All Posts (2328)

Sort by

GATES TO THE CITY OF DEATH

Poverty is the best remedy for the disease of pride. The disease of pride, vanity and egoism, that is caused by possession of wealth, can be cured by the ointment of poverty.
The three entrances to the city of death are the opposite sex, wealth and the tongue, he who has conquered these three need not be afraid of death. He has no enemies who rides bravely on the horse of discrimination with the sword of dispassion and the shield of endurance.

From "Daily Sayings" by Swami Sivananda (1987-1963). M
Read more…

Sangam

Friends,

My city Allahabad is one of the biggest religious and spiritual centers of India. In ancient times it was called Prayag. One of the unique features about my city is that it is situated at the confluence of three rivers ; Ganga, Yamuna and the mythological , now extinct river Saraswati, hence it is also called Triveni.

9078789492?profile=original

We can see the different streams of water meeting each other at the Sangam
( confluence). It is visited by lakhs of devotees every month whose aim is to take a dip in the hol

Read more…
Comments: 0

WATCH FOR THESE THIEVES

To deprive you of the treasures of the Atman, the thieves of lust greed, anger and egoism have bound you with the ties of desire for children and love of enjoyment, and left you in the forest of this worldly existence.
Man groans in the forest of worldliness as he is troubled by dangers and sufferings. The dangers are the pains caused by the three kinds of afflictions. The sufferings are hunger and thirst, birth and death.

From "Daily Sayings" by Swami Sivananda (1987-1963). More Informations on S
Read more…

WORSHIP NOT THIS BODY

The physical body will surely be destroyed. Then, what is the use of decorating it with ornaments and silk clothes and partaking of many kinds of palatable dishes? The Atman alone is indestructible. Therefore, exert to realize the Atman.
Do you not know that this physical body, which at present rolls on a bed of fragrant flowers, will one day be burnt on logs of wood?
The wise, who know the Self as knowledge, bliss and existence, and also the physical body, which is full of blood, bones and flesh,
Read more…

Devanagari - The Hindi Alphabet!

Friends,

Let us get started to begin your adventure in Learning the Hindi Language. Remember that although learning a language fluently may take years, it is only one small step at a time.

When compared to English, Devanagari is actually a lot easier to read, believe it or not! Compare the ‘c’ sound in the words city and cat. The letter ‘c’ makes a two different sound right? This differences doesn’t exist in Devanagari because every letter has only one pronunciation and so this makes reading so mu

Read more…
Comments: 0

PRAYER TO SIVA

The leaves of life are failing off. Youth is fading. Days are rolling on. Time, the destroyer, lays his hands on the whole world. Our existence in this world is as momentary as a bubble or like a flash of lightning. O Lord Siva, protect me.
O Lord Siva, who holds the begging-bowl of the skull of Brahma, control this monkey-mind, which jumps about at its sweet will on the branches of desires in the forest of lust. Keep it with Thee forever.

From "Daily Sayings" by Swami Sivananda (1987-1963). More
Read more…

THE REMEDY FOR MISERIES

This world, which contains friends, neutrals and enemies, which affects a man with heat and cold, hunger and thirst, pleasure and pain, censure and praise, honour and dishonour, gain and loss, success and failure, sorrow and joy, happiness and misery, is a creation of your own mind due to ignorance.
Therefore, renounce wealth, as it is a source of all evils. Renounce attachment to wealth. Renounce the desire for wealth. Cultivate dispassion, the remedy for all human sufferings.

From "Daily Sayings
Read more…

WORSHIP THE SELF

If time be the cause of pleasure and pain, how can it affect the immortal and eternal Atman? The Atman is one with time. Certainly a flame is not affected by fire, nor a hailstone by cold. This Atman, which is beyond duality, can never be affected by the pairs of opposites. Therefore, with whom should you get angry?
You should practice devotion to the highest Self, worship the feet of the Lord and thereby cross the ocean of worldliness. Thus will you attain immor¬tality and everlasting bliss.

From
Read more…

ATMAN IS UNAFFECTED

If the body is the cause of pleasure or pain, the Atman has nothing to do with it, because pleasure and pain pertain to the gross and subtle bodies which are the products of nature. The Atman is the silent witness or spectator of the activities of nature. If you bite your tongue, with whom will you get angry for causing the pain?

From "Daily Sayings" by Swami Sivananda (1987-1963). More Informations on Swami Sivananda: on the Website of Divine Life Society, Photographs of Swami Sivananda, German
Read more…

THE SUPREME WITNESS

The silent witness, the Supreme Self, looks from above at the activities of the mind of the individual soul. It looks like a spectator, free and unattached. It is quite indifferent and unconcerned. It is perfectly unaffected, like water on a lotus leaf. The individual soul identifies itself with the body and mind. It works and enjoys sensual objects with avidity, cupidity and stupidity and is bound thereby.

