The relaxation of the mind does not bring stupidity

...there are some sceptical persons who may think that when the mind is not moved by many thoughts, it will be in a stupid state. But stupidity does not arise just because the mind relaxes a little. On the contrary, the mind usually thinks too much. We are used to thinking uninterruptedly and continuously. If we look at these thoughts more closely, however, we discover that we seldom think meaningfully at all, and that most of our thinking is rather senseless. Such senseless thinking happens frequently and repeats itself over and over. In this way our many endlessly occurring thoughts are continuously going around and around in circles.

If we are able to decrease this senseless thinking, meaningful thoughts will naturally increase all by themselves. And this is exactly the reason for the meditation on calm abiding: when the mind relaxes, senseless thinking will effortlessly diminish.

-from Everyday Consciousness and Primordial Awareness, by Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche

Link yourself to angelic hierarchies

Humans are so presumptuous, they think they are the only truly evolved creatures in the universe. They place animals, plants and stones beneath them, and somewhere far, far above them, who knows where, is God, the Creator. That's if they believe in him. They are unaware of the various entities acting as a link between God and the human world. Or even if they know of them, because they have actually heard of angelic hierarchies, they rarely think of them and do not try to establish any link with them.

Catholics and orthodox Christians appeal to the saints; that's fine, but even the greatest saints are only human beings, and the worship they receive often reminds one of pagan worship. So, become aware of the existence of angelic hierarchies, and link yourself to them, for only they can lead you to God.

-Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

The teachings of all religions are sacred

All religions have taught only what is good for humanity. Religion should be practised with this awareness.

If the minds are pure, how can religion be bad? It is a mark of ignorance to consider one religion as superior and another as inferior and develop religious differences on this basis. The teachings of all religions are sacred. The basic doctrines are founded on truth. Atma-Tatwa (the truth of the Spirit) is the essence of all religions, the message of all the scriptures and the basis of all metaphysics.

-Sai Baba

Physical pleasure blunts sensitivity

Little by little, pleasure that is purely physical blunts sensitivity: you need more and more pleasure and stronger and stronger sensations in order to feel anything or find it at all satisfying. So it becomes increasingly difficult to be satisfied, because you become increasingly insensitive. This is borne out in all areas of life. If you consume too much food and drink, you eventually lose your sense of taste; if you accumulate sexual experience, you become blase and contemptuous of your partners.

So try to reduce your physical pleasures a little, and seek more subtle experiences. You will become more and more sensitive, and the least sensation will provide the greatest joy.

-Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

The greatest respect you can give to your Teacher is to assimilate the Teaching

Some people worship the Teacher. It is wrong. They highly respect and love their Teacher, but they forget the Teaching. When you worship the Teacher, you lose the Teaching. You will assimilate the Teaching, actualize the Teaching. You will live the precepts of the Teaching. Your daily labor, daily life must express the Teaching. When you love the Teaching, when you actualize the Teaching, then your Teacher is glorified, not before.

The greatest respect you can give to your Teacher is to assimilate the Teaching. When the Teaching turns into your life, when the Teaching penetrates into your consciousness in such a way that you breathe, inhale, and work in the consciousness of the Teaching, when this is done your Teacher is glorified. When you love the Teaching you have the Teacher and the Teaching.

In many, many groups, on many occasions, for sixty, seventy years I saw that those who worshipped the Teacher lost the Teacher. Those who worship the Teaching and try to live with the Teaching, they gain the Teacher and the Teaching.

-Torkom Saraydarian

Mounam - Silence

It is said, "mounam bhajaswa (pratice silence)". What is mounam (silence)? It does not mean keeping the mouth shut. It means, getting beyond the influence of all the senses and being established always in the consciousness of One's own Reality. When the mind withdraws from the external world, the tongue too becomes silent. All senses follow suit. That is real silence.

Hence, you should learn to observe this world from afar, with an uninterested attitude. Then, you can also escape the wiles of the intellect which breeds doubts, delusions and dualistic diversions, that draws you away from Bliss and Peace. One who has reached that stage will be in highest peace and attain the highest joy.

