Chandelier
At the Lotus Feet of the Mother
Chandelier
Sri Aurobindo is the Father of a beginningless beginning and the Son of an endless end.The Mother always gives. We too always give. Hers is the Blessing. Ours is the unworthiness.
Sri Aurobindo’s Truth is the Seed. His Law is the Plant. His Forgiveness is the Tree. His Holocaust is the Fruit — the Supermind for the world’s transformation.
The Mother is ceaseless forgiveness. It is man’s bulwark against perdition.
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Morality is preparatory to spirituality. Spirituality is preparatory to surrender. Surrender is preparatory to union. And what is this union? Union is that which has no need of the first personal pronoun.
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Desire alternates with aspiration. Light alternates with darkness. Ignorance alternates with knowledge. But there is something which does not alternate with anything. It is our complete unification with the Absolute.
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What is penury? Penury is the fulfilment of desires. The more we slake the thirst of desires the bigger we become a round zero like an insatiable belly.
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Neither a mighty nor a puny action can dare to claim love. It is desirelessness that has ever the right to claim love from God.
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My desire has given birth to “I and mine”. My surrender has given birth to “Thou and thine”. “I and mine” are more transitory than a rope of sand. “Thou and thine” are more permanent than the everlasting hills.
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If you have much, give much. If you have little, give little. But willingly, and not unwillingly. To give unwillingly means to present the rose with numberless thorns. To give willingly means to present only the rose.
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We always think of ourselves. We have no time to think for others. We forget the undeniable truth that they and we are but one in essence. Our complete freedom is a far cry so long as they are in bondage.
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I do not want to be a walking dictionary of the world. I want to be a fixed faith in the Unseen. Mastery is not my goal. My goal is surrender.
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Our humility is dignity. Our nothingness is plenitude.
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To endure is to qualify for seeing the face of the inner Sun.
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Enough cannot satisfy our soul. Plenitude alone can.
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A bullock is far better than a man who refuses the yoke of responsibility.
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Poetry and music are the disarming smiles of God himself.
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To the common run, to promise and forget is as easy as to breathe in and breathe out.
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Human life is craving. Divine life is offering.
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Quickest are offence and defence of our eyes.
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Open your eyes and close your mouth and lo, the thing you seek for is achieved.
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Often we love a man for a cause but oftener we hate a man without any.
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My enemy can easily be God’s friend, but God’s enemy can never be my friend.
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Humility is the fastest way of climbing God’s Himalaya.
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Day after to-morrow is for the fool. To-morrow is for idle. To-day is for wise. Yesterday is for the blessed soul. Day before yesterday is for God himself.
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God is responsible for the fulfillment of our snow-white prayer. Sincerity for the accomplishment of our work.
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Ruin is the dearest son of Self-forgetfulness.
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Grief reigns supreme while resolution is fast asleep.
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Modesty is an adamant aegis.
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The prayer of our ever-mounting fire is seen in the abode of our eyes.
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Our face is the second edition of our action-books.
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Experience is the food of the fool. Faith is the food of the wise.
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Experience is the fruit of the past. Realisation is the fruit of the present. Identification is the fruit of the future.
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The love that flies from eyes is a fleeting breath. The love that flies from the heart’s core has the breath of the Eternal.
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Each thought pigmy or giant is the strength of a universe.
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We have a tremendous weapon to make God swim in the sea of tears. What is it? It is our wild ignorance which is vaster than the vast and more insignificant than a feeble ant.
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Opinion is a pen-knife. Conviction is a dart. Vision is a naked sword.
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Reality is a unity flooded with multiplicity.
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Will is the dearest child of God. Thought is the poorest and the most blind son of God.
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Genius is an ocean-greyhound. Talent is a boat. Toil is a raft.
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The strongest power is not in fighting against ten at the time, but in carrying out one’s duty.
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To disown a mistake is as easy as to smile, but to confess a mistake is as difficult as to climb up Everest.
