Quotes and Teachings of Swami Chinmayananda (8 May 1916 – 3 August 1993) from various sources including books, talks, newspaper and magazine articles. This is a collection of thoughts and sayings collected over a period of more than 10 years.
After carefully analyzing our weaknesses, the masters in the religious fields advise us to grow in strength and gain mastery over situations in life by living in harmony with them.
The life of harmony can be lived by rising above our limited egocentric view of things and happenings, and expanding our mind to accommodate a constant awareness of the totality of the world, the entirety of mankind and the vastness and wholeness of the universal problems.
When this total and consummate perception is developed and maintained, man’s individual problems sink into insignificance and absurdity.
When man views his problems from a purely egocentric and individual angle without this vision of totality, problems assume exaggerated and enormous proportions and crush him.
- Live morality before you talk of it.
- Practice meditation before you preach it.
- Taste goodness before you recommend it.
- Gain bliss before you offer it to others.
- A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that others throw at him.
- Learn to be happy alone. If we do not enjoy our own company, why inflict it on others?
- The tragedy of human history is that there is decreasing happiness in the midst of increasing comforts.
- Happiness depends on what you can give. Not on what you can get.
- Humility is a strange thing. The minute you think you have got it, you have lost it.
- The quality of a mind would determine how the ego would react to a given challenge.
- Scriptures are not mere books for intellectual studies. We must learn to assimilate these ideas and come to live them.
- Spirituality is neither the privilege of the poor nor the luxury of the rich. It is the choice of the wise man.
- Don't expect them, to fully understand you. They won't: So? Demonstrate with results, what they would not understand with words!
- In life, the glory lies not in the quarry, but in the chase.
- Tomorrow we will be what we are now, plus what and how we have faced life's challenges today. This is the law of cosmic justice.
- Doing good in return for evil is the correct morality.
- More important than what is Behind you and what is Ahead of you is what is In you. Seek IT. Centered in it, act and live.
- The cultured give happiness wherever they go. The uncultured whenever they go!
- To give love is true freedom. To demand love is pure slavery.
- A well trained and controlled mind stands a man in good stead better than armies. It saves him from cowardice as well as perils.
- Grief and dejection are the price that delusion demands from its victim, man.
- All disturbances and challenges rise not only from our relationship with others, but in our attitude to all other things and beings.
- To argue that life results when lifeless matter combines itself, is as absurd as holding that light comes out of darkness.
- What you have is His gift to you, and what you do with what you have is your gift to Him.
- Both renunciation of action and the performance of action lead to Nirvana (Liberation); but of these, performance of action is superior to renunciation of action.
- The action of today becomes the destiny of tomorrow.
- In all adversities there is always in its depth a treasure of spiritual blessings secretly hidden.
- Out of purity and silence come words of power.
- By birth man does not become an outcast, nor does he become a high caste man. He becomes high or low according to his deeds.
- Don't put the key to your happiness in someone else's pocket.
- The future is carved out of the present moment. Tomorrow’s harvest depends upon today’s ploughing and sowing. The past is dead. The future is not yet born. If one is inefficient and unhealthy in the present, he has no reason to hope for greater future.
- Very often we hear some people complaining that ‘nobody loves me.’ The world is full of love. But generally our hearts are not open for love to gush into us. And the door of your heart ever remains closed. Nobody other than you can ever throw it open, for the door of your heart cannot be locked from outside; and it can be opened only from within.
- To rediscover ourselves is to invite into our life the cognition of a greater intellect and a divine consciousness.
- Man’s control of nature external is called civilization. His control of nature internal is called culture.
- All weakness are transmuted into strengths when the right spiritual values are accepted and the seeker takes the daring resolve to live the spiritual quest.
- Everyone of us may not be able to achieve the infinite expansion of universal oneness, but all of us are trying. Religion’s original task was to help us in gradually achieving this elevated vision. To lift the limited and selfish human being from his passion, greed, hatred to this loftier vision of the world was the essential ideal of religion.
The highest form of grace is silence.
You have two eyes but one vision. The eyes are two but the light that emanates from them both is one – vision.
A man firmly established in wisdom is tranquil and his equipoise is never broken even when he is investing his entire energy in the world outside for the service of mankind.
