Sri Suktam Quotes

The innermost light, shining peacefully and timelessly in the heart, is the real Guru. All others merely show the way. ~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

A true leader always leads by example, by demonstrating to others how the work is done. Sri Krishna, being a great spiritual leader of his time, also chose to perform certain worldly activities. Why? He explains, "If ever I cease to be vigilantly engaged in action, then people would follow my footsteps in every way and no one would perform action."28 The life of Krishna is marked by ordinariness. He did the earthly job of cow herding, and also indulged in romancing, dancing and playing the flute. He demonstrated a life for others to emulate. He led a balanced life with his strengths as well as frailties. His life was, therefore, not extraordinary. He was not an epitome of perfection. He showed others how to lead a normal, worldly life by himself performing all the actions and yet drifting away from it by reaching for higher ideals. ~ Nihar Satpathy

If managed well, urbanization can create enormous opportunities: allowing innovation and new ideas to emerge, saving energy, land and natural resources, managing climate and the risk of disasters. ~ Sri Mulyani Indrawati

TOLERANCE Neither accept people as they are nor tolerate them. Many people think tolerance is a virtue but tolerance is actually a negative term. If you like something, you do not have to tolerate it. Tolerance indicates a deep sense of dislike that can at any time turn into hatred. It indicates a sense of separateness, small-mindedness, a limitation of consciousness. When you tolerate, it is a temporary state. Tolerance is a potential volcano. If you are tolerating, it means you are just holding on. Acceptance is also negative. You accept that which is not lovable. Tolerance and acceptance come with judgment and separation. Question: "But aren't we supposed to accept people as they are?" If you do not love them, then you have to accept them. I tell you, do not accept people as they are. Just love them as they are. ~ Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

Your soul has a special mission. Your soul is supremely conscious of it.
Maya, illusion or forgetfulness, makes you feel that you are finite, weak and helpless. This is not true. You are not the body. You are not the senses. You are not the mind. These are all limited. You are the soul, which is unlimited. Your soul is infinitely powerful. Your soul defies all time and space. ~ Sri Chinmoy

Sri Lanka is a beautiful little island nation parked perilously close to India; a little too hot, a little too humid, and perhaps too expensive, but to its credit are fantastic beaches, strangely melancholy hills, and the ruins of kingdoms past. ~ Yudhanjaya Wijeratne

Knowledge is the vaccination that keeps you away from the flu of misery ~ Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

In your world everything must have a beginning and an end. If it does not, you call it eternal. In my view, there is no such thing as beginning and end - these are all related to time. Timeless being is entirely in the now. Being and not-being alternate and their reality is momentary. The immutable Reality lies beyond space and time. ~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

We grow through investigation, and to investigate we need experience. We tend to repeat what we have not understood. If we are sensitive and intelligent, we need not suffer. Pain is a call for attention and the penalty of carelessness. Intelligent and compassionate action is the only remedy. ~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Since life is but a continuous series of experiences, everything ultimately helps me towards my final enlightenment. ~ Sri Chinmoy

My name should not be made prominent. It is my ideas that I want to see realized. The disciples of all the prophets have always inextricably mixed up the ideas of the Master with person, and at last killed the ideas for the person. The disciples of Sri Ramakrishna must guard against doing the same thing. Work for the idea, not the person. ~ Swami Vivekananda

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

We are slaves of what we don't know;of what we know we are masters.Whatever vice or weakness in ourselves we discoverand understand its cause and workings,we overcome it by the very knowing.The primary purpose of meditation is to become more consciousand familiar with our inner life.The ultimate purpose is to reach the source of life. ~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

To hope is to send darkest night into exile. ~ Sri Chinmoy

The mind creates the abyss, and the heart crosses it. ~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

You can purify your existence by feeling deep within yourself a beautiful rose or lotus, or any other flower that you like. A flower is all purity. Try to identify yourself with the consciousness of the flower or with the purity of the flower. Today it is imagination, but if you continue imagining for five days, or ten days, or a month or two, then you are bound to see and feel the flower within you. First you may feel it, then you are bound to see the existence of the flower, and then automatically the fragrance and the purity of the flower will enter into you to purify you. ~ Sri Chinmoy

All can be done if the god-touch is there ~ Sri Aurobindo

In the normal play of our mind there are all sorts of perversions; hence the need to stop all these things and inculcate right thinking, right willing - in other words, Truth must be established. ~ Sri Aurobindo

