Great Throughts Treasury

"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."

"The character of any man is but the aggregate of his tendencies, the sum total of the bent of his mind. We are what our thoughts have made us. Thoughts live; they travel far. And so take care of what you think. Every work that we do, every movement of the body, every thought that we think, bears an impression on the mind-stuff. What we are every moment is determined by the sum total of these impressions on the mind. Every man's character is determined by the sum total of these impressions. If good impressions prevail, the character becomes good, if bad, it becomes bad."

"The brain and muscles must develop simultaneously. Iron nerves with an intelligent brain — and the whole world is at your feet."

"The book one must read to learn natural sciences is the book of nature. The book from which to learn religion is your own mind and heart."

"The basic aim of religion is to bring peace to man. It is not a wise thing for one to suffer in this life so that one can be happy in the next. One must be happy here and now. Any religion that can bring that about is the true religion for humanity."

"The basis of all system, social or political, rests upon the goodness of men. No nation is great or good because Parliament enacts this or that, but because its men are great and good. Men are more valuable than all the wealth of the world."

"The best guide in life is strength."

"The child rebels against law as soon as it is born. Its first utterance is a cry, a protest against the bondage in which it finds itself. This longing for freedom produces the idea of a Being who is absolutely free. The concept of God is a fundamental element in the human constitution. In the Vedanta, Sat-chit-ananda (Existence-Knowledge-Bliss) is the highest concept of God possible to the mind. It is the essence of knowledge and is by its nature the essence of bliss."

"The chief thing is to want God. We want everything except God, because our ordinary wants are supplied by the external world; it is only when our necessities have gone beyond the external world that we want a supply from the internal, from God. So long as our needs are confined within this narrow limits of this physical universe, we cannot have any need for God, it is only when we become satiated with everything here, that we look beyond for a supply. It is only when the need is there that the demand will come. Have done with the child's play of the world as soon as you can, and then you will feel the necessity of something beyond the world, and the first step in religion will come."

"The cheerful mind perseveres and the strong mind hews its way through a thousand difficulties."

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

"The cow does not eat meat, nor does the sheep. Are they great Yogis, great non-injurers (Ahimsakas)? Any fool may abstain from eating this or that; surely that gives him no more distinction than to herbivorous animals. The man who will mercilessly cheat widows and orphans, and do the vilest deeds for money, is worse than any brute, even if he lives entirely on grass alone."

"The difference between God and the devil is in nothing except in unselfishness and selfishness."

"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."

"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."

"The correct meaning of the statement The Vedas are beginningless and eternal is that the law or truth revealed by them is permanent and changeless."

"The downfall of a religious sect begins from the day that the worship of the rich enters into it."

"The earth is enjoyed by heroes-this is the unfailing truth. Be a hero. Always say, I have no fear."

"The easiest way to get hold of the mind is to sit quiet and let it drift where it will for a while. Hold fast to the idea, I am the witness watching my mind drifting. The mind is not I. Then see it think as if it were a thing entirely apart from yourself. Identify yourself with God, never with matter or with the mind. Picture the mind as a calm lake stretched before you and the thoughts that come and go as bubbles rising and breaking on its surface. Make no effort to control the thoughts, but watch them and follow them in imagination as they float away. This will gradually lessen the circles. For the mind ranges over wide circles of thought and those circles widen out into ever increasing circles, as in a pond when we throw a stone into it. We want to reverse the process and starting with a huge circle make it narrower until at last we can fix the mind on one point and make it stay there. 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 thought and feeling will grow less, until at last you can entirely separate yourself from the mind and actually know it to be apart from yourself. When this is done, the mind is your servant to control as you will. The first stage of being a yogi is to go beyond the senses. When the mind is conquered, he has reached the highest stage."

"The definition of God and man: 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."

"The education that you are receiving now in schools and colleges is only making you a race of dyspeptics. You are working like machines merely, and living a jelly-fish existence."

"The education which does not help the common mass of people to equip themselves for the struggle of life, which does not bring out the strength of character, a spirit of philanthrophy, and the courage of a lion -- is it worth the name?"

"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 end and aim of all religion is to realize God. The greatest of all training is to worship God alone."

"The essential thing in religion is making the heart pure; the Kingdom of Heaven is within us, but only the pure in heart can see the King. While we think of the world, it is only the world for us; but let us come to it with the feeling that the world is God, and we shall have God."

"The fact however is that the objects of meditation can never be the same in the case of all men. People have proclaimed and preached to others only those external objects to which they held on to become perfected in meditation. Oblivious of the fact, later on, that these objects were aids to the attainment of perfect mental calmness, men have extolled them beyond everything else."

"The first discourse in the Gita can be taken allegorically."

"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."

"The first of everything should go to the poor; we have only a right to what remains. The poor are God's representatives; any one that suffers is His representative."

"The fire that warms us can also consume us; it is not the fault of the fire."

"The flow of this continuous control of the mind becomes steady when practiced day after day, and the mind obtains the faculty of constant concentration."

"The goal of mankind is knowledge ... Now this knowledge is inherent in man. No knowledge comes from outside: it is all inside. What we say a man 'knows', should, in strict psychological language, be what he 'discovers' or 'unveils'; what man 'learns' is really what he discovers by taking the cover off his own soul, which is a mine of infinite knowledge."

"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."

"The great secret of true success, of true happiness, is this: the man or woman who asks for no return, the perfectly unselfish person, is the most successful."

"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."

"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."

"The great error in all ethical systems, without exception, has been the failure of teaching the means by which man could refrain from doing evil. All the systems of evil teach, Do not steal! Very good; but why does a man steal? Because all stealing, robbing, and other evil actions, as a rule, have become automatic. The systematic robber, thief, liar, unjust man and woman, are all these in spite of themselves! It is really a tremendous psychological problem. We should look upon man in the most charitable light. It is not so easy to be good. What are you but mere machines until you are free? Should you be proud because you are good? Certainly not. You are good because you cannot help it. Another is bad because he cannot help it. If you were in his position, what you would have been?"

"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."

"The great virtues a person has are his or her especially. But their errors are the common weakness of humanity and should never be counted in estimating a person's character."

"The greatest sin is to think that you are weak. No one is greater: realize that you are Brahman. Nothing has power except what you give it."

"The greatest religion is to be true to your own nature. Have faith in yourselves! If you do not exist, how can God exist, or anybody else?"

"The greatest thing is meditation. It is the nearest approach to spiritual life -- the mind meditating. It is the moment in our daily life that we are not material -- the soul thinking of Itself, free from all matter -- this marvellous touch of the Soul."

"The highest manifestation of strength is to keep ourselves calm and on our own feet."

"The help which tends to make us spiritually strong is the highest help, next to it comes intellectual help and after that comes physical help."

"The Heart and core of everything here is good, that whatever may be the surface waves, deep down and underlying everything, there is an infinite basis of Goodness and Love."

"The highest ideal is eternal and entire self-abnegation, where there is no I but all is thou."

"The Hindu does not want to live upon words and theories. If there are existences beyond the ordinary sensuous existence, he wants to come face to face with them. If there is a soul in him which is not matter, if there is an all-merciful universal soul, he will go to Him direct. He must see Him, and that alone can destroy all doubts. So the best proof a Hindu sage gives about the soul, about God is--- I have seen the soul; I have seen God. The whole universe is a symbol, and God is the essence behind."

"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 history of the world is the history of a few men who had faith in themselves."

"The human soul has sojourned in lower and higher forms, migrating from one to another according to the samskaras or impressions, but it is only in the highest form as a human being that it attains to freedom."