When you are sensitive enough, giving minimum unhappiness to others, whatever you do will be morally good.
The greater the integration within, the higher the individual’s mind and intellect can fly and the vision of the prospect below extends itself into greater distances when the observer is raised to greater altitudes. The greater the heights from which we look around, the wider is the prospect that unrolls under our gaze.
Daily prayer and meditation are all wonderful therapeutic agencies in building up peace and happiness within an individual. The daily practice of meditation, at least in its early stages, is one of the most effective springboards for developing clear and precise thinking.
A sincere meditator in his early days of struggles at his seat learns to concentrate. A mind held at concentration brings into view the deeper thoughts which were till then hidden from it, due to its own fluctuations. Great ideas are conceived only by alert mind held steady in this meditative pose, in unbroken concentration and dynamic vigil.
When there is no enthusiasm or inspiration, consistency of purpose can never be.
Without change, life would end in absolute stagnancy.
Efficiency is the capacity to bring proficiency into expression.
The game of desires is an endless gambling.
Life is defined as series of continuous experiences.
Work without faith and prayer without sincerity are like artificial flowers without fragrance.
Time never stops; it is fleeting. The now alone is the only auspicious occasion to initiate our new plans. Delays are always dangerous, useless, barren. Today is the only day to attempt any great and worthy purpose. Opportunity comes to all of us; the diligent catch hold of it; the foolish let it pass. Therefore let us be smart and awake to recognize our opportunity to serve, and while it is within our reach, let us seize and make it yield to us the results we demand. Tomorrow, we will be what we are now, plus what and how we have faced life’s challenges today.
Today we are inhibited by habitual preoccupations with our own weakness and imperfections. We do not and dare not perceive ourselves any other way, and this impedes our progress on the spiritual path. However, a little serious thought can shatter that notion. If indeed the supreme consciousness, the lord alone is everything, what is there that can be rejected? Think! Can I exclude or reject the foam and spray from the splashy ocean, just because I don’t fancy it.
Devotion does not mean Love to the Lord alone. It is to embrace all creation for all are his forms only. A true devotee expands his love to identify with all and feels his essential oneness with the totality. He continuously remains in the condition of just “BE”.
Love is essentially something, very much of a subjective experience, that it refuses to be fully and efficiently handled by language.
Worship is an act wherein the organs of perception and action, and the mind are brought together to pray at the altar of His glory. The seeker gets his inspiration from the contemplation of His beauty, Love and Grace.
The noble and ignoble, the fallen and the sublime are all in Him. To whichever quarter if may wander, the mind cannot but meet the Lord if one’s vision is trained to recognize the underlying divinity alone in everything.
When integration has taken place sufficiently, the individual comes to recognize and feel a nauseating disgust at the mere life of acquiring and keeping, earning and hoarding, eating and wasting, sleeping and breeding, growing and dying and he seeks and thirsts to discover in life a greater mission and nobler purpose. He gains the capacity to look beyond the walls of his own house, beyond the streets of his village, beyond the demarcation of his province, even beyond the frontiers of his own nation. He perceives in one dim look the entire life, as it is available in the world. When integration intensifies, the subtlety of his apprehension and feeling increases and he comes examine life as it is available among men and he includes in his conception of life, the manifestation of it in the animal and vegetable kingdom of existence as well. (Source Kindle Life – Chapter title – The Goal of Perfection Achieved)
To define God is to defile God.
Each one of us is in the right atmosphere and environment for our evolution. Don’t try to be more intelligent than universal intelligence – Stay where you are and start opening.
Faith springs from understanding. It is a conviction that grows from understanding. Therefore, one develops it by study of the scriptures and reflection on the ideas given there. As the conviction grows, desire to experience the highest state grows.
Enlightenment is liberation; liberation of the individual personality from the embrace of the world of matter. Give up this sense of individual “I”; it is the only way to wake up.
For success it is necessary to have an integrated, pure, disciplined mind.
Opportunities in life come to everyone of us almost all the time. They come in streams, in hosts, in knocks at our door - we are either "out" or "sleeping in". Be awake. Be alert. Be prepared to make use of them...."
