A collection of popular sayings of Swami Chinmayananda.
We can discover our joy in the precision and perfection of the work that we turn out. Whether others recognize it or not, we get satisfaction that we did our work as best as we could.
The art of listening makes an individual creative, dynamic and full of potential success.
We can discover our joy in the precision and perfection of the work that we turn out. Whether others recognize it or not, we get satisfaction that we did our work as best as we could.
The quality of action depends upon the ideals which guide and inspire an individual.
A person with no ideals feels fatigued in his work. This fatigue is caused by the strain and stress which we invite, by craving for indulgence in sense objects and ceaseless expectation of the fruits of our actions.
The secret of success, therefore, lies in activities undertaken with a spirit of surrender to an ideal.
The more we gratify our desires, the more they multiply.
Act with a will to maintain your ideal.
Learn to be cheerfully silent, gracefully silent, and powerfully silent.
What we regularly encourage and constantly cultivate in our mind determines our character formation and ultimately our destiny.
Pilgrimages, sacrifices, the various programs of the Bhakti Marga, physical practices such as Asana and Pranayama, severe tapascharya, Guru Seva, etc. are all for making the seekers mind subtle enough to peep over the limited vision of life to the farthest beyond.
Austerity redeems the personality in the seeker from its inertia; Brahmacharya relieves our psychological and intellectual debilities; and faith sharpens the intensity at and the sincerity in meditation. Without these three, life in the spiritual path cannot be ever graced with full and easy success.
Austerity is mainly for the discipline and control of the body; Brahmacharya is essentially a discipline of the mind; and faith necessarily is an adjustment in the intellectual sheath.
To a sincere devotee nothing is impossible. Mere devotion alone is not sufficient. Devotion to the Lord must be ever dancing in our heart, and our hands and legs must sweat in work, our head (intellect) must think well, and thus, ‘holding on’ to Him in love, let us use all the faculties and powers. He has so lovingly given us. Then no one can fail. No one will lose. None can come to sorrow.
All great people have become great because of their love for others. They gained greatness because they learnt to love.
The lord is the sheer embodiment of love. If we understand what love is, teach ourselves to love all, we have served our Lord. There is no puja greater than that, no tapas more effective.
Love is an ability, a capacity in our minds, which is to be systematically cultivated. Once the faculty of love has developed, thereafter, we have the total freedom to love, and any situation is a fertile field for the cultivation of our love.
True renunciation can be developed through constant practice of right living, devotion, and scriptural studies.
Sit down and consciously withdraw your mind as though in sleep and experience that stage where there is no object, emotion or thought. That conscious "sleep" is called Samadhi.
Renunciation is not to be construed as mere physical retirement from the activities of the world, but it is measured by the disinterest that an individual bears for the world at the mental level. It is a state of mind.
True renunciation can be developed through constant practice of right living, devotion, and scriptural studies.
TURN INWARD! This is the only method by which you can get out of this mad world!
Sit down and consciously withdraw your mind as though in sleep and experience that stage where there is no object, emotion or thought. That conscious "sleep" is called Samadhi.
The disease of life is called the perception of plurality. This is caused by a very powerful germ called ‘ego’ or separative idea. This thrives on the mind and the intellect.
Efficiency is the capacity to bring proficiency into expression.
Success and happiness are not mysterious accidents. They are deliberate results arising from the obedience to the Laws of Life. The more you learn of these laws and train yourself to conform your life to it, in all your thoughts and desires, you are on the sure way to achieve it.
Be strict and intelligently critical about yourself and your own weaknesses and follies. But to manage others, be critical but cushion your words and attitude with love. Love is the greatest persuasive power we know in life.
One single ideal can transform a listless soul into a towering leader of men.
By telling a lie, you create two personalities, one weakening the other, with no gain whatsoever.
There is no weapon to ferry man across the ocean of worldliness except Njana.
What is beautiful is not always good; but what is good is always beautiful.
Do the best and leave the rest.
Only the knower knows the knower.
Talk less, think more actively.
The action of today becomes the destiny of tomorrow.
A serious scare is always worth more to a teenager than any amount of advice.
It is easy to fall, but to climb up again takes time and effort.
Divine life is the product of patient activity in the right direction.
Everybody can make mistakes but few discover the courage to do the right thing when they discover their mistake.
The fall is not bad in itself, but to rise up each time you fall needs heroism.
It is vain to waste one’s time considering which God to worship. Worship Him in any form. It is the sincerity of devotion that matters.
It is vain to waste one’s time considering which God to worship. Worship Him in any form. It is the sincerity of devotion that matters.
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 in tranquil and his equipoise is never broken even when he is investing his entire energy in the world outside for the service of mankind.
The Great Masters of old who apparently had reached a state of utter joy of satisfaction, perfect health and supreme harmony, unanimously declare that these depend primarily upon man’s inner thought habits and not upon his outer luxury.
The measure of our freedom is the measure of our ability to give love. It is our inner shackles that take away all our love from us and make us hungry and thirsty for love of others. There in man becomes a slave to the world of tempting objects and charming beings.
The measure of our freedom is the measure of our ability to give love. It is our inner shackles that take away all our love from us and make us hungry and thirsty for love of others. There in man becomes a slave to the world of tempting objects and charming beings.
In spite of all our best efforts we may slip now and then. But that need not worry us. We are imperfect ones trying our best to gain perfection. Let every slip in us be an education for us. Let us grow expand ultimately to improve to shine out.
Let our present actions atone for our past mistakes.
Be honest to yourself, to your convictions. Let the world bark: the world around you will never remain silent.
Swami Chinmayananda – On Cultivating Noble Thoughts
What we regularly encourage and consistently cultivate in our mind – this determines our character formation, and ultimately, our destiny. Evidently, an intelligent choice of thought changes the character pattern in us – placing, thus, the entire destiny of our life in our own hands.
We must come to realize the power and strength, the need and value for an unshakable personal faith in discovering and developing the inner vitality in us and in that undaunted striving for fuller life.
The uplifting, inspiring thoughts that we entertain richly accumulate our mental wealth and intellectual treasure of purity, serenity, love, cheerfulness and aspiration for the nobler gains.
We must keep our mind constantly open to all helpful suggestions. There are always rich mines of healthy ideas lying broadcast throughout life’s fields; only we ignore them, refusing to explore them fully.
Swami Chinmayananda – Advice to Parents
When we sit down and try to analyze how to remould and recast our future, we see that it is certainly through the children of today who are going to be the leaders of tomorrow. We must supply them with a vision and teach them to have the courage and heroism to live up to their convictions.
We, the parents, must change. Children learn not from books. Higher values cannot be imparted to the students by institutions, by a society or a community, or even a committee.
Only when a plant is young and we are sincerely watching it, can we train the plant to grow straight. A plant can be trained but not a tree. If the tree has got a bend, it has got a bend - full stop! Then we can only trim the branches but not the trunk.
Swami Chinmayananda - On Attachment
Our attachments lend a false beauty to things; blinded with the pride of possession, we often fail to see the ugliness of cherished possessions.
Our attachment to the objects makes the objects powerful, and then the objects come to rule over our mind.
Toward all objects give up every trace of attachment. This is the secret means of winning over the mind.
The divine life starts with the practice of detaching ourselves from our body, mind and intellect, and impartially estimating the motives, intentions, and purposes that lie behind our thoughts, words and deeds.