Wisdom Of Ancient Hindus

A collection of wisdom of ancient Hindus.

He who conquers himself is a great conqueror than one who conquers in battle a thousand times a thousand men.

Overcome anger by love, evil by good, greed by liberality, falsehood by truth.

Desire is never satisfied by the enjoyment of the objects of desire; it grows more and more as does the fire to which fuel is added.

There cannot be fulfillment of human personality without adequate attention to the spiritual dimension of man.

The gates of hell will not prevail if once you know what the truth of things is.

The mind of an ordinary person jumps around like a mad elephant.

The rays of the sun may fall on a stone and a mirror, but it is reflected only in the mirror. When the sun is reflected in a mirror, it looks luminous, and children can play with the reflected light. The mirror does not generate its own light but instead reflects the light of the sun. Similarly, the human mind functions by means of the consciousness of the Atman.

Desire, determination, doubt, faith, lack of faith, steadfastness, lack of steadfastness, shame, intelligence, and fear — all this is truly the mind.

A bright, transparent crystal has no colour. However, when one puts a red, blue, or yellow flower near it, one sees that particular colour in that crystal. There is no colour in Brahman or the Atman. All colours are in the realm of prakriti or maya, which has three gunas, qualities. One becomes many when the colours of the three gunas are superimposed on the Atman. Prakriti has adorned herself with many colours and thus enchant human beings. God plays with the power of maya, creating multiple colours and enacting the Dolyatra or Holi, the festival of colours.

One who is aware of one’s conscious self is a human being. This awareness is the awakened living mind.

The mind functions in the waking and dreaming states, but dissolves in ignorance during deep sleep, which proves that the mind is not real because it does not exist in all three states.

There is no end to human desires. They come one after another. The desire for money replaces the desire for lust, and again that desire is replaced by the desire for name and fame. These three desires — name and fame, wealth, and procreation — have thoroughly bound human beings.

Who has conquered the world? The person who has conquered the mind.

One should meditate by becoming free from all ties. From their very birth, human beings are tied with eight fetters: hatred, shame, family status, good conduct, fear, fame, pride of caste, and ego.

Whatever one should renounce or accept, one should do it with body, mind, and speech equally. Only then will a spiritual aspirant be worthy of God-realization.

The scriptures say that the goddess of fortune helps an active person. A man with a lazy and unfocussed mind cannot complete a project after starting it. He blames everyone, even the gods, for his failure.

The scriptures say that the mind of a knower of Brahman is not affected by pleasant and unpleasant, good and evil, happiness and misery, praise and blame. Such a person’s mind is saturated with the Atman, so there is no feeling of happiness and misery.