A mere intellectual understanding of any noble ideal will not help us; we must learn to live the ideal. Then only its blessings can be ours.
All spectacular steps are achieved in little courageous steps.
Everybody exists. It is only the few who live. To live, you should have an IDEAL.
The future is carved out of the present moment. Tomorrow’s harvest depends upon today’s ploughing and sowing. The past is dead. The future not yet born.
If one is inefficient and unhealthy in the present, he has no hope for a greater future’.
In life, to handle yourself, use your head, but to handle others, use your heart.
Not to do what you feel like doing is freedom.
What you have is His gift to you, and what you do with what you have is your gift to Him.
When I rest, I rust.
Anybody can win if he be the sole entry. Unfortunately, in every field of human endeavor, there are many entries. And so, to win, one has to cultivate excellence. The excellent man has a better chance to win, than a slipshod…third rate careless idler.
The God man functions as a true sportsman in his play field, where the very enjoyment is in the sport and in the score.
Karma, when undertaken with no anxiety for results, integrates the personality; when a heart is thus purified, a clearer discriminative faculty comes to play through it.
Meet life as it reaches you. With or without the things our minds demand, life can be a brilliant success. But for this, we must discover something else to depend upon. Seek that something in yourself; not outside.
The bright beginning made each day can become the early dawn of the day of achievement.
When man is threatened with a sure mishap, and he knows no remedy or defense against it, he, in his desperation, always turns to prayer. Daily prayer and meditation are wonderful therapeutic agencies in building up peace and happiness within an individual.
God is not an ‘object’ to be found outside. Stop searching. ‘Discover’ HIM within.
The quieter the mind, the sharper the intellect.
Know what to do. And then do it yourself.
The bright beginning made each day can become the early dawn of the day of achievement
Swami Chinmayananda Quotes on Love
- To love and to be loved is the greatest happiness.
- Universe is a cosmos and not a chaos. There exists a mental affinity; a scientific law; a rhythm of mental relationship in which the entire living world is held together, in one web of love.
- Love is a consistent passion to give, not a meek persistent hope to receive. The only demand of life is the privilege to love all.
- Faults become thick when love is thin.
- Be strict and intelligently critical about yourself and your own weakness and follies. But, cushion your words and attitudes with Love. Love is the greatest persuasive power we know in life.
- We may often give without love, but we can never love without giving.
- Love is the heart of all religions; the theme of all classical works of art and literature; the song of all devotees. Scientists know only what love does, not what love is. Love is to human hearts what the sun is to flowers.
Swami Chinmayananda on Idols of Gods in Hinduism
Conceptual thinking is hard to the many. To contemplate upon the formless and therefore the Transcendental Essence is given but to a few. The majority needs some grosser expression of the Pure and the Infinite, for their mind to conceive It and their intellect to contemplate upon It. These ‘symbols’ of the Supreme Truth are called the idols.
Thus, an idol represents an ideal. When we do not know the ideal which a given idol represents, it is something like seeing a portrait in a studio! If it were my beloved’s portrait I would have seen in it more than what the black-and-white picture represents.
In the same way the religious symbols and idols have a deeper depth for us to discover, over and above their mere external shape, the general forms of the symbol and, in each, even the exact arrangements of its various aspects.
To bring out eloquently the voiceless beauty and joy of the Infinite, through unsaid significances of Its finite expressions and symbols, is called Mysticism. All religious idols are mystic symbols. To learn the art of interpreting them is to experience a harmony in our devoted contemplations heard without ears, seen without eyes! (Source: Extracts from the Introduction to Symbolism In Hinduism published by Chinmaya Mission)
Swami Chinmayananda on Brahmacharya
Brahmacharya means living in self-control with respect to all our sense enjoyments and does not mean their total denial. The world of objects is meant for us to enjoy and the scriptures do not deny us the freedom to enjoy them. They merely advise us to be masters of our enjoyments and not allow them to dominate and enslave us.
With a heart full of lover, our preceptors cry out – Enjoy the world but let not the world enjoy you. You may eat food, let not the food eat you. You may drink but let not the drink, drink you.
