Volume IV

...the difference between body and mind and the food we eat is only in manifestation.

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...meat, for instance; this should not be taken because it is by its very nature impure. We can get it only by taking the life of another.

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If the wife helps us to attain God, she is a good wife; so with a husband or a child.

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It is diabolical to say that all animals are created for...[humans]...to be killed and used in any way...[we]...like. It is the devil's gospel, not God's.

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To think that this world is the aim and end of life is brutal and degenerating.

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A sort of knee-drill, standing up and sitting down, may be suited for the many; but religion is for the few. There are in every country only a few hundreds who can be, and will be religious. The others cannot be religious, because they will not be awakened and they do not want to be.

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Have done with this child's play of the world as soon as you can, and then you will feel the necessity of something beyond the world.

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You may hate me, and if I want to love you, you repulse me. But if I persist, in a month or a year you are bound to love me.

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By reading books we become parrots; no one becomes learned by reading books. ...in intellectual development we can get much help from books, but in spiritual development, almost nothing.

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It is not a question of one or two days, or years, or of lives, but it may be hundreds of lifetimes...

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You know how two extremes look alike. Similar is the case with the extreme of ignorance and the other extreme of knowledge; neither of these worships anybody. The extremely ignorant do not worship God, not being developed enough to feel the need for so doing. Those that have attained the highest knowledge also do not worship God - having realised and become one with God. God never worships God.

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With most people religion is a sort of intellectual assent and goes no further than a document. I would not call it religion. It is better to be an atheist than to have that sort of religion. ...the proof of religion is in direct perception.

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

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Religion is a long, slow process. We are all of us babies here; we may be old, and have studied all the books in the universe, but we are all spiritual babies. We have learnt the doctrines and dogmas, but realised nothing in our lives.

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This body will die some time, so what is the use of praying for its health again and again? ...We can never get all the things of this world; and if not, who cares? This body will go, who cares for these things?

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We are continually taking care of this body that anything can knock down; and so we are living in a constant state of fear.

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You have been devising plans to make you happy, I do not know for how many years, but each year things seem to grow worse.

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If a young...[person]...does not want to go to church, ...[they]...ought to be condemned. But if an old...[person]...goes to church, ...[they]...also out to be condemned; [they]...have no business with this child's play any more; the church should have been merely a preparation for something higher. What business...[have they]...any more with forms and Pratikas and all these preliminaries?

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You have to become the Bible, and not to follow it...

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We may worship a picture as God, but not God as the picture. God in the picture is right, but the picture as God is wrong. God in the image is perfectly right.

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The thought behind our body is called soul, and the thought behind the universe is called God.

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Thou art so easy, Thou art so merciful, how unfortunate am I, that I have no love for Thee.

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...truth seen from different standpoints can be truth, and yet not the same truth.

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Think of the appalling evil that is in the world today, of the millions and millions of innocent children perverted by wrong ways of teaching. How many beautiful things which would have become wonderful spiritual truths have been nipped in the bud by this horrible idea of a family religion, a social religion, a national religion, and so forth. Think of what a mass of superstition is in our head just now about your childhood's religion, or your country's religion, and what an amount of evil it does, or can do.

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How can human beings stand this religious drilling? It is like soldiers in a barrack. Shoulder arms, kneel down, take a book, all regulated exactly. Five minutes of feeling, five minutes of reason, five minutes of prayer, all arranged beforehand. These mummeries have driven out religion.

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Do not try to cover festering sores with masses of roses. Do you think you can cheat God? None can.

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Who knows which is the truer ideal? The apparent power and strength, as held in the West, or the fortitude in suffering, of the East?
The West says, "We minimise evil by conquering it." India says, "We destroy evil by suffering, until evil is nothing to us, it becomes positive enjoyment."

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When...[someone]...did not want to live any more, then...[they]...went towards the Himalayas, without eating or drinking and walked on and on till the body failed. All the time thinking of God, ...[they]...just marched on till the body gave way.

