Sivananda Quotes

There is something good in all seeming failures. You are not to see that now. Time will reveal it. Be patient.

Rise above the deceptions and temptations of the mind. This is your duty. You are born for this only; all other duties are self-created and self-imposed owing to ignorance.

Every human being is the author of his own health or disease.

This world is your best teacher. There is a lesson in everything. There is a lesson in each experience. Learn it and become wise. Every failure is a stepping stone to success. Every difficulty or disappointment is a trial of your faith. Every unpleasant incident or temptation is a test of your inner strength. Therefore nil desperandum. March forward hero!

Let each man take the path according to his capacity, understanding and temperament. His true guru will meet him along that path.

Put your heart, mind, intellect, and soul even to your smallest acts. This is the secret of success.

An evil man is a saint of the future. See good in everything. Destroy the evil-finding quality. Develop the good-finding quality. Rise above good and evil.

Illness begins with "I", Wellness begins with "we

Do not brood over your past mistakes and failures as this will only fill your mind with grief, regret and depression. Do not repeat them in the future.

Modern civilisation is complicated and artificial. Simple folk live in a world of love and peace. Let no one hate another or harm another.

The best thing to give your enemy is forgiveness; to an oponent, tolerance; to a friend, your heart; to your child, a good example; to your father, deference; to your mother, conduct that will make her proud of you; to your self, respect; to all men charity.

Crave for a thing, you will get it. Renounce the craving, the object will follow you by itself.

It is Maya that makes you feel, “This man is inferior and the other man is superior.

If you think about disaster, you will get it. Brood about death and you hasten your demise. Think positively and masterfully, with confidence and faith, and life becomes more secure, more fraught with action, richer in achievement and experience.

Do not store in your brain useless information. Learn to unmind the mind. Unlearn whatever has been of no use to you. Then only can you fill your mind with divine thoughts.

Thoughts are giant-powers. They are more powerful than electricity. They control your life, mould your character, and shape your destiny.

Fewer the thoughts, greater the peace.

Man is not a creature of circumstances. His thoughts are the architects of his circumstances.

Let a man lift himself by his own Self alone, let him not lower himself; for the Self alone is the friend of oneself and this Self alone is the enemy of oneself (5).

Blessed is he who keeps daily diary and compares the work of this week with that of the last, for he will realize God quickly!

SUCCESS TONIC • 1 tsp confidence • 1 tsp courage • 2 tsp patience • 4 tsp prayer • 4 tsp perseverance • 4 tsp joy • 6 tsp enthusiasm Take one teaspoonful of this tonic three times daily.

That man who is regular and punctual will get sure success in all walks of life.

Give up all sorts of fears, worries, anxieties and cares. Do not be disheartened by failures and setbacks. Draw strength and courage from God dwelling in the chamber of your heart. Pain is the best thing in the world. It is an eye-opener. It awakens your dormant faculties. Never forget this.

The secret of success in life is time rightly used.

The spiritual path is very, very easy for a man of determination, patience, endurance, self-sacrifice, dispassion and a strong will.

Isavasyamidam Sarvam: every content of the universe is throbbing with the Life of the Lord. Smile with the flowers and the green grass. Smile with the shrubs, ferns and twigs. Develop friendship with all neighbours, dogs, cats, cows, human beings, trees, in fact, with all nature’s creations. You will have a perfect and rich life.

You create your future by your thoughts now; if you think nobly, you will be noble in conduct. If you think basely no environment will make you different. Thus, thoughts and actions are interdependent. Be vigilant and allow only good thoughts in your mental field.

The difficulty in weaning the mind from worldly thoughts, from external objects, and fixing it on God is the same as in making the Ganga flow towards Gangotri instead of its natural flow towards Ganga-Sagar. It is like rowing against the current of the Yamuna.

Mind, Prana and Veerya are one. By controlling the mind, you can control Prana and semen. By controlling Prana you can control the mind and semen. By controlling semen, you can control the mind and Prana.

