Sri M, as he is popularly known, is a social activist, educationist and a crusader for inter-religious harmony with a deep knowledge of world religions. This is a collection of quotes and teachings of Sri M.
You don’t have to leave home to surrender. My Guru would say
if you meditate in a cave for 13 hours daily for 13 years, how do you know you
have overcome anger or jealousy? You cannot be jealous of a weed that is
growing in a cave.
Only when you get on a bus and someone kicks you, you will
know how much of your anger you have been able to control.
Control is learnt in this world, amongst people.
It is true that the mind needs rest, for if it is occupied
with small things, it cannot soar. But you can rest even in a crowd. That is
surrender which makes the Stitha pragya or person of equanimity.
Bhakti or devotion cannot be understood by intellect alone. Bhakti goes where the intellect cannot reach. It is something the heart accesses. Everything in life cannot be rationalized or put into structures. When we understand this something will happen.
It took ten chapters for Sri Krishna to speak of Bhakti to Arjuna. So Bhakti is not so easy to practice or understand. It is only when you feel true and sincere Bhakti you can hope to experience the divine.
Who is a good devotee? One who wishes everyone well; he is the good devotee. The one who can see the divine in every other being is the good devotee.
The mind has to be conditioned in childhood itself. After conditioning our mind, nothing adverse will happen when we come to the field of spirituality.
One must live in the worldly life, then only we can say we have become truly matured. No use running away.
After all our duties and responsibilities are carried out, our children carry these responsibilities forward. At that stage, comes Sanyasa. No use running away from life before that stage.
When the mind has ceased to move, when it returns to its original state of absolute stillness, then, something takes place, which we may call the ‘understanding of the reality’.
It is not because of religion that we have strife but because we have forgotten the essence of it. Force can never be neutralized by force. You need affection and love.
It is all about belief. If you believe in something, and you wish to do something, you can do it. Belief is the built-in safety valve.
At least understand that there can be other sources of knowledge; that so much is there yet to be known; this is the beginning of faith.
The corollary to faith is fearlessness.
Everything is relative reality when compared to Brahman, the absolute reality. Like when you dream, you cannot say it is unreal; only when you wake up you can say it was a dream. There is witness in both. That witness is the reality or pure consciousness – Brahman.
According to me, there is no average individual; this ‘ordinary’ word has to go because everyone has the potential.