Quotes by Spiritual Leaders - Page 4

The worldly life has persisted due to imitation of worldly movements and by opposing them, one becomes free.
Dada Bhagwan
Intent of complete surrender (devotion) is worship itself. Complete surrender with (full understanding and real) knowledge is a very high level of worship. Even the surrender done with relative knowledge (ignorance of one’s own real self) can be called worship.
Dada Bhagwan
Your Mercy is my social status.
Guru Nanak
There can never be peace between nations until there is first known that true peace which... is within the souls of men.
Black Elk
Bhikkus, all is burning. And what is the all that is burning?The eye is burning, visible forms are burning, eye-consciousness is burning, eye-contact is burning; also whatever is felt as pleasant or painful or neither-painful-nor-pleasant that arises with eye-contact as its condition, that too is burning. Burning with what? Burning with the fire of greed, with the fire of hate, with the fire of delusion, with birth, ageing and death, with sorrow, with lamentation, with pain, grief and despair it is burning.
Gautama Buddha
Just as a snake sheds its skin, we must shed our past over and over again.
Gautama Buddha
As for my own religious practice, I try to live my life pursuing what I call the Bodhisattva ideal. According to Buddhist thought, a Bodhisattva is someone on the path to Buddhahood wo dedicates themselves entirely to helping all other sentient beings towards release from suffering. The word Bodhisattva can best be understood by translating the Bodhi and Sattva separately: Bodhi means the understanding or wisdom of the ultimate nature of reality, and a Sattva is someone who is motivated by universal compassion. The Bodhissatva ideal is thus the aspiration to practise infinite compassion with infinite wisdom. releasing sentient beings from suffering.
Dalai Lama XIV
Every action (‘doing’) causes bondage. ‘Doing’ is not needed for Liberation. For liberation, ‘action’ of Knowledge is required. Action of ignorance [of the self] is bondage. Action done with egoism is known as ignorant-action and the action done without egoism is known as knowledge-action.
Dada Bhagwan
Instead of telling God about your big problems, tell your problems about your big God.
Michael Bernard Beckwith
When I doubt that I exist, I pinch myself.
Dalai Lama XIV
You will especially not find anyone who speaks bitterly to you. All the 'diseases' [worldly suffering] remains due to the sweetness. Bitterness will remove the disease, sweetness will increase it. Your life should be such that you will not have to listen to bitter words. If however, you have to listen to bitter words, then you should listen to it. It is always beneficial.
Dada Bhagwan
The worldly life is constantly ablaze. To keep expectation, that it will extinguish, is wrong. So then we too should say to it, ‘you can keep on burning!
Dada Bhagwan
This is not suitable for me”- to say this is indeed madness, it is nothing but egoism. To say ‘will not suit’ is an offense.
Dada Bhagwan
Worldly life means [state of continuous] agitation and uneasiness. What makes one like it, it is a wonder in itself!
Dada Bhagwan
The Holy Land is everywhere
Black Elk
If someone says, "the Gnani Purush is happy in the 'Real' but happy or unhappy in the 'relative’", then I would say, "No, the Gnani Purush Knows the 'relative' as being the 'relative', and therefore He is happy in the relative as well.
Dada Bhagwan
Don’t some people say, ‘You did not value me’? What value did you have at all? Go ask the ocean, ‘what is my worth?’ You will be swept away with one wave. The owner of many waves has swept away many a people like you! Worth is in those people who have no attachment-abhorrence.
Dada Bhagwan
People live for two reasons. There are those who live for the Soul; such people are very rare. All others live for money. All day is spent for money, money, money!
Dada Bhagwan
To believe ‘I’ where ‘I’ is not, is known as tirobhav (concealed or hidden belief). To believe ‘I’-ness where ‘I’ is, it is known as Aavirbhav (visible or manifest belief).
Dada Bhagwan
...only a fool would believe in miracles because - let us say you are a child and an adult lifts this table. That's a miracle. Or you're a chemist and you combine acid and base and you make smoke, an explosion or whatever. To somebody ignorant, that's a miracle. But for everything there is a process, and so when you see a miracle, it's just ignorance of the process. So that only a fool would believe in miracles...