«El ser humano siembra un pensamiento y recoge una acción. Siembra una acción y recoge un hábito. Siembra un hábito y recoge un carácter. Siembra un carácter y recoge un destino». SIVANANDA

The energy that is wasted during one sexual intercourse is tantamount to the energy that is spent in physical labour for ten days or the energy that is utilized in mental work for three days. Mark how precious is the vital fluid, semen! Do not waste this energy. Preserve it with great care. You will have wonderful vitality. When Veerya is not used, it is all transmuted into Ojas Sakti or spiritual energy and stored up in the brain. Western doctors know little of this salient point. Most of your ailments are due to excessive seminal wastage.

You are the author of your own fate. You yourself have created this. You yourself are entirely responsible for this. You are the architect of your joys and sorrows. Just as the spider or the silkworm creates a web or cocoon for its own destruction, so also you have created this cage of flesh by your own actions, attractions, repulsions and false egoism. You have become the slave of the flesh, slave of your body and mind, slave of countless desires. You are sunk in the quagmire of deepest ignorance.

A good, holy thought to start the day with, is more precious than all the wealth you can acquire and all the happiness that you can enjoy during the day. These

O Man! Be ever prepared. Live this moment as though it is your last moment on this earth and acquire the maximum spiritual wealth here and now.

A knowledge more secret than the Svara Yoga, a wealth more useful than Svara Yoga, have never been found.

Maranam Bindu Patanat, Jivanam Bindu Rakshanat.

if you have a strong power of endurance, patience and fine health, if your dispassion is intense and of a sustained type and if you are willing to do some selfless service to mankind, you need not worry about money.

Sattva brings non-attachment and infuses in the mind discrimination and renunciation. It is the Rajasic mind that causes the ideas ‘I’ and ‘mine’ and the difference of body, caste, creed, colour, order of life, etc.

Every depressing and disturbing thought that enters your brain, has a depressing effect on every cell of your body, and tends to produce disease. All negative thoughts are forerunners of disease, and they are messengers of death.

The aspirant should not feel discouraged, for they will lose their past momentum and force from their parting kick after some time and die by themselves. Instead of getting alarmed at their presence, the aspirant should plunge himself in dynamic spiritual practices.

Aspire to purify yourself first. Become an embodiment of love, mercy and goodness. One has to apply oneself to sadhana, diligently, day and night. Like the man who anxiously seeks a means of escape from the midst of a burning house, the aspirant should have a burning desire to free himself from the fire of samsara. Only then will he be able to enter into deep meditation and samadhi.

The subtle part of food forms the mind. Mind is manufactured out of food. The subtle part of food is transformed into mind. Food does not mean merely what we eat, but what we gather through all our senses. Learn to see God everywhere. This is real food for the eye. Purity of thought depends upon purity of food. You can see better, hear better, taste better, think better, when you entertain sublime divine thoughts.

Sometimes, for a short time the mind finds itself in quiescence. In this state of mind there is neither raga nor dvesha; this silent mental state is called tushnim avastha. It occurs in the waking state, the jagrat avastha. The aspirant mistakes this neutral state of mind for samadhi. This is an obstacle on the path of God-realization, and should, therefore, be overcome by careful introspection and vigorous meditation.

Some people are extremely body-conscious, and possess no idea of the Self. They live irregular, indisciplined lives and fill their stomachs with sweets, pastries, and so on. There is no rest for the digestive and the eliminating organs. They suffer from physical weakness and diseases. The atoms, molecules and cells in their bodies produce discordant or inharmonious vibrations. They have no hope, confidence, faith, serenity and cheerfulness. They are unhappy. The life-force is not operating properly. Their vitality is at a low ebb. Their mind is filled with fear, despair, worry and anxiety.

The harder the struggle, the more glorious the triumph. Self-realization demands very great struggle.

