show. Work and worship are necessary to lift off the bondage and illusion.
• We are responsible for what we are, and whatever we wish ourselves to be, we have the power to make ourselves.
• Where can we go to find God if we cannot see Him in our own hearts and in every living being.
• The world is the great gymnasium where we come to make ourselves strong.
• To devote your life to the good of all and to the happiness of all is religion. We reap what we sow. We are the makers of our own fate.
• Watch people do their most common actions; these are indeed the things that will tell you the real character of a great person. Purity, patience, and perseverance are the three essentials to success and, above all, love.
• Knowledge can only be got in one way, the way of experience. It is the cheerful mind that is persevering. It is the strong mind that hews its way through a thousand difficulties.
• Every action that helps us manifest our divine nature more and more is good. Fill the brain with high thoughts, highest ideals, place them day and night before you, and out of that will come great work.
• That man has reached immortality who is disturbed by nothing material.