Pearls of Wise

The washer-man keeps a large store of unwashed clothes in his house, but these are not his. As soon as the clothes are washed, his room becomes empty. Men having no original thoughts of their own are like the washer-man. Be not a washer-man in your thoughts. Sayings of Sri Ramakrishna,

Devotee : - “Is it a fact that Lord Krishna is still with his chinmaya deha (spiritual body)?” Bhagavan replied with patience: “Does chinmaya deha mean the human body? Chinmaya means Chit-prakasa, i.e. lustre of the spirit. That light is always existent  : - 'Arjuna, I am the Self seated in the heart of all beings. I am the beginning and middle and also the end of all beings.' - 'Gita', X: 20 “Does that mean that He is in the hearts of all beings with this material body? It means He is in the hearts of all beings in the shape Aham Sphurana (effulgence of ‘I’, ‘I’). That effulgence of the Self is known as Chit-prakasa or Chinmaya.” Sri Ramana Maharishi (From 'Letters from Sri Ramanasramam' 218)

You are verily beyond death; You are ever alive. Changing of form is not death. Death is but another phase of life. Death is cessation of bodily activity, Organic function and physical consciousness. Death is a transition to another aspect of life, A change of the form of consciousness To another plane, astral or subtle. Ice becomes water; Water becomes steam, vapour or invisible gas— According to the degree of vibration. So is life in physical, astral and mental planes. Birth and death are jugglery of Maya. There is neither birth nor death in truth. Tat Tvam Asi (Thou art That). Realise this and be free forever. Swami Sivananda

How does one reconcile the fact that there are so many gurus and swamis often suggesting completely different and seemingly contradictory paths to salvation? For the same disease one patient decides to go to an allopathic doctor, another to an ayurvedic doctor and a third trusts a homeopath. For some people allopathy may be helpful and for others ayurveda may be more beneficial. So even though there are different kinds of doctors practising various systems of medicine and they appear to be prescribing different things, the goal is one and the same i.e. the patient should get cured. In the same way, when you have so many different kinds of people with different natures and aptitudes, you need a variety of methods and different spiritual teachers to cater to all of them. But the end goal of peace and happiness remains unchanged. ‎Swami Chinmayananda‬ ‪

This article was recorded by Ida Ansell in shorthand. As, however, Swamiji's speed was too great for her in her early days, dots are put in the articles to indicate the omissions, while the words within square brackets are added by way of linking up the disconnected parts. (Delivered on March 25, 1900, in the San Francisco Bay Area) Part-2. God is God. There is no philosophy, no complicated code of ethics. "Our God is one without a second, and Mohammed is the Prophet." ... Mohammed began to preach it in the streets of Mecca. ... They began to persecute him, and he fled into the city of [Medina]. He began to fight, and the whole race became united. [Mohammedanism] deluged the world in the name of the Lord. The tremendous conquering power! ... You ... people have very hard ideas and are so superstitious and prejudiced! These messengers must have come from God, else how could they have been so great? You look at every defect. Each one of u...

It is interesting to see that throughout the world, various religious traditions have recognized the personal aspect of God, but they vary widely from one another in their conceptions. The conception is of course limited by the experiential basis that most people have, so that we treat God in the personal sense as something of an elevated person, something akin to a high king or ruler, and we conceive of some heavenly throne upon which he sits and passes judgments and orders events. We then pray to our God to carry out our wishes and rain down blessings upon us. The specific form of this God varies from one tradition to another. Sri Aurobindo describes this phenomenon: “The personal God of the European religions is a Person in the human sense of the word, limited by His qualities though otherwise possessed of omnipotence and omniscience; it answers to the Indian special conceptions of Shiva or Vishnu or Brahma or of the Divine Mother of all, Durga or Kali. Each religion reall...

1. When we keep our heart free, clean and humble, God enters. 2. Never destroy your own happiness through impatience and thoughtlessness. 3. What you FOCUS on is what you become , so focus on your Awareness. 4. . Our personality depends on our focus. We become what we focus on. So let us focus on our awareness. Once we do this Life becomes a transformation. 5.The more security you seek the more insecure you become. 6. There is no such thing as conflict in reality. All conflicts reside in the content of our own mind. 7. All the Gods , all the heavens and all the hells are not outside but within us. 8. There is infinite strength in you. Never loose faith in yourself. Work hard with unshakable determination and you can solve all your problems. Swami Udit Chaithanya