Just randomly opened the pages of Gita and read this beautiful Shloka.
rāga-dveṣa-vimuktais tu
viṣayān indriyaiś caran
ātma-vaśyaih vidheyātmā
prasādam adhigacchati
-(Bhagvad Gita 2.64)
The meaning of the above Sanskrit, as given by Swami Ranganathananda of Ramakrishna Mission is:
‘But the self controlled person (ātma-vaśyaih), moving among sense objects (viṣayān indriyaiś caran) with the senses under one’s restraint (ātma-vaśyaih), and free (vimukta) from attraction (Rāga) and aversion (dvesa), attains to (adhigacchati) tranquillity (prasādam)’.
Rituals are a part of life and therefore, inevitable, just like superstition or facial hair. It does not do to declare them evil or old-fashioned.
(Source: vimoh.in)
Krishna I am !
(Source: ancientindians.wordpress.com)
What makes people complain about suffering is the belief that they are somehow the centre of the universe. It is the same belief that people had back when they thought that the Earth was the centre of the universe and everything revolved around them. It is the same belief that caused Socrates to drink poison and the findings of Galileo to be challenged. They chose to look at the big picture. But people simply refuse to come to terms with the fact that they are only a small piece of a puzzle that is far greater than them.
(Source: vimoh.in)
Why did man create God? Why did he imagine Him? What was the need for it? Why did he feel compelled to find a meaning in the world around him that there was no physical need for? Animals don’t do this. They get along just fine without bothering with the meaning of things. Why is it only man that has this need to imagine things, to tell stories, to wonder about things higher than himself? Why does man have these fancy philosophical questions? Why does man feel humbled? Why is he always looking up? Why do we personify nature? Why do we imagine the wind to be a god? Why do we imagine the sea to be the thousand-eyed Varuna? Why to we consider the earth our mother? Some will label it delusion of the mind. But I think that is simplifying it far too much. Imagining things is not an option that we exercise. It is a very deep-rooted human tendency.
(Source: vimoh.in)
I don’t care about someone being intelligent; any situation between people, when they are really human with each other, produces ‘intelligence.’
Susan Sontag, quoted by Brendan Berg. She’s right, precisely and exactly.
It’s not the first element of her argument that’s arresting; any idiot knows that intelligence is overrated in all sorts of ways. But the insight that when we are real and human with each other we produce ‘intelligence’ —as an outcome, not as an attribute— is profound, true, and an explanation I’d never encountered for why I prefer the company of the real and dull to erudite performers distracted by their own brilliance. It is not merely a question of taste: the former converse collaboratively, build meanings with you, surprise you; the latter are not so open to discovery because the dialectic process is for them both a pleasure and a competition, and their intelligence is too precious to them to be risked on banal inquiries, dumb guesses, the fatal utterance “I don’t know.”
(via mills)
I’m a quiet living man
Who prefers to spend the evenings
In the silence of his room;
Who likes an atmosphere as restful
As an undiscovered tomb.
A pensive man am I
Of philosophic joys;
Who likes to meditate,
Contemplate,
Free from humanity’s mad, inhuman noise.
Just a quiet living man.
-My Fair Lady
I quote others only the better to express myself
-Michel De Montaigne
“I consider the positions of kings and rulers as that of dust motes. I observe treasures of gold and gems as so many bricks and pebbles. I look upon the finest silken robes as tattered rags. I see myriad worlds of the universe as small seeds of fruit, and the greatest lake in India as a drop of oil on my foot. I perceive the teachings of the world to be the illusion of magicians. I discern the highest conception of emancipation as a golden brocade in a dream, and view the holy path of the illuminated ones as flowers appearing in one’s eyes. I see meditation as a pillar of a mountain, Nirvana as a nightmare of daytime. I look upon the judgement of right and wrong as the serpentine dance of a dragon, and the rise and fall of beleifs as but traces left by the four seasons.”
-Gautam Buddha
No tree, it is said, can grow to heaven unless its roots reach down to hell.