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THE STORY OF JADABHARATA

There was a great monarch named Bharata. The land which is called India by foreigners is known to her children as Bharata Varsha. Now, it is enjoined on every Hindu when...[they]...become old, to give up all worldly pursuits - to leave the cares of the world, its wealth, happiness, and enjoyments to...[their]...son - and retire into the forest, there to meditate upon the Self which is the only reality...and thus break the bonds which bind...[one]...to life. King or priest, peasant or servant, man or woman, none is exempt from this duty: for all the duties of the householder - of the son, the brother, the husband, the father, the wife, the daughter, the mother, the sister - are but preparations towards that one stage, when all the bonds which bind the soul to matter are severed asunder for ever.
The great king Bharata in his old age gave over his throne to his son, and retired into the forest. He who had been ruler over millions and millions of subjects, who had lived in marble palaces, inlaid with gold and silver, who had drunk out of the jewelled cups - this king built a little cottage with his own hands, made of reed and...[such]...on the banks of a river in the Himalayan forests. There he lived on roots and wild herbs, collected by his own hands, and constantly meditated upon...[God]...who is always present in the soul.... Days, months, and years passed. One day, a deer came to drink water near by where the royal sage was meditating. At the same moment, a lion roared at a little distance off. The deer was so terrified that she, without satisfying her thirst, made a big jump to cross the river. The deer was with young, and this extreme exertion and sudden fright made her give birth to a little fawn, and immediately after she feel dead. The fawn fell into the water and was being carried rapidly away by the foaming stream, when it caught the eyes of the king. The king rose from his position of meditation and rescuing the fawn from the water, took it to his cottage, made a fire, and with care and attention...[nursed]...the little thing back to life. Then the kindly sage took the fawn under his protection, bringing it up on soft grass and fruits. The fawn thrived under the paternal care of the retired monarch, and grew into a beautiful deer. Then, he whose mind had been strong enough to break away from lifelong attachment to power, position, and family, became attached to the deer which he had saved from the stream. And as he became fonder and fonder of the deer, the less and less he could concentrate his mind upon the Lord. When the deer went out to graze in the forest, if it were late in returning, the mind of the royal sage would become anxious and worried. He would think, "Perhaps my little one has been attacked by some tiger - or perhaps some other danger has befallen it; otherwise, why is it late?"
Some years passed in this way, but one day death came, and the royal sage laid himself down to die. But his mind, instead of being intent upon the Self, was thinking about the deer; and with his eyes fixed upon the sad looks of his beloved deer, his soul left the body. As the result of this, in the next birth he was born as a deer. But no Karma is lost, and all the great and good deeds done by him as a king and sage bore their fruit. This deer was born Jatismara, and remembered his past birth, though he was bereft of speech and was living in an animal body. He always left his companions and was instinctively drawn to graze near hermitages where oblations were offered and the Upanishads were preached.
After the usual years of a deer's life had been spent, it died and was next born as the youngest son of a rich Brahmin. And in that life also, he remembered all his past, and even in his childhood was determined no more to get entangled in the good and evil of life. The child, as it grew up, was strong and healthy, but would not speak a word, and lived as one inert and insane, for fear of getting mixed up with worldly affairs. His thoughts were always on the Infinite, and he lived only to wear out his past Prarabdha Karma. In course of time the father died, and the sons divided the property among themselves; and thinking that the youngest was a dumb, good-for-nothing man, they seized his share. Their charity...extended only so far as to give him enough food to live upon. The wives of the brothers were often very harsh to him, putting him to do all the hard work; and if he was unable to do everything they wanted, they would treat him very unkindly. But he showed neither vexation nor fear, and neither did he speak a word. When they persecuted him very much, he would stroll out of the house and sit under a tree, by the hour, until their wrath was appeased, and then he would quietly go home again.
One day, when the wives of the brothers had treated him with more than usual unkindness, Bharata went out of the house, seated himself under the shadow of a tree and rested. Now it happened that the king of the country was passing by, carried in a palanquin on the shoulders of bearers. One of the bearers had unexpectedly fallen ill, and so his attendants were looking about for a man to replace him. They came upon Bharata seated under a tree; and seeing he was a strong young man, they asked him if he would take the place of the sick man in bearing the king's palanquin. But Bharata did not reply. Seeing that he was so able-bodied, the king's servants caught hold of him and placed the pole on his shoulders. Without speaking a word, Bharata went on. Very soon after this, the king remarked that the palanquin was not being evenly carried, and looking out of the palanquin addressed the new bearer, saying "Fool, rest a while; if thy shoulders pain thee, rest a while." Then Bharata laying the pole of the aplanquin down, opened his lips for the first time in his life, and spoke, "Whom dost thou, O King, call a fool? Whom dost thou ask to lay down the palanquin? Who dost thou say is weary? Whom dost thou address as 'thou'? If thou meanest, O King, by the word 'thee' this mass of flesh, it is composed of the same matter as thine; it is unconscious, and it knoweth no weariness, it knoweth no pain. If it is the mind, the mind is the same as thine; it is universal. But if the word 'thee' is applied to something beyond that, then it is the Self, the Reality in me, which is the same as in thee, and it is the One in the universe. Dost thou mean, O King, that the Self can ever be weary, that It can ever be tired, that It can ever be hurt? I did not want, O King - this body did not want - to trample upon the poor worms crawling on the road, and therefore, in trying to avoid them, the palanquin moved unevenly. But the Self was never tired; It was never weak; It never bore the pole of the palanquin: for It is omnipotent and omnipresent." And so he dwelt eloquently on the nature of the soul, and on the highest knowledge, etc. The king, who was proud of his learning, knowledge, and philosophy, alighted from the palanquin, and fell at the feet of Bharata, saying, "I ask thy pardon, O mighty one, I did not know that thou was a sage, when I asked thee to carry me." Bharata blessed him and departed. He then resumed the even tenor of his previous life. When Bharata left the body, he was freed for ever from the bondage of birth.

