"But that immergence is not in the nature of an annihilation. Extinction is not the fulfilment of all this search and passion, suffering and rapture. The game would never have been begun if that were to be its ending."

"What is God after all ? An eternal child playing an eternal game in an eternal garden."

"In a word, godhead; to remake ourselves in the divine image."

"What is there new that we have yet to accomplish? Love, for as yet we have only accomplished hatred and self-pleasing; Knowledge, for as yet we have only accomplished error and perception and conceiving; Bliss, for as yet we have only accomplished pleasure and pain and indifference; Power, for as yet we have only accomplished weakness and effort and a defeated victory; Life, for as yet we have only accomplished birth and growth and dying; Unity, for as yet we have only accomplished war and association."

"Not to go on for ever repeating what man has already done is our work, but to arrive at new realisations and undreamed-of masteries. Time and soul and world are given us for our field, vision and hope and creative imagination stand for our prompters, will and thought and labour are our all-effective instruments."

"Thought is not essential to existence nor its cause, but it is an instrument for becoming; I become what I see in myself. All that thought suggests to me, I can do; all that thought reveals in me, I can become. This should be man's unshakable faith in himself, because God dwells in him."

"Be conscious first of thyself within, then think and act. All living thought is a world in preparation; all real act is a thought manifested. The material world exists because an Idea began to play in divine self-consciousness."

"To rotate on its own axis is not the one movement for the human soul. There is also its wheeling round the Sun of an inexhaustible illumination."

"If thou wouldst have humanity advance, buffet all preconceived ideas. Thought thus smitten awakes and becomes creative. Otherwise it rests in a mechanical repetition and mistakes that for its right activity."

"Impossibility is only a sum of greater unrealised possibles. It veils an advanced stage and a yet unaccomplished journey."

"Transform the Animal into the Driver of the herds; let all thyself be Krishna. This is thy goal."

"Transform the divided individual into the world-personality; let all thyself be the divine. This is thy goal."

"Transform enjoying into an even and objectless ecstasy; let all thyself be bliss. This is thy goal."

"Transform effort into an easy and sovereign overflowing of the soul-strength; let all thyself be conscious force. This is thy goal."

"Transform reason into ordered intuition; let all thyself be light. This is thy goal."

"When we have passed beyond humanity, then we shall be the Man. The Animal was the helper; the Animal is the bar."

"When we have passed beyond individualising, then we shall be real Persons. Ego was the helper; Ego is the bar."

"When we have passed beyond enjoyings, then we shall have Bliss. Desire was the helper; Desire is the bar."

"When we have passed beyond willings, then we shall have Power. Effort was the helper; Effort is the bar."

"When we have passed beyond knowings, then we shall have Knowledge. Reason was the helper; Reason is the bar."

"If Hell were possible, it would be the shortest cut to the highest heaven. For verily God loveth."

"God's servant is something; God's slave is greater."

"The strangest of the soul's experiences is this, that it finds, when it ceases to care for the image and threat of troubles, then the troubles themselves are nowhere to be found in one's neighbourhood. It is then that we hear from behind those unreal clouds God laughing at us."

"Suffering makes us capable of the full force of the Master of Delight; it makes us capable also to bear the utter play of the Master of Power. Pain is the key that opens the gates of strength; it is the high-road that leads to the city of beatitude."

"Canst thou see God as the bodiless Infinite and yet love Him as a man loves his mistress? Then has the highest truth of the Infinite been revealed to thee. Canst thou also clothe the Infinite in one secret embraceable body and see Him seated in each and all of these bodies that are visible and sensible? Then has its widest and profoundest truth come also into thy possession."

"My lover took away my robe of sin and I let it fall, rejoicing; then he plucked at my robe of virtue, but I was ashamed and alarmed and prevented him. It was not till he wrested it from me by force that I saw how my soul had been hidden from me."

"God took a child to fondle him in His bosom of delight; but the mother wept and would not be consoled because her child no longer existed."

"A God who cannot smile, could not have created this humorous universe."

"I hated the devil and was sick with his temptations and tortures; and I could not tell why the voice in his departing words was so sweet that when he returned often and offered himself to me, it was with sorrow I refused him. Then I discovered it was Krishna at His tricks and my hate was changed into laughter."

"I was much plagued by Satan, until I found that it was God who was tempting me; then the anguish of him passed out of my soul for ever."

"They say, O my God, that I am mad because I see no fault in Thee; but if I am indeed mad with Thy love, I do not wish to recover my sanity."

"To thy lover, O Lord, the railing of the world is wild honey and the pelting of stones by the mob is summer rain on the body. For is it not Thou that railest and peltest, and is it not Thou in the stones that strikest and hurtest me?"

"The whole world is my seraglio and every living being and inanimate existence in it is the instrument of my rapture."

"When I was mounting upon ever higher crests of His joy, I asked myself whether there was no limit to the increase of bliss and almost I grew afraid of God's embraces."

"Even when one has climbed up into those levels of bliss where pain vanishes, it still survives disguised as intolerable ecstasy."

"To commit adultery with God is the perfect experience for which the world was created."

"Others boast of their love for God. My boast is that I did not love God; it was He who loved me and sought me out and forced me to belong to Him."

"Mankind has used two powerful weapons to destroy its own powers and enjoyment, wrong indulgence and wrong abstinence."

"What is the use of only being? I say to thee, Become, for therefore wast thou established as a man in this world of matter."

"What is the use of only knowing? I say to thee, Act and be, for therefore God sent thee into this human body."

"It is easy to distinguish the evil worked by sin and vice, but the trained eye sees also the evil done by self-righteous or self-regarding virtue."

"Only the soul that is naked and unashamed, can be pure and innocent, even as Adam was in the primal garden of humanity."

"What is vice but an enslaving habit and virtue but a human opinion? See God and do His will; walk in whatever path He shall trace for thy goings."

"Rather hang thyself than belong to the horde of successful imitators."

"Not result is the purpose of action, but God's eternal delight in becoming, seeing and doing."

"There is nothing small in God's eyes; let there be nothing small in thine."

"There are two ways of avoiding the snare of woman; one is to shun all women and the other to love all beings."

"Turn all things to honey; this is the law of divine living."

"When thou findest thyself scorning another, look then at thy own heart and laugh at thy folly."

"Watch the too indignantly righteous. Before long you will find them committing or condoning the very offence which they have so fiercely censured."