-Sai Baba

Divine Discourse, Prasanthi Vahini

After death

After death, when human beings have left their physical body, they enter the lower astral plane, where they are subjected to all the injustice and suffering they have inflicted on others. You will say, 'But what if they have done wrong involuntarily without realizing it?' In the eyes of cosmic Intelligence, ignorance is also unacceptable. But the aim of cosmic Intelligence is not revenge, nor even punishment; above all it wants humans to become conscious, and so it makes them experience the suffering they have inflicted on others, so that they can learn, understand and become perfect.

Some creatures cross this lower astral region very quickly, as they have not committed very serious faults; others remain there a long time, suffering. When this stage is over, they enter the higher astral region, where they feel joy and happiness proportionate to the good they have done, for they must also become aware of their good actions. If they have given others courage, hope and light, if they have awakened faith and love, they live these same states."

-Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

Desire, death and rebirth

Where are we born after we die? How do we become born again? You are born again in the same way you died. After some time, the astral body cannot stay on the astral plane anymore, because the seeds of pranic motion have to be expressed on the physical plane again due to one's activity on the astral plane. A new physical birth is entered. Generally, this happens through a newborn child's body, but a more advanced soul who has his spiritual body well developed can pick up a body which is fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty years old and go right along in life from that point.

In what country do you become born? It all depends upon what country you were thinking about before and when you died. If you had a desire to go to Canada, most likely you will be born in Canada next time around. If you had been thinking about going to South America a year or two before you passed away, you would be reincarnated in South America, because that was your destination. If you were very much attached to your own particular family and you did not want to leave them, you would be born back in that immediate family again, because your desire is there. The astral body is the body of desire.

Students probing the mysteries of reincarnation often ask, "If reincarnation is true, why can't I remember my past lives?" They might just as well ask another question: "Why do we not remember everything in detail in this life?" The memory capabilities, unless highly trained, are not that strong, especially after having endured the process of creating a new body through another family and establishing new memory patterns. However, there are people who do recall their past lives, in the very same way that they remember what they did yesterday. Former-life memory is that clear and vivid to them.

However, it is neither necessary nor advisable to pursue events, identities or relationships that may have existed in previous lives. After all, it is all now. We don't think it important to remember details of our childhood years, to wallow in happy or unhappy nostalgia. Why pursue the remembered residue of what has already come and gone? Now is the only time, and for the spiritual seeker, past life analysis or conjecture is an unnecessary waste of useful time and energy. The present now is the sum of all prior thens. Be now. Be the being of yourself this very moment, and that will be the truest fulfillment of all past actions.

The validity of reincarnation and its attendant philosophy are difficult to prove, and yet science is on the threshold of discovering this universal mechanism. Science cannot ignore the overwhelming evidence, the testimony of thousands of level-headed people who claim to remember other lives or who have actually died and then returned to life, and the impressive literature spanning Hindu, Tibetan, Buddhist and Egyptian civilizations. Thus, the pursuit of various theories continues in an effort to bring theory into established law according to the reason and intellectual facilities of man. Those living in the heart chakra, anahata, are able to cognize and know deeply the governing mechanism of rebirth from their own awakening.

There are at least three basic theories or schools of thought related to reincarnation. At first they may seem to conflict or contradict one another, but further elucidation indicates that they are all correct. They are just different aspects of a complex mechanism.

-Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami

http://www.himalayanacademy.com/study/mc/daily_lesson_html/lesson_345.shtml

Be sure and sincere that you are crying for God only and nothing else

Honesty is the gateway to success; it is indeed fifty per cent of success.

Learning is not necessary, no need to be learned. All that you have to do is to be sure and sincere that you are crying for God only and nothing else.

Let the aim of life be clear in your mind, first. I repeat, your aim should be nothing other than the Ultimate Reality.

- Swami Krishnananda

Abandon attachment

In the womb, you take a vow not to get attached; but as soon as you come out, you get entangled. Abandon attachment! Your mind plays tricks on you! That is why you are after pleasures! All worldly things - including the desire for liberation - are obstacles to which you are attached. If you want divine peace, leave behind ignorant karma.

-Babaji

Do not shape your conduct with an eye on the opinion of others

Do not shape your conduct with an eye on the opinion of others. Instead, follow bravely, gladly and steadily the sweet and pleasant promptings of your own gentle and good manners. Follow your own Inner Self.

