Glorious Fifty Years of Wisdom and Service

A Souvenir released on Swami Krishnananda's 50th Birthday

Quotes from Swami Krishnananda

• It is not easy to know what the Will of God is. Many a time we make the mistake of thinking that our convictions and confirmed opinions must be in consonance with the Divine Will. But it need not necessarily be so. We are often convinced of our rectitude and justice of conduct, while we are blatantly in the wrong. That the voice of the public is the voice of God is not an altogether puerile view. There is great truth in this, and many times the world discovers in us what we ourselves cannot see in a state of prejudice.
• The common idea that a little effort on our part due to a spiritual enthusiasm that has arisen in us has taken us sufficiently distant on the Inner Path is a grave error and we reach through our weaker nature the moment we are scratched by the ways of the world. We are quite good Sadhakas when the sun shines bright upon us, but 'scratch the Russian, and you see the Tartar', the purification should go sufficiently deep.
• The world can turn against you the moment it is unable to understand you. Beware!  On what precarious way you live in this world! Be prepared to meet the way in which God chooses to work the Divine Law: without giving you any notice of His Plan.
• Physical union is no union; Psychological union is real union. Physical separation is no separation: psychological separation is real separation.
• It is blessedness to belong to the spiritual fold. And it consist in viewing things from a different angle of vision altogether. The external becomes the universal and the difference between the seer and the seen gets sublimated into an intuitive comprehension of spiritual consciousness, where the objects we love and hate lose their individualistic significance and assume the contour of phases of Divinity. Here the Jivahood in us rises to Godhood.
• "God is in Heaven, and all is well with the world" and this declaration may be a hard saying of the poet, and hungry stomachs and distressed minds may not be in a position to appreciate this as a practical truth. But the poet's imagination is based in the profound realisation that the Divine View is the correct viewpoint and the human view of things need not necessarily be the right one.
• The saying of the Veda that the One is in the many does not mean that the One and the many stand separately like father and son. The one is the many and the many forms are only the phases of the One. The One alone exists and the many are the One. What we see with our eyes as the vast universe outside is the expanse of the One, and we, too, as these seers of the outer universe are forms of the One.
• It is lack of common sense to expect perfection in this world. Even your own notion of perfection, either in work or in idealogy, cannot be implemented in practical life successfully. Since, unfortunately, your life is wound up with the idiosyncrasies shortcomings of several others. Hence it is essential to formulate a flexible and adaptable ideology which can adapt itself to the existing conditions of life and which can assimilate into itself the facts of life.
• Life is service. Life is sacrifice. Life is duty. Life is Will. Life is action. Life is a battle. Life is a voyage. Life is pilgrimage. Life is aspiration. Life is renunciation. Life is meditation.
• Divine Life is not rejection of normal life and its activities. It is, in fact, the normal life.
• Repeat the name of God with intense bhakti. Pray to Him like a guileless child. Open your hearts' troubles to the Indweller. He alone is the one physician for all the ills of life. He will instil in you spiritual strength and peace.
• Make God-realisation the goal of your life. Have this aim always before you day and night. Day and night you must dream of this goal. Attainment of perfection is the only supreme duty you have in life. The rest of the duties are only secondary. Every minute consciously move towards this great Ideal.
• No religious practice is possible without character. Character is the bedrock upon which one can build the religious life. Therefore, Gurudev used to hammer into the minds of his followers this one point. Ethical discipline is the foundation to practice any religion. No religious life is possible without ethics and morals. Therefore, cultivate ethical discipline.
• No amount of theory will make you a Truth seeker. An ounce of practice is better than tons of theories. Therefore, put into to practice what you know. Practice makes you a true seeker in the real sense.
• Make God the polestar of your life. Feel His presence wherever you go for He is everywhere. There is no place where He is not. He is in you and you are in Him. Feel this consciously every moment.

—Swami Krishnananda