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Honey is nothing but the shadow of an affectionate mother at home.
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Home and heart always remain abreast.
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It is our conduct that plays hide-and-seek with us and not fate. Fate is but a mere sum of our conduct.
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True love can never be bought or sold, it can only be sacrificed.
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Faith is the plant. Aspiration is the tree. Surrender is the fruit.
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Love is sacrifice. Sacrifice is bloom and doom — bloom of the Soul, doom of the Ego.
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God is not a thing to be achieved but a thing to be.
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Time and again nearness throws shame, and farness showers fame.
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Imagination either devaluates or evaluates the truth. But experience gives to truth its due value.
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Often our eyes are stronger than our hands and feet in exercising our pride of authority.
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The first and last word of schools, colleges and universities is example and nothing else.
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We all know that there is a book called “the book of Fate”, but its Author is ever fond of remaining anonymous.
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To-day belongs to us. With it we can make our to-morrow possessed either by God or by Satan.
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Strength is the child of will.
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Jealousy is the step-daughter of love and the dearest sister of stupidity.
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Logic is the first rung. Metaphysics is the second. Spirituality is the third and the last rung of the ladder to reach the realm of God.
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The so-called critics are worse than the silliest donkey, for they themselves do not know what their foul tongues utter.
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Neither the man who speaks sixteen to the dozen nor the man who speaks once a blue moon should be a friend of ours.
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The easiest way to fall out with others is to banish politeness from our own heart.
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The king of a nation may be a human being, but the king of one’s own conduct is always the present moment.
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The more we escape our duties the bigger we become a round O.
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Freedom from fear is freedom from difficulty.
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Firmness means absence of tenebrous despair.
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Self-trust is the matchless sword made by God himself.
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The best performance of a man can hardly be seen when he is in a company.
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To help a man on his rainy day is to buy his heart.
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Very often sincerity is a thing which we immediately demand of others, and we demand of us once in a blue moon.
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Perfection is the product of eternity.
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Softness is silver. Modesty is gold. Sincerity is diamond.
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The only way to kill virtue is to sleep over it. The easiest way to revive it is to live it.
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To a thing good we can and needs must bow, but not to what the world calls great.
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Firm resolution is ninety per cent victory in advance.
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No cruelty, no fear.
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As a matter of fact, we do not know what is death, but we do know what is dying.
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The mother of experience is preparation. The son of experience is realisation.
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No faith, no imitation.
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Modesty is the Himalayas. Sincerity is Everest.
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Pride is the quickest plunge into the abyss of titanic ignorance.
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I had a bitter quarrel with God. Many a time He has come to make it up. But my ire has not allowed me to be in with Him. Therefore to Him I have said, “God, You have made me the man in the moon, but I wish to be a man of the earth.” No answer have I heard from Him. At last I now take in the meaning of His silence. When evil things torture me I must in no time become the man in the moon. And when ignorance rises to dominate me, forthwith I must be the man of the earth.
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Tears flow down my cheeks and breast to the feet when our dear ones are gathered to our fathers. But we forget the truth that our fathers too had to suffer much when their and our dear ones were on the land of the living. What is death after all? It is but one shore of the sea of consciousness, the other is life. The sole work of life is to sow and the sole work of death is to reap. Both are interdependent.
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My heart is credulous. My mind is a typical Thomas. I am moved to tears at the pitiable condition of my partners. I wish to be nothing else save an unerring judge.
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Unbelief and ignorance are venial. Disbelief and obstinacy are detestable and unpardonable.
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Our heart is ingenious. Our mind is ingenious. Our body is ignorant. Our eyes are infants. Our vital is a roaring den. Our soul is an orphan. After its birth its parents have thrown it down the earth from the pinnacled sphere to found the Life Divine upon the clay with the assistance of heart, mind, vital, body and senses. Alas, except our heart all other members of our family look down upon the soul and say, “O fool and beggar, away you go to your clime. No need have we of you. We are quite content with this sweet earth of ours.” Alas, the true ruler is ruled by its eyeless, pigmy subjects.