The interpretation of the word Brahmacharya has been so badly contorted and distorted that the real significance and value of this discipline has been lost. It is popularly misunderstood to mean complete abstinence from sexual life. This is absurd. What the ‘Mahatmas’ advise us is to abstain from excessive indulgence in any sensual pleasure. (Source: Excerpts from an article titled Fundamentals of Living in the book Kindle Life by Swami Chinmayananda)
Swami Chinmayananda on the importance of Japa in Hinduism
Japa is a training by which the ever-dancing rays of the mind are compelled to behave in some order and rhythm, and bring out of their co-operative effort, a single melody of repeated Mantra-chanting.
In thus practicing, the mind becomes extremely single-pointed. In fact, Japa properly done can more effectively bring about a sustained single-pointedness than all the hasty methods of meditation.
A mind seasoned with Japa is like tinned food, which is ready for consumption after a few seconds of warming-up on the fire. A short period of meditation can take a Japa-conditioned mind to unimaginable heights in an impossibly short time. (Source: Kindle Life by Swami Chinmayananda)
Swami Chinmayananda Quotes on Guru
The real Guru is the pure intellect within; and the purified, deeply aspiring mind is the disciple.
The Guru is nothing but pure Consciousness, absolute Bliss, and eternal Wisdom.
Swami Chinmayananda Quotes on Faith
Faith is, ‘To believe what you do not see’, the reward of which is, ‘you see what you believed.’
Work without faith and prayer is like an artificial flower without fragrance.
Faith, no doubt, is a great and mighty ally to the seeker; but blind faith, born from fear and thriving in ignorance is a chain of slavery.
Swami Chinmayananda Quotes on Patience
To be patient means to suffer something that hinders or hurts us, and still retain our self-composure.
How many difficulties, with their consequent unpleasantness and discord, could be smoothed over and almost entirely eliminated by patience.
Patience always elevates and strengthens our character. We need it not only with others but also with ourselves.
History is full of instances, wherein, victory would have been to the vanquished, if only they had battled a little longer! We often fail for lack of perseverance in our efforts. We leave our work half done in our impatience. Every job demands its quota of efforts. Never give up too soon.
How many difficulties, with their consequent unpleasantness and discord, could be smoothed over and almost entirely eliminated by patience.
Patience always elevates and strengthens our character. We need it not only with others but also with ourselves.
History is full of instances, wherein, victory would have been to the vanquished, if only they had battled a little longer! We often fail for lack of perseverance in our efforts. We leave our work half done in our impatience. Every job demands its quota of efforts. Never give up too soon.
Swami Chinmayananda Quotes on the secret of Success
Success or achievement is not the final goal. It is the 'spirit' in which you act that puts the seal of beauty upon your life.
The secret of success behind all men of achievement lies in the faculty of applying their intellect in all their activities, without being mislead by any surging emotions or feelings. The secret of success in life lies in keeping the head above the storms of the heart.
A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that others throw at him.
Swami Chinmayananda Quotes on Vedanta
- From the known, slowly you creep forward to the unknown.
- An effect can never be without a cause. A clay pot can never remain without clay.
- Effects are nothing but the cause itself in different form. Cup, saucer, plate, jug have different shapes, different use, different names. And yet, all of them are clay.
- From the effect when the cause is removed …nothing.
- From the clay pot, when the clay is removed, nothing remains.
- If there is a cause for the world, the universe is nothing but that cause in different form. So, the universe that you and I are perceiving is nothing but that cause.
- You too are an expression of that infinite self. (Source: From a lecture by Swami Chinmayananda entitled, ‘The Vision of Vedanta: Its Logic and Practicality.’)
On Friends
- Cultivate friends. To have a friend is to make life easier and richer. A friend is a present that you give to yourself. But you cannot pick up a friend, nor purchase a friend. We cannot compel anyone to be our friend. We have to discover a friend.
Swami Chinmayananda on Work, Wealth and Creativity
Strange! Wealth estranges us all. It is all very strange, the money psychology! When you get some, you grow jealous of others who have more, and feel proud among those who have less!
You are successful and creative only when you see an opportunity in every difficulty.
Our work is love made visible. When love is made to manifest, work is done. When we work only to produce profit or wages, work becomes crushing, sweating, joyless labor.
