Pearls Of Wisdom By Our Great Gurus

Some by Swami Vivekananda

BHAKTI –

The great quality of Bhakti is that it cleanses the mind.

Hatred is a thing that greatly impedes the course of Bhakti.

Bhakti can be more easily practised by persons in every condition of life.

Pranidhana is that sort of Bhakti, in which without seeking results, shuch as sense enjoyment etc.. all works are dedicated to that Teacher of teachers.

BHAKTA –

The Bhakta’s renunciation is that Vairagya or non attachment for all things that are not God which results from Anuraga or great attachment to God.

The person who aspires to be a Bhakta must be cheerful.

The Bhakta is this state of perfect resignation, arising out of intense love to God, and to all that are His, ceases to distinguish between pleasure and pain in so far as they affect him. He does not know what it is to complain of pain or misery; and this kind of uncomplaining resignation to the will of God, who is all love, is indeed a worthier acquisition than all the glory of grand and heroic performances.

Wherever there is beauty or sublimity, to a Bhakta it is all His.

Swami Chinmayananda says
“You can” is the confident assurance given by all masters to everyone who has approached them for guidance. ” You change, and the world around you will change ! ” Change the texture of your thoughts and your life will change. Without changing the old, the new dimensions of life and living cannot be achieved. You have to give up imitating the false values of others around you. Stop living blindly a stamped blue – print of life supplied by the fashions of the time.
Just living the routine life of any unintelligent imitation of others in society is the surest way to plunge into a passionate life of sensuality. All psychological cowards, often unconsciously live their life in escapism. This sense of escapism is detrimental to any great achievement. The thick coating of memories and desires in ones personality takes away ones moral fire. In spite of man’s self – glorification and social status, he is indeed a coward to himself with no confidence in his own goodness.
If you compromise due to lack of courage, you must have the heroism to suffer for it.

GURU –

The Guru is the bright mask which God wears in order to come to us.
Know it for certain that without steady devotion for the Guru and unflinching patience and perseverance, nothing is to be achieved.
The greatness of a teacher consists in the simplicity of his language.
It is the knowledge of the spirit of the scriptures alone that constitutes the true religious teacher.
The guru is the conveyance in which the spiritual influence is brought to you.

MOTHER –

The mother is our guide and whatever happens or will happen is under her ordination.
Mother is the first manifestation of power and is considered a higher ideal than father.
Without propitiating the Mother by worship and obisance, not even Brahma and Vishnu have the power to elude Her grasp and attain to freedom.
The work of the Mother will not suffer; because it has been built and up to date maintained upon truth, sincerity and purity.
Every manifestation of power in the universe is ‘ Mother ‘.
A Mother is the pleasure of all pleasures.
The mother is the ideal of love; she rules the family, she possesses the family.
Behind every creature is the ‘ Mother ‘, pure, lovely, never changing.

PRAYER –

Prayer with lips was not enough; people should pray with their hearts.
May the blows you have received draw you closer to that Being who is the only one to be loved here and hereafter, so that you may realize Him in everything past, present and future and find everything present or lost in Him and Him alone.
May the Lord ever protect you from illusion and delusion.
Pray for knowledge and light, every other prayer is selfish.
Prayer and praise are the first means of growth.
Let us be good for our own sake on our own responsibility.

FAITH –

Faith is not belief, it is the grasp on the Ultimate, an illumination.
He who has no faith in himself can never have faith in God.
A man must not only have faith but intellectual faith too.
Faith is one of the potent factors of humanity and of all religions.
So log as you have faith in your Guru, nothing will be able to obstruct your way.
This Shraddha must enter into you.
The gift of time
Life is a flickering lamp kept in the stormy sea – shore of circumstances. As such make use of every flying hour when you are young, free and cheerful to develop your inner personality. Happiness depends on what you can give, not upon what you can get.
In life, the giver is the master, the receiver is always the slave. By giving, remain always a master, and decide never to be a slave! The creditor is the master, the debtor is surely the slave. The employer is the master, the employee the slave. When time employs you, you become the slave. But when you intelligently employ time, you become the master of time and time your slave !! Make a very tight programme for each day and religiously keep it up. Make a general programme for the week, and then for the month. Deligently whip yourself to be totally faithful to your own programme. Soon you will be able to programme activities for a whole year ! You will then be able to undertake an enormous volume of work and accomplish it cheerfully.
There is nothing, at any time, in any circumstances to worry over ” Why this to me? ” What you have is all His gift to you. What you do with what you have is your gift to Him. Let us make Him ashamed with the glory of our gift !!

LOVE –

The only medium through which spiritual force can be transmitted is Love.
Love knows no bargaining.
Love is the easiest of all, it waits for no logic, it is natural.
Every act of love brings happiness.
Real love makes us unattached.
If you love, that love will come back to you, completing the circle.
We only love that which understands love, that which draws our love.
Love comes and penetrates through the forms and sees beyond.
Merely to love is the sole request that true love has to ask.
When love comes method dies.
The first sign of love is when love asks nothing, it gives everything.

As oil poured from one vessel to another falls in an unbroken line, so, when the mind in an unbroken stream thinks of the Lord, we have what is called Para – Bhakti or supreme love.

Love must get to its right destination, it must go unto Him, who is really the infinite ocean of love.

It is love that gives you supernatural powers, love that gives you Bhakti, love that gives you illumination and love, again, that leads to emancipation.

SADHANA –

Those that persevere will see the light, sooner or later.
Those that take a nibble here and a nibble there will never attain anything.
To control our passions we have to control them at their very roots; then alone shall we be able to burn out their very seeds.
Very few have the power to grasp the higher, fewer still the patience to attain to it.
Restraint does not come in one day, but by long continued practice.
All that man has to do is take care of three things; good thought, good word, good deed.