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Think not. The more you think, the deeper will be your doom. Fear not, surrender. The dauntless spirit resides there.
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To-day you are dead in sin. Tomorrow you can be dead to sin. Your choice will be of supreme importance. At no time sin can seize upon you if reliance is your only choice. Reliance on whom? Reliance on the Mother alone.
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Stand firm above likes and dislikes, for both the roads are strewn with deadly thorns. Pine not. Wait for the hour. Time is the Lord eternal. Vigilance is ever its tranquil gaze. It knows well when to support and when to throw you into the fathomless abyss. Cast aside despair, for the non-acceptance of Time itself is the golden promise of a future acceptance.
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As we sow, so we reap. Not always so. Surely fear cannot freeze our heart if tears of sincerity roll down. The forgiveness of the Mother is infinitely mightier than our offences.
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Into the world I cameNot for enormous fame.
Into the world I came
To see Thy earthly Frame.
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I shall not dwell on mistakes past.I know, my climbing faith can outlast
All worlds of blind and evil deeds;
Only the Grace my bosom needs.
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Our fruitless longings never knowWhat dangers great they hug.
They ever are fond of things futile
By which their graves are dug.
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Be careful of fear, it knows not how to die.
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Hypocrisy renders supreme ecstasy to our blind and lame weakness.
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To complain is to see oneself in the mirror of one’s own ignorance.
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God’s face is familiar to my inmost Self. The face of ignorance to that of my surface self.
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No sleep, no health. No Grace, no success.
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To judge things by externals is to shake hands with ignorance, the mother of error.
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No ignorance, no fear. No expectation, no revolt against God. No sacrifice, no Goal. No depth, no height. No tears, no delight. No union, no freedom.
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Every experience whether ambrosial or baneful, is beneficial to build the palace of our future.
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Death follows birth. Knowledge ignorance.
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Our authoritative tone is the most ridiculous blunder.
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Often the name of a man is infinitely stronger than the man himself.
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He alone is wise whose eyes and ears are active and mouth is a flood of tranquility.
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Never foresee crisis. You do and you hasten it.
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To forgive is to take the utmost revenge.
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Alas, our body is much too weak to bear the burden of our soul.
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True happiness soars even higher far than virtue’s reach.
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Reason cannot grow hand in hand with wilfulness.
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A greedy mouth waters at the sight of delicacies. The Master’s eyes shed tears of delight at the sight of his spiritual children.
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Be true and pure;Smile and endure.
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My foe is within and not without;It is desire, it is desire.
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Its fire knows not how to expireAlthough I weep, although I shout.
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Reason however proud and secureMust sadly fail our heart to cure.
Our core should be filled with faith sapphire.
Faith alone the climbing knowledge-fire.
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I sit alone with a throbbing moan,I cry alone with flowers dry,
I eat alone with a rat of the church,
I fly alone in the death-bound sky.
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Whence did I come?Whither am I bound?
Queries indeed
Worse than a hound.
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No need have I to plumb thy Love.I know, I am thy Bounty’s dove.
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Each time we feed our faith with the fire of aspiration we pave the way farther and farther to victory.
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We thirst for revenge, and halfhearted forgiveness for gratitude.
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The more we are mindful of others’ promises the quicker we shall be forgetful of our own.
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Not our ignorance but the obduracy of our pride insures its own woe.
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We must be more than willing to offer ourselves before we claim the gratitude of others.
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It is but our eyeless foolishness that flouts the unassuming and flawless authority of our soul.
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Sincerity is a preventive of all our mental, vital and physical aches.
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Meanness is ugliness. And ugliness is subversive of our true nature.
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To look down upon the things of the world is to forfeit the golden chain of all-embracing love.
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To cherish excessive fondness for anything is to invite the hurtful despondency in the twinkling of an eye.