Swami Chinmayananda on the methodology employed by Lord Krishna in Bhagavad Gita
Unlike the other scriptures, the methodology followed by the Bhagavad Gita appears to be more conducive to the modern, scientific mind and the educated classes. For they don't believe in anything. They want everything to be rationally proved, intellectually defensible.
And the approach of the Bhagavad Gita is very rational because Krishna had to address a dynamic, young, educated, intelligent man who was a born skeptic. Arjuna did not believe or understand that Krishna was an intellectual giant. It is only in the eleventh chapter that he got a glimpse - and, thereafter, his attitude changed.
But till the eleventh chapter he was absolutely rational. He did not believe a word of what Krishna said. Krishna had to make him believe it by the strength of logic.
Swami Chinmayananda on Seeking and Searching
These are the two words always used in all texts dealing with the spiritual path – seeking truth and searching the reality. The seeker is ever seeking or searching – carefully think it over.
Seeking is when I don’t know what it is or where it is. Searching is when I know and am certain that it is only table or handbag – and I am searching for it.
Searching is for a thing which I know is there, but is now covered by other things.
We are seeking the Truth while studying the scriptures and, with the help of the teacher, trying to grasp what it is and what is its nature.
In the seat of meditation, we are searching.
We know now that there is this mysterious power called Life in our bosom. We are searching to reach it. What you are searching for is not a thought. You are searching for a new dimension of Consciousness.
OM ’ represents the Self, which is the Supreme non-dual reality. The Self is known in four states, namely, the waking-state, the dream-state, the deep-sleep-state and the fourth state, called the ‘Turiya.’ All these states are represented in the three sounds of ‘OM ’ (i.e. A, U. M), and the silence that follows and surrounds the syllable.
Swami Chinmayananda Thoughts on OM
‘Swami Chinmayananda Simple Thoughts on Philosophy
Philosophy without love is madness. Love without philosophy is superstition.
Science applied becomes technology. Pure philosophy applied to social conditions becomes religion.
Philosophy misunderstood can easily end in the suicide of the community.
Only fools will seek to maintain that one religion (philosophy) is eternal and others are evanescent or transitory.
Swami Chinmayananda on Giving
Give.
The greatest joy of life is in giving,
in loving and in sacrificing.
To give, we must have abundance in ourselves.
We cannot give what we have not.
Therefore, create fullness:
good health, good emotions in plenty, good knowledge.
Then, give help to all;
give love and sympathy to those who deserve them,
give knowledge to all who need it.
Give. To give is life. To take is death.
in loving and in sacrificing.
To give, we must have abundance in ourselves.
We cannot give what we have not.
Therefore, create fullness:
good health, good emotions in plenty, good knowledge.
Then, give help to all;
give love and sympathy to those who deserve them,
give knowledge to all who need it.
Give. To give is life. To take is death.
Swami Chinmayananda Thoughts on Happiness
On a careful analysis we find that man’s happiness is entirely a subjective phenomenon, for there seems to be a distinct and clear relationship between the state of his mind and the joy or sorrow that is experienced by him. When the mind is agitated, sorrow is experienced and when it is tranquil, there is joy. Happiness, therefore, is measured by the tranquility of one’s mind.
Man, the roof and crown of creation, has the unique capacity of quieting his mind without helplessly depending upon the objects around him. But this capacity now lies dormant in him and he, unaware of it, foolishly tries to procure happiness through the objects of the world, which have only a false glitter of joy. They can give, indeed, no enduring and everlasting satisfaction.
Our great religious books help to awaken and promote this dormant faculty in man. He need not run after the sense objects to attain some fleeting experiences of joy. He can get engaged in a more permanent and a fuller happiness, which is wholly independent of the availability of agreeable objects and environment. (Source: Kindle Life by Swami Chinmayananda)
Swami Chinmayananda on Four States of Self and OM
‘OM’ represents the Self, which is the Supreme non-dual reality. The sound ‘A’ represents the dream-state and the sound ‘M’ represents the deep-sleep state. The waking state is superimposed on the ‘A’ sound because it is the first of the three states of consciousness and so is ‘A,’ the very first of the letters of the alphabet in all languages.
