--- DICTIONARIES (in Dictionaries, in Quotes, in Chapters)

--- QUOTES [10 / 10 - 71 / 71] (in Dictionaries, in Quotes, in Chapters)

KEYS (10k)

   4 Anonymous
   2 Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
   1 The Bhagavad Gita
   1 Satprem
   1 Jason Bowman
   1 A C Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

NEW FULL DB (2.4M)

   5 Paramahansa Yogananda

   5 Elizabeth Gilbert

   4 Stephen Cope

   4 Anonymous

   4 Anonymous
   3 Eckhart Tolle

   2 Sudha Murty

   2 Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

1:Curving back within myself I create again and again. ~ Anonymous, The Bhagavad Gita ,

2:We behold what we are, and we are what we behold. ~ Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, The Bhagavad Gita ,

3:Performing the duty prescribed by (one's own) nature, one incurreth no sin. ~ Anonymous, The Bhagavad Gita ,

4:No one who does good work will ever come to a bad end, either here or in the world to come ~ The Bhagavad Gita,

5:The cause of the distress of a living entity is forgetfulness of his relationship with God. ~ Anonymous, The Bhagavad Gita As It Is PURPORT,

6:Perform all thy actions with mind concentrated on the Divine, renouncing attachment and looking upon success and failure with an equal eye. Spirituality implies equanimity. [Trans. Purohit Swami] ~ Anonymous, The Bhagavad Gita ,

7:The happiness which comes from long practice, which leads to the end of suffering, which at first is like poison, but at last like nectar - this kind of happiness arises from the serenity of one's own mind. ~ Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, The Bhagavad Gita ,

8:Anyone who is steady in his determination for the advanced stage of spiritual realization and can equally tolerate the onslaughts of distress and happiness is certainly a person eligible for liberation. ~ A C Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, The Bhagavad Gita ,

9:Recommended ReadingDavid Foster Wallace - Infinite JestDH Lawrence - The RainbowGabriel Garcia Marquez - Love in the Time of CholeraKarl Ove Knausgaard - My StruggleVirginia Woolf - To The LighthouseBen Lerner - The Topeka SchoolSally Rooney - Conversations With FriendsNell Zink - The WallcreeperElena Ferrante - The Days of AbandonmentJack Kerouac - Dharma BumsWalt Whitman - Leaves of GrassMichael Murphy - Golf in the KingdomBarbara Kingsolver - Prodigal SummerAlbertine Sarrazin - AstragalRebecca Solnit - The Faraway NearbyMichael Paterniti - Love and Other Ways of DyingRainer Maria Rilke - Book of HoursJames Baldwin - Another CountryRoberto Calasso - KaTranslation by S. Radhakrishan - Principle UpanisadsChogyam Trungpa - Cutting Through Spiritual MaterialismTranslation by Georg Feuerstein - Yoga SutraRichard Freeman - The Mirror of YogaTranslation by S. Radhakrishan - The Bhagavad GitaShrunyu Suzuki - Zen Mind Beginner's MindHeinrich Zimmer - Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and CivilizationSogyal Rinpoche - The Tibetan Book of Living and DyingJoseph Campbell - Myths of LightJoseph Campbell - The Hero With A Thousand FacesSri Aurobindo - SavitriThomas Meyers - Anatomy TrainsWendy Doniger - The Hindus ~ Jason Bowman, http://www.jasonbowmanyoga.com/recommended-reading ,

10:Who could have thought that this tanned young man with gentle, dreamy eyes, long wavy hair parted in the middle and falling to the neck, clad in a common coarse Ahmedabad dhoti, a close-fitting Indian jacket, and old-fashioned slippers with upturned toes, and whose face was slightly marked with smallpox, was no other than Mister Aurobindo Ghose, living treasure of French, Latin and Greek?" Actually, Sri Aurobindo was not yet through with books; the Western momentum was still there; he devoured books ordered from Bombay and Calcutta by the case. "Aurobindo would sit at his desk," his Bengali teacher continues, "and read by the light of an oil lamp till one in the morning, oblivious of the intolerable mosquito bites. I would see him seated there in the same posture for hours on end, his eyes fixed on his book, like a yogi lost in the contemplation of the Divine, unaware of all that went on around him. Even if the house had caught fire, it would not have broken this concentration." He read English, Russian, German, and French novels, but also, in ever larger numbers, the sacred books of India, the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, the Ramayana, although he had never been in a temple except as an observer. "Once, having returned from the College," one of his friends recalls, "Sri Aurobindo sat down, picked up a book at random and started to read, while Z and some friends began a noisy game of chess. After half an hour, he put the book down and took a cup of tea. We had already seen him do this many times and were waiting eagerly for a chance to verify whether he read the books from cover to cover or only scanned a few pages here and there. Soon the test began. Z opened the book, read a line aloud and asked Sri Aurobindo to recite what followed. Sri Aurobindo concentrated for a moment, and then repeated the entire page without a single mistake. If he could read a hundred pages in half an hour, no wonder he could go through a case of books in such an incredibly short time." But Sri Aurobindo did not stop at the translations of the sacred texts; he began to study Sanskrit, which, typically, he learned by himself. When a subject was known to be difficult or impossible, he would refuse to take anyone's word for it, whether he were a grammarian, pandit, or clergyman, and would insist upon trying it himself. The method seemed to have some merit, for not only did he learn Sanskrit, but a few years later he discovered the lost meaning of the Veda. ~ Satprem, Sri Aurobindo Or The Adventure of Consciousness ,

*** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***

1:Swami Vivekananda LECTURES ON THE BHAGAVAD GITA ~ Swami Vivekananda

2:Curving back within myself I create again and again.    ~ Anonymous, The Bhagavad Gita,

3:We behold what we are, and we are what we behold.    ~ Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, The Bhagavad Gita,

4:And now a surprise: Beethoven was deeply inspired by his reading of the Bhagavad Gita. ~ Stephen Cope

5:Modern polarity is nothing but the ‘dual world’ described by Krishna here in the Bhagavad Gita ~ Anonymous

6:Performing the duty prescribed by (one's own) nature, one incurreth no sin.    ~ Anonymous, The Bhagavad Gita,

7:No one who does good work will ever come to a bad end, either here or in the world to come    ~ The Bhagavad Gita,

8:If a Beethoven could give us in music the spirit of the Bhagavad Gita, what a wonderful symphony we should hear! ~ Anonymous

9:thy heart upon thy work, but never on its reward,” Krishna tells his student Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita.) ~ Jennifer Senior

10:Selling religion was by no means unique to Scientology. The Hare Krishnas sold copies of the Bhagavad Gita; the ~ Janet Reitman

11:The cause of the distress of a living entity is forgetfulness of his relationship with God.    ~ Anonymous, The Bhagavad Gita, As It Is PURPORT,

12:In our household, the Bible, the Koran and the Bhagavad Gita sat on the shelf alongside books of Greek and Norse and African mythology ~ Barack Obama

13:...where there is One, that One is me; where there are many, all are me; they see my face everywhere. The Bhagavad Gita ~ Krishna Dwaipayana Vyasa

14:After his retirement, Pranabananda wrote Pranab Gita, a profound commentary on the Bhagavad Gita, available in Hindi and Bengali. The ~ Paramahansa Yogananda

15:I now understand why my guru told me not to read other commentaries onthe Bhagavad Gita. He didn't want my mind influenced by human opinions. ~ Paramhansa Yogananda

16:The Bhagavad Gita says: Recognize sorrow as of the essence. When there is time, there is sorrow. We can't rid the world of sorrow, but we can choose to live in joy. ~ Joseph Campbell

17:The most revealing books are the Holy Koran and the Holy Bible. The Bhagavad Gita is a great book as well, and the works of Buddha. These are the major influences on the world. ~ RZA

18:The Bhagavad Gita—that ancient Indian Yogic text—says that it is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else’s life with perfection. ~ Anonymous

19:I believe what it says in the scriptures and in the Bhagavad Gita: 'Never was there a time when you did not exist, and there never will be a time when you cease to exist.' ~ George Harrison

20:Vanessa Rey chose the words for her own headstone, taking her theme from the Bhagavad Gita. "Certain is death, for the living, certain is life, for the dead." Think about that. ~ Mike Carey

21:The Bhagavad Gita—that ancient Indian Yogic text—says that it is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else’s life with perfection. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

22:The Bhagavad Gita--that ancient Indian Yogic text--says that it is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else's life with perfection. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

23:Who everywhere is free from all ties, who neither rejoices nor sorrows if fortune is good or ill, his is a serene wisdom. Intro to Part 3, Chapter 1. Credit was given to The Bhagavad Gita. ~ Deborah Moggach

24:I chose to take the oath of office with my personal copy of the Bhagavad Gita because its teachings have inspired me to be a servant-leader, dedicating my life in the service of others and to my country. ~ Tulsi Gabbard

25:In the Bhagavad Gita, one of the oldest and most beautiful spiritual teachings in existence, nonattachment to the fruit of your action is called Karma Yoga. It is described as the path of “consecrated action. ~ Eckhart Tolle

