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Thought for the Day for June
by Swami Krishnananda


  1. The miracle that Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj worked is its own explanation. That tapas which he performed is the seed and the tree of whose fruit we are tasting at this present time as this vast organisational work and wave of spiritual enlightenment.
  2. All activity is a process of moving away from the Centre. The activity to cease from such activity is sadhana.
  3. Every act of one's life should become an expression of conscious contemplation on the Absolute. Unless all acts are based on this consciousness, there cannot be any ultimate value in these acts.
  4. Identify yourself with That which is everywhere. If it is everywhere, you are nowhere. Do you understand me? So who is meditating? That which is everywhere is meditating on itself.
  5. Renunciation is not an abandonment in the literal sense of the word, but a spirit that is maintained within—a spirit of not belonging to anything, and a spirit of nothing actually belonging to one's own self.
  6. Every object in the world promises satisfaction, but it never gives satisfaction; it only promises.
  7. You have to think correctly. When you start thinking correctly along the proper lines, every other thing that the mind wants to think will also be included in it.
  8. There is no need for asking for something. It is automatically there, provided you do not make the mistake of asking. If you ask, it will not be there because you have treated it as an object and it runs away.
  9. "Our prosperity, our friends, our bondage and even our destruction are all in the end rooted in our tongue," says a famous adage.
  10. Even those things, acts or words which are normally good and useful become bad, useless and even harmful when they are out of place, time and circumstance. A knowledge of this fact is an essential part of wisdom.
  11. Meditation is your duty. It is not something that you are doing as an occupation; it is the art of being yourself. Nothing can be more profitable for a person than to be one's own self.
  12. Just as you do not see the world of dream in waking, you will not see the world of waking in the Absolute. It is not that it vanishes; it has entered into its original source.
  13. Brahma, Vishnu and Siva are not three gods, but the one God performing three functions. There can, thus, be no superiority or inferiority among them. They are like the three faces of a crystal where one face reflects the others.
  14. In the same way as to be human we have to control the animal tendencies by putting a check over them, in order that we may be divine and godly we may have to transmute even the human qualities.
  15. Dharma is the growth of consciousness into intimacy with the being of the universe, and this being of the universe is God.
  16. To the extent the quality or the characteristic of the Ultimate Reality has become part and parcel of your own personal life, to that extent you are really educated in the wisdom of life.
  17. Realisation is not an actual 'becoming', but an unfolding of consciousness, an experience of Truth, Truth that already is, Truth that is eternal. We cannot become what we actually are not at present.
  18. I have learned the art of Total Thinking. For me there is only One Thought and every thought is included in it. Everyone's thought is a part of that thought.
  19. Truth is intuitive; it is not sensory, it is not psychological, it is not cognitive, it is not perceptional.
  20. If this infinitude that is at the base of these finite forms is to be understood, realised and made part of one's own being, then the realisation accrues.
  21. There is no judgment of any kind in spirituality. It is a pure entertainment of an attitude which is complete in itself, satisfied in itself, and wanting nothing from outside.
  22. Religion is not the act of belonging to a creed, a temple, or a church. It is an inward acceptance of one's conscious relation with the Almighty, who presents Himself as the degrees of Deity in the different religions.
  23. Knowledge itself is the highest end of life and not simply a means to an end. Knowledge is identical with the highest perfection.
  24. No saint has been able to maintain the spiritual balance throughout his life. There have been occasional reversals though these might not have left any impression on their minds any more than the mark left by a stick drawn on water.
  25. You will find finally that there is nothing so difficult as God-experience, and yet nothing so simple as attainment. In a trice you will understand what it is. It is simple because it is yourself, and it is also difficult because it is yourself.
  26. The more does one become fit for the practice of Advaita Vedanta, the less is the consciousness of the body and world around. Advaita and body-consciousness do not go together.
  27. Only that which does not change can know that there is change.
  28. The art of the affirmation of Brahman consists in constantly thinking of Brahman, speaking about Brahman, discoursing to one another on Brahman and depending on Brahman alone for everything that one values in life.
  29. The universe is struggling to become aware of its own existence as a total whole. The cosmos is endeavouring to regain its integrality in an all-inclusive Self awareness.
  30. The pinnacle of yoga is the absorption of the mind in the object of its concentration. The whole technique borders upon an attunement of the subjective consciousness, in its wholeness, to the structure of the object of concentration.