A collection of immortal teachings of Hindu religion...
That which exists is One, sages call it by different names.
The highest knowledge arises from an inquiry into the meaning of Vedanta. By this knowledge, all sorrows of birth and death vanish.
Karma and the resulting rebirth are the only reasonable explanations of life as well as the powers, justness and mercy of God. Life can be understood only on the assumption that each existence is bearing the penalty or enjoying the fruit of vice or virtue in some former life, as this is the only logical explanation or the disparity between people, their environment and their experiences. No deed, small or big, good or bad, can be without effect. This is the law of karma. Thus karma makes man the creator of his own destiny. As there is disparity between people at birth itself, the cause must have preceded birth; which logically establishes the fact of rebirth.
Faith, devotion, and the practice of meditation – these, according to scriptures, help a seeker attain liberation. Whoever pursues these is liberated from the bondage of the body mysteriously forged by ignorance.
There is only one thing real in the universe, which Advaita Vedanta calls Brahman; everything else is unreal, manifested and manufactured out of Brahman by the power of Maya. To reach back to that Brahman is our goal. We are, each one of us, that Brahman, that Reality, plus this Maya. If we can get rid of this Maya or ignorance, then we become what we really are.
The true nature of things is to be known personally, through the eye of clear illumination, and not through a sage; what the moon is should be known with one’s own eyes; can others make him know it?
The first step to liberation is complete detachment from impermanent things. The practice calmness, self-control, forbearance, and complete renunciation of selfish actions.
One who is overpowered by ignorance mistakes a thing for what it is not; in the absence of discrimination, one mistakes a snake for a rope, and faces dangers. Hence, listen, my friend, taking transitory things for real constitutes bondage.
Of the tree of samsara, ignorance is the seed, identification with the body is its sprout, attachment its tender leaves, work its water, the body its trunk, the vital forces its branches, the organs its twigs, the sense objects its flowers, various miseries of action are its fruits, and the individual soul is the bird on it.
The wind gathers the clouds. The wind scatters them. Similarly, the mind creates bondage as well as liberation.
There is no liberation for one who has mere bookish knowledge, howsoever well-read one is in the philosophy of Vedanta – so long as one does not give up false identification with the body, sense – organs, and the like which are unreal.
When the mind has been made pure through discrimination and dispassion, it turns to liberation. Hence, the wise seeker of liberation must first strengthen these qualities.
Sages realize the Supreme Truth in which there are no differences such as the knower, the knowledge and the known, the truth that is infinite and transcendental which is the essence of knowledge absolute.
That which can neither be thrown away nor taken up, that which is beyond the limits of mind and speech, which is immeasurable, without beginning or end, full, and one’s very own self that is of outshining glory.
There is neither death nor birth, neither a bound soul nor a struggling soul, neither a seeker after liberation nor a liberated one – this is the ultimate truth.
From non-attachment comes freedom from delusion; when the delusion ends, the mind becomes unwavering and steady; from an unwavering and steady mind comes liberation.