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I try to get an idea of God in my mind, and I find what a false little thing I conceive; it would be a sin to worship that God.

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The highest demonstration of reasoning that we have in any branch of knowledge can only make a fact probable, and nothing further.

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We have to sense God to be convinced that there is a God. ...Nothing else, and no amount of reasoning, but our own perception can make these things real to us, can make my belief firm as a rock.

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One of the chief distinctions between the Hindu and the Christian religions is that the Christian religion teaches that each human soul had its beginning at its birth into this world, whereas the Hindu religion asserts that the spirit...is an emanation of the Eternal Being, and had no more a beginning than God...[Itself]. Innumerable have been and will be its manifestations in its passage from one personality to another, subject to the great law of spiritual evolution, until it reaches perfection, when there is no more change.

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...it is the heroic endeavour to subdue adverse circumstances that carries our spirit upwards. The object of life is to learn the laws of spiritual progress.

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True religion comes not from the teaching of...[others]...or the reading of books; it is the awakening of the spirit within us, consequent upon pure heroic action.

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Religion does not consist in believing any number of doctrines or dogmas, in going to churches or temples, in reading certain books. Have you seen God? Have you seen the soul? If not, are you struggling for it?

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A straight line infinitely projected becomes a circle, it returns back to the starting point. You must end where you begin; and as you began in God, you must go back to God. What remains? Detail work. Through eternity you have to do the detail work.

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In true religion there is faith or belief in the sense of blind faith. ...To believe blindly is to degenerate the human soul. Be an atheist if you want, but do not believe in anything unquestioningly. ...Stand up and reason out, having no blind faith. Religion is a question of being and becoming, not of believing. ...Before that you are not better than the animals.

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There are millions [who] receive power through all sorts of ways in India. The vast majority of them die raving lunatics. Quite a number commit suicide, the mind [being] unbalanced.

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The soul identifies itself with that which is powerless matter and thus weeps.

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Suppose a red flower is near the crystal and the crystal takes the colour and forgets itself, thinks it is red. We have taken the colour of the body and have forgotten what we are. All the difficulties that follow come from that one dead body. All our fears, all worries, anxieties, troubles, mistakes, weakness, evil are from that one great blunder - that we are bodies. This is the ordinary person. It is the person taking the colour of the flower near to it. We are no more bodies than the crystal is the red flower.

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You are all running after life, and we find that is foolishness. There is something much higher than life even. This life is inferior, material. Why should I live at all? I am something higher than life. Living is always slavery. We always get mixed up. ...Everything is a continuous chain of slavery.

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Thousands of divine beings are standing about you. You do not see them because our world is determined by our senses. ...Those who are similarly constituted will group together naturally and live in the same world. Otherwise stated, you live in the same place. All the heavens and all the hells are right here.

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Nature says, "I will conquer." The soul says, "I must be the conqueror." Nature says, "Wait! I will give you a little enjoyment to keep you quiet." The soul enjoys a little, becomes deluded a moment, but the next moment it [cries for freedom again]. ...We are deceived by poverty. We become wealthy and are deceived with wealth. We are ignorant. We read and learn and are deceived with knowledge.

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Worlds must disappear in the soul like drops in the ocean.

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[We say], "I live." [We] know not that it is [the fear of] death that makes [us] cling slavishly to life. [We say], "I enjoy." [We] never dream that nature has enslaved [us].

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A so-called great argument is made against the idea of pre-existence by asserting that the majority of [humanity is] not conscious of it. To prove the validity of this argument, the party who offers it must prove that the whole of the soul...is bound up in the faculty of memory. If memory be the test of existence, then all that part of our lives which is not now in it must be non-existent, and every person who in a state of coma or otherwise loses [their] memory must be non-existent also.

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How many of the miserably born struggle toward a higher life, and how many more succumb to the circumstances they are placed under?

