154 quotes
The year of detention was meant only for a year of seclusion and of training.
The Uttarpara Address (1909)
To rotate on its own axis is not the one movement for the human soul. There is also its wheeling round the Sun of an inexhaustible illumination.
Thoughts and Glimpses (1916)
Live according to Nature, runs the maxim of the West; but according to what nature, the nature of the body or the nature which exceeds the body ? This first we ought to determine.
Thoughts and Aphorisms (1913)
This dynamic following after the highest spiritual truth and the highest spiritual aim are the uniting bond of Indian religion and, behind all its thousand forms, its one common essence.
Genius discovers a system; average talent stereotypes it till it is shattered by fresh genius. It is dangerous for an army to be led by veterans; for on the other side God may place Napoleon.
Thoughts and Aphorisms (1913)
And what is the end of the whole matter ? As if honey could taste itself and all its drops together and all its drops could taste each other and each the whole honeycomb as itself, so should the end be with God and the soul of man and the universe.
Thoughts and Glimpses (1916)
Forgiveness is praised by the Christian and the Vaishnava, but for me, I ask, "What have I to forgive and whom?"
Thoughts and Aphorisms (1913)
It is easy to distinguish the evil worked by sin and vice, but the trained eye sees also the evil done by self-righteous or self-regarding virtue.
Thoughts and Aphorisms (1913)
The whole world yearns after freedom, yet each creature is in love with his chains; this is the first paradox and inextricable knot of our nature.
Thoughts and Glimpses (1916)
There Good, a faithless gardener of God,
Watered with virtue the world's upas-tree
And, careful of the outward word and act,
Engrafted his hypocrite blooms on native ill.
Transform the divided individual into the world-personality; let all thyself be the divine. This is thy goal.
Thoughts and Glimpses (1916)
Delight is the secret. Learn of pure delight and thou shalt learn of God.
Thoughts and Glimpses (1916)
He who would win high spiritual degrees, must pass endless tests and examinations. But most are anxious only to bribe the examiner.
Thoughts and Aphorisms (1913)
Transform effort into an easy and sovereign overflowing of the soul-strength; let all thyself be conscious force. This is thy goal.
Thoughts and Glimpses (1916)
Others boast of their love for God. My boast is that I did not love God; it was He who loved me and sought me out and forced me to belong to Him.
Thoughts and Aphorisms (1913)
Watch the too indignantly righteous. Before long you will find them committing or condoning the very offence which they have so fiercely censured.
Thoughts and Aphorisms (1913)
Hatred is the sign of a secret attraction that is eager to flee from itself and furious to deny its own existence. That too is God's play in His creature.
Thoughts and Aphorisms (1913)
Sin and virtue are a game of resistance we play with God in His efforts to draw us towards perfection. The sense of virtue helps us to cherish our sins in secret.
Thoughts and Aphorisms (1913)
Late, I learned that when reason died, then Wisdom was born; before that liberation, I had only knowledge.
Thoughts and Aphorisms (1913)
God took a child to fondle him in His bosom of delight; but the mother wept and would not be consoled because her child no longer existed.
Thoughts and Aphorisms (1913)