26:Perform all thy actions with mind concentrated on the Divine, renouncing attachment and looking upon success and failure with an equal eye. Spirituality implies equanimity. [Trans. Purohit Swami]    ~ Anonymous, The Bhagavad Gita,

27:We live in a world of careers. Work, as Sri Krishna points out in the Bhagavad Gita, is a necessary path for everyone attaining enlightenment. It is something that we all do. Some people work very hard at not working. ~ Frederick Lenz

28:In the Bhagavad Gita, there is no long discussion, nothing elaborate. The main reason for this is that everything stated in the Gita is meant to be tested in the life of every man; it is intended to be verified in practice. ~ Vinoba Bhave

29:The Bhagavad Gita is not as nice a book as some Americans think...Throughout the Mahabharata ... Krishna goads human beings into all sorts of murderous and self-destructive behaviors such as war.... The Gita is a dishonest book . ~ Wendy Doniger

30:The Bhagavad Gita deals essentially with the spiritual foundation of human existence. It is a call of action to meet the obligations and duties of life; yet keeping in view the spiritual nature and grander purpose of the universe. ~ Jawaharlal Nehru

31:The happiness which comes from long practice, which leads to the end of suffering, which at first is like poison, but at last like nectar - this kind of happiness arises from the serenity of one's own mind.    ~ Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, The Bhagavad Gita,

32:Anyone who is steady in his determination for the advanced stage of spiritual realization and can equally tolerate the onslaughts of distress and happiness is certainly a person eligible for liberation.    ~ A C Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, The Bhagavad Gita,

33:it is not the institution, ultimately it is you and you alone who can change your life by hard work.’ Probably he was not aware that he was following the philosophy of the Bhagavad Gita: ‘Your best friend is yourself and your worst enemy is yourself. ~ Sudha Murty

34:The cultivation of this quality of “evenness” is a central principle of the Bhagavad Gita. It is called samatva in Sanskrit, and it is a central pillar of Krishna’s practice. When the mind develops steadiness, teaches Krishna, it is not shaken by fear or greed. ~ Stephen Cope

35:If we argue that since all bodies are perishable, one may kill, does it follow that I may kill all the women and children in the Ashram? Would I have in doing so acted according to the teaching of the Bhagavad Gita, merely because their bodies are perishable? What, ~ Mahatma Gandhi

36:As the Bhagavad Gita says, ‘There never was a time when I was not . . . there will never be a time when I will cease to be.’ Since time and space began together – as both St Augustine and the big bang attest – the Bhagavad Gita has a point. The chicken and the egg arrived at the same time. ~ Bill Bryson

37:The Bhagavad Gita--the ancient Indian yogic text--says that it is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else's life with perfection. So I have started living my own life. Imperfect and clumsy as it may look, it is resembling me now, thoroughly. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

38:The Bhagavad Gita—that ancient Indian Yogic text—says that it is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else’s life with perfection. So now I have started living my own life. Imperfect and clumsy as it may look, it is resembling me now, thoroughly. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

39:Percy (One) Our new dog, named for the beloved poet, ate a book which unfortunately we had    left unguarded. Fortunately it was the Bhagavad Gita, of which many copies are available. Every day now, as Percy grows into the beauty of his life, we touch his wild, curly head and say, “Oh, wisest of little dogs. ~ Mary Oliver

40:The great scriptures of yoga ― The Bhagavad Gita, The Yoga Sutras, and The Upanishads ― clearly describe how the subtle causes of external war emanate from the internal world. The real causes of war lie rooted in the individual's unwillingness to listen to the voice of the heart, the inner conscience. ~ Pandit Rajmani Tigunait

41:Life consists in action,' Aristotle said, 'and its end is a mode of action, not a quality.' The same with Hamlet, or Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita, or Neo in The Matrix: characters who have overcome their doubts and fears, then pushed them aside and acted. It is this action that elevates them into the realm of 'heroic figures. ~ Syd Field

42:I owed a magnificent day to the Bhagavad Gita. It was the first of books; it was as if an empire spoke to us, nothing small or unworthy, but large, serene, consistent, the voice of an old intelligence which in another age and climate had pondered and thus disposed of the same questions which exercise us. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journals (1822–1863)

43:The whole of Chapter Six in the Bhagavad Gita is devoted to Krishna’s teachings on this practice: “Whenever the mind wanders, restless and diffuse in its search for satisfaction without, lead it within; train it to rest in the Self,” instructs Krishna. “When meditation is mastered, the mind is unwavering like the flame of a lamp in a windless place. ~ Stephen Cope

