Ten Recently Posted Reflections
Water alone is real; its bubbles appear and disappear. They disappear into the very water from which they rise. God
is like an ocean, and living beings are like bubbles. They are born there and they die there. Children are like the
few small bubbles around a big one. God alone is real.
(– Sri Ramakrishna, The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, tr. Swami
Nikhilananda, p. 788)
Unseen, but the seer; unheard, but the hearer; unthinkable, but the thinker; unknown, but the knower — there
is no seer but he, there is no hearer but he, there is no other but he, there is no knower but he.
He, the Self, is the Inner Ruler, the Immortal.
(– The Upanisads, tr. Sw. Prabhavananda and Frederick Manchester, p. 96)
I am the essence of the waters, the shining of the sun and the moon:
in all
the word that is God. It is I who resound in the ether, and am potent in man. I am the sacred smell of the earth, the light of
the fire, life of all lives, austerity of ascetics.
(– Sri Krishna in Bhagavad-Gita, (VII - 8, 9) tr. Sw. Prabhavananda and
Christopher Isherwood, p. 71)
I am the birth of this cosmos: Its dissolution also. I am He who causes: No other beside me. Upon me, these
worlds are held like pearls strung on a thread.
(– Sri Krishna in Bhagavad-Gita, (VII - 6, 7) tr. Sw. Prabhavananda and
Christopher Isherwood, p. 71)
I am the way and the truth and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me. If you had
known who I am, then you would have known who my Father is.
(– Jesus Christ in: The Bible, John 14:6)
The more you advance toward God, the less He will give you worldly duties to perform.
(– Sri Ramakrishna, The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, p. 367)
To sinners and vile men, there is vileness outside, but not to good men. So the wicked see this universe
as hell, and partially good see it as heaven, while the perfect being realize it as God Himself.
(– Swami Vivekananda, The Complete Works, Vol. II, P. 279)
This is the message of
to the modern world: Do not care for doctrines, do not care for dogmas, or sects, or churches, or temples:
they count for little compared with the essence of existence in each man, which is spirituality; and the
more this is developed in a man, the more powerful is he for good.
(– Swami Vivekananda, The Complete Works, Vol. IV, p. 187)
What is the need for all types of showy religion and worship? True religion and worship is such a simple
thing in which the whole life can become a dedication to the Divine. We can live in Him. He will live in
us. This is what we can do. There you have pure spirituality.
(– Swami Ranganathananda, Universal Message of the Bhagavad-Gita, Vol. 2, p. 387)
When people understand the nature of
,
more and more of such people will appear in our society, reducing the current noisy, showy, costly worship. The whole
of life becomes religion, as
said, as quoted by
in her introduction to the Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda: "Life itself is religion".
(– Swami Ranganathananda, Universal Message of the Bhagavad-Gita, Vol. 2, p. 387)
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