Associate yourself with those who are richly endowed with Truth. Spend every second of your life usefully and well. If you possibly can, render service to others. Engage yourself in nursing the sick, but when thus engaged in service, do not worry about either the result or the act of service or the person to whom it is rendered. The service is made holy and pure, if you ignore both the good and the bad, and keep on silently repeating in your hearts the name of the Lord that most appeals to you.

-Sai Baba
Divine Discourse, Prasanthi Vahini.

How does one best prepare for death?

Blessed with the knowledge of impending transition, we settle affairs and take refuge in japa, worship, scripture and yoga--seeking the highest realizations as we consciously, joyously release the world. Aum Namah Sivaya.

Before dying, Hindus diligently fulfill obligations, make amends and resolve differences by forgiving themselves and others, lest unresolved karmas bear fruit in future births. That done, we turn to God through meditation, surrender and scriptural study. As a conscious death is our ideal, we avoid drugs, artificial life-extension and suicide. Suicide only postpones and intensifies the karma one seeks escape from, requiring several lives to return to the evolutionary point that existed at the moment of suicide. In cases of terminal illness, under strict community regulation, tradition does allow prayopavesha, self-willed religious death by fasting. When nearing transition, if hospitalized, we return home to be among loved ones. In the final hours of life, we seek the Self God within and focus on our mantra as kindred keep prayerful vigil. At death, we leave the body through the crown chakra, entering the clear white light and beyond in quest of videhamukti. The Vedas affirm, "When a person comes to weakness, be it through old age or disease, he frees himself from these limbs just as a mango, a fig or a berry releases itself from its stalk." Aum Namah Sivaya.

-Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami

http://www.himalayanacademy.com/study/mc/daily_lesson_html/lesson_345.shtml

If your thoughts center round...

If your thoughts center round the body, you will have worries about pains and illnesses, real or imaginary. If they centered on riches, you will be worried about profit and loss, tax and exemptions, investment and insolvency, if they roam round fame, then you are bound to suffer from ups and downs of scandal, calumny and jealousy. So, let them center round the seat of power and love which deserve willing submission and let your whole being surrender to it. Then, you will be happy for ever.

-Sai Baba

The Sirens

Certain artistic creations, though considered masterpieces, detain humans in the twilight regions of the astral plane. They do not, therefore, help them to see clearly where they are, they do not make them better people and they even prevent them from evolving. Of course, no one can deny these astral regions are very seductive, but those who linger there become their prisoners.

In The Odyssey, Homer recounts how Ulysses, while sailing off the island of the Sirens, stopped up his companions' ears with wax, so they wouldn't let themselves be seduced by the women with melodious voices, who would have diverted them from their route so as to devour them. The Sirens are one of many symbols for entities of the astral plane that are certainly very seductive, but humans must try by every means to escape them.

Like Ulysses, a true teacher who knows the realities of the psychic world attempts to warn his or her disciples against the traps of the astral world and leads them further and higher, so they can discover the only realities worth discovering: the splendours of the divine world.

-Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

Feeling will always prevail over reason

Heart, 391. Feeling will always prevail over reason. It is necessary to accept this as an indisputable truth. Therefore when we speak of the heart, we affirm the citadel of feeling. But how different from lust is the feeling of the heart!

The teaching about creative feeling is the realization of creativeness of thought. Let us not dissect the realm of feeling, because it is a single field in bloom. We know the sowing of feeling, but where are the fruits of the mind alone? Reason cannot create if the seed of the heart is not provided. Thus, when we speak of the heart we speak of the beautiful.

-Agni Yoga

The Transition Called Death

Death--what is it? The dropping off of the physical body is the time when all of the karma-making actions go back to seed in the muladhara chakra, into the memory patterns. All of our actions, reactions and the things we have set in motion in the pranic patterns in this life form the tendencies of our nature in our next incarnation. The tendencies of our nature in the present incarnation are the ways in which awareness flows through the ida, pingala and sushumna currents.

These tendencies of man's nature also are recorded under the astrological signs in which he is born. Man comes through an astrological conglomeration of signs, or an astrological chart, according to his actions and reactions and what he set in motion in the seed-karma patterns of his past life. So, we are always the sum total, a collection, of all the karmic experiences, a totality of all the seed patterns that have happened to us, or that we have caused to happen, through the many, many lives. We are now a sum total, and we are always a continuing sum total.