44:Next comes svadhyaya or study. This means study that concerns the true Self, not merely analyzing the emotions and mind as the psychologists and psychiatrists do. Anything that will elevate your mind and remind you of your true Self should be studied: the Bhagavad Gita, the Bible, the Koran, these Yoga Sutras, or any uplifting scripture. Study ~ Swami Satchidananda

45:Do you know the Bhagavad Gita?” “No, sir, not really; though my eyes and mind have run through its pages many times.” “Thousands have replied to me differently!” The great sage smiled at Master in blessing. “If one busies himself with an outer display of scriptural wealth, what time is left for silent inward diving after the priceless pearls? ~ Paramahansa Yogananda

46:Everyone makes their own path, and I must make mine. The Bhagavad Gita - and ancient Indian Yogic text - says that it is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else's life perfectly. So now I have started living my own life. Imperfect and clumsy as it may look, it is resembling me now, thoroughly. It is mine. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

47:I think the greatest truths, the ones that you find in every culture that has any sort of history of reflection of writing, the greatest truth is that there's nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so. That's the way Shakespeare put it. But you get basically the same idea from Buddha, from the Bhagavad Gita in India, and from the Stoics in ancient Greece and Rome. ~ Jonathan Haidt

48:So do not be concerned with the fruit of your action-just give attention to the action itself. The fruit will come of its own accord. This is a powerful spiritual practice. In the Bhagavad Gita, one of the oldest and most beautiful spiritual teachings in existence, non-attachment to the fruit of your action is called Karma Yoga. It is described as the path of "consecrated action. ~ Eckhart Tolle

49:So do not be concerned with the fruit of your action — just give attention to the action itself. The fruit will come of its own accord. This is a powerful spiritual practice. In the Bhagavad Gita, one of the oldest and most beautiful spiritual teachings in existence, nonattachment to the fruit of your action is called Karma Yoga. It is described as the path of “consecrated action. ~ Eckhart Tolle

50:In an effort to teach myself self-restraint and self-control, I decided that until I completed my engineering degree, I would wear only white saris, refrain from sweets, sleep on a mat and take baths with cold water. I aimed to become self-sufficient; I would be my best friend and my worst enemy. I didn’t know then that such a quote already existed in the Bhagavad Gita where Krishna says, ‘Atma aiva hi atmano bandhu aatma aiva ripu atmanah’. ~ Sudha Murty

51:I think the Bhagavad Gita is about both the forces of light and the forces of darkness that exist within our own self, within our own soul; that our deepest nature is one of ambiguity. We have evolutionary forces there - forces of creativity, and love, and compassion, and understanding. But we also have darkness inside us - the diabolical forces of separation, fear and delusion. And in most of our lives, there is a battle going on within ourselves. ~ Deepak Chopra

52:It came to my mind that in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, in Indian spiritual literature, and in the Bhagavad Gita, and when I started reading about outstanding yogis and people of exceeding spiritual power such as Ramana Maharshi, or Yogananda, they all had the ability to do what we would call - I don't know what you would even call it - psychic phenomenon, magic, transform objects, be able to perceive the future, the past and the present simultaneously. ~ Fred Alan Wolf

53:there are many remarkable parallels between the (revised) metaphysical vision of Plotinus and that of the Bhagavad Gita. These parallels arise from the fact that both Vyasa and Plotinus had directly experienced these truths in their visionary revelations, as have innumerable other souls. We must not forget, however, that Plotinus must certainly have had some introduction to the Indian metaphysics through his guru, Ammonius, who was said to be conversant with both the Persian and Indian metaphysics. ~ Swami Abhayananda

54:I engaged - started engaging in yoga as a physical practice, but very quickly found out there was something broader to it, and that it was actually helpful for my pain, and started to get into meditation, started to study the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita and a lot of the scriptures associated with yoga, the Yoga Sutras, and very quickly came to this conclusion that this had a huge impact on my ability to lead, but, more importantly, the ability to control my sympathetic nervous system, which had a direct tie to the pain in my arm. ~ Mark T Bertolini

55:Ma’s pet peeve was how the Western world misunderstood the theory of karma. “I mean it’s the Bhagavad Gita they’re bastardizing. What is all this ‘karma’s a bitch’ nonsense!” Ma loved to say. The entire “what goes around comes around” thing was a backward view of karma. Karma was simply Sanskrit for action, and the theory was that your actions are the only thing under your control, as opposed to the fruits of your actions, which are not. And since actions always bear fruit, you were better off focusing your energy on your own actions, rather than worrying about the results you wanted them to produce. ~ Sonali Dev