From "Daily Sayings" by Swami Sivananda (1987-1963). More Informations on Swami Sivananda:
Read more…

MIND – THE CAUSE OF PAIN AND JOY

Neither this body nor the Atman nor the gods nor the planets nor work nor time cause pain or pleasure. It is this wretched mind that causes pleasure and pain and creates this worldliness.
This terrible mind generates thoughts, cravings, egoism, desires and likes and dislikes. Man then does various actions with egoism and expectation of fruit. Therefore, he has to take birth again and again in accordance with the nature of actions.

From "Daily Sayings" by Swami Sivananda (1987-1963). More Informati
Read more…

IS THIS HAPPINESS?

Do you not see clearly that this world is a mere play of the nerves? Do you not understand that this world of opposites is illusory? You have to depend upon the nerves and senses for your happiness. If they go out of order, you become miserable even though you possess enormous wealth and palatial buildings. Can you call this little illusion pleasure, which depends upon the play of the nerves, real, lasting happiness.? It is merely the itching of the nerves, which only tickles those deluded souls
Read more…

WORRY NOT

Worry kills a man. It destroys his joys of life. It is a canker that slowly eats away a man. It wears him out. Do not worry over what is gone. Forget it. No one has yet been able to claim any good by worrying. Do not worry about things which are likely to happen; so very often they do not happen. "Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof". The best and surest antidote or penicillin injection for worry is to keep oneself fully occupied.
Always be doing something useful. Do your best and leave th
Read more…

YET YOU ARE PROUD

You are helpless when you are a little baby. You are helpless when you are seriously ailing. You are helpless when you become aged. Why then do you boast of your ability, capacity, independence and freedom? Why are you arrogant, proud and egoistic? Transcend your body and mind and realize the immortal Self.
Only when you realize the Self can you be really strong, independent and flee. Rise above delusion and illusion through discrimination or self-analysis and enquiry of "who am I?"

From "Daily Sa
Read more…

Hindi Pronunciation

Pronunciation in Hindi is relatively easy since, unlike English, letters are always pronounced exactly the same way. Once you've learned the letters, reading is straight forward and simple

Read more…
Comments: 0

WORLD – A JUGGLER'S TRICK

This world is a play of colors and sounds. This sense-universe is a play of the nerves. It is a false show kept up by the jugglery of Maya, mind and senses. You enjoy sensual pleasures for a period of twenty years when the senses are still strong and vigorous. What is this short evanescent period of twenty years in eternity? What is this despicable, jarring, monotonous sensual life when compared to the eternal and peaceful life in the Self within?

From "Daily Sayings" by Swami Sivananda (1987-196
Read more…

THE PROCESS OF MEDITATION

Sit in a quiet place in an easy posture. Renounce mentally all attachments and objects of the senses. Gradually draw your senses within. Reflect upon thyself as distinct from nature. All this mobile or immobile world, the body, intellect and the rest, all that is seen or heard, is called Prakriti. It is also called Maya. It is the cause of the creation, preservation and destruction of the world. It always creates Rajasic, Sattwic and Tamasic tendencies m beings.

From "Daily Sayings" by Swami Siva
Read more…

Hindi shares with English and most other European languages the same ancestral roots. They evolved from a language thought to have been spoken in Central Asia around 5,000 BC, called by linguists the Indo-European parent language. For this reason (and because of the 200-year influence of the British in India), many basic words in Hindi are the same as or similar to their equivalent in English.

The primary source of Hindi is Sanskrit, one of the most ancient spoken and written languages in the wor

Read more…
Comments: 0

THOU ART IMMORTAL

You have attained this physical body through actions done in past lives. You will attain another body through actions done in this body in this life. Just as one leaves an old house and goes to live in a new one, even so, you never die but discard an old body and enter into a new one. The all-pervading Atman never dies nor is It born. It is not subject to increase or decrease, decay or modification. It is ever pure, homogeneous and limitless, an embodiment of bliss and knowledge. It is immobile,
Read more…

GRIEVE NOT AT DEATH

Do not grieve for the departed soul. The Atman is eternal, changeless, birthless, deathless and pure. The body is non-intelligent, liable to death, impure and destructible. Thinking thus, there is no occasion at all for any sorrow. That which is born is sure to perish.
If a father or son comes under the sway of death it is the foolish who grieve. In this world, which is devoid of substance, separation from an object of desire is a source of non-attachment and bestower of peace and happiness for t
Read more…