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Intensity is the son of emotion. Tranquility is the son of wisdom.
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No individualism, no self-hood.
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Ability is not always a surety for success.
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Unity is the mother of harmony.
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True consecration is nothing but a renewal of one’s own hidden power.
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No one knows the strength of God’s Grace and no one ever will.
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A man possessed of true humility is something practically impossible.
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Truly miserable are the lives of those that prove hopeless failures in carrying out their duties.
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Nothing is paramount all-where save our will.
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Thoughts lord it over us when our vision fasts. And when our vision is fed presumptuously the thought-flames extinguish sooner than at once.
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The man with no experience is stone-blind. The man with experience possesses one eye. The man who has had realisation has two eyes. The man who cherishes union with the Supreme has three eyes. The man who will be able to possess a divinised body will have four eyes; and all the four eyes will guide the four directions.
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How to serve a man most effectively? With money? Not sufficient. With joy? Not sufficient. With any other belonging of the earth? Not sufficient. Then what is it that can help a man truly and effectively? It is but Viveka. Viveka is the only truth that has no equal. If you can serve a man with your Viveka, matchless will be your assistance.
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Friendship is as fragile as a mirror. Its breath is more transient than a rope of sand.
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Friendship and forgiveness must always run abreast. The death of forgiveness compels the death of friendship. We must feed our friendship with forgiveness and thus alone we can cherish a friendship that will fail to close its eyes even for a brief second.
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To-day’s wisdom may turn into folly tomorrow. To-day’s folly may turn into wisdom tomorrow. Not we, it is Time that is responsible for all this. The ups and downs of our life are but a stupendous smile and a tremendous pang of Time.
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What is power? Power is silence. What is weakness? Weakness the fruitless opening and closing of the mouth.
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The men of yore could attain firm convictions. But the men of today hold only feeble opinions. The men of the past had eyes to see the truth. The men of today have the heart to believe in the truth realised by the men of the past.
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As I am out at the elbows it is I who am deserving of other’s kindness in the domain of spirituality. Alas, on the contrary my bosom pines to bestow kindness upon them.
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Forgiveness is happiness. But if I forgive the first personal pronoun then I must dance with the children of dark remorse. And if I condone you and him, undoubtedly I will be the flood of ecstasy.
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Our bondage has its relation with the king of terrors. Our freedom has its relation with the trance that knows no death.
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Do what you can. Don’t try to do what you can’t. But if you don’t do what you can, surely your present poverty can never dive into the sea of the future’s affluence.
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Desires are synonymous with clouds. The clouds can only hide the sun of the welkin but can never destroy it. As the sun of the without bursts forth out of the clouds at a selected moment, so the sun of the within also emerges from desires at the choicest moment.
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What is the difference between desire and surrender? Desire is a beggar and its other name is “church-rat”. Surrender is a king and its other name is Eldoradoes.
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Death there is and needs must be since I have been a synonym for my body. Death nowhere, no need have I of it since I have been synonymous with my inner bird.
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Our thought is both a blessing and a curse.
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In fulfilling life there is nothing so important as inspiration.
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Verily the work is its own covetous reward.
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Action is the instrument. Thought is the player.
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We can learn many things by studying but not wisdom. We can learn wisdom only by living it.
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When I was an animal I evolved through selfishness. Now that I am a man my evolution can be achieved only through self-sacrifice.
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Death says, “Sleep, body, sleep.” Ego says, “Sleep, soul, sleep.”
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Failure can never take birth in devotion.
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Creation is self-division on the breast of self-union.
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Distance is noughtWhen Spirit is caught.
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Our triumph is the greatest and most complete when our offering fears not even the thunder-kick in return.
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To improve and not to prove ourselves we saw the light of day.
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To think ill is to become evil.
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Ignorance and pang are twin brothers.
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Life is the manifestation of God’s shadowless Dream.
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The other name of work is experience.
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Nature is the Pole-star that leads us to Time, its mother.