A past life is not really so many years ago. That is not the way to look at it. It is now. Each life is within or inside the other. They exist as karmic seeds that appear in the pranic force fields in our life now and, like seeds, when watered they grow into plants. These seeds are nourished by prana. When we die, or when we discard the physical body, that is the end of a chapter of experience. Then we pick up a new physical body. This begins a new chapter that is always referring back to the last chapter for direction. These are tendencies.

This is the entire story of what happens after we die. We simply step out of the physical body and are in our astral body, going on in the mind as usual. The awareness does not stop simply because the physical body falls away. The ida force becomes more refined, the pingala force becomes more refined, the sushumna force is there like it always was, but all are in another body that was inside the physical body during life on Earth.

One great peculiarity about man is that he individually feels that he is never going to die and goes on through life planning and building as though he were going to live forever and ever. The fear of death is a natural instinctive reflex. We encounter it sometimes daily, once a month, or at least once a year when we come face to face with the possibility of obliteration of our personality and of leaving the conscious mind. The fear of change or fear of the unknown is an ominous element in the destiny of a human being. The study and comprehension of the laws of reincarnation can alleviate this fear and bring an enlightened vision of the cosmic rhythms of life and death. It is a simple process, no more fantastic, shall we say, than other growth problems we experience daily. A flower grows, blossoms and withers. The seed falls to the ground, is buried in the earth, sprouts and grows into a plant and a flower.

-Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami

http://www.himalayanacademy.com/study/mc/daily_lesson_html/lesson_344.shtml

How to escape your inner discomfort: Take refuge in higher realms

There is always a way to escape your inner discomfort: you can go to another level. Let's take an example. You are feeling upset and discouraged, it feels as if everyone and everything that happens is against you. And then you fall asleep. When you wake up a few moments later, you feel as if something has changed. What happened? As you went to sleep, you went to another level; you escaped, and the 'enemies' pursuing you weren't able to follow you.

There is always a place where you can take refuge, and you would be spared much suffering if you knew how to go to another level.

Think about it. Instead of sinking into negative states as if they were quicksands, react immediately. As soon as you feel sad or discouraged, try to go to a place where you can elude these feelings. If the torments are in your mind, go into your heart. If you are being hounded in both heart and mind, rise up to the soul. If you are even being pursued in your soul, take refuge in your spirit. Nothing can reach you there.

-Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

In the thick darkness of the senses, the light of the soul emerges

When God comes, the soul awakes, but the senses sleep.

Midnight is the birth of great masters - Christ or Krishna, as the case may be. Midnight is the utter negation of sense activity and physical consciousness - everything pertaining to that state of affairs. It is in the thick darkness of the senses that the light of the soul emerges and birth takes place of eternity in time.

-Swami Krishnananda

Debts in relationships

You have entered into a relationship with someone, and then one day you decide you have good reason to leave them. Relationships can be of different kinds, not just those of marriage. Of course, you can always leave someone, but only once you have given them what you owe them, according to the agreement you made previously. Otherwise, you will be forced by cosmic laws to find this person again, in this incarnation or the next, to finish discharging your debt. If you really don't want to see someone again, settle all your debts.

But this is a law most people don't want to recognize. As soon as someone no longer suits them, they cut the link in order to feel free. No, no; how many times already has karma forced humans to find their parents, their wives, husbands, friends, bosses or subordinates again in another incarnation, so they can repair the wrongs they have done them!

-Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

What is the process of reincarnation?

Reincarnation, punarjanma, is the natural process of birth, death and rebirth. At death we drop off the physical body and continue evolving in the inner worlds in our subtle bodies, until we again enter into birth. Aum.

Through the ages, reincarnation has been the great consoling element within Hinduism, eliminating the fear of death, explaining why one person is born a genius and another an idiot. We are not the body in which we live but the immortal soul which inhabits many bodies in its evolutionary journey through samsara. After death, we continue to exist in unseen worlds, enjoying or suffering the harvest of earthly deeds until it comes time for yet another physical birth. Because certain karmas can be resolved only in the physical world, we must enter another physical body to continue our evolution. After soaring into the causal plane, we enter a new womb. Subsequently the old manomaya kosha is slowly sloughed off and a new one created. The actions set in motion in previous lives form the tendencies and conditions of the next. Reincarnation ceases when karma is resolved, God is realized and moksha attained. The Vedas say, "After death, the soul goes to the next world bearing in mind the subtle impressions of its deeds, and after reaping their harvest returns again to this world of action. Thus, he who has desires continues subject to rebirth." Aum Namah Sivaya.

-Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami

http://www.himalayanacademy.com/study/mc/daily_lesson_html/lesson_343.shtml

One who gives rise to the awakened mind does not deny objects

Subhuti, do not think that when one gives rise to the highest, most fulfilled, awakened mind one needs to see all objects of mind as nonexistent, cut off from life. Please do not think in that way. One who gives rise to the awakened mind does not deny objects or say that they are nonexistent. 

One who gives rise to the awakened mind should know that what is called a self or a person, a living being or a life span, is not so in essence but only in concept. The names self, person, living being, or life span are names only. Subhuti, you should know that all the things of the world are like this, and you should have confidence in their essence without names.

-Buddha,

Diamond Sutra

Do good even to those who try to harm you

Sometimes you become too much angry, you may even criticize or hit someone. This is a great sin. In fact, when you criticize or hit your enemy, but you are criticizing or hitting God himself. Therefore, you should lead your life in such a way that you do not cause harm to anybody.

It is natural that you do good to those who do good to you. There is nothing very great about it. But Sai asks you to do good even to those who try to harm. You should not pay attention to the harm that they try to do to you in any manner. You should always remain in a state of supreme peace. You can attain everything if you have peace.

-Sai Baba
Divine Discourse, Jan 14, 2009

Is there good karma and bad karma?

In the highest sense, there is no good or bad karma. All experience offers opportunities for spiritual growth. Selfless acts yield positive, uplifting conditions. Selfish acts yield conditions of negativity and confusion. Aum.

Karma itself is neither good nor bad but a neutral principle that governs energy and motion of thought, word and deed. All experience helps us grow. Good, loving actions bring to us lovingness through others. Mean, selfish acts bring back to us pain and suffering. Kindness produces sweet fruits, called punya. Unkindness yields spoiled fruits, called papa. 

As we mature, life after life, we go through much pain and joy. Actions that are in tune with dharma help us along the path, while adharmic actions impede our progress. The divine law is: whatever karma we are experiencing in our life is just what we need at the moment, and nothing can happen but that we have the strength to meet it. Even harsh karma, when faced in wisdom, can be the greatest catalyst for spiritual unfoldment. 

Performing daily sadhana, keeping good company, pilgrimaging to holy places, seeing to others' needs--these evoke the higher energies, direct the mind to useful thoughts and avoid the creation of troublesome new karmas. The Vedas explain, "According as one acts, so does he become. One becomes virtuous by virtuous action, bad by bad action." Aum Namah Sivaya.

-Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami

http://www.himalayanacademy.com/study/mc/daily_lesson_html/lesson_342.shtml

Hostile forces strengthen the faith

The Lord creates hostile forces to demonstrate the power of faith in the Divine and to confer peace and plenty on the believers. Just as a mother provides toys and sweets to a child for its pleasure, though they are of no use to her, God creates certain situations for the sake of the devotee, to bring out the depth of his devotion.

Even in small matters, we find that their true nature is discovered only by experiencing the elements opposed to them. For instance, if one wants to develop physical strength, he has to subject the body to strenuous exercises. Even a diamond requires to be cut and polished to enhance its brilliance and value.

-Sai Baba

Calmness of mind leads to a joyful life

As long as there is a lack of the inner discipline that brings calmness of mind, no matter what external facilities or conditions you have, they will never give you the feeling of joy and happiness that you are seeking. On the other hand, if you possess this inner quality of calmness of mind, a degree of stability within, then even if you lack various external facilities that you would normally consider necessary for happiness, it is still possible to live a happy and joyful life.

-Dalai Lama

No one wants to replace people who radiate life

How disappointing it is for the young artists who have been idolized by the crowds to see themselves quickly forgotten and replaced by others! But however much they torment themselves and complain of life's unfairness, that's how it is: the public is pitiless and looks for novelty, and those it applauds one minute are quickly replaced by new people, and those by other new people - unless they know the secret of how to renew the life inside them.

