Hindu Gurus

"(…) Life itself is the Supreme Guru; be attentive to its lessons and obedient to its commands. (…)."

"That which sees all this, and the nothing too, is the inner teacher. He alone is, all else appears to be. He is your own self (swarupa), your hope and assurance of freedom, find him and cling to him and you will be saved and safe."

"Your own self is your ultimate teacher (sadguru). The outer teacher (Guru) is merely a milestone. It is only your inner teacher, that will walk with you to the goal, for he is the goal."

"God is only an idea in your mind. The fact is you. The only thing you know for sure is: ‘here and now I am.’ Remove the ’here and now’ the ‘I am’ remains, unassailable. (…). All I can say truly is: ‘I am,’ all else is inference (…). The sense ‘I am’ is the manifestation of a deeper cause, which you may call self, God, Reality or by any other name. (…)."

"To me you are your own God. But if you think otherwise, think to the end. If there be God, then all is God’s and all is for the best. Welcome all that comes with a glad and thankful heart. And love all creatures. This too will take you to your Self."

"(…) make your world perfect, by all means. If you believe in God, work with Him. If you do not, become one. Either see the world as a play or work at it with all your might. (...)."

"(...) Of what use is your arguing for or against God, when you just do not know who is God, and what are you talking about. (…)."

"All this is temporary, while I am dealing with the eternal. Gods and their universes come and go, avatars follow each other in endless succession, and in the end we are back at the source. I talk only of the timeless source of all gods with all their universes, past, present and future."

"When you see the world you see God. There is no seeing God, apart from the world. Beyond the world to see God is to be God. The light by which you see the world, which is God, is the tiny little spark: ‘I am,’ apparently so small, yet the first and the last in every act of knowing and loving."

"God is not running the world. (…) All happens by itself. You are asking the question and you are supplying the answer. And you know the answer when you ask the question. All is play in consciousness. All divisions are illusory. (...)"

"The essence of slavery is to imagine yourself to be a process, to have past and future, to have history. In fact, we have no history, we are not a process, we do not develop, nor decay (…)."

"When I say I am free, I merely state a fact. If you are an adult, you are free from infancy. I am free from all description and identification. (…)."

"(…) Freedom to do what one likes is really bondage, while being free to do what one must, what is right, is real freedom."

"(...) Desiring a state of freedom from desire will not set you free. Nothing can set you free, because you are free. See yourself with desireless clarity, that is all."

"(...) one is always free. You are both conscious and free to be conscious. Nobody can take this away from you. (…)"

"Steady faith is stronger than destiny. Destiny is the result of causes, mostly accidental, and therefore loosely woven. Confidence and good hope will overcome it easily."

"To exist means to be something, a thing, a feeling, a thought, an idea. All existence is particular. Only being is universal, in the sense that every being is compatible with every other being. Existences clash, being – never. Existence means becoming, change, birth and death, and birth again, while in being there is silent peace."

"¨Everything yields to earnestness.¨"

"You need both clarity and earnestness for self-knowledge. You need maturity of heart and mind, which comes through earnest application in daily life of whatever little you have understood. (...)."

"(…) Just like a deficiency disease is cured through the supply of the missing factor, so are the diseases of living cured by a good dose of intelligent detachment (viveka-vairagya)."

"By all means attend to your duties. Action, in which you are not emotionally involved and which is beneficial and does not cause suffering will not bind you. You may be engaged in several directions and work with enormous zest, yet remain inwardly free and quiet, with a mirror-like mind, which reflects all, without being affected."

"(…) To the Self the world is but a colourful show, which he enjoys as long as it lasts and forgets when it is over. Whatever happens on the stage makes him shudder in terror or roll with laughter, yet all the time he is aware that it is but a show. Without desire or fear he enjoys it, as it happens."

"(…) Desire what is worth desiring and desire it well. Just like you pick your way in a crowd, passing between people, so you find your way between events, without missing your general direction. It is easy, if you are earnest."

"Your mind projects a structure and you identify yourself with it. It is in the nature of desire to prompt the mind to create a world for its fulfillment. Even a small desire can start a long line of action; what about a strong desire? Desire can produce a universe; its powers are miraculous. Just as a small matchstick can set a huge forest on fire, so does a desire light the fires of manifestation. (…)"

"My experience is that everything is bliss. But the desire for bliss creates pain. Thus bliss becomes the seed of pain. The entire universe of pain is born of desire. Give up the desire for pleasure and you will not even know what is pain. (…) for the sake of pleasure you are committing many sins. And the fruits of sin are suffering and death."