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Our divine Life is until now half fed, for the perfect perfection — its true food has been still a far cry.
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Hyperbole is never a white lie. It is a ridiculous weakness.
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Every soul on the earth is the ruler of God’s blood.
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The other names of courage are endurance and obedience.
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To judge others perfectly one must be in love-lore.
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In very truth our vital love is more selfish than selfishness itself.
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We must love others with our plenitude and not with our limitation.
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I have faults. You have mercies. I have the doom. You have the solace. Out of pity the superior weeps for the inferior. The inferior looks down upon the superior. The presence of the superior to the inferior is venom. The absence of the superior is nectar. To be the best of all is not within my reach. But at ease I can be the worst of all. I want that my name should be on everybody’s lips. Whether they have a liking or dislike for me is of no importance. The sole object of my life is to show others that they are bound to think of me. Alas, I shine in my stupid obstinacy.
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Our best friend and our worst foe are within us. The former is vigilance, the latter temptation. Vigilance at times wards off temptation. Temptation at times swamps vigilance. The victory of the former springs from sincerity. The victory of the latter results from insincerity. Sincerity and insincerity are ever at daggers drawn. Apparently both are equally formidable. God’s child is sincerity. Doom’s issue is insincerity. As there is the beginning of a fight so also there is the end. Success and failure cannot sing in unison. Success goes to the Absolute alone, for all contradictions and reconciliations are ever at his command.
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Duty is surrender to the One. Surrender is freedom. The more we surrender the vaster becomes our freedom.
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Simplicity is cogency. Cogency is God. Complexity is weakness. Weakness is death.
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The more we deny our small “I” the more we affirm our big “I”. Which is the better of the two? The latter. Why? For to it alone is open the gate of freedom. Needless to say that the gate of bondage is open to the former.
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Imitation kills genius. Individuality feeds it. Imitation is the worst curse. Individuality is the best blessing.
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We are between Scylla and Charybdis. The murky vital belabours us when we are in with God. And when we are in with the lurid vital the Grace of God eludes us. Our friendship or enmity with either of the two is but a rope of sand. O God, we have measured the strength of our prayer. And now we find that our prayer is as invalid as a man whose one foot is in the grave and it is as poor as a church-rat. O merciful Lord and God, do don the robe of the supreme Liberator and Redeemer.
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My Lord, I believe in you, but as ill luck would have it I turn a deaf ear to your command. I have no belief in death. But I am ever aware of his command. And what is worse, I blindly carry out his behests. O Author of all good, truly you are for me an insoluble mystery.
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I was a theist of the first water. But now I am converted to a titan atheist. Therefore I am clothed with shame. But alas, shame is ever impotent. No power it has. Once I was a flood of ecstasy. Now I am a main of pangs. O Lord and God, I know my disease is atheism. I have sufficient experience of this disease but no experience in curing it. “My son, depend wholly upon your Will’s help. It alone can transform your malignant present into a benign future like your golden past. My son, to have belief in Me is to dwell in Eldoradoes. To have no belief in Me is to live in a fruitless nowhere.”
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He alone is my superior who possesses my confidence.He alone is my equal who is always cheerful.
He alone is my inferior whose bosom friend is pride.
He alone is my father who is the fount of wisdom.
She alone is my mother who is the main of kindness and sincerity.
He alone is my brother who is sacrifice.
She alone is my sister who is faith.
He alone is my friend who dares to correct me.
He alone is my foe who is afraid of silence.
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Temptation there is. And it is I who can play the man. Again it is I who can play the woman. Every one likes to be the master and not the servant. I need not be an exception. And so let me play the man.
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It is not our limbs that will bring in freedom. It is our silence that will show us the face of freedom.
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The best friend of prosperity is veracity. The worst foe of prosperity is mendacity. Veracity is the fond child of conscience. Mendacity is the spoilt child of nescience. The journey of the first child will end only when it sees the face of a perpetual creation. The journey of the second will cease only when it sees the face of an utter destruction.