If you are a taker of happiness you get misery, if you are a giver of happiness you get joy and love. ~ Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

I do feel there are countless people on earth who do not believe in the inner power, the inner life. They feel that the outer strength and the outer life are everything. I do not agree with them. There is an inner life; there is spirit, and my ability to lift these heavy weights proves that it can work in matter as well. ~ Sri Chinmoy

To simplify your life, just think of yourself as a four-year-old child. Try to imagine the way he thinks of reality. If you have to talk to someone about a so-called complicated matter, see how you can simplify it.
No matter with whom you are talking, feel that you are a child and that person is also a child. When a childlike quality comes into your life, everything automatically becomes simple. ~ Sri Chinmoy

Sri Krishna's message is the message of anyone who comes from far away. His message is the same as Buddha, Lao Tsu, Bodhidharma, Milarepa, Padmasambhava. ~ Frederick Lenz

The essence of saintliness is total acceptance of the present moment,
harmony with things as they happen. ~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Boredom is a blessing when it leads you to wisdom. And boredom is a curse when it leads you to frustration and depression. ~ Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

Take some time off to go within, in silence. With that, your charm becomes eternal, your love becomes unconditional & great strength arises. ~ Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

Human conduct is ever unreliable until man is anchored in the Divine. Everything in the future will improve if you are making a spiritual effort now. ~ Sri Yukteswar Giri

Wise is the one who learns from another´s mistakes. Less wise is the one who learns only from his own mistakes. The fool keeps making the same mistakes again and again and never learns from them. ~ Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

There comes a time in the seeker's life when he discovers that he is at once the lover and the beloved. ~ Sri Chinmoy

Basically, when I went to school in Sri Lanka from age five onward, the classes there were sometimes sorted into a hierarchy of your skin tone. So the fairer-skinned kids sat at the front row, and the darker-skinned kids sat at the back by the poor ones who played out in the street all day long. ~ M.I.A.

Dvityadvai bhayam bhavati which means, Fear is the result of duality. ~ Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

Whatever comes and goes, is not reality. See the event as event only. Then you are vulnerable to reality, no longer armoured against it, as you were when you gave reality to events and experiences. ~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Shiva is chidambaram, like the inner sky. Shiva is the inner sky of consciousness ~ Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

Whether we live in Sri Lanka or Malaysia or India, the U.K. or the U.S., we face similar issues of understanding, remembering the past that has made us and seeing the future we want. ~ Romesh Gunesekera

When I look inside and see that I'm nothing, that's wisdom. When I look outside and see that I'm everything, that's love. And between these two, my life turns. ~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Meditation is like going to the bottom of the sea, where everything is calm and tranquil. On the surface of the sea there may be a multitude of waves but the sea is not affected below. In its deepest depths, the sea is all silence. When we start meditating, first we try to reach our own inner existence, our true existence- that is to say, the bottom of the sea. Then when the waves come from the outside world, we are not affected. Fear, doubt, worry and all the earthly turmoils just wash away, because inside us is solid peace. Thoughts cannot touch us, because our mind is all peace, all silence, all oneness. Like fish in the sea, they jump and swim but leave no mark. When we are in our highest meditation, we feel that we are the sea, and the animals in the sea cannot affect us. We feel that we are the sky, and all the birds flying past cannot affect us. Our mind is the sky and our heart is the infinite sea. This is meditation. ~ Sri Chinmoy

When I look beyond the mind, I see the witness. Beyond the witness, there is infinite intensity of emptiness and silence. ~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

When you really have something to offer to the world, then you can become truly humble. A tree when it has no fruit to offer, remains erect. But when the tree is laden with fruit, it bends down. If you are all pride and ego, then nobody will be able to get anything worthwhile from you. When you have genuine humility, it is a sign that you have something to offer to mankind. ~ Sri Chinmoy

It wasn't like I came to Sri Lanka to marry a Sri Lankan. It just happened." Jessica ~ Angela Nicoara

Satguru knows that there is no death to the disciple. Atma never dies. Even after death he continues to get direction on the path ~ Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

Favorable and unfavorable conditions are part of living but smiling through them all is the Art of Living. ~ Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

No religion is absolutely perfect. Yet not only do we fight for religion, but also are we often willing to sacrifice our lives for it. And what we hopelessly fail to do is to live it. A true religion is that which has no caste, no creed, no colour. It is but an all-uniting and all-pervading embrace. ~ Sri Chinmoy

Love, serve. Love, serve. And the rest, do not be troubled about. ~ Sri Daya Mataji