Spiritual maturity lies in the readiness to let go

Freedom means letting go. People just do not care to let go everything. They do not know that the finite is the price of the infinite, as death is the price of immortality. Spiritual maturity lies in the readiness to let go of everything. The giving up is the final step. But the real giving up is in realizing that there is nothing to give up, for nothing is your own.

-Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

This diamond-like nervous system

Having gained this beautiful, perfect human nervous system, if we have known that element of the Self, then we have really used this wonderful diamond-like gift, this diamond-like nervous system which is capable of giving that eternal bliss. If it is not experienced, then we have wasted that gift of diamond.
We have taken upon ourselves this human nervous system, not for the sake of petty enjoyment of changing nature in this relative field of change, but to live and be that infinite bliss. And, we will have to attain that thing whether we attain it in this life, or in the next, or in the next. We just can't forego that. Therefore, with the assistance of the guru and the scriptures, better to attain it quickly. Why postpone?

-Tat Wale Baba

Failure to share one's love is gross ingratitude to society

Love and compassion are inherent in every person. Each has to share love with others. Failure to share one's love is gross ingratitude to society, to which one owes everything. One should give one's love freely to others and receive love in return. But when the forces of evil and hatred overwhelm them, the Good accept the Lord as the Charioteer and He enables to overpower foes.

- Sai Baba

Τhe natural food of man

In men of all races we find that their senses of smell, sound, and sight never lead them to slaughter animals; on the contrary they cannot bear even the sight of such killings. Slaughterhouses are always recommended to be removed far from the towns. Can flesh then be considered the natural food of man, when both his eyes and his nose are so much against it?

-Sri Yukteswar

Man forgets that it is the Spirit that activates his senses

It is naive to try to search for God in any particular place. Man is himself the cause of all his sorrows and difficulties because, forgetting his inherent divinity, he regards the body as real and pursues mundane and physical pleasures. Man forgets that it is the Spirit that activates all his senses. When a fan turns or a bulb burns, it is the current that makes them work. When a car is driven, the engine revolves and the horn works because of the current from the battery. Likewise, for the car of the human body, the eyes are the lights, speech is the horn and all sense organs function because of the current from the Atma (the Spirit).

-Sai Baba
Divine Discourse, 8th February 1990.

It will go away...

A disciple once went to his master say, excitedly,
"Master, I just had a vision!"
The master replied,
"Sit down. Meditate. It will go away."

Loving is an act of service

Loving is an act of service. When you love somebody you give him courage; you uplift, transform, and cause enlightenment in that person. You evoke creativity. Has anybody loved you in a way that increased your energy, creativity, and enlightenment? If his love did not do that, you have not yet tasted love.

-Torkom Saraydarian

Prayer brings man and God together

Prayer alone makes life happy, harmonious and worth living in this universe.
Prayer brings man and God together and with every sigh nearer and nearer.

-Sai Baba

Smoking tobacco or marijuana

Smoking tobacco or marijuana dulls the pineal gland and the sensitive cells around it that transmit communications from the Solar Angel. It is a very slow process, but eventually the damage reaches large proportions. Chewing tobacco kills the haemoglobin of the blood and opens the person to invite in unwanted entities.

-Torkom Saraydarian

The state of craving blocks all deeper experience

The state of craving for anything blocks all deeper experience. Nothing of value can happen to a mind which knows exactly what it wants. For nothing the mind can visualize and want is of much value.

-Nisargadatta Maharaj

Making the river Ganges flow uphill

The difficulty in weaning the mind from objects and fixing it on God is the same as in making the river Ganges flow uphill towards its source instead of its natural flow towards the ocean. Through strenuous efforts and renunciation, the mind must be trained to flow towards God, much against its will, if you want to free yourself from birth and death. There is no other way if you want to escape from worldly miseries and tribulations.

