How absurd to take the credit of doing the good act on oneself and lay the blame for the evil act on the Lord!

All manifest life seems to require a period of sleep, of calm, in which to gain added strength, renewed vigour, for the next manifestation, or awakening to activity. Thus is the march of all progress, of all manifest life - in waves, successive waves, [of] activity and repose. Waves succeed each other in an endless chain of progression.

We are slaves in the hands of nature - slaves to a bit of bread, slaves to praise, slaves to blame, slaves to wife, to husband, to child, slaves to everything.

I remember that grand word of the Katha Upanishad - Shraddhâ or marvellous faith. An instance of Shraddha can be found in the life of Nachiketâ. To preach the doctrine of Shraddha or genuine faith is the mission of my life. Let me repeat to you that this faith is one of the potent factors of humanity and of all religions. First, have faith in yourselves.

Just as I sit down to meditate, all the vilest subjects in the world come up. The whole thing is nauseating. Why should the mind think thoughts I do not want it to think? I am as it were a slave to the mind.

Spirituality as a science, as a study, is the greatest and healthiest exercise that the human mind can have.

The test of progress is the amount of renunciation that one has attained.