SOME QUOTES OF SWAMI TURIYANANDA

SOME QUOTES OF SWAMI TURIYANANDA

 

“We have seen with these eyes. We have heard with these ears. When we came to Sri Ramakrishna he made us feel that God-realization was within our grasp. Yet occasionally we would become discouraged and worry whether our lives would pass without our reaching the goal. Then, in the course of time, the Master did everything for us.”

'There is none second to Him. He is all in all. He is my only refuge.’ When you come to this realization then you will have achieved something. The ordinary person depends on many things— on wealth, on friends, or on their own intelligence. But there is no security in anything but God.”

Eating, sleeping, fear, copulation—these are the common characteristics of man and beast. We differ from the beasts in that we can discriminate between right and wrong. If one lives on a low plane of consciousness, one finds pleasure in the senses. With spiritual growth, one experiences happiness in subtler things. Then the person no longer finds enjoyment in the gross. Most people live the lives of beasts—drinking, hunting, running after a mate. If one cannot rise to a higher plane of consciousness, human birth is wasted.

“Meditate! Meditate! Be absorbed in His consciousness! If you can think single-mindedly of the Master for five years, you will achieve everything. Then it does not matter where you live. East and West will be the same to you. Know that God alone is real. Nothing else matters.”

The root of religion is to have firm faith that there is a Reality behind this world appearance. As long as a person is in ignorance and still asserts that or he or she is one with the Absolute, they actually identify themselves with their own ego, not with Brahman. They do not know that there is a Reality beyond their little selves. They are really a kind of atheist.”

“In spiritual life, through the practice of meditation and prayer there comes first a feeling of the presence of God. Then arises the struggle to reach Him.”

“All people are slaves to nature. Some have a natural tendency toward inertia, others toward activity. Nature makes us helpless, and helplessly under her rule we sometimes act, sometimes become silent and lazy, and sometimes go to sleep. Nature controls us instead of our controlling nature. It is just as if a minister had usurped the king’s throne. I used to weep and pray that I would not remain under the control of nature. First be a witness to the workings of nature. Then try to realize the Reality that is beyond nature.”

“From my boyhood on I used to feel that a power was always protecting me, just as a child, learning to walk, is protected by its mother. I felt that I would fall if it were not for that protection behind me.”

“What people call conscience or the voice of God is the power of the guru. As a general rule, people make the mistake of killing their conscience, otherwise this power would guide everybody.”

“Be true to yourself, then you will attain everything. Sri Ramakrishna used to say: ‘Make your lips and your heart the same.’ That is to say, be sincere in every way. It is difficult to be sincere, but people think it is very easy.”

........... Swami Turiyananda