Swami Ramdas Quotes And Teachings

Swami Ramdas (1884 – 1963) is the founder of Anandashram at Kanhangad, Kerala. This is a collection of quotes and teachings of Swami Ramdas.

Death is false. Every particle of the body in all its states is ever intensely alive – dust or ashes. Soul, body, universe, all beings and things are all one. Matter is Spirit, Spirit is matter. All is He and His expression!

The mind which constantly contemplates upon God, imbibes into its being His immortality, love and joy.

Just as the application of soap removes the dirt of the cloth turning it clean and white, or just as light dispels darkness and illumines space, so also a sustained recollection of God, destroying all the distempers of the mind, purifies and ennobles life.

There is no peace for man until his mind is liberated from the clutches of passion, until the wisdom of the Eternal enlightens him.

It is rightly said that one should not unnecessarily exert oneself for subduing the mind, but what one has to do is to dwell in the contemplation of God, and by this method not only purify the heart but also simultaneously fill it with the light, love and joy of God.

Your happiness or misery depends on your state of mind and not upon your external conditions or circumstances. When your mind impelled by desires is flitting from object to object, craving for possession and enjoyment, it lives in a state of restlessness which itself is miserly. After possession of the object, come cares and anxieties, after its loss follow grief and pain.

The small amount of happiness you derive here is like a tiny, flickering light in a thick, vast mass of darkness; it dies out in a moment only to envelop you in a worse enthralling gloom.

Know this: the object you crave for is perishable and transient in itself.

How then can lasting peace be derived from it? Hence when the mind wanders in the midst of this ever changing, impermanent medley of forms and things, it experiences nothing but pain and sorrow. Now then, direct your vision inward and behold God within – that eternal seat of all bliss and peace.

To realize God is to be God-like; nay, to be God. God is absolute existence, consciousness and bliss. When you know you are immortal, omniscient and everlasting joy, then you have verily realised God. Now your heart is the heart of God, replete with love, forgiveness and compassion.

God being omnipresent, you are now blessed with an equal vision. Your love goes to all alike. Ill will and revenge are not in your nature. We do not seek advantage over others or exploit them. You are aware that you and everyone are one in Spirit; in other words, you behold all beings and creatures as the multiple expressions of your own Self.

You have not gained anything new when you have realized God. You are already That. But you have at the moment become conscious of your divine nature which was already yours.

Intellectually, you are the light of the world. In feeling, you are omnipresent love. In action, you are the personification of divine energy. In every aspect of your life, you are the expression of the unmanifest, absolute reality. This is God vision or Experience.

Just as a flower gives out its fragrance to whomsoever approaches or uses it, so love from within us radiates towards everybody and manifests as spontaneous service... When we feed, cloth and attend on anybody, we feel like doing all these things to our own body, for which we do not expect any return or praise or commendation, because all bodies are our own; for, we as the all-pervading Atman or Spirit reside in all bodies.

The purpose of Sadhana is to conquer the lower nature and reveal the glory of the Divine.

The ego, having its sway on him, refuses to yield and set up all kinds of obstacles on his path. It often poses as the Supreme Himself and leads him astray. At the beginning the Sadhaka finds it hard to distinguish the divine guidance from the promptings of the mere mind.

The method, by adopting which he can safely progress on the divine path, is to surrender himself entirely to the all-powerful God within him by constantly thanking of Him and His attributes.

It is by constant remembrance of Him alone that he develops the needed soul force to put down the mind and its machinations and rise superior to it. Instead of being the slave of the mind, he should be the master of it.

There is no greater victory in the life of a human being than the victory over the mind. The true soldier is he who fights not the external, but the internal foes.

Fears and anxieties cannot affect you in all your undertakings, provided you are sure and firm in your faith.

God is the great provider and he who trusts Him is never lost.

Self surrender means a state of perfect peace and calmness attained through complete submission to the Divine Will.

Life is granted for the achievement of a great ideal which is freedom and cheerfulness in selfless service and sacrifice. The mere dedication of life to this exalted purpose will liberate it from distempers.

Swami Ramdas On What Is God Consciousness

You should know you are not the body, but the divine reality, pure wisdom, all-pervading light, infinite love, everlasting joy, all put together. That you are. Ordinarily man things he is a body subject to birth, growth, decay, disease and death. But he is truly the changeless, birthless, deathless Atman, whose nature is bliss and peace. To realize this is to attain God consciousness.

Man, in his state of ignorance, dwells in body-consciousness. When he rises to God-consciousness, he knows he is God.

An Incident

Once when Swami Ramdas visited the house of a devotee in Seattle in United States of America, a person who introduced Swami Ramdas to a group of spiritual aspirants said them, “I have brought God to show you.”

Swami Ramdas said, “God has come to see God.”

(Source: Book - God Experience, Swami Ramdas)