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My enemies move heaven and earth to lower me in the estimation of others. My friends leave no stone unturned to set them at naught. Alas, both the parties are in fault. They are ignorant of the truth that union is the root and division is the bough. As both of them are of capital importance in maintaining the creation so our friendship and enmity are of true significance to the truth that the One is positive as well as negative.
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The pabulum of our thought is ignorance. Therefore we are submissive to the strong and imperious to the weak. But the food of our will is knowledge. So it is submissive to the weak and imperious to the strong. The deathless bird that dwells in our heart whispers that all of us are far from the truth. We shall deserve true appreciation only when we consider the strong and the weak to be as important as ourselves. Not only that, the spotless truth must be deeply rooted in us that the strong, the weak and we are inseparable.
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I will tell you whom to hate. Him only hate who thinks low of himself. Sorry, don’t hate him, but hate his folly.
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The easiest way of limiting God is to speak of Him more and more. The only way to know Him well is to pray in silence and stop our jaws.
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Doubt is the worst possible impurity in the human mind.
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Short is life. Love is long. Hope is longer. Longest is the Grace of the One without a second.
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Alas, my life is a life of routine and not of progress.
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Hope is a bottomless sea. Knowledge is the fount of all boons. Sacrifice is the rose with beauty ever increasing.
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Money is a weapon and it must be used to defend oneself and not for trampling others under the feet.
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Surrender is a pitcher full to the brim.
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The Vedas and the Upanishads are the wealth of a village zamindar. The Grace of the Guru is infinitely more than that of all the emperors in the teeming vast.
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Character is the child of will and it can easily box the nose of fate.
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Joking and losing often move together. If you make your friend a laughing stock then there is every possibility of losing him. Joking boils the blood in your friend, and mild praise is the best lance to stab, that means, to conquer the heart of your friend.
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We are more stupid than the worst dunce, for we are on the tiptoe of expectation to meet the One who is ever within and without our heart.
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There is a way to become a king without being the son of a king. How is it possible? It is by, through and in love and self-giving.
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Our life is not our thoughts. Our life is not our deeds. Our life is surrender to the Mother.
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To be a prey to doubt is to be a slave to the unbelieving Zero.
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In the sun of aspiration no mental or vital ache is past cure.
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Not to speak of others, even a spiritual giant is not universally believed or adored.
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The smile that shines through tears is the only smile worth having.
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Tomorrow: “Yesterday, I will not permit you to disturb the happiness of my golden children.” Yesterday: “Sorry, To-morrow, I have for good left your dear children, but still it is they who fail to live without brooding over the deeds that they committed on my breast.”
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When our wisdom sleeps all imaginary evils rush in.
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As there is no limit to one’s craving so also there is no limit to one’s offering.
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Our doubt is as swift of foot as a wild roe.
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It is our fruitless thoughts and not human beings that trespass long on our valuable time.
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There are two fruits. One silence, the other din. The wise pine for the former. The wallowers in ignorance long for the latter. Those who dwell in silence say that the world is not a dream. It is a self-assertive reality. Those who have devoured din say that the world is more transitory than a rope of sand. Both parties make no bones about their positive assertions. A terrible dispute lasted between my heart and my mind. According to the heart silence was far superior to din, according to the mind silence was no match for din. They had made me the judge. As I was ignorant of true knowledge I went to my soul with a tremulous tongue. My soul consoled me and said, “Your heart is the pinnacled lore and your mind is the abysmal ignorance. I give you two seeds. One is Immortality, the other is Transformation. Sow the first seed in your heart and the second in your mind. And in no time you will find that their terrible fight will end in a fond embrace.”