56:Today we have a rapidly growing emphasis upon God immanent in every human being, and in every created form. Today, we should have the churches presenting a synthesis of these two ideas, which have been summed up for us in the statement of Shri Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita: "Having pervaded this whole universe with a fragment of Myself, I remain." God, greater than the created whole, yet God present also in the part; God Transcendent guarantees the Plan of our world, and is the Purpose conditioning all lives from the minutest atom, up through all the kingdoms of nature, to man. ~ Alice Bailey in The Reappearance of the Christ p. 145, (1947)

57:If you turn back time and look, 5100 years ago in the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna did the same thing. He has been the first HR manager India knows. When Arjuna was so depressed and was not ready to do his job, Lord Krishna was with him in the battlefield, and told him all sorts of things. First, He warned Arjuna that people would blame him for sure. Then He incited Arjuna's ego and tried to wake him up. And then He offered His disciple different incentives, saying, "If you win, you will have the kingdom. If you lose, you will enjoy Heaven. Come on, fight." In many ways, Lord Krishna lifted Arjuna out of that depression. ~ Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

58:Father was a strict disciplinarian to his children in their early years, but his attitude toward himself was truly Spartan. He never visited the theater, for instance, but sought his recreation in various spiritual practices and in reading the bhagavad gita. Shunning all luxuries, he would cling to one old pair of shoes until they were useless. His sons bought automobiles after they came into popular use, but Father was always content with the trolley car for his daily ride to the office. The accumulation of money for the sake of power was alien to his nature. Once, after organizing the Calcutta Urban Bank, he refused to benefit himself by holding any of its shares. He had simply wished to perform a civic duty in his spare time. ~ Paramahansa Yogananda

59:Thomas Merton, of course, constitutes a special threat to Christians, because he presents himself as a contemplative Christian monk, and his work has already affected the vitals of Roman Catholicism, its monasticism. Shortly before his death, Father Merton wrote an appreciative introduction to a new translation of the Bhagavad Gita, which is the spiritual manual or “Bible” of all Hindus, and one of the foundation blocks of monism or Advaita Vedanta. The Gita, it must be remembered, opposes almost every important teaching of Christianity. His book on the Zen Masters, published posthumously, is also noteworthy, because the entire work is based on a treacherous mistake: the assumption that all the so-called “mystical experiences” in every religion are true. He should have known better. ~ Seraphim Rose

60:Morality is a just a shadow of right action. Right action isn’t the highest degree of morality any more than agapè is the highest degree of love. When you understand and are able to act from right action, morality is no longer necessary; it’s instantly obsolete and discarded. This is at the heart of the Bhagavad Gita. Arjuna, as a moral creature, throws down his weapon and refuses to launch a war. Krishna converts him to a creature of right action by freeing him from delusion and Arjuna takes up his weapon and launches the war. Right action has nothing to do with right or wrong, good or evil, naughty or nice. It is without altruism or compassion. Morality is the set of rules and regulations that you use to navigate through life when you’re still trying to steer your ship rather than let it follow the flow. ~ Jed McKenna

61:Let us now turn for a moment to the word karman which has been cited above. The meanings of the verbal root kar, present also in the Latin creare and the Greek κραίνω [kraino], are to make, do, and effect. And significantly, just as the Latin facere is originally sacra facere, literally “make sacred,” and as the Greek πoιέω = ἱερoπoιέω [poieo = hieropoieo], so karman is originally and very often not merely “work” or “making,” but synonymous with yajna, “sacrifice” and also with vrata, “sacred operation,” “obedience,” “sphere of activity,” “function,” and especially as in the Bhagavad Gita, with dharma, “justice” or “natural law.” In other words, the idea is deeply rooted in our humanity that there is no real distinction of work from holy works, and no necessary opposition of profane to sacred activities. And it is precisely this idea that finds such vivid expression in the well-known Indian philosophy of action, the “Way of Works” (karmamarga) of the Bhagavad Gita. ~ Ananda K Coomaraswamy

62:in the Bhagavad Gita. One stanza reads: “Offering the inhaling breath into the exhaling breath and offering the exhaling breath into the inhaling breath, the yogi neutralizes both breaths; thus he releases prana from the heart and brings life force under his control.”2 The interpretation is: “The yogi arrests decay in the body by securing an additional supply of prana (life force) through quieting the action of the lungs and heart; he also arrests mutations of growth in the body by control of apana (eliminating current). Thus neutralizing decay and growth, the yogi learns life-force control.” Another Gita stanza states: “That meditation-expert (muni) becomes eternally free who, seeking the Supreme Goal, is able to withdraw from external phenomena by fixing his gaze within the mid-spot of the eyebrows and by neutralizing the even currents of prana and apana [that flow] within the nostrils and lungs; and to control his sensory mind and intellect; and to banish desire, fear, and anger.”3 ~ Paramahansa Yogananda

