Muktananda Quotes

You can't stop the waves but you can learn how to surf.

I found this book simple but very deep, some chapters on the heavy side but well worth reading for the new comers and also for the veteran in the field of meditation

But then the subject turned to the spiritual life and Meg talked about her many visits to ashrams in India and her admiration for Swami Muktananda and Gurumayi. That got in the way, especially because he told her of his skepticism regarding the guru industry, and suggested she might profitably read Gita Mehta’s book Karma Cola. “Why are you so cynical?” she asked him, as if she genuinely wanted to know the answer, and he said that if you grew up in India it was easy to conclude that these people were fakes. “Yes, of course there are lots of charlatans,” she said, reasonably, “but can’t you discriminate?” He shook his head sadly. “No,” he said. “No, I can’t.” That was the end of their chat.

Baba Muktananda also gave a lot of importance to the concept of matrika, though in a less aesthetic and more practical way. He urged the yogi to become aware of the subtle play of matrika though careful Self-observation. Seeing how matrika works in his inner world to create his experience of life, the yogi slowly learns to control matrika and turn it in the right direction. He writes: Just as matrika helps us to contract, it also helps us to expand ourselves. The moment one understands the matrika shakti and its work, one is no longer a human being. When the matrika shakti expands within, in this very body one becomes Shiva. Sit quietly and watch the play of matrika shakti. Watch how the matrika gives rise to letters, how the letters compose words, how the meaning of the words create images in the mind; watch how you become involved in these images. The yogi pursues matrika shakti; he watches it and makes it steady. He brings it under his control, he manipulates it any way he likes. He turns evil thoughts into good thoughts. The matrika shakti works according to his will. Such a yogi is called a conqueror of the senses. Another aphorism in the Shiva Sutras, II.7, says: Matrika chakra sambodhah When the Guru is pleased he grants full knowledge of matrika.

Spanda Karikas II.1 says: Tadakramya balam mantrah sarvajnabalashalinah Pravartante ’dhikaraya karananiva dehinam Baba Muktananda’s colourful and informal translation of this aphorism was, ‘The mantra is the power of everything and everyone. The mantra is all-knowing and can do anything’. Jaideva Singh’s translation is, ‘Mantras derive their power from the spanda principle and finally dissolve in it’. For Baba, mantra was a method for tapping the deep source of inner energy and bringing its life to the surface of things. He considered the repetition of a mantra received from an awakened teacher to be a streamlined, easy and almost effortless path. There is tremendous emotional power in language. In fact, thought and feeling are two sides of the same coin. Thought or language is a container of feeling: words and ideas shape emotion and create upliftment or contraction. The wrong kind of language (or thought) pinches feeling and creates emotional pain, while the right kind of language is a fitting vehicle of feeling, and given such a vehicle, feeling becomes free to expand and soar. Language has the binding power of ignorance (Shiva Sutras I.2: Jnanam bandhah: Knowledge is bondage) and also the mysterious freeing power of the master of matrika. Mantra is a key method for liberating the practitioner from illusion. Do not underestimate it.

Swami Muktananda, the head of the Siddha Yoga tradition, used to say, “God dwells in you as You.

The world is nothing but a school of love. Our relationships with our husband or wife, with our children and parents, with our friends and relatives are the university in which we are meant to learn what love and devotion truly are. —Swami Muktananda