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My head wants to be a walking lexicon. My pen wants to be a master-writer. My voice wants to be a singer of the sweetest melodies. To them I say, “I shall fulfil your high desires in course of time. Now my sole work is to drive away from me the green-eyed monster. When I am free from this abhorrent ghoul, a mighty satisfaction will be my reward and yours. As satisfaction is your sole choice, prepare and wait for the red-letter day when I shall be nothing but a flame of truth.”
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My desire wants a hoard of gold. My aspiration wants a main of bliss. My surrender wants the Vast, which is flooded with the Golden ALL.
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I am the most loyal servant of heart, mind and vital. My wage is sincerity. My master heart is always exact in payment. My master mind is at times exact. But alas, I exact sincerity from my master vital with much severity.
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My soul was fired with boundless zeal when my heart, mind and vital had agreed to help it to found the Life Divine upon the earth. Alas, heart, mind and vital failed of their purpose when they had failed in their first attempt. Now the poor soul alone endeavours to fulfil its mission. When it is victorious, I am sure, the treacherous and unabashed heart, mind and vital will rush in to exult in the victory.
216
The Mother within me said: “My son, do not be out with me. I am never lavish in eyeless advice. I say, never judge things by appearances. Never murmur at the arrangements made by me. Never muse over past errors. Ruthless grief shall prey upon your heart if you possess half-baked notions. Be patient of endless toil and be patient in bearing grave misfortunes. You should be dead to everything. Desire is a Dead-Sea apple. Do not allow ignorance to darken the door of your heart. Always try to be kind even to a fault. If you abide by my advice, my son, you will never be the food for worms. Be sure, your heart will be the cherished nectar for the deathless Gods.”
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My triumph always rests with the inner Pilot of my heart.
218
Never be a fatalist. To ignore the potency of the Spirit is to dine with the King of Terrors. Fate is changeable if the will is indomitable.
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For the full manifestation of the Divine my soul came down on the earth. Many a time I called him names. But I was excepted from punishment. To him I said, “O quoif of muffs, your ignorance is vaster than the cosmos itself. Dream is dream. Reality is reality. They are as different as black and white. To us your dream is a quiz. To you our thought is a riddle. Your present strength is incapacity. Your dream is capacity. My strength is sincerity. It never exceeds practicability. Don’t be a rogue. Be sincerity. When the role of sincerity is over, be patience. Wait for the divine Hour. Alas, your impatience never allows me to see the face of satisfaction.”
220
My heart is wanting in peace. My mind is wanting in sincerity. My vital is wanting in reticence. The punic faith of ignorance is the root of my insufficiency.
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O ignorance, although at whiles you don the cloak of simplicity I will never be satisfied of your innocence. Before I be food for worms I shall excuse all other foes of mine save you.
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We have a dislike to our soul, because we think that its mission will never be fulfilled on the earth. But our soul has a liking for us, because it knows that if it excludes us it will never be able to dive into the main of integrality. What is soul? It is a boundless love.
223
True love is vaster than the universe. False love is smaller than an atom.
224
Desire is poison. But its antidote too abides within us. What is it? It is but aspiration. Everything depends upon our choice. If we affiliate ourselves with a fire-pure aspiration surely we can have ambrosia as our only food.
225
Through fulfilment is true liberation. Mortification is frustration.
226
Ananda is the tree. Its branches are Knowledge, Love and Power.
227
God is all-where when we say “yes”. God is no-where when we say “no”.
228
To us God is merciful only when we are in perfect peace.
229
Knowledge weeps twice. Once in the bosom of ignorance and once in the breast of liberation. When in the former, it sheds tears to dive into the sea of liberation and be flooded with its ecstasy. When in the latter, it bitterly weeps to transform ignorance.
230
The other name of our sacrifice is our greater Self.
231
Our evil thought is the real thief.
232
Money is a dauntless challenge to all our inner qualities.
233
How easy it is to say that this time I shall turn over a new leaf. And how difficult it is to pass even one day without eating our words.
234
Every one must know that he is not wise enough to reach God by himself.
235
Faith is nothing but selflessness.
