3rd April 2023- Without the idea of personal responsibility, no one can achieve anything great.
4th April 2023- Truth is of two kinds: (1) that which is known through the five ordinary senses and by reasoning based thereon; (2) that which is known through the subtle, supersensous power of yoga.
Knowledge acquired by the first means is called science; and knowledge acquired by the second is called the Vedas.
5th April 2023- None of the great teachers of the world went into elaborate explanations of texts; on their part there is no attempt as “text torturing,” no saying, “This word means this, and this is the philological connection between this and that word.” You study all the great teachers the world has produced, and you will see none of them goes that way. Yet they taught, while others, who have nothing to teach, will take a word and a three-volume book on its origin and use.
6th April 2023- Millions like you and me think that we are great people in the world; but we all die, and in five minutes the world forgets us. But the life of God is infinite. “Who can live a moment, breathe a moment, if this all-powerful One does not will it?”
7th April 2023- If in this hell of world one can bring a little joy and peace even for a day into the heart of a single person, that much alone is true. This I have learnt after suffering all my life. All else is mere moonshine.
11th April 2023- There is no greater sacred spot (tritha) than the human body. No where else is the Atman as manifest as it is in the body. The chariot of Jagannath is only a concrete symbol of this body chariot. You have to behold the Atman in this chariot of the body.
13th April 2023- This very “x” which we see here as an external world, the departed see as heaven and hell according to their own mental status. “Here” and “hereafter” are two dreams, the latter modelled on the former, get rid of both, all is omnipresent, all is now. Nature, body, and mind go to death, not we; we neither go nor come.
15th April 2023- To succeed, you must have tremendous perseverance, tremendous will. “I will drink the ocean,” says the persevering soul, “at my will mountains will crumble up.” Have that sort of energy, that sort of will, work hard, and you will reach the goal.
16th April 2023- The idea of our innate divinity is to be found in all religions; in some of them, the idea is expressed through mythology, and in others, through mythology. Vedanta claims that there has not been one religious inspiration, one manifestation of the divinity within, however great, but it has been the expression of that infinite oneness in human nature; and all that we call ethics and morality and doing good to others is also the manifestation of this oneness.
17th April 2023- The power of the mind is the same whether we divide it into five senses or whether we see only one. A blind man says, “Everything has a distinct echo, so I clap my hands and get that echo, and then I can tell everything that is around me.” So in a fog the blind man safely lead the seeing man. Fog or darkness makes no difference to him.
18th April 2023- Practice hard; whether you live or die does not matter. You have to plunge in and work, without thinking of the result. If you are brave enough, in six months you will be a perfect yogi. But those who take up just a bit of it and a little of everything else make no progress. It is of no use simply to take a course of lessons.
19th April 2023- Vedanta teaches that all the vast mass of energy that we see displayed in society and in every plane of action is really from inside out, and therefore what others call inspiration, Vedanta calls expiration. At the same time Vedanta does not quarrel with others. It has no quarrel with those who do not understand this idea of divinity within all.
20th April 2023- My Master used to say, what would you think of men who went into a mango orchard and busied themselves in counting leaves, the size of twigs, the number of branches, and so forth, while only one of them had the sense to begin to eat the mangoes?
So leave this counting of leaves and twigs and this note-taking to others. That work has its own value in its proper place, but not here in the spiritual realm. Men never become spiritual through such work; you have never once seen a strong spiritual man among these “leaf-counters.” Religion is our highest aim, the highest glory, but it does not require “leaf-counting.”
If you want to be a Christian, it is not necessary to know whether Christ was born in Jerusalem or Bethlehem or just the exact date on which he pronounced the Sermon on the Mount; you only require to feel the Sermon on the Mount.
21st April 2023- There are moments when every one of us feels that we are one with the universe, and we rush forth to express it, whether we know it or not. This expression of oneness is what we call love and sympathy, and it is the basis of all our ethics and morality. This is summed up in Vedanta by the celebrated aphorism, “Thou art That” (Tat Tvam Asi).
25th April 2023- The whole body of supersensuous truths, having no beginning or end, and called by the name “Vedas,” is ever-existent. The Creator himself is creating, preserving, and destroying the universe with the help of these truths.
The person in whom this supersensuous power is manifested is called a Rishi, and the supersensuous truths which he or she realizes by this power are called the Vedas.
26th April 2023- Give up all fruits of work. Do good for its own sake. Then alone will come perfect non-attachment. The bonds of the heart will thus break and we shall reap perfect freedom. This freedom is indeed the goal of karma yoga.
27th April 2023- The question was once asked me in England by a friend, “Why should we look to the personality of a teacher? We have only to judge of what he says, and take that up.” Not so. If a man wants to teach me something of chemistry or any other physical science, he may be of any character; he can still teach any physical science. For the knowledge that the physical sciences require is simply intellectual and depends on intellectual strength; a man can have in such a case a gigantic intellectual power without the least development of his soul. But in the spiritual sciences it is impossible from first to last that there can be any spiritual light in that soul which is impure.
28th April 2023- That society is the greatest, where the highest truths become practical. That is my opinion; and if society is not fit for the highest truths, make it so; and the sooner, the better.