India chose her places of pilgrimages on the top of hills and mountains, by the side of the holy rivers, in the heart of forests and by the shores of the ocean, which along with the sky, is our nearest visible symbol of the vast, the boundless, the i

Taking shelter in the dead is death itself, and only taking all the risk of life to the fullest extent is living.

So our daily worship of God is not really the process of gradual acquisition of him, but the daily process of surrendering ourselves, removing all obstacles to union and extending our consciousness of him in devotion and service, in goodness and in l

To understand anything is to find in it something which is our own, and it is the discovery of ourselves outside us which makes us glad. This relation of understanding is partial, but the relation of love is complete. In love the sense of difference

If anger be the basis of our political activities, the excitement tends to become an end in itself, at the expense of the object to be achieved. side issues then assume an exaggerated importance, and all gravity of thought and action is lost; such ex

Those who draw their sustenance from science are blessed. It is for me to only derive an occasional pleasure. This is nothing worthy of conceit, but I am indeed touched by the joys. This book is an ode to such joys, a digest of my collections from various sources.

According to the true Indian view, our consciousness of the world, merely as the sum total of things that exist, and as governed by laws, is imperfect. But it is perfect when our consciousness realizes all things as spiritually one with it, and there

True modernism is freedom of mind, not slavery of taste. It is independence of thought and action, not tutelage under European schoolmasters. It is science but not its wrong application to life.

In love, at one of its poles you find the personal, at the other the impersonal. At one you have the positive assertion – Here I am; at the other the equally strong denial – I am not. Without this ego what is love? And again, with only this ego how c

For the current of our spiritual life creeds, rituals and channels that may thwart or help, according to their fixity or openness. When a symbol or spiritual idea becomes rigidly elaborate in its construction, it supplants the idea which it should support.

There is a point where in the mystery of existence contradictions meet; where movement is not all movement and stillness is not all stillness; where the idea and the form, the within and the without, are united; where infinite becomes finite, yet not

I miss the meaning of my own part in the play of life because I know not the parts that others play

He who wants to do good knocks at the gate; he who loves finds the gate open.

The object of education is to give man the unity of truth. Formerly, when life was simple, all the different elements of man were in complete harmony. But when there came the separation of the intellect from the spiritual and the physical, the school

Yet when, one day, standing on the outskirts of Yokohama town, bristling with its display of modern miscellanies, I watched the sunset in your southern sea, and saw its peace and majesty among your pine-clad hills,—with the great Fujiyama growing faint against the golden horizon, like a god overcome with his own radiance,—the music of...

It is the continual and stupendous dead pressure of this inhuman upon the living human under which the modern world is groaning. Not merely the subject races, but you who live under the delusion that you are free, are every day sacrificing your freedom and humanity to this fetich of nationalism, living in the dense...

Love gives beauty to everything it touches. Not greed and utility; they produce offices, but not dwelling houses. To be able to love material things, to clothe them with tender grace, and yet not be attached to them, this is a great service. Providen

We do not want nowadays temples of worship and outward rites and ceremonies. What we really want is an Asram. We want a place where the beauty of nature and the noblest pursuits of man are in a sweet harmony. Our temple of worship is there where outw

Music is the purest form of art… therefore true poets, they who are seers, seek to express the universe in terms of music… The singer has everything within him. The notes come out from his very life. They are not materials gathered from outside.

The meaning of our self is not to be found in its separateness from God and others, but in the ceaseless realization of yoga, of union.

Do not say, “It is morning,” and dismiss it with a name of yesterday. See it for the first time as a new-born child that has no name.

When I bring you colored toys, my child, I understand why there is such a play of colors on clouds, on water, and why flowers are painted in tints

Want of love is a degree of callousness; for love is the perfection of consciousness. We do not love because we do not comprehend, or rather we do not comprehend because we do not love. For love is the ultimate meaning of everything around us. It is

Praise shames me, for I secretly beg for it.

The fundamental desire of life is the desire to exist.

Clever lies become matters of self-congratulation. Solemn pledges become a farce—laughable for their very solemnity. The Nation, with all its paraphernalia of power and prosperity, its flags and pious hymns, its blasphemous prayers in the churches, and the literary mock thunders of its patriotic bragging, cannot hide the fact that the Nation is the greatest...

Because each nation has its own history of thieving and lies and broken faith, therefore there can only flourish international suspicion and jealousy, and international moral shame becomes anæmic to a degree of ludicrousness. The nation’s bagpipe of righteous indignation has so often changed its tune according to the variation of time and to the...

The West in the voice of her thundering cannon had said at the door of Japan, Let there be a nation—and there was a Nation. And now that it has come into existence, why do you not feel in your heart of hearts a pure feeling of gladness and say that it is good? Why...

When I stand before thee at the day’s end, thou shalt see my scars and know that I had my wounds and also my healing.

Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers,but to be fearless in facing them. Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain, butfor the heart to conquer it.

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;Where knowledge is free;Where the world has not been broked up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;…Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;…Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country...

Obstinate are the trammels, but my heart aches when I try to break them. Freedom is all I want, but to hope for it I feel ashamed. I am certain that priceless wealth is in thee, and that thou art my best friend, but I have not the heart to sweep away the tinsel that...

I thought that my voyage had come to its end at the last limit of my power, that the path before me was closed, that provisions were exhausted, and the time come to take shelter in a silent obscurity, but I find that thy will knows no end in me, and when old words die...

Don’t limit a child to your own learning, for he was born in another time.

Love is the only reality and it is not a mere sentiment. It is the ultimate truth that lies at the heart of creation.

Trees are the earth’s endless effort to speak to the listening heaven.

Faith is the bird that feels the light when the dawn is still dark.

Everything comes to us that belongs to us if we create the capacity to receive it.

You can’t cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water.

A fancy comes to me–that desire can never attain its object–it need never attain it.

When the heart is hard and parched up, come upon me with a shower of mercy.When grace is lost from life, come with a burst of song.When tumultuous work raises its din on all sides shutting me out from beyond, come to me, my lord of silence, with thy peace and rest.When my beggarly heart...

Every difficulty slurred over will be a ghost to disturb your repose later on.

Music fills the infinite between two souls.

The burden of the self is lightened with I laugh at myself.

Nirvana is not the blowing out of the candle. It is the extinguishing of the flame because day is come.

Children are living beings – more living than grown-up people who have built shells of habit around themselves. Therefore it is absolutely necessary for their mental health and development that they should not have mere schools for their lessons, but a world whose guiding spirit is personal love.

The small wisdom is like water in a glass:clear, transparent, pure.The great wisdom is like the water in the sea:dark, mysterious, impenetrable.

Deliverance is not for me in renunciation. I feel the embrace of freedom in a thousand bonds of delight.

We come nearest to the great when we are great in humility.

Bigotry tries to keep truth safe in its hand with a grip that kills it.