3rd April 2024- Be brave and be sincere; then follow any path with devotion, and you must reach God. Once lay hold of one link of the chain, and the whole chain must come by degrees. Water the roots of the tree (that is, reach the Lord), and the whole tree is watered. Getting the Lord, we get all.
5th April 2024- Later on we shall find that even the idea of duty undergoes change, and that the greatest work is done only when there is no selfish motive to prompt it. Yet it is work through the sense of duty that leads us to work without any idea of duty; when work will become worship– nay, something higher– then will work be done for its own sake.
8th April 2024- So long as the dream that you are a body exists, you are bound to see yourself as being born and dying; but as soon as that dream vanishes, so will the dream vanish that you are being born and dying, and so will vanish the other dream that there is a universe. That very thing which you now see as the universe will appear to you as God (Absolute), and that very God who has so long been external will appear to be internal, as your own Self.
10th April 2024- So long as there is desire, no real happiness can come. It is only the contemplative, witness-like study of objects that brings to us real enjoyment and happiness. The animal has its happiness in the senses, we human beings in our intellect, and the god in spiritual contemplation. It is only to the soul that has attained to the contemplative state that the world really becomes beautiful. To those who desire nothing, the manifold changes of nature are one panorama of beauty and sublimity.
11th April 2024- One day in the Kashipur garden, I expressed my prayer to Sri Ramakrishna with great earnestness. Then in the evening, at the hour of meditation, I lost consciousness of the body, and felt that the body was absolutely non-existent. I felt that the sun, moon, space, time, ether, and all had been reduced to a homogenous mass and then melted far away into the unknown; the body-consciousness had almost vanished, and I had nearly merged in the Supreme. But I had just a trace of the feeling of ego, so I could again return to the world of relativity from the Samadhi.
16th April 2024- You must go on with your japa whatever direction the mind takes.
18th April 2024- First among the qualification required of the seekers of Jnana, or wisdom, are ‘sama and dama, which may be taken together. They mean the keeping of the organs in their own centers without allowing them to stray out. I shall explain to you first what the word “organ” means. Here are the eyes; the eyes are not the organs of vision but only the instruments. Unless the organs also are present, I cannot see, even if I have eyes. But, given both the organs and the instruments, unless the mind attaches itself to these two, no vision takes place. In each act of perception, three things are necessary-first, the external instruments, then, the internal organs, and lastly, the mind. If any one of them may be absent, then there will be no perception.
19th April 2024- There should be no jealousy in regard to objects of the senses. Jealousy is the root of all evil, and a most difficult thing to conquer. Addresses on Bhakti Yoga: The preparation (New York: December 16, 1895)
20th April 2024- The greatest sin is to think yourself weak. Realize you are Brahman. Nothing has power except what you give it. We are beyond the sun, the stars, the universe. Deny evil, create none. Stand up and say, I am the master, the master of all. We forge the chain, and we alone can break it. Retreat given at the Thousand Island Park, USA. July 16, 1895. Complete Works, 7.54.
21st April 2024- Foolish parents teach their children to pray, “O Lord, You have created this sun for me and this moon for me,” as if the Lord has had nothing else to do than to create everything for these babies. Do not teach your children such nonsense. Class on Karma Yoga. New York, January 3, 1896. Complete Works, 1.88.
24th April 2024- We hear a sound. First, there is the external vibration; second, the nerve motion that carries it to the mind; third, the reaction from the mind, along with which flashes the knowledge of the object which was the external cause of these different chances from the ethereal vibrations to the mental reactions. These three are called in Yoga, śabda (sound), artha (meaning), and jñāna (knowledge). In the language of physics and physiology, they are called the ethereal vibration, the motion in the nerve and brain, and the mental reaction.
Now these, through distinct processes, have become mixed up in such a fashion as to become quite indistinct. In fact, we cannot now perceive any of these, we only perceive their combined effect, what we call the external object. Every act of perception includes these three, and there is no reason why we should not be able to distinguish them.
25th April 2024- Animals are living upon plants, human beings live upon animals and, worst of all, upon one another, the strong upon the weak. This is going on everywhere. And this is Maya.
What solution do you find for this? We hear everyday many explanations, and are told that in the long run all will be good. Taking it for granted that this is possible, why should there be this diabolic way of doing good? Why cannot good be done through good, instead of through these diabolic methods? The descendants of the human beings of today will be happy; but why must there be all this suffering now? There is no solution. This is Maya.
26th April 2024- The philosophy of duty, whether it be in the form of ethics or of love, is the same as in every other yoga–the object being the attenuating of the lower self, so that the Atman may shine forth–the lessening of the frittering away of the energies on the lower plane of existence, so that the Atman may manifest itself on the higher ones.
People who practice dualistic devotion believe that the highest form of devotion to God- the purest form of love- is to surrender ourself wholly to God. In order to surrender themselves to God, they try to deny themselves by giving up their attachment to all that they consider as ‘mine,’ and in particular by renouncing their own individual will. Thus the ultimate prayer of every true devotee is, ‘Thy will be done- not my will, but only thine’.
However, so long as the mind exists (identification with thoughts), it will inevitably have a will of its own. Desire and attachment as inherent in the mind, the very fabric of which it is made. Therefore, so long as we feel ourself to be an individual ‘I’, we will also have an individual will, and will feel a sense of attachment to ‘mine’. The only way we can surrender our will and give up all our attachments is to surrender the mind that has an individual will and feels attachment to the body and other possessions.
Trying to surrender our individual will and sense of ‘mine’- our desires and attachments- without actually surrendering our individuality, our ego or sense of being a separate ‘I’, is like cutting the leaves and branches off a tree without cutting its root. Until and unless we cut the root, the branches and leaves will continue sprouting again and again.
Similarly, until and unless we surrender our ego, the root of all desires and attachments, all our efforts to give up our desires and attachments will fail, because they will continue to sprout again and again in one subtle form or another. Therefore Self-surrender can be complete and final only when our individual self, the limited consciousness that we call our ‘mind’ or ‘ego’, is surrendered wholly.
27th April 2024- The whole world worships ease and pleasure, and very few dare to worship that which is painful. To rise above both is the idea of freedom. Unless we pass through this gate, we cannot be free. We all have to face these. From a lecture on “What is religion?”. Complete works, 1.339.
29th April 2024- Worldliness and realisation of God cannot go together. Letter to Alasinga Perumal. From USA: May 6, 1895. Complete works, 5.81.
30th April 2024- In the state of Nirvikalp Samadhi all the difference between “I” and “Brahman” goes away, everything is reduced into unity, like the waters of the Infinite Ocean-water everywhere, nothing else exists- language and thought, all fail there. Then only is the state “beyond mind and speech” realized in its actuality. Otherwise, so long as the spiritual seeker thinks or says, “I am Brahman”- “I” and “Brahman,” these two entities persist- there is the involved semblance of duality.