"Want the best. The highest happiness, the greatest freedom. Desirelessness is the highest bliss. (…) Only God’s energy is infinite – because he wants nothing for Himself. Be like Him and all your desires will be fulfilled. The higher your aims and vaster desires, the more energy you will have for their fulfillment. Desire the good of all and the universe will work for you. But if you want your own pleasure, you must earn it the hard way. (...)."

"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."

"Desire is the memory of pleasure and fear is the memory of pain. Both make the mind restless. (...)"

"I shall tell you how my Guru’s Guru died. After announcing that his end was nearing, he stopped eating, without changing the routine of his daily life. On the eleventh day, at prayer time he was singing and clapping vigorously and suddenly died! Just like that, between two movements, like a blown out candle. Everybody dies as he lives. I am not afraid of death, because I am not afraid of life. I live a happy life and shall die a happy death. Misery is to be born, not to die. All depends how you look at it."

"People are afraid to die, because they do not know what is death. The gnani has died before his death, he saw that there was nothing to be afraid of. The moment you know your real being, you are afraid of nothing. Death gives freedom and power. (…) The happiness of being absolutely free is beyond description. (…)."

"(...) To be a living being is not the ultimate state; there is something beyond, much more wonderful, which is neither being nor not-being, neither living nor not-living. It is a state of pure awareness, beyond limitations of space and time. Once the illusion that the mind-body is oneself is abandoned, death loses its terror, it becomes a part of living."

""(…) Can there be renewal without death? Even the darkness of sleep is refreshing and rejuvenating. Without death we would have been bogged for ever in eternal senility. (…) When life and death are seen as essential to each other, as two aspects of one being, that is immortality. (...)."

"And what is death? It is the change in the living process of a particular body. Integration ends and disintegration sets in. (…) In death only the body dies. Life does not, consciousness does not, reality does not. And the life is never so alive as after death."

"Our message is the same age-old message of life. We have taught in the world for half a century: “life is bliss, free from problems, it’s not necessary to suffer”."

"Whilst I am deeply saddened by his passing, my memories of him will only be joyful ones. He was a great man who worked tirelessly for the people of the world and the cause of unity."

"I am closing my performance."

"They think democracy -- I used to say "damn the democracy", because it's not a stable government."

"I believe in God. And I believe in the custody of God vested in kings. And I'm very happy to have your name as "King." It's the King!"

"I lack only $1 billion to make the world a better world."

"They [the Beatles] came backstage after one of my lectures, and they said to me: 'Even from an early age we have been seeking a highly spiritual existence. We tried drugs and that didn't work.' They are such practical and intelligent young boys that it took them only two days to find that Transcendental Meditation is the answer."

"That is why he took so many hundreds of years to be known."

"Transcendental meditation is something that can be defined as a means to do what one wants to do in a better way, in a right way, for maximum results. It's a program that the mind begins to experience its own finer impressions, finer thoughts, and then finally transcends the finest thought. And that is the level of what they call self-referral pure consciousness, which is the ultimate reality of life, pure intelligence from where the creation emerges, from where the administration of life is maintained, from where physical expression of the universe has its basis."

"In this meditation we do not concentrate or control the mind. We let the mind follow its natural instinct toward greater happiness, and it goes within and it gains bliss consciousness in the being."

"And because the nature of inner being is bliss, infinite happiness, therefore the mind during TM takes that inward course in a most spontaneous manner."

"The principle of TM is simple, being is bliss in its nature, infinite happiness, mind is always moving in the direction of greater happiness. It is the experience of everyone: wherever the mind goes, it goes in the direction of greater happiness."

"It is possible for every man to go deep within and saturate his conscious mind with inner happiness with that unlimited intelligence that dwells at the source of thought."

"And now we are wanting everyone in every country through the education department of every government to unfold that inner content of life. It’s very simple to light the lamp is so easy. And yet that process of lighting the lamp is enough to eliminate the difficulties in the darkness."

"Wherever there is greater joy, there is the direction of everyone’s activity, because the innermost of everyone is really the lighted lamp of Total Knowledge, total organising power of knowledge, it’s all bliss, it’s not necessary for the people to suffer."

"And it’s completely not necessary for anyone to make mistake because everyone’s Self is Total Knowledge, Veda. Veda is Total Knowledge, and Veda is the nature of the Self, and bliss is the nature of the Self. And even in the outside world everyone wants to move in the direction of greater joy."

"Every education minister today has a chance of introducing in his education today some simple technique, some simple natural insights into the total reality of life, which the physical sciences have explored in terms of “Unified Field”, which the ancient Vedic wisdom has located in the Self referral consciousness of everyone."