Great Throughts Treasury

"Sincerity plus thoughtfulness is everything."

"Human conduct is ever unreliable until man is anchored in the Divine. Everything in future will improve if you are making a spiritual effort now."

"Wrath springs from thwarted desires. I do not expect anything from others, so their actions cannot be in opposition to wishes of mind."

"The soul is the immutable, unqualified image of God."

"A beggar cannot renounce wealth. If a man laments: 'My business has failed; my wife has left me; I will renounce all and enter a monastery,' to what worldly sacrifice is he referring? He did not renounce wealth and love; they renounced him!"

"A child is born on that day and at that hour when the celestial rays are in mathematical harmony with one's individual karma. His horoscope is a challenging portrait, revealing his unalterable past and it's probable future results. A man of realization does not perform any miracle until he receives an inward sanction. God does not wish the secrets of His creation revealed promiscuously. Also, every individual in the world has inalienable right to his free will. A saint will not encroach upon that independence. But the natal chart can be rightly interpreted only by men of intuitive wisdom - These are few… The message boldly blazoned across the heavens at the moment of birth is not meant to emphasize fate – the result of past good and evil - but to arouse man's will to escape from his universal thralldom. What he has done he can undo. None other than himself was the instigator of the causes of whatever effects are now prevalent in his life. He can overcome any limitation, because he created it by his own actions in the first place and because he possesses spiritual resources that are not subject to planetary pressure."

"A man of realization does not perform any miracles until he receives an inward sanction. God does not wish the secrets of His creation revealed promiscuously*. Also every individual in the world has an inalienable right to his free will. A saint will not encroach on that independence."

"A true devotee is finally freed from all instinctive compulsions. He transforms his need for human affection into aspiration for God alone - a love solitary because omnipresent."

"A worthy leader has the desire to serve, not to dominate."

"Adeptship is attainable by the purification of the body in all respects. Purification of the material body can be effected by things generated along with it by Nature; that of the electric body by patience in all circumstances; and that of the magnetic body (chitta, spiritualized Atom, Heart) by regulation of the breath, which is called mantra, the purifier of the mind."

"All creation is governed by law. The principles that operate in the outer universe, discoverable by scientists are called natural laws. But there are subtle laws that rule the hidden spiritual planes and the inner realm of consciousness; these principles are knowable through the science of yoga. It is not the physicist but the Self realized master who comprehends the true nature of matter. By such knowledge Christ was able to restore the servant's ear after it had been severed by one of the disciples"

"All dream-bubbles must eventually burst at a final wakeful touch. Differentiate, my son Yogananda, between dreams and Reality!"

"By ahimsa Patanjali meant removal of the desire to kill. This world is inconveniently arranged for a literal practice of ahimsa. Man may be compelled to exterminate harmful creatures. He is not under a similar compulsion to feel anger or animosity."

"Destroy wrong desires now; otherwise they will remain with you after the astral body has been separated from its physical casing... Every natural passion can be mastered."

"Do not allow yourself to be thrashed by the provoking whip of a beautiful face. How can sense slaves enjoy the world? Its subtle flavors escape them while they grovel in primal mud. All nice discriminations are lost to the man of elemental lusts."

"Do not confuse understanding with a larger vocabulary. Sacred writings are beneficial in stimulating desire for inward realization, if one stanza at a time is slowly assimilated. Otherwise, continual intellectual study may result in vanity, false satisfaction, and undigested knowledge."

"Everything in future will improve if you are making a spiritual effort now."

"Firmness of moral courage when attained removes all the obstacles in the way of salvation. These obstacles are of eight sorts, viz., hatred, shame, fear, grief, condemnation, race distinction, pride of pedigree, and a narrow sense of respectability, which are the meannesses of the human heart."

"Forget the outward symbols of renunciation, which may injure you by inducing a false pride. Nothing matters except your steady, daily spiritual advancement; for that, use Kriya Yoga."

"Forget the past. The vanished lives of all men are dark with many shames. Human conduct is ever unreliable until anchored in the Divine. Everything in future will improve if you are making a spiritual effort now."

"Attachment is blinding; it lends an imaginary halo of attractiveness to the object of desire."

"But man does not easily return to simplicity. It is seldom ‘God’ for an intellectualist, but rather learned pomposities. His ego is pleased, that he can grasp such erudition."

"Forget you were born a Hindu, and don't be an American. Take the best of them both. Be your true self, a child of God. Seek and incorporate into your being the best qualities of all your brothers, scattered over the earth in various races."

"God is all-powerful and not all-powerful."