236
Look at our stupidity! When the gods descend from the high heaven on the earth full of evils they do not become an object of contempt; but when we go down a little our fame in no time dies.
237
O Lord and God, who, if not Thou, will speak of Thee?
238
Where is the harrow of doom for the stoic sons of the Mother?
239
Two messengers have arrived at peep of day. The informant is from the land of Reality. The job’s post from the clime of dream. The informant says that Immortality is on the tip-toe of expectation to have me as its compeer. The job’s post says that my course is run. The King of terrors wants me to dine with him. To the former I say, “My soul will accompany you as my representative.” To the latter I say, “My abysmal vital will accompany you as my representative.”
240
Alas! My soul has been stolen away. Desire, the thief, is in collusion with my mind. In vain I beat them black and blue. The more I beat them the louder becomes their laughter. O Lord and God, my power is ignorance. Yours is knowledge. I have fought with you many a time and every time I have come off second-best. This time I shall use my gratitude as my power, and I am sure that I shall bear the palm. My immaculate gratitude will compel your Grace to fight with your iron law. I know the stronger of the two is your Grace. All problems are now solved since I have got your Grace as my Guide.
241
Mind was my confidant. Alas! It has betrayed me into the strangling hands of desires. Heart was my confidant. Alack! It has betrayed me into the ever-widening arms of ambitions. Soul was my confidant. I am sure that it will never throw me over. And let me now disclose my secret. I am the son of the All-powerful.
242
What an irony of Fate! What a paradox! Our soul, part of the Divine, is now subject to non-Divine powers, its indomitable spirit is now dominated by the feeblest mortal.
243
Truly prayer is preventive to abysmal thoughts.
244
It is only when desires surge up from within that grief preys on our snow-white heart.
245
Easy it is to start a thing. Easier still to do away with it. But it is often unimaginably difficult to proceed with it.
246
Everything is subject to decay save the bridge between our soul and God.
247
It is our vital-ego that rejoices over the misfortunes of others. Our heart is ever a flood of sympathy.
248
The more we feel ashamed of our conduct the more we are worthy of praise.
249
No wakeful child can be forgetful of the Mother’s Grace, the only food of our aspiring heart and our evolving soul.
250
Death was born when I was born. And it will die when I shall join the majority. But I will leave my actions’ deathless fruit to the earth. Blind death, beggar death will never have the just claim upon the gratitude of the earth. I will be deified and death will be defied by the same wise earth.
251
The mother of poverty is desire. The mother of affluence is surrender. The father of ignorance is Ego. The father of knowledge is Grace.
252
The prince of gloom acts noisily, the prince of light silently. Neither is idle. The work of the former leads him to ultimate destruction. The work of the latter to ultimate Immortality.
253
Imagination is nothing but a veiled reality.
254
False fatalism is the order of the day. We can fell the tree of fatalism only when we become the determined will.
255
Absolute faith in the Mother is the seed of perfection.
256
I am nothing so long as I think I am something. I am everything so long as I think I am nothing.
257
Reason was nectar while we marched along the path of morality. Now that we have accepted spirituality reason is nothing but poison. And what is nectar now? Faith. Faith in whom? Faith in the Mother and faith in ourselves. It is a proved fact that we can never have faith in ourselves unless we have faith in the Mother.
258
To be insensible to shame is to blight one’s own heart.
259
Age is no wisdom. Action is wisdom.
260
Silence is full strength. Expression is half at its best.
261
We must always bear in mind that whatever our ego tells us is anything but apposite.
262
Patience is the matchless jewel of our aspiring heart.
263
The more we forget the significance of the Mother’s Grace the more tight becomes the grip of Ignorance.
264
Think ten times before you speak to a human being, but think not before you speak to the Mother Divine.
265
We see with our comatose eyes. The Mother with her stupendous Will. We shed tears for the clamour of fame. She for our vast freedom from Ignorance-Night.
Photographs — Notes and Photographs
Photographs — Chandelier