If you know how to radiate new life each day, life that is love, light and purity, no one will ever want to replace you, even if you live to be 300! The sun cannot be replaced; all kinds of things and people are replaced, but no one as yet has ever managed to replace the sun. Husbands replace their wives and wives their husbands for all sorts of reasons. But the real reason is that all these husbands and wives have allowed their life to stagnate. No one wants to replace people who radiate life, for life is what everyone needs most.

-Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

Respect once destroyed cannot be re-established

Letters Of Helena Roerich I, 12 October 1932. Indeed, the broadened mentality obliges us to be twice as careful of our thoughts and actions, and first of all toward each other and the people who come into closest contact with us. Remember that thousands of eyes are watching us with great attention, and-let us not deceive ourselves-this attention arises chiefly out of the desire to find our weak spot for their destructive purposes.

It is most important that all the co-workers respect each other and do not belittle each other in front of employees and strangers. Little things, trifles like sharp words and cutting jokes, crooked smiles, etc., destroy the respect of other people. By no means should you allow strangers to lose their respect through hearing unkind insinuations. Respect once destroyed cannot be re-established; and it can be destroyed so easily by the most ordinary things, such as unfitting remarks. More than once has it been said, "Even in jest you should not belittle or criticize each other.

It is time to realize the harm that small flies can do. The sting of a small fly can poison the whole organism. You must remember that the enemy tries to enter not through the door but through the smallest crack." Quarreling with each other is not just a crack but a wide open door!

Be careful, for, eventually, you always attract what you wish for

Everything you ask for you will one day receive. Yes, you will receive it, whether it's good or bad, because, according to the laws established by cosmic Intelligence, every request must be granted. These are laws of physics and chemistry: the law of correspondences, the law of affinity, the law of the echo.

And be careful, for, eventually, you always attract what you wish for. If you ask for burdens and end up being crushed beneath their weight, there will be no point, afterwards, in your blaming other people or the Lord. It is up to you to know the long-term consequences of your requests.

It's normal to wish for things, to want things, but you must also think seriously about how things may turn out, for then you will understand that once certain wishes have been realized you will be disappointed, unhappy or ill, so it would be wiser to abandon them. The first thing true disciples of initiatic Science must learn is that there are certain things they should desire and others, on the contrary, they should reject with all their might.

-Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

Ask God

It is your duty to ask God. Words must be said, and words must correspond to the thought. The thought must be put into a true word. It is true enough that the divinity knows all, but he requires the true word be said. The mother may know that to maintain life the child requires food, but milk is given when the child asks for it.

-Sai Baba

Proper guidance

When people do not have a guide, they wander around bumping into each other. They can't see the consequences of their actions. They perform good, bad and mixed actions and don't keep on the right track and therefore end up wandering around in circles. They don't listen to their mothers. They don't listen to their fathers. They don't listen to their spiritual guides. They don't listen to their local religious mentors. But they do listen to the hottest rock star, to their drug dealer and their gang leader. Some have to listen to their AIDS or cancer counselor and make plans for an early departure. So, they can listen. Yes, listening is still functional. Am I communicating? Are we communicating?

Unfortunately, many children are raised by their parents these days to not listen to anyone. "Don't ask me. Make up your own mind," they are told, "I just want you to be happy." Children are raised to be confused. They are raised to be loners in a complicated world. They are raised to be lower-consciousness people. And in many schools they are raised to become educated criminals. Let's get back to the basics of raising children properly, giving them proper guidance. It is the dharma of the parents to raise their children properly, as it is the duty of the satguru to see that they do it.

-Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami
http://www.himalayanacademy.com/study/mc/daily_lesson_html/lesson_327.shtml

God helps those who help themselves

Attaining peace does not mean inactivity, the mere inert life of eating and squatting. You should not spend your time in eating and sleeping, comforting yourself that the Lord will come to your help, when the need arises. You must arise and work. God helps those who help themselves. Do the work that has fallen your lot, sincerely and efficiently.

Give up everything that is outside the service of the Lord. Follow the footsteps of great devotees. You can win through the Grace of the Lord the joy of peace, and the fullness and bliss of Immortality.

-Sai Baba

High-level bodhisattvas pray to meet disgusting, uncooperative people

Actually, if we look around, people whom we don't like and people who harm us are in the minority. Let's say we're at work, at a social gathering, or at a Dharma center with thirty people. How many of them do we really dislike? We may have problems with a few people here and there, but we manage to stay in a room together, don't we? It's not like we despise them and they hate us. 