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda
In this world, it is a great Self-effort to deliberately remain ignorant despite knowing, right? I deliberately remain ignorant in spite of having the Knowledge.
Dada Bhagwan
People take different roads seeking fulfillment and happiness. Just because they’re not on your road doesn’t mean they’ve gotten lost.
Dalai Lama XIV
That which is external, it is instrumental (naimitik); it is relative and it is perishable [destructive]. Instrumental means no one has a say in it. One’s actions are not of his own free will; he is under the control of external power. So on what basis do you need to object? Sooner or later you will have to become free from objections.
Dada Bhagwan
Confusion is a good state to be in. It means you are looking, constantly looking. People ask me, "Why do you confuse us like this?" I want you to understand, if you can be confused by anybody, it means you do not know. If you are fanatical, you cannot be confused. Or if you are realized, you cannot be confused. Between ignorance and enlightenment is a very thin line. But they are worlds apart.
Sadhguru
A circumstance is not easy to come by and when it does, there are causes behind it. Therefore I do those things which bring an end to all the causes.
Dada Bhagwan
Whenever and wherever you put yourself in touch with GOD, that is the state of meditation.
Sathya Sai Baba
The moment you are there You know but the moment cannot be explained for it is beyond language and expression. It is a moment of silence, joy, bliss, void, crying, dancing but nothing confirms to normal.
Maitreya Rudrabhayananda
It is our collective and individual responsibility to preserve and tend to the environment in which we all live.
Dalai Lama XIV
If you want liberation [moksha], you will have to be rid of the duality of ‘right-and-wrong’. If you want to attain an auspicious (good) state, then have abhorrence for the ‘wrong’, and attachment for the ‘right’. There is no attachment or abhorrence in the pure state [shuddha].
Dada Bhagwan
If you can cultivate the right attitude, your enemies are your best spiritual teachers because their presence provides you with the opportunity to enhance and develop tolerance, patience and understanding.
Dalai Lama XIV
One will bother you only if you have a karmic account with him. No one can bother you without your signature (karmic cause). All this is due solely to your signature.
Dada Bhagwan
No one asks about the truth and non-truth. Should one not think ‘why don’t others accept it even when I am right?’ It is because there is insistence and nagging behind that truth.
Dada Bhagwan
To have the inner intent to die early is artadhyan (adverse contemplation) as well as raudradhyan (wrathful contemplation) and to have the inner intent to not die is also artadhyan and raudradhyan.One should disembark when the ‘station’ arrives. Do not have the inner intent to die and also to not die.
Dada Bhagwan
For how long will insult hurt a person? For as long as he covets self-importance. For as long as one covets temporary [non eternal] things
Dada Bhagwan
The term ‘Grace’ has been explained by people just to fulfill the vested interest. But what is its actual meaning? Thakur (Sri Ramkrishna) has said ‘When God within the body wishes to liberate himself, then there will be actual liberation of ‘Atma’ or ‘Soul’. That means spontaneous evolution of life power. This spontaneous evolution which individual gets is called grace. Otherwise the term ‘Grace’ is an abstract idea.
Sri Jibankrishna or Diamond
Silence is the speech of the spiritual seeker.
Sathya Sai Baba
We’ had come to identify who was behind all the prodding and the pushing. Everything that happens to you, is really your very own. “Nobody is responsible for ‘you’. ‘You’ are whole and sole responsible for yourself.
Dada Bhagwan
A worshipper perceives that he is near to God because he is awake all night worshipping God. But after worship, your prayers are for health, long life, wealth, and for the damsels and slaves of the Paradise. Ponder! Did you ever pray to God, ‘O’ God, I desire from Thee nothing but Thee’?
Riaz Ahmed Gohar Shahi
In saying the word ‘Sachchidanand’ [sat-chit-anand, eternal knowledge and vision leading to bliss], it has great ‘effect’. There is an ‘effect’ even when it is said without the understanding [of it’s meaning]. When it is said with the understanding, there is tremendous benefit. Saying these words produces vibrations and everything churns. Everything is ‘Scientific’.
