Great Throughts Treasury

"You are the God of this universe."

"You are the Pure One; awake and arise, O mighty one, this sleep does not become you. Awake and arise, it does not befit you. Think not that you are weak and miserable. Almighty, arise and awake, and manifest your own nature. It is not fitting that you think yourself a sinner. It is not fitting that you think yourself weak. Say that to the world, say it to yourselves, and see what a practical result comes, see how with an electric flash everything is manifested, how everything is changed. Tell that to mankind, and show them their power."

"You are pure and perfect, and what you call sin does not belong to you. Sins are low degrees of Self-manifestation; manifest your Self in a high degree."

"You cannot believe in God until you believe in yourself."

"You may talk doctrines by the millions, you may have sects by the hundreds of millions; ay, but it is nothing, until you have the heart to feel. Feel for them as your Veda teaches you, till you find they are parts of your own bodies, till you realize that you and they, the poor and the rich, the saint and the sinner, are all parts of One Infinite Whole, which you call Brahman."

"You cannot teach a child any more than you can grow a plant. All you can do is on the negative side — you can only help. It is a manifestation from within; it develops its own nature — you can only take away obstructions."

"You cannot help anyone, you can only serve"

"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."

"You must be all-forbearing, like Mother Earth."

"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."

"You must keep the mind fixed on one object, like an unbroken stream of oil. The ordinary man's mind is scattered on different objects, and at the time of meditation, too, the mind is at first apt to wander. But let any desire whatever arise in the mind, you must sit calmly and watch what sort of ideas are coming. By continuing to watch in that way, the mind becomes calm, and there are no thought waves in it. These waves represent the thought-activity of the mind. Those things that you have thought too deeply, have transformed themselves into a subconscious current, and therefore these come up in the mind in meditation. The rise of these waves, or thoughts, during meditation is an evidence that your mind is tending towards concentration. Sometimes the mind is concentrated on a set of ideas -- this is called meditation with Vikalpa or oscillation. But when the mind becomes almost free from all activities, it melts in the inner Self, which is the essence of infinite Knowledge, One and Itself Its own support."

"You must remember that humanity travels not from error to truth, but from truth to truth; it may be, if you like it better, from lower truth to higher truth, but never from error to truth."

"You must bear in mind that religion does not consist in talk, or doctrines or books, but in realization; it is not learning, but being."

"You must avoid excessive merriment. A mind in that state never becomes calm; it becomes fickle. Excessive merriment will always be followed by sorrow. Tears and laughter are near kin. People so often run from one extreme to the other."

"You must have strict morality. Deviate an inch from this and you are gone forever."

"You must retain great strength in your mind and words. I am low, I am low, repeating these ideas in the mind man belittles and degrades himself. Therefore the Shastras say, He who thinks himself free, free he becomes; he who thinks himself bound, bound he remains ---this popular saying As one thinks, so one becomes is true. 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."

"You will find many persons in this world who will say: ‘I wanted to become religious, I wanted to realize these things, but I have not been able, so I do not believe anything.’ Even among the educated you will find these. Large numbers of people will tell you. ‘I have tried to be religious all my life, but there is nothing in it.’ At the same time you will find this phenomenon: Suppose a man is a chemist, a great scientific man. He comes and tells you this. If you say to him, ‘I do not believe in chemistry, because I have all my life tried to become a chemist and do not find anything in it’, he will ask, ‘When did you try?’ ‘When I went to bed, I repeated O chemistry, come to me, and it never came.’ That is the very same thing. The chemist laughs at you and says: ‘Oh, that is not the way. Why did you not go to the laboratory and get all the acids and alkalis and burn your hands from time to time? That alone would have taught you.’ Do you take the same trouble with religion? Every science has its own method of learning, and religion is to be learnt the same way."

"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 should cultivate a noble nature by doing your duty. By doing our duty we get rid of the idea of duty; and then and then only we feel everything as done by God. We are but machines in His hand."

"Your Atman is the support of the universe—whose support do you stand in need of? Wait with patience and love and strength. If helpers are not ready now, they will come in time. Why should we be in a hurry? The real working force of all great work is in its almost unperceived beginnings."

"Your godhead is the proof of God Himself. If you are not a prophet, there never has been anything true of God. If you are not God, there never was any God, and never will be. This, says Vedanta, is the ideal to follow. 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."