"The ink of the scholar is more sacred than the blood of the martyr" -
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"The ink of the scholar is more sacred than the blood of the martyr" -
I was searching for this and it took me a little while to find it
The Buddha said, "I consider the dignities of kings and lords as a particle of dust that floats in the sunbeam. I consider the treasure of precious metals and stones as bricks and pebbles. I consider the gaudy dress of silk and brocades as a worn-out rag. I consider this universe as small as the holila fruit. I consider thelake of Anavatapa as a drop of oil which one smears the feet. I consider the various methods of salvation taught by the Buddhas as a treasure created by imagination. I consider the profound doctrine of the Buddhas as precious metal or priceless fabric seen in a dream. I consider the teaching of the Buddhas as a flower before my eyes. I consider the practice of Dhyana as a pillar supporting the Mount Sumeru. I consider Nirvana as awakening from a day dream or nightmare. I consider the struggle between the heterdox and orthodox as the antics of the six (mythical) dragons. I consider the doctrine of equality as the absolute ground of reality. I consider all the religious works done for universal salvation as like the plants in the four seasons."
It took me a while to find this one, too.
"Often and often, we see that the very best of men even are troubled and visited with tribulations in this world; it may be inexplicable; but it is also the experience of my life that the heart and core of everything here is good, that whatever may be the surface waves, deep down and underlying everything, there is an infinite basis of goodness and love; and so long as we do not reach that basis, we are troubled; but having once reached that zone of calmness, let winds howl and tempests rage."
-Swami Vivekananda
If you cannot find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it?
-Dogen Zenji
"Because our entire universe is made up of consciousness, we never really experience the universe directly. We just experience our consciousness of the universe, our perception of it, so right: our only universe is perception."
-Alan Moore
He could have said all of that in one word: SolipsismQuote:
Originally Posted by JuniperWoolf
This one took me a while to find, too :lol: :)
Herein lies the whole secret of Existence. Waves may roll over the surface and tempest rage, but deep down there is the stratum of infinite calmness, infinite peace, and infinite bliss.
-Swami Vivekananda
When you realize where you come from,
you naturally become tolerant,
disinterested, amused,
kindhearted as a grandmother,
dignified as a king.
Immersed in the wonder of the Tao,
you can deal with whatever life brings you,
and when death comes, you are ready.
-Laozi
The next qualification required is Shraddhâ, faith. One must have tremendous faith in religion and God. Until one has it, one cannot aspire to be a Jnâni. A great sage once told me that not one in twenty millions in this world believed in God. I asked him why, and he told me, "Suppose there is a thief in this room, and he gets to know that there is a mass of gold in the next room, and only a very thin partition between the two rooms; what will be the condition of that thief?" I answered, "He will not be able to sleep at all; his brain will be actively thinking of some means of getting at the gold, and he will think of nothing else." Then he replied, "Do you believe that a man could believe in God and not go mad to get him? If a man sincerely believes that there is that immense, infinite mine of Bliss, and that It can be reached, would not that man go mad in his struggle to reach it ?" Strong faith in God and the consequent eagerness to reach Him constitute Shraddha.
The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
Volume 1, Lectures And Discourses
Bhagavad Gita 6.19
As a lamp in a windless place does not waver, so the transcendentalist, whose mind is controlled, remains always steady in his meditation on the transcendent self.
"the more you fight with someone them more you care about them..."
"All the strength you need is within you. Therefore make your own future. The infinite future is before you, and you must always remember that each word, each thought, and each deed, lays up a store for you, and as the bad thoughts and bad deeds are ready to spring upon you like tigers, so also are the good thoughts and good deeds ready with the power of a hundred thousand angels to defend you always and forever."
- Swami Vivekananda
Ascent
1 - The Silence
Into the Silence, into the Silence,
Arise, O Spirit immortal,
Away from the turning Wheel, breaking the magical Circle.
Ascend, single and deathless:
Care no more for the whispers and the shoutings in the darkness,
Pass from the sphere of the grey and the little,
Leaving the cry and the struggle,
Into the Silence for ever.
Vast and immobile, formless and marvellous,
Higher than Heaven, wider than the universe,
In a pure glory of being,
In a bright stillness of self-seeing,
Communing with a boundlessness voiceless and intimate,
Make thy knowledge too high for thought, thy joy too deep for emotion;
At rest in the unchanging Light, mute with the wordless self-vision,
Spirit, pass out of thyself; Soul, escape from the clutch of Nature.
All thou hast seen cast from thee, O Witness.
Turn to the Alone and the Absolute, turn to the Eternal:
Be only eternity, peace and silence,
world-transcending nameless Oneness,
Spirit immortal.
2 - Beyond the Silence
Out from the Silence, out from the Silence,
Carrying with thee the ineffable Substance,
Carrying with thee the splendour and wideness,
Ascend, O Spirit immortal.
Assigning to Time its endless meaning,
Blissful enter into the clasp of the Timeless.
Awake in the living Eternal, taken to the bosom of love of the Infinite,
Live self-found in his endless completeness,
Thy heart close to the heart of the Godhead for ever.
Vast, God-possesseing, embraced by the Wonderful,
Lifted by the All-Beautiful into his infinite beauty,
Love shall envelop thee endless and fathomless,
Joy unimaginable, Ecstasy illimitable,
Knowledge omnipotent, Might omniscient,
Light without darkness, Truth that is dateless.
One with the Transcendent, calm, universal,
Single and free, yet innumerably living,
All in thyself and thyself in all dwelling,
Act in the world with thy being beyond it.
Soul, exceed life's boundaries; Spirit, surpass the universe.
Outclimbing the summits of Nature,
Transcending and uplifting the soul of the finite,
Rise with the world in thy bosom,
O Word gathered into the heart of the Ineffable.
One with the Eternal, live in his infinity,
Drowned in the Absolute, found in the Godhead,
Swan of the supreme and spaceless ether wandering winged through the universe,
Spirit immortal.
1930, revised 1942
Sri Aurobindo
Those favored by God find their paths set by thorns.
-Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakur
Reading what you quoted really sublimates our mind immensely. And I really hold with the man who reads Aurobindo, a man who is the tome of idealism. His book Sabitri is really a magnum opus, a book that can transform people if they read it with no preoccupation with anything. I have read some of his works but to read Sabitri demands of us great assiduousness and of course one needs first of all the level of knowledge, devotion and purity of mind. I have no that quality till now. And that said I do not mean I do not try reading him.Quote:
Originally Posted by NikolaiI
He is an epitome of virtue, someone who came from a background that opened to him a world of materialism and wanted to take him far away from eastern philosophy. This man was kept from even speaking Hindi, the language of his country and was insisted to read and speak in English and his father, a westernized medical professional wanted his son to be indoctrinated into western values and cultures and he had schooling oriented in western values but he deified them thinking that he cannot kind of remain complacent with materialistic acquisitiveness in life. He read Sanskrit, a very scientific language and found in it an ocean of knowledge, called Gyan, in fact there is no synonym for Gyan in any European languages. He, realizing that acquisitic things do not suffice in life and man needs to know his origin and his relationship with the world he lives in and he discovered for himself the cosmos he is in and why he has come here. This is called enlightenment and he remained enlightened in life.
Nikolai's reading covers vast and pervasive domains and of course he must be a man who is close to enlightenment if he has hitherto not summated.