The dream is but a view within the mind of the impressions that reflected on the surface of the mental-lake during the waking state. Besides, the dream-state occurs between the waking and the deep-sleep state and comes second among the three sates of consciousness. And so, ‘U’ being next to ‘A’ in the order of sounds, and also between ‘A’ and ‘M,’ it is treated as representing the dream state.
On the ‘M’ sound of ‘OM’ is superimposed the deep-sleep state. The comparison between the last sound of ‘OM’ and sleep lies in that it is the closing sound of the syllable, just as deep-sleep is the final state of the mind in rest.
A short pregnant silence is inevitable between two successive OM-s. On this silence is superimposed the idea of the fourth-state known as ‘Turiya.’ This is the state of Perfect Bliss when the individual Self recognizes its identity with the Supreme.
Swami Chinmayananda’s answer to why does a realized person work?
When one realizes the Truth, one becomes irresistibly vibrant with life. In divine spontaneity, activity gurgles through him. The physical equipment is generally too frail a reed to stand the blazing gush of love and work; therefore, such prophetic masters generally fold up in a blinding flash of brilliant service to mankind, carried on for a short duration of perhaps twenty or thirty years.
Your question is, “Why should he work?” Can you tell me why the Sun is illumining everything around it? Why fire is hot? Sugar sweet? Oceanic waters salty? Why birds fly? Flowers bloom? Mirrors reflect? Air moves? Earth revolves?… Are they not expressing their essential nature? Can any one of them remain without their essential property? The realized saint is not responsible for what he is doing. He is one with Life. And Life expresses itself in action.
Swami Chinmayananda Teachings on Worship in Temples
As a devotee visits at a temple and in a true spirit of devotion, is inspired by the vision of the murti (idol) he feels a thrill a joy and inner peace, in spite of the prevailing tensions around.
It need hardly be emphasized how much more temples are necessary these days.
They would serve as speed breakers to soften our hectic blind rush forward in life.
They would also serve as sources of inspiration and solace during times of depression and disappointments, which are mostly beyond our control.
Building of temples was, therefore, considered a sacred activity in ancient times, as sacred as any other community service.
Swami Chinmayananda Thoughts on Religion
A mature man who has lived his experiences intelligently and has maintained an alert, critical attention upon the incidents of life that he will come to such an inner maturity that he will feel a certain unrest. He has the necessities of life, but not a complete satisfaction. He sits back and listens to muffled question from within? Where did I come from? Where will I go (as one day I must)? Is life an empty and meaningless accident? Has life a purpose?
Religion is for this man; it provides assurance and guidance in his endeavor to answer these inner questions.
It is true the villainy, cruelty, ambition, madness and even wars have repeatedly reached the arena of life clothed in the cloak of glorious religion. Even today it is regrettable fashion to go mad in the fury of war and loot, kill, plunder, rape and dishonor ourselves in the name of religion. Thus religion has come to signify a danger signal to the peace loving and the honorable. But this is not religion. What prompts these fanatics to draw out their weapons and murder the weak and the helpless is not their faith in religion, but their own base and low animalism, disguised in the pious robes or religion.
Swami Chinmayananda on the importance of a goal in life
It is very necessary to discover a great purpose or goal in life. It should be an ideal that you have chosen according to your heart, not an ideal that somebody has given you, but that which appeals to you the most – then from it, a new enthusiasm comes to you. When there is enthusiasm then sincerity, ardor and consistency of purpose automatically follow and a new column of energy arises in you.
The goal has to be something higher than your self, your family and worldly comfort. If there is a social vision that moves us forward, we discover within ourselves a new source of energy.
Do not allow this energy to be dissipated in the futile memories of the past, regrets of failures, the imagined sorrows of the future, or in the excitement of the present.
Bring your entire energy focused into activity. That is the highest creative action.
Swami Chinmayananda on the Qualifications of True Guru or Teacher
From the Bhagavad Gita’s descriptions of a man of perfection (Chapter II), we know that a man firmly established in wisdom is tranquil, and his equipoise is never disturbed even when he invests his entire energy in the service of mankind.
The Upanishads summarize the qualification of a teacher in two terms: Shrotriya (one who is a master of scriptures) and Brahmanishtha (one who well established in the experience of Truth).
