One may gain political and social independence, but if one is a slave to his passions and desires, one cannot feel the pure joy of real freedom.
All real progress must be slow.
Never can a reforming sect survive if it is only reforming; the formative elements alone – the real impulse, that is, the principles – live on and on.
We may worship a picture as God, but not God as the picture. God in the picture is right, but the picture as God is wrong. God in the image is perfectly right. There is no danger there. This is the real worship of God. But the image-God is a mere Pratika.
In all our Yogas this renunciation is necessary. This is the stepping-stone and the real centre and the real heart of all spiritual culture – renunciation. This is religion – renunciation.
Impurity is a mere superimposition under which your real nature has become hidden. But the real you is already perfect, already strong.
The attempt is to kill the false “I”, so that the real “I”, the Lord, will reign. “I the Lord thy God am a jealous God. Thou shalt have no other gods before me,” say the Hebrew scriptures.
The uplift of the women, the awakening of the masses must come first, and then only can any real good come about for the country, for India.
The body is the external coating and the mind is the internal coating of the Atman who is the real perceiver, the real enjoyer, the being in the body who is working the body by means of the internal organ or the mind.
Every one is as much bound in thought, word, deed, and mind, as a piece of stone or this table. That I talk to you now is as rigorous in causation as that you listen to me. There is no freedom until you go beyond Maya. That is the real freedom of the soul.
All that is real in me is God; all that is real in God is I. The gulf between God and me is thus bridged. Thus by knowing God, we find that the kingdom of heaven is within us.
Be perfectly resigned, perfectly unconcerned; then alone can you do any true work. No eyes can see the real forces; we can only see the results. Put out self, forget it; just let God work, it is HIS business.
Real freedom is not merely doing what you like, but also NOT doing what you like.
Always discriminate-your body, your house, the people and the world are all absolutely unreal like a dream. Always think that the body is only an inert instrument. And the Atman within is your real nature.
Bless people when they revile you. Think how much good they are doing by helping to stamp out the false ego. Hold fast to the real Self. Think only pure thoughts, and you will accomplish more than a regiment of mere preachers. Out of purity and silence comes the word of power.
First get rid of the delusion I am the body, then only will we want real knowledge.
In real meditation you forget the body. You may be cut to pieces and not feel it at all. You feel such pleasure in it. You become so light. This perfect rest we will get in meditation.
Whose meditation is real and effective? Who can really surrender to the will of God? Only the person whose mind has been purified by selfless work.
This world is nothing. It is at best only a hideous caricature, a shadow of the Real. We must go to the Real. Renunciation will take us to It. Renunciation is the very basis of our true life; every moment of goodness and real life that we enjoy is when we do not think of ourselves.
The “ego” like its correlative “non-ego”, is the product of the body, mind etc. The only proof of the existence of the real Self is realisation.