63:Honor was wearing an ankle-length black skirt and a flowing blouse, with flat shoes that seemed to anchor her to the ground. Her gray-black hair shone in the spotlight. She was not a young woman. She had been through plenty. “I believe that we don’t choose our stories,” she began, leaning forward. “Our stories choose us.” She paused and took a sip of water. Her hand, I noticed, was steady. “And if we don’t tell them, then we are somehow diminished.” Diminished. The word went through me like a bolt. I pulled out the small notebook I carry with me and scribbled down what she had just found the grace to say. There it was. All of it. I thought of my favorite passage in the Gnostic Gospels: If we bring forth what is within us, it will save us. If we do not bring forth what is within us, it will destroy us. And what the Bhagavad Gita has to say about dharma: Better is one’s own dharma though imperfectly carried out than the dharma of another carried out perfectly. I knew about the struggle for authenticity. The mining for words to collect together what felt impossibly broken. I wanted to gather up in my arms all that was lost to me. I wanted nothing less than to remake my world. A writer afraid of her own subject—whatever it might be—is a frozen creature, trapped in the inessential. ~ Dani Shapiro

64:Questioner: How did you learn all that you are talking about, and how can we come to know it? KRISHNAMURTI: That is a good question, is it not? Now, if I may talk about myself a little, I have not read any books about these things, neither the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, nor any psychological books; but as I told you, if you watch your own mind, it is all there. So when once you set out on the journey of self-knowledge, books are not important. It is like entering a strange land where you begin to find out new things and make astonishing discoveries; but, you see, that is all destroyed if you give importance to yourself. The moment you say, “I have discovered, I know, I am a great man because I have found out this and that,” you are lost. If you have to take a long journey, you must carry very little; if you want to climb to a great height, you must travel light. So this question is really important, because discovery and understanding come through self-knowledge, through observing the ways of the mind. What you say of your neighbour, how you talk, how you walk, how you look at the skies, at the birds, how you treat people, how you cut a branch—all these things are important, because they act like mirrors that show you as you are and, if you are alert, you discover everything anew from moment to moment. Questioner: Should we form an ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

65:The Krishnas' resolution was brilliant. They switched to a fund-raising tactic that made it unnecessary for target persons to have positive feelings toward the fund-raisers. They began to employ a donation-request procedure that engaged the rule for reciprocation, which, as demonstrated by the Regan study, is strong enough to overcome the factor of dislike for the requester. The new strategy still involves the solicitation of contributions in public places with much pedestrian traffic (airports are a favorite), but now, before a donation is requested, the target person is given a "gift"—a book (usually the Bhagavad Gita), the Back to Godhead magazine of the Society, or, in the most cost-effective version, a flower. The unsuspecting passerby who suddenly finds a flower pressed into his hands or pinned to his jacket is under no circumstances allowed to give it back, even if he asserts that he does not want it. "No, it is our gift to you," says the solicitor, refusing to accept it. Only after the Krishna member has thus brought the force of the reciprocation rule to bear on the situation is the target asked to provide a contribution to the Society. This benefactor-before-beggar strategy has been wildly successful for the Hare Krishna Society, producing large-scale economic gains and funding the ownership of temples, businesses, houses, and property ~ Anonymous

66:Recommended Reading David Foster Wallace - Infinite Jest DH Lawrence - The Rainbow Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Love in the Time of Cholera Karl Ove Knausgaard - My Struggle Virginia Woolf - To The Lighthouse Ben Lerner - The Topeka School Sally Rooney - Conversations With Friends Nell Zink - The Wallcreeper Elena Ferrante - The Days of Abandonment Jack Kerouac - Dharma Bums Walt Whitman - Leaves of Grass Michael Murphy - Golf in the Kingdom Barbara Kingsolver - Prodigal Summer Albertine Sarrazin - Astragal Rebecca Solnit - The Faraway Nearby Michael Paterniti - Love and Other Ways of Dying Rainer Maria Rilke - Book of Hours James Baldwin - Another Country Roberto Calasso - Ka Translation by S. Radhakrishan - Principle Upanisads Chogyam Trungpa - Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism Translation by Georg Feuerstein - Yoga Sutra Richard Freeman - The Mirror of Yoga Translation by S. Radhakrishan - The Bhagavad Gita Shrunyu Suzuki - Zen Mind Beginner's Mind Heinrich Zimmer - Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization Sogyal Rinpoche - The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying Joseph Campbell - Myths of Light Joseph Campbell - The Hero With A Thousand Faces Sri Aurobindo - Savitri Thomas Meyers - Anatomy Trains Wendy Doniger - The Hindus ~ Jason Bowman, http://www.jasonbowmanyoga.com/recommended-reading,