Without knowledge of the scriptures, the teachers will not be able to convey his wisdom to the disciples. But a mere bookish knowledge is not sufficient. The words coming from an individual can gather wings only when they spring from a heart soaked with sincere subjective experience.
However, to be a Guru or teacher, he must have two more qualifications. His behavior in the world must be perfect, since we as students when admiring the teacher will be tempted to imitate him in all his external habits. If his behavior is not perfect, it is possible that we will copy his bad habits and thus ruin our chances.
Secondly, a Guru or teacher must have large-heartedness and be flowing with kindness and patience. This is necessary since in the early stages the students will revolt against new concepts that conflict with their present understanding. To weed out the mind to replant new ideas is a very painful operation, this can be achieved only when the teacher has infinite patience, endless love, and supreme affection.
When these qualifications are not there, the Guru is not a true one. A teacher is known by his own disciples, just as a good musician is known only by true students of music.
Students who have a spiritual urge and have practiced a little will instinctively recognize a teacher.
Our Guru is he who inspires us to live nobler life, and in whose presence we feel elevated. When we compare our life with his we feel ashamed of our own weaknesses; at times of burning passion, by remembering him, we feel cooled down.
In fact, the true Guru to all of us is the Lord, and the Lord of our heart talks to us very often through His chosen deputy among us, and we revere and worship Him as manifesting through the individual. No individual mortal is ever a Guru. The Lord alone is the Teacher, everywhere and at all times.
(Source : Swami Chinmayananda Reader - The Penguin – Page 159-160)
Swami Chinmayananda Thoughts on God
You see, God is not just a person or individual, sitting in a palace above the clouds, dispensing favors. It stands to reason that every effect must have had a cause prior to it. The watch you are wearing did not make itself. Your breakfast did not cook itself. There was a cause, in each case. That cause must have emerged from a previous cause. God is now the very first cause. The sole cause. The uncaused cause. There was no cause before Him. He is the oldest, the most ancient, He was before Time. The Santana.
This causation of hunting is the favorite pastime of the evolving human intellect – trying to trace everything to its ultimate origin. That which is beyond the point at which the intellect gets stalled is GOD.
The intellect cannot come to a conclusion as to the ultimate cause as in the age-old example of the hen and the egg. ‘Thus far – no farther’ is the limitation of the capacity of the human intellect.
Allah, Christ, Buddha… these are a few of the different way in which He or It is referred to, but all are referring to the same Supreme Principle: The cause behind all causes. The source of all that was, now is, and ever will be. The Vedas refer to it as Brahman, the Absolute, the Infinite. The truth is one. The wise speak of it variously.
I have not described God. He cannot be described. To define Him is to defile Him. What I pointed out only constitutes one way, one manner, of approaching the Truth. It is just one aspect. (Source: Kindle Life by Swami Chinmayananda page 233-234)
The meaning of Dharma – What Dharma means? By Swami Chinmayananda
The term Dharma is one of the most intractable terms in Hindu philosophy. Derived from the root dhar (Dhri) to uphold, sustain, support, the term Dharma denotes ‘that which hold together the different aspects and qualities of an object into a whole.’ (Dharanat Dharmam Ithayahu, Dharmena Vidhritah Prajah.’
Ordinarily, the term Dharma has been translated as religious code, as righteousness, as a system of morality, as duty, as charity etc. But the original Sanskrit term has a special connotation of its own which is not captured by any one of these renderings. The best rendering of the term Dharma that I have met with so far is, ‘the Law of Being’ meaning, ‘that which makes a thing or being what it is.’ For example, it is the Dharma of the fire to burn, of the sun to shine, etc.
Dharma means, therefore, not merely righteousness or goodness but it indicates the essential nature of anything, without which it cannot retain its independent existence. For example, a cold dark sun is impossible, as heat and light are the Dharmas of the sun. Similarly, if we are to live as truly dynamic men in the world, we can only do so by being faithful to our true nature, and the Bhagavad Gita explains ‘to me my Dharma.’ (Source: The Holy Geeta commentary by Swami Chinmayananda – 2001 edition – page 12)