"God is everywhere present, sees and knows all things and is not everywhere present, neither sees nor knows all things."

"God is to be found by those who seek him and is not to be found by those who seek him."

"Good and positive suggestions should instruct the sensitive ears of children. Their early ideas long remain sharply etched."

"Good manners without sincerity are like a beautiful dead lady, he remarked on suitable occasion. Straightforwardness without civility is like a surgeon's knife, effective but unpleasant. Candor with courtesy is helpful and admirable."

"Humanity - so variegated in its own eyes! — is seen by a master to be divided into only two classes: ignorant men who are not seeking God, and wise men who are."

"I heard my mother remark occasionally: 'A man who accepts a job under anyone is a slave.' That impression became so indelibly fixed that even after my marriage I refused all positions. I met expenses by investing my family endowment in land. Moral: Good and positive suggestions should instruct the sensitive ears of children. Their early ideas long remain sharply etched."

"If man's sleep be deep and dreamless, for several hours he is able to transfer his consciousness, or sense of I-ness, to the causal body; such sleep is revivifying."

"If you don't like my words, you are at liberty to leave at any time. I want nothing from you but your own improvement. Stay only if you feel benefited. [to young Yogananda]"

"In shallow men the fish of little thoughts cause much commotion. In oceanic minds the whales of inspiration make hardly a ruffle."

"It has been clearly demonstrated in the foregoing pages that Love is God, not merely as the noblest sentiment of a poet but as an aphorism containing an eternal truth."

"It is never a question of belief; the only scientific attitude one can take on any subject is whether it is true. The law of gravitation worked as efficiently before Newton as after him. The cosmos would be fairly chaotic if its laws could not operate without the sanction of human belief."

"Just as the purpose of eating is to satisfy hunger, not greed, so the sex instinct is designed for the propagation of the species according to natural law, never for the kindling of insatiable longings.Destroy wrong desires now; otherwise they will follow you after the astral body is torn from its physical casing. Even when the flesh is weak, the mind should be constantly resistant. If temptation assails you with cruel force, overcome it by impersonal analysis and indomitable will. Every natural passion can be mastered. Conserve your powers. Be like the capacious ocean, absorbing within all the tributary rivers of the senses. Small yearnings are openings in the reservoir of your inner peace, permitting healing waters to be wasted in the desert soil of materialism. The forceful activating impulse of wrong desire is the greatest enemy to the happiness of man. Roam in the world as a lion of self-control; see that the frogs of weakness don’t kick you around."

"Look fear in the face and it will cease to trouble you."

"Man's body is precious. It has the highest evolutionary value because of unique brain and spinal centres. These enable the advanced devotee fully to grasp and express the loftiest aspects of divinity. No lower form is so equipped. It is true that man incurs the debt of a minor sin if he is forced to kill an animal or any other living being. But the holy shastras teach that wanton loss of a human body is a serious transgression against the karmic law"

"Medicines have limitations; the divine creative life force has none. Believe that: you shall be well and strong."

"My guru Sri Yukteswarji often remarked that the various modes of liberation mentioned in the Bhagavad Gita make its precepts so sweet, sympathetic and useful in healing the manifold sickness of suffering humanity"

"My guru Swami Sri Yukteswar wisely counselled: Throw the dog a bone - give the body its due, neither pampering nor abusing it, and then forget the body."

"Ordinary love is selfish, darkly rooted in desires and satisfactions. Divine love is without condition, without boundary, without change. The flux of the human heart is gone forever at the transfixing touch of pure love."

"Ordinary love is selfish, darkly rooted in desires and satisfactions. Divine love is without condition, without boundary, without change. The flux of the human heart is gone forever at the transfixing touch of pure love."

"Parambrahma (Spirit or God) is everlasting, complete without beginning or end. It is one, indivisible Being."

"Quotations there have been, in superabundance. But what original commentary can you supply, from the uniqueness of your particular life? What holy text have you absorbed and made your own? In what ways have these timeless truths renovated your nature? Are you content to be a hollow victrola, mechanically repeating the words of other men?"

"Remember that finding God will mean the funeral of all sorrows."

"Sacred writings are beneficial in stimulating desire for inward realization, if one stanza at a time is slowly assimilated. Continual intellectual study results in vanity and the false satisfaction of an undigested knowledge."

"Saintliness is not dumbness! Divine perceptions are not incapacitating! The active expression of virtue gives rise to the keenest intelligence."

"So long as you breathe the free air of earth, you are under obligation to render grateful service. He alone who has fully mastered the breathless state is freed from cosmic imperatives."

"Some people try to be tall by cutting off the heads of others!"