67:Towards the end of our conversation in the churchyard today I got the impression that pastor Jón thinks that all gods that men worship are equally good. In the Bhagavad Gita, which pastor Jón cites, Krishna is reported as saying, as I recall: You are free to address your prayers to any god at all; but the one who answers the prayers, I am he. Is this what pastor Jón means when he says that all gods are equally good except the god that answers the prayers, because he is nowhere? Neither of these two standpoints can be accommodated within the framework of our confession of faith. The god who speaks through Krishna's words isn't particularly pleasant, either, because he alone controls the card-game and the other gods are only dummies and he is the one who declares on their cards. At any rate this god is rather far removed from the seventy-year-old grandfather with the large beard who came to breakfast with the farmer Abraham of Ur accompanied by two angels, his attendants, and settled in with him, and whom the Jews inherited and thereafter the pope and finally the Saxons. When Krishna says he is the one god who answers prayers, then this is actually just our orthodox god of the catechism, the one who says: I am the Lord thy God, thou shalt have no other gods before me. Pastor Jón says, on the other hand, Thou shalt have all other gods before the Lord thy God. What is the answer to that? ~ Halld r Kiljan Laxness

68:The Yoga system of Patanjali is known as the Eightfold Path. 9 The first steps are (1) yama (moral conduct), and (2) niyama (religious observances). Yama is fulfilled by noninjury to others, truthfulness, nonstealing, continence, and noncovetousness. The niyama prescripts are purity of body and mind, contentment in all circumstances, self-discipline, self-study (contemplation), and devotion to God and guru. The next steps are (3) asana (right posture); the spinal column must be held straight, and the body firm in a comfortable position for meditation; (4) pranayama (control of prana, subtle life currents); and (5) pratyahara (withdrawal of the senses from external objects). The last steps are forms of yoga proper: (6) dharana (concentration), holding the mind to one thought; (7) dhyana (meditation); and (8) samadhi (superconscious experience). This Eightfold Path of Yoga leads to the final goal of Kaivalya (Absoluteness), in which the yogi realizes the Truth beyond all intellectual apprehension. “Which is greater,” one may ask, “a swami or a yogi?” If and when oneness with God is achieved, the distinctions of the various paths disappear. The Bhagavad Gita, however, has pointed out that the methods of yoga are all-embracing. Its techniques are not meant only for certain types and temperaments, such as those few persons who incline toward the monastic life; yoga requires no formal allegiance. Because the yogic science satisfies a universal need, it has a natural universal appeal. A true yogi may remain dutifully in the world; ~ Paramahansa Yogananda

69:In fact, Hinduisms pervading influence seems to go much earlier than Christianity. American mathematician, A. Seindenberg, has for example shown that the Sulbasutras, the ancient Vedic science of mathematics, constitute the source of mathematics in the Antic world, from Babylon to Greece : the arithmetic equations of the Sulbasutras he writes, were used in the observation of the triangle by the Babylonians, as well as in the edification of Egyptian pyramids, in particular the funeral altar in form of pyramid known in the vedic world as smasana-cit (Seindenberg 1978: 329). In astronomy too, the "Indus" (from the valley of the Indus) have left a universal legacy, determining for instance the dates of solstices, as noted by 18th century French astronomer Jean-Sylvain Bailly : the movement of stars which was calculated by Hindus 4500 years ago, does not differ even by a minute from the tables which we are using today". And he concludes: "the Hindu systems of astronomy are much more ancient than those of the Egyptians - even the Jews derived from the Hindus their knowledge . There is also no doubt that the Greeks heavily borrowed from the "Indus". Danielou notes that the Greek cult of Dionysos, which later became Bacchus with the Romans, is a branch of Shivaism : Greeks spoke of India as the sacred territory of Dionysos and even historians of Alexander the Great identified the Indian Shiva with Dionysos and mention the dates and legends of the Puranas . French philosopher and Le Monde journalist Jean-Paul Droit, recently wrote in his book "The Forgetfulness of India" that the Greeks loved so much Indian philosophy, that Demetrios Galianos had even translated the Bhagavad Gita . ~ Fran ois Gautier