-Sivananda

Sensitivity - You must not be afraid to suffer

The more sensitive you become, the more likely you are to suffer over all that you see and hear around you. But should we become insensitive in order to avoid suffering? No, with such reasoning, we would quickly become as hard as rock. You must not be afraid to suffer, and in this regard, suffering must not even be given much consideration. It is preferable to enhance one's sensitivity, even if we have to suffer, because it is the degree of sensitivity which determines the grandeur, the nobility of the human being.

You must not, however, confuse sensitivity with sentimentality. According to initiatic science, to be sensitive is to be able to open oneself more and more to the splendour and wealth of heaven, to capture the marvels of the divine world to the point of barely sensing the stupidity, the vulgarity, and the meanness of human beings. The great masters, and above them the angels and archangels, do not suffer over ugliness; they no longer notice it. They see only beauty, and they live in unceasing joy.

-Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

With the least effort one can obtain a vegetable diet

You know how repulsive the very sight of meat becomes to the organism accustomed to a vegetable diet. Thus, in practice one must accustom oneself to refinement and remember that even an elephant increases his strength through plants alone. One should not think that people eat meat because of poverty. With the least effort one can obtain a vegetable diet; besides, many nourishing herbs and roots are not utilized.

-Agni Yoga

How to find your soul mate

You are all seeking this love of the so-called soul mate. Well, if you want to find your soul mate, above all, do not look for it. Concern yourself only with living a pure, intense, and luminous life. Simply live this life and let it take its course; it is this that will attract your soul mate to you. You do not yet know what such a life can do to bring you the beings who have an affinity with you. One day you will say: 'I did not seek my soul mate, I did not go searching for my beloved, and yet she came...from the far reaches of the universe.'

To find this soul mate, many people put advertisements in the papers and go to all kinds of receptions and night-clubs, but what do they find? Is it so difficult to understand that it is by nourishing something vital and luminous within ourselves every day that we end by attracting this marvellous being we have hoped for?

-Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

Sacrifice of the lower nature

People speak of sacrificing themselves as if it were a matter of giving up or losing something. When we make a sacrifice, we do not sacrifice 'ourselves', but rather something useless, harmful or inferior, in order to obtain something great, powerful and precious. It is impossible to escape this law: our divine nature cannot live if we do not sacrifice our lower nature.

-Aivanhov

No more holy function than that of the sex relation between man and woman

There is no more holy, sacred function than that of the sex relation between man and woman; nothing more god-like than the right use of the great creative principle, and nothing more fiendish in its final results than the abuse and misuse of the same. It matters not what forms and ceremonies or customs may be used to hedge the guilty, a marriage without true love, confidence and perfect trust, is only one form of prostitution.

-Hilarion, TT

No true Teacher collects sheep around himself

A disciple must prove that he has 'independence of action.' No true Teacher collects sheep around himself. He collects disciples. A disciple is one who can think and take action. He is not a sheep; he is not a blind follower; he is not a machine. A real disciple initiates actions, projects, and plans. He cultivates ideas and visions in his own way, in his own proper time, and at his own speed.

-Torkom Saraydarian

The causes of the maladies

What are the causes of the maladies afflicting people today? Impure air, polluted water, adulterated foodstuffs, etc. Even the minds are polluted. Most of the diseases are caused by aberrations of the mind. Ninety per cent of the diseases are psychological. Constant thinking about one's health is also the cause of many diseases. When the mind is directed towards sacred things, everything in a man's life becomes sacred.

-Sai Baba

The real significance of sex has been lost

Man has prostituted the truth, and the real significance of sex has been lost. Sex now means the satisfaction of the male desire for sensuous pleasure, and the assuaging of a physical appetite through the prostitution of the feminine aspect to that desire and appetite. This relation leads to no result as intended, but to a momentary second of satisfaction, and all of it is confined to the animal nature and the physical plane.

- Alice Bailey, EPI 299

The fear of death

All this concentration upon disaster is nothing new. You see, when humans are consumed with the end of the world, this is merely symbolic of their true fear. Their fear of death. Understand? The body will become no-thing. No matter what we do or how we shall prepare, the final disaster can not be overcome. Understand this and you will understand most of human thought, emotion, and activity.

-Babaji