Mind, Emotions, and Spiritual Progress

2 May, 2023 @ 3:44 pm

A person who is making spiritual progress has total control over the functions of the mind. This moment he may be dealing with the most profound, philosophical text and someone in need of reassurance walks in; he listens to the story, gives reassurance; the person walks out and leaves no residue behind in your mind.

SVB Birthday Blessing 2009

23 March, 2023 @ 3:01 pm

…just this tremendous amount of love everywhere from people I did not know. And I’ve found that God has made a very, very loving world, and my prayer for you is that you find your world to be the same, and my prayer for myself is that whether someone throws roses at me or throws mud at me, I should remain the same and there should be no change in the level of my love. That’s my prayer for myself, and for you, may you find the world to be as full of love as beautiful as that I have found in traveling around to strange places, new places. Everywhere may you find the same.

75th-Birthday Blessing-2008

23 March, 2023 @ 2:44 pm

It was beautiful. Someone whom I have known from the age of 7, I’d never thought in those years of 1956-57 that we will be meeting here. Such a touching occasion for me. The whole history from that country where I was serving Guyana to this day here in Rishikesh. And tonight, Hungarian song-hymn sung to the tabla rhythms in Rishikesh. What can be a better demonstration of a world culture. And here we are creating this world culture so beautifully expressed. Those things make me blush.

Swami Veda Replies to His Friends’ Birthday Wishes

23 March, 2023 @ 2:27 pm

Each day the sun is born a new, Each soul has a new dawn upon waking from sleep, Each mind is born to new realities every moment, Each turning of the atom is an infinite span in which, your consciousness has taken births as many times as, your atoms have turned in all bodies of all your incarnations – and mine.

SVB Birthday Blessing 2005

23 March, 2023 @ 2:21 pm

I have been given the good fortune in this incarnation to have three birthdays in a year. Yes, this day (24th March) identifies the birth day of this body. But when you receive yoga-diksha, the real yoga-diksha, you are led through dying and rebirthing. That body doesn’t exist anymore and then you are reborn. This is a secret among the yogis. You were body-bound, outward identified, now you have become inward. Your senses ordinarily flow outwards, from the moment of yoga-diksha, there is a "pull" and your senses develop the inclination of an inward flow. You operate in the world but you remain an "insider". So that is the real death and birth of a yogi. Death is not unconscious, death is a conscious process. And the yoga diksha is a rebirth, so this is one of my birthday celebrations.

Light

4 March, 2023 @ 11:30 am

The earth is a light. The sky is a light. The beauty of your skin, the softness of your child's cheek, the love in your eyes is a light. The light has become a leaf, a twig, a tree. Light flows as a river from a mountain of light. Whatever you do not experience is not light. All the rest is waves in a sea of light, the light that is the infinite delight, the bliss of God. The lake of Truth and mirage of falsehood is all light.

Mantra for Freedom from Fear

13 January, 2023 @ 10:14 pm

O Divine Mother, upholder of the universe, grant me strength that I may see all beings with the eyes of a friend. May all beings look at me with the eyes of a friend. May they all, all of us living beings, look at each other with the eyes of a friend.

Historical View of the Swami Tradition (Sanyasa)

7 August, 2022 @ 11:31 am

The stage of life when one takes the vows of renunciation also makes a difference.

Meditation as Mother

13 May, 2022 @ 8:36 pm

Renunciation

12 January, 2022 @ 7:19 am

Clouds renounce raindrops earth renounces vapour Sun renounces life-giving light lily renounces fragrance Trees renounce sap, fruits renounce juices Herbs renounce curative essences Mother renounces milk