70:How important was mantra to Gandhi’s transformation? Extremely. When done systematically, mantra has a powerful effect on the brain. It gathers and focuses the energy of the mind. It teaches the mind to focus on one point, and it cultivates a steadiness that over time becomes an unshakable evenness of temper. The cultivation of this quality of “evenness” is a central principle of the Bhagavad Gita. It is called samatva in Sanskrit, and it is a central pillar of Krishna’s practice. When the mind develops steadiness, teaches Krishna, it is not shaken by fear or greed. So, in his early twenties, Gandhi had already begun to develop a still-point at the center of his consciousness—a still-point that could not be shaken. This little seed of inner stillness would grow into a mighty oak. Gandhi would become an immovable object. Rambha had given Gandhi an enchanting image to describe the power of mantra. She compared the practice of mantra to the training of an elephant. “As the elephant walks through the market,” taught Rambha, “he swings his trunk from side to side and creates havoc with it wherever he goes—knocking over fruit stands and scattering vendors, snatching bananas and coconuts wherever possible. His trunk is naturally restless, hungry, scattered, undisciplined. This is just like the mind—constantly causing trouble.” “But the wise elephant trainer,” said Rambha, “will give the elephant a stick of bamboo to hold in his trunk. The elephant likes this. He holds it fast. And as soon as the elephant wraps his trunk around the bamboo, the trunk begins to settle. Now the elephant strides through the market like a prince: calm, collected, focused, serene. Bananas and coconuts no longer distract.” So too with the mind. As soon as the mind grabs hold of the mantra, it begins to settle. The mind holds the mantra gently, and it becomes focused, calm, centered. Gradually this mind becomes extremely concentrated. This is the beginning stage of meditation. All meditation traditions prescribe some beginning practice of gathering, focusing, and concentration—and in the yoga tradition this is most often achieved precisely through mantra. The whole of Chapter Six in the Bhagavad Gita is devoted to Krishna’s teachings on this practice: “Whenever the mind wanders, restless and diffuse in its search for satisfaction without, lead it within; train it to rest in the Self,” instructs Krishna. “When meditation is mastered, the mind is unwavering like the flame of a lamp in a windless place. ~ Stephen Cope

71:Who could have thought that this tanned young man with gentle, dreamy eyes, long wavy hair parted in the middle and falling to the neck, clad in a common coarse Ahmedabad dhoti, a close-fitting Indian jacket, and old-fashioned slippers with upturned toes, and whose face was slightly marked with smallpox, was no other than Mister Aurobindo Ghose, living treasure of French, Latin and Greek?" Actually, Sri Aurobindo was not yet through with books; the Western momentum was still there; he devoured books ordered from Bombay and Calcutta by the case. "Aurobindo would sit at his desk," his Bengali teacher continues, "and read by the light of an oil lamp till one in the morning, oblivious of the intolerable mosquito bites. I would see him seated there in the same posture for hours on end, his eyes fixed on his book, like a yogi lost in the contemplation of the Divine, unaware of all that went on around him. Even if the house had caught fire, it would not have broken this concentration." He read English, Russian, German, and French novels, but also, in ever larger numbers, the sacred books of India, the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, the Ramayana, although he had never been in a temple except as an observer. "Once, having returned from the College," one of his friends recalls, "Sri Aurobindo sat down, picked up a book at random and started to read, while Z and some friends began a noisy game of chess. After half an hour, he put the book down and took a cup of tea. We had already seen him do this many times and were waiting eagerly for a chance to verify whether he read the books from cover to cover or only scanned a few pages here and there. Soon the test began. Z opened the book, read a line aloud and asked Sri Aurobindo to recite what followed. Sri Aurobindo concentrated for a moment, and then repeated the entire page without a single mistake. If he could read a hundred pages in half an hour, no wonder he could go through a case of books in such an incredibly short time." But Sri Aurobindo did not stop at the translations of the sacred texts; he began to study Sanskrit, which, typically, he learned by himself. When a subject was known to be difficult or impossible, he would refuse to take anyone's word for it, whether he were a grammarian, pandit, or clergyman, and would insist upon trying it himself. The method seemed to have some merit, for not only did he learn Sanskrit, but a few years later he discovered the lost meaning of the Veda. ~ Satprem, Sri Aurobindo Or The Adventure of Consciousness,

--- IN CHAPTERS (in Dictionaries, in Quotes, in Chapters)

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   8 Integral Yoga
   4 Philosophy
   1 Occultism


   4 Sri Ramana Maharshi
   4 Satprem
   4 Aldous Huxley
   3 Sri Aurobindo
   2 The Mother


   9 Talks
   4 The Perennial Philosophy
   4 Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness
   2 The Secret Doctrine
   2 On Thoughts And Aphorisms