1st January 2023- What makes the body? What forces combines the molecules into the body form? What force is there which takes up material from the mass of matter around and forms my body one way, another body another way, and so on? What makes these infinite distinctions? To say that the force called soul is the outcome of the combinations of the molecules of the body is putting the cart before the horse.
2nd January 2023- How hard it is to control the mind! Well has it been compared to the maddened monkey. There was a monkey, restless by his own nature, as all monkeys are. As if that were not enough some one made him drink freely of wine, so that he became still more restless. Then, a scorpion stung him. When a man is stung by a scorpion, he jumps about for a whole day; so the poor monkey found his condition worse than ever. To complete his misery a demon entered into him. What language can describe the uncontrollable restlessness of that monkey?
The human mind is like that monkey, incessantly active by its own nature; then it becomes drunk with the wine of desire. After desire takes possession comes the sting of the scorpion of jealousy at the success of others, and last of all the demon of pride enters the mind, making it think itself of all importance. How hard to control such a mind!
3rd January 2023- The Rig-Veda asks: “Who or what existed from the beginning?” That question was gradually solved by the Vedanta philosophy. The Atman existed. That is to say, what we call the Absolute, the Universal Soul, the Self, is the force by which from the beginning all things have been and are and will be manifested.
4th January 2023- I feel that my work in this life is done. Through good and evil, pain and pleasure, my life-boat has been dragged on. The one great lesson I was taught is that life is misey, nothing but misery. Mother knows what is best.
5th January 2023- Knowledge is to find unity in the midst of diversity-to establish unity among things which appear to us to be different from one another.
6th January 2023- I have seen one yogi, Pavahari Baba, who lives in a cave in India. He is one of the most wonderful men I have ever seen. He has so completely lost the sense of his own individuality that we may say that the man in him is completely gone, leaving behind only the all-comprehending sense of the divine. If an animal bites one of his arms, he is ready to give it in his other arm also, and say that it is the Lord’s will. He sees everything that comes to him as coming from the Lord.
9th January 2023- Unchaste imagination is as bad as unchaste action. Controlled desire leads to the highest result. Transform the sexual energy into spiritual energy, but do not emasculate, because is throwing away the power. The stronger the force, the more can be done with it. Only a powerful current of water can do hydraulic mining.
10th January 2023- Those who want to be yogis, and practice hard, must take care of their diet at first. But for those who want only a little practice for everyday business sort of life, let them not eat much; otherwise they may eat whatever they please. For those who want to make rapid progress, and to practice hard, a strict diet is absolutely necessary.
11th January 2023- Each one of us is in the hands of karma. It works itself out– and no nay. There is only one element in life which is worth having at any cost, and it is love. Love immense and infinite, broad as the sky and deep as the ocean– this is the one great gain in life. Blessed is the person who gets it.
12th January 2023- Thinkers in ancient India gradually came to understand that the idea of separateness was erroneous, and there was a connection among all apparently distinct objects–there was a unity pervading the whole universe–trees, shrubs, animals, human beings, celestial beings, even God himself. Reaching the climax in this line of thought, the Advaitin declared all to be but the manifestation of the One.
13th January 2023- The Hindus say that this Atman is absolute and all-pervading, therefore infinite. There cannot be two infinities, for they would limit each other and would limit each other and would become finite. Also each individual soul is a part and parcel of that Universal Soul, which is infinite. Therefore in injuring his neighbor, the individual actually injures himself. This is the basic metaphysical truth underlying all ethical codes.
14th January 2023- Not one body is constant. There is no such thing as my body, or your body, except in words. Of the one huge mass of matter, one point is called a moon, another a sun, another a human being, another the earth, another a plant, another a mineral. Not one is constant, but everything is changing, matter eternally coalescing and disintegrating. So it is with the mind.
17th January 2023- The highest kind of teachers silently collect true and noble ideas, and others–the Buddhas and Christs–go from place to place preaching them and working for them. In the life of Gautama Buddha we notice him constantly saying that he is twenty-fifth Buddha. The twenty-four before him are unknown to history, although the Buddha known to history must have built upon foundations laid by them.
18th January 2023- Truth stands on its own evidences; it does not require any other testimony to attest it; it is self-efflugent. It penetrates into the inmost recessess of our nature, and the whole universe stands up and says, “This is Truth.”
20th January 2023- Give up all argumentation and other distractions. Is there anything in dry intellectual jargon? It only throws the mind off its balance and disturbs it. Things of subtler planes have to be realized. Will talking do that? So give up all vain talk. Read only those books which have been written by persons who have had realization.
23rd January 2023- Love all things only through and for the Self. Yajnavalkya said to Maitreyi, his wife, “Through the Atman we know all things.” The Atman can never be the object of knowledge, nor can the Knower be known. He who knows he is the Atman, he is law unto himself. He knows he is the universe and its creator.
24th January 2023- Perpetuating old myths in the form of allegories and giving them undue importance fosters superstition and is really weakness. Truth must have no compromise. Teach truth and make no apology for any superstition, neither drag truth to the level of the listener.
27th January 2023- It is often believed that a person in his progress towards perfection passes from error to truth; that when he passes from one thought to another, he must necessarily reject the first. But no error can lead to truth. The soul passing through its different stages goes from truth to truth, and each stage is true; it goes from lower truth to higher truth.
30th January 2023- The highest aim of all disciplines, all spiritual paths, is to attain the knowledge of Atman. By being devoted to the service of others and by getting your heart purified by such work, if you can attain to the vision of all beings as the Self, what else remains to be done to get Self-realization?
31st January 2023- There is a pretty Indian fable to the effect that if it rains when the star Svati is in the ascendant, and a drop of rain falls into an oyster, that drop becomes a pearl. The oysters know this, so they come to the surface when that start shines, and wait to catch the precious raindrop. When a drop falls into them, quickly the oysters close their shells and dive down to the bottom of the sea, there to patiently develop the drop into the pearl.
We should be like that pearl. First hear, then understand, and then, leaving all distractions, shut your minds to outside influences, and devote yourselves to developing the truth within you.