Dada Bhagwan
Man invents war. Man discovers peace. He invents war from without. He discovers peace from within. War man throws. Peace man sows. The smile of war is the flood of human blood. The smile of peace is the love, below, above.
Sri Chinmoy
The enemy is the necessary condition for practicing patience.
Dalai Lama XIV
Ignorance’ (absence of Self-Knowledge) creates vibrations (causes) and ‘Knowledge’ (Self-Knowledge) stops these vibrations.
Dada Bhagwan
There is a saying in Tibetan, 'Tragedy should be utilized as a source of strength.'No matter what sort of difficulties, how painful experience is, if we lose our hope, that's our real disaster.
Dalai Lama XIV
Of course, we all go through our own experiences. If we do not push ourselves enough, we do not grow, but if we push ourselves too much, we regress. What is enough will change, depending on where we are and what we are doing. In that sense, the present moment is always some kind of beginning.
Sakyong Mipham
Abhorrence towards bitter circumstances and attachment towards sweet ones is the nature of agnan (ignorance of the self). Bitter and sweet will not exist if agnan (ignorance of the self) leaves.
Dada Bhagwan
The danger lies in how your ‘surplus time’ is spent. If the ‘surplus time’ is spent for one’s own Soul, then it is (like) watering your own farm, but when it is used for other things [other than one’s own self], it is wasted water. Therefore, anyone whose ‘surplus time’ is spent on the Self, all his time is considered to have gone towards one’s own Self [The Soul].
Dada Bhagwan
The intellect shows profit-loss in all worldly things. It shows duality. The intellect is the mother of duality.
Dada Bhagwan
The greater the level of calmness of our mind, the greater our peace of mind, the greater our ability to enjoy a happy and joyful life.
Dalai Lama XIV
Here bhikkhus, some misguided men learn the Dhamma–discourses, stanzas, expositions, verses, exclamations, sayings, birth stories, marvels, and answers to questions–but having learned the Dhamma, they do not examine the meaning of those teachings with wisdom. Not examining the meaning of those teachings with wisdom, they do not gain a reflective acceptance of them. Instead they learn the Dhamma only for the sake of criticising others and for winning in debates, and they do not experience the good for the sake of which they learned the Dhamma.
Gautama Buddha
Desires are very cunning and complex. You are frustrated, but not because of needs. You are frustrated because of desires. And if desires take too much of your energy you will be unable to fulfill your needs also, because who is there to fulfill them? You are moving into the future; you are thinking of the future; your mind is dreaming. Who is there to fulfill ordinary needs of the day? You are not there. And you would like to remain hungry but reach the horizon. You would like to postpone needs so that the whole energy moves towards the desire. But in the end, you find that the desire is not fulfilled, and because needs have been neglected, in the end you are just a ruin. And the time that is lost cannot be regained; you cannot go back.
Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh
The humble sage, by virtue of true knowledge, sees with equal vision a learned and gentle brāhmaṇa, a cow, an elephant, a dog, and a dog-eater.
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda
True humility means giving joy to others.
Sri Chinmoy
To live a pure unselfish life, one must count nothing as one's own in the midst of abundance.
Gautama Buddha
No living being can ever “hitch” another living being. If one were able to “hitch” another, then we can say that the principle of this world is false! In this world, no one being is a superior over another.
Dada Bhagwan
The more honest you are, the more open, the less fear you will have, because there's no anxiety about being exposed or revealed to others.
Dalai Lama XIV
Be patient and keep faith. It will all fall into place.
Radhe Maa
Our life is shaped by our mind, for we become what we think.
Gautama Buddha
Every spoken word carries great risk. Therefore, it is better to remain silent if one does not know how to talk. Talking about religion carries religious risks, talking about worldly matters, carries worldly risks. The worldly risk will go away, but religious risk is very heavy; it creates grave obstacles in regards to religion.
Dada Bhagwan
Egoism devours all the energy, and in addition it makes one suffer.
Dada Bhagwan
Imaginary (thinking) leads to bliss of the mind and the true (real thinking) leads to bliss of the Self (Soul).
Dada Bhagwan