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...it is...evident that some of our tendencies are the effects of the self-conscious efforts. ...and if it is true that we are born with such tendencies, it rigorously follows that there causes were conscious efforts in the past...

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Working out the details of an already laid out masterly plan may not require much concentrated thought to back it, but the great impulses are only transformed great concentrations.

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...it is our duty never to lose sight of the ideal, whether we can approach it with sensible steps, or crawl toward it with imperceptible motion...

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One...who manifests the ideal in...[their]...life is more powerful than legions whose words can paint it in the most beautiful colours and spin out the finest principles.

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No claim is made by the doer of great deeds, only by lazy worthless fools.

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...life itself is an evil, the shadow only of something which alone is real.

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...the human soul studied the universe as one unbroken unit whose every pulse was...[its]...own...

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Advaita texts very logically add, "To know God is to become God."

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As absolute, Brahman alone is true; as relative truth, all the different sects, standing upon different manifestations of the same Brahman, either in India or elsewhere, are true. Only some are higher than others. Suppose...[one]...starts straight towards the sun. At every step of...[the]...journey...[they]...will see newer and newer versions of the sun - the size, the view, and light will every moment be new, until...[they]...reach the real sun. [They]...saw the sun at first like a big ball, and then it began to increase in size. The sun was never small like the ball...[they]...saw; nor was it ever like all the successions of suns...[they]...saw in...[their]...journey. Still is it not true that our traveller always saw the sun, and nothing but the sun? Similarly, all these various sects are true - some nearer, some farther off from the real sun which is our..."One without a second".

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What have the Hindus done to these disciples of Christ that every Christian child is taught to call the Hindus "vile", and "wretches:, and the most horrible devils on earth? Part of the Sunday School education for the children here consists in teaching them to hate everybody who is not a Christian, and the Hindus especially, so that, from their very childhood they may subscribe their pennies to the missions.

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Is it not curious that, whilst under the terrific onset of modern scientific research, all the old forts of Western dogmatic religions are crumbling into dust; whilst the sledge-hammer blows of modern science are pulverising the porcelain mass of systems whose foundation is either in faith or in belief or in majority of votes of church synods; whilst Western theology is at its wit's end to accommodate itself to the ever-rising tide of aggressive modern thought; whilst in all other sacred books the texts have been stretched to their utmost tension under the ever-increasing pressure of modern thought, and the majority of them are broken and have been stored away in lumber rooms; whilst the vast majority of thoughtful Western humanity have broken asunder all their ties with the church and are drifting about in a sea of unrest, the religions which have drunk the water of life at that fountain of light, the Vedas - Hinduism and Buddhism - alone are reviving?
The restless Western atheist or agnostic finds in the Gita or in the Dhammapada the only place where...[their]...soul can anchor.

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Let us take our stand on the one central truth...the spirit...the eternal soul...whose glories...[even]...the Vedas cannot themselves express, before whose majesty the universe with its galaxy upon galaxy of suns and stars and nebulae is as a drop. Every man and woman, nay, from the highest Devas to the worm that crawls under our feet, is such a spirit evoluted or involuted.

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Call up the divinity within you, which will enable you to bear hunger and thirst, heat and cold.

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Every soul is a sun covered over with clouds of ignorance, the difference between soul and soul is owing to the difference in density of these layers of clouds.

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...no power in the universe can withhold from anyone anything...[they]...really deserve.

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Have infinite patience, and success is yours.

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[Says the Yajurveda Smhita]..."In search of some one to love, Thou art the One Beloved I have found. I sacrifice myself unto Thee."

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...whoso wears a form must wear the chain.

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A little ephemeral worldly good is nothing in comparison with eternal good...

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Well has the Lord said in the Gita: ..."Thinking of objects, attachment to them is formed... From attachment longing, and from longing anger grows.

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What is human will in opposition to the divine?

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True that spiritual illumination shines of itself in a pure heart, and, as such, it is not something acquired from without; but to attain this purity of heart means long struggle and constant practice.

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What we call extraordinary, superconscious inspiration is only the result of a higher development of ordinary consciousness, gained by long and continued effort. ...Conscious efforts lead the way to superconscious illumination.

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We try to deceive, but a thousand times we find we are deceived ourselves, and yet we do not desist.

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...nothing, unless earned, is your own. Does the ass in the lion's skin become the lion?

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...from the ant to the perfect...[human being]...there is the same Atman in all, the difference being only in manifestation.

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An all-forebearing attachment to an ugly and deformed wife, and a lifelong devotion to a worthless and villainous husband are possible only in this country alone. *

* India

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This universe seems but a tiny pool held in a hollow caused by some cow's hoof.