The number of people we can't stand in this world is actually very small. These people are rare. To practice patience we need the people that we don't like. We can't practice patience with our friends or with people who are kind to us. Finding people that we don't like or who threaten us is not so easy. So, when we finally find them, they are a precious treasure! They are rare to find. When we meet them, we can think, "Fantastic, I get to practice patience now."

They say that high-level bodhisattvas pray to meet disgusting, uncooperative people because they want to practice patience. Of course, when you really want to meet obnoxious people, they don't show up! Why don't they turn up for high-level bodhisattvas? Because high-level bodhisattvas don't have any anger. We could be sitting in a room with many people whom we consider unbearable, but high-level bodhisattvas don't see them that way at all. To them, these people appear lovable. 

Bodhisattvas have such a hard time finding detestable people, whereas we come across them so easily! So, when we find people whom we don't like, feel threatened by, or find despicable, we should recognize that there aren't so many of them around. Therefore, we should cherish them and take the opportunity to practice patience with them.

-Thubten Chodron

Destroying material desire

To destroy this consciousness, one should dissociate himself from his own personality and in his imagination identify himself with others. He will find out that the resultant state of mind is the same in everyone-momentary pleasure followed by dissatisfaction and more desires. Ceasing to desire, he will discover that what he really wants is not ego-satisfaction,or whim satisfaction, but satisfaction of the Self or soul.

The soul, being unlimited,does not allow itself to be circumscribed by the ego's narrowness. The destruction of ego consciousness does not mean that we should live aimless lives, but that we should not limit ourselves by being identified with ego's attachments. We are not to throw away our possessions, or not to take care of the things we have, or cease trying to possess what we really need; but in the course of performing our duties, we should eliminate the bondage of attachment. Those who free themselves from ego's narrowness and the consciousness of ego's possessions hold dominion over earth adn heaven. A child of Spirit who is free from ego's material attachment may surely have everything that is in the universe as his rightful divine inheritance. All his desires are satisfied.

-Paramahansa Yogananda 

God Talks With Arjuna: The Bhagavad Gita

Misuse of non-violence

Humanity is making a grave mistake by misusing non-violence. Time and again I have said this to you. 

Work which I want to accomplish is to remove the misuse of non-violence. People have become lifeless and their blood has become like water. You should be brave and courageous--afraid of nothing. You should not be afraid of being burned by fire or drowned by water. If you are brave and courageous, nothing will harm you, not even the atomic bomb. You must be fearless for yourself and for all humanity.

-Babaji

June 21, 1982

Correct your vision; the world will get corrected

You wear coloured glasses and see everything through those glasses. Correct your vision; the world will get corrected. Reform yourselves; the world will get reformed. 

You create the world of your choice. You see many, because you seek the many, not the One. Try to subsume the many in the One - yourselves and others, the family, the neighbourhood, the community, the state, the nation, the world. This is the Sadhana of Love, for Love is expansion. The individual has to be Universalised and expanded into the Vishwaswaroopa (the Cosmic Self).

-Sai Baba

Intolerance

Brotherhood, 409. Tolerance is one of the conditions of observation. True observation is the basis of cognition. An intolerant man cannot form a just picture of things. He deprives himself of observation and loses perspicacity. What kind of cognition can be born from egoism which rejects reality? 

There are many examples of great truths having been subjected to distortion, because of intolerance. It may be said that intolerance is ignorance, but this definition will be too mild. Intolerance is evil; there can be no good intolerance. It invariably contains falsehood, because it conceals the truth. Only those who definitely lack intelligence can light-mindedly fail to consider intolerance as something unworthy.

-Agni Yoga

Non-violence

A snake in the village had bitten so many people that few dared go into the fields. Such was the Master's holiness that he was said to have tamed the snake and persuaded it to practice the discipline of nonviolence.

It did not take long for the villager to discover that the snake had become harmless. They took to hurling stones at it and dragging it about by its tail.

The badly battered snake crawled into the Master's house one night to complain. Said the Master, "Friend, you have stopped frightening people

- - that's bad!"

"But it was you who taught me to practice the discipline of nonviolence!"

"I told you to stop hurting -- not to stop hissing!"

-Anthony de Mello, SJ