Put your heart, mind, intellect, and soul even to your smallest acts. This is the secret of success. —Sivananda Saraswati

This realignment requires a knowledge of how our thought processes work and what we need to be able to meditate.

Do not brood over your past mistakes and failures as this will only fill your mind with grief, regret and depression. Do not repeat them in the future.” Sivananda

If you really wish to evolve spiritually, you should at once make a start and pursue a regular and steady course of sadhana. Do not worry over physical and mental obstructions or unhelpful circumstances. They exist to test your sincerity and inner strength, and to give you a fillip from time to time.

There is something good in all seeming failures. You are not to see that now. Time will reveal it. Be patient.” —Swami Sivananda

Men and women complement each other’s strengths well. However, when a male perspective dominates female ones, the world ends up living narratives that may be successful in some situations but simply cannot get us the results we want in others. For example, if we want peace, why do we keep telling war stories? Why don’t we turn to the half of the human race that has fostered other means of resolving conflict? Force can stop violent behaviors temporarily, but authentic sharing through story, which often has been nurtured by women, can move antagonists toward understanding one another and building the trust that leads to lasting peace. Similarly, in our politics, warlike competition prevails when candidates run for office, but to govern successfully, they need to utilize more feminine modes, reaching across the aisle to solve problems together. All of the major religions in the world instruct us to love one another as a road to a better collective and personal quality of life. Jesus repeated this decree over and over, in slightly different words: “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another” (John 13:34, NIV). “If you love me, feed my sheep” (adapted from John 21:17). And quoting the Torah, “Love thy neighbor as thyself” (Lev. 19:18; Matt. 22:39, ASV). It was his major message. Rabbi Sefer Baal Shem Tov, founder of Hasidic Judaism, spoke to the deep roots of love in the Hebrew faith: “‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.’ Why? Because every human being has a root in the Unity, and to reject the minutest particle of the Unity is to reject it all.”1 The sayings of Muhammad, selected and translated by the Sufi Kabir Helminski, include the very strong statement, “You will not enter paradise until you believe, and you will not believe until you love one another.”2 Rumi, the thirteenth-century Sufi mystic and poet, proclaimed, “It is Love that holds everything together.”3 The Buddha enjoined us to “radiate boundless love towards the entire world—above, below, and across—unhindered, without ill will, without enmity.”4 Loving-kindness remains a cardinal practice of modern Buddhism. In the Hindu tradition, love also is the religion’s central tenet. Swami Sivananda sums this up in these words: “Your duty is to treat everybody with love as a manifestation of the Lord.”5

Beloved Mahadev, Realisation cannot come to you as a miracle done by your Guru. Lord Buddha, Lord Jesus, Rama Tirtha have all done Sadhana. Lord Krishna asks Arjuna to develop Vairagya and do Abhyasa. He did not say to him “I will give you Mukti now”. Therefore abandon the wrong notion that your Guru will give you Samadhi and Mukti. Strive, purify, meditate and realise. Sivananda

Adaptability is a most desirable habit or quality for success in life.

Chalk out a programme of life. Draw your spiritual routine. Stick to it systematically and regularly. Apply yourself diligently. Waste not even a single precious minute. Life is short. Time is fleeting. That "tomorrow" will never come. Now or never.

Do I have a strong attachment to my plans? – Do I dislike having to change any type of plans? – Maybe I am only “inconvenienced.” Am I? – If this is the case, where is the hurt? – Maybe I am not hurt, but angry about being inconvenienced? – Can I hold my emotions back in the future, long enough to recognize the difference between being really hurt and just being inconvenienced? – Can I “learn” from my “mistakes,” let them fade into the past? – Will they fade if I keep my emotional response “alive”? – Does this mean to discriminate?

Put your heart, mind, and soul into even your smallest acts. This is the secret of success. —SWAMI SIVANANDA

Six hours of study and six hours of meditation should go on uninterruptedly. That is my method.