Top 68 Quotes & Sayings by Swami Satchidananda

If you have done something meritorious, you experience pleasure and happiness; if wrong things, suffering. A happy or unhappy life is your own creation. Nobody else is responsible. If you remember this, you won’t find fault with anybody. You are your own best friend as well as your worst enemy. (99)

The moment you understand yourself as the true Self, you find such peace and bliss that the impressions of the petty enjoyments you experienced before become as ordinary specks of light in front of the brilliant sun.

If you are becoming more easeful, peaceful & useful then you know you are growing.

Music is the celestial sound, and it is sound that controls the whole universe, not atomic vibrations. Sound energy, sound power, is much, much greater than any other power in the world.

As you are, you see everything else.

Yoga believes in transforming the individual before transforming the world. Whatever change we want to happen outside should happen within. If you walk in peace and express that peace in your very life, others will see you and learn something.

Our own true nature is Infinite Joy! Always happy, Always peaceful, Always free.

Never give up; nothing is done overnight. Anyone who achieved anything in life always did it after many failures. Don’t give up hope.

We can see the same spirit in everybody only when we know we are that spirit, Atman or Self. Only a person who has understood his own Self can see that Self in everybody.

Mere philosophy will not satisfy us. We cannot reach the goal by mere words alone. Without practice, nothing can be achieved. (3)

Don't give up your power to change things. Negativity and unhappiness are caused by you. You can change your attitude.

The light is within. It is already there. Take your time to see it.

God knows your breaking point. You simply don’t know your own strength.

We don’t exhaust the Bible even after reading it hundreds of times. Each time we read it we see it in a new light. That is the greatness of the holy scriptures. They are that way because they were created by holy prophets who experienced the truth. Each time we read these works we elevate ourselves to see a little more. (81)

Devotion gradually progresses to higher levels. . . . One type goes to God and asks Him to remove his suffering. Another one will ask for money or material things. A third will request liberation or release from his bondage. And the fourth will not ask for anything. He will just enjoy praying and praising his Lord. That is the highest form of prayer. (Beyond Word, 119)

Begin with little things daily and one day you will be doing things that months back you would have thought impossible.

Equality comes in realizing that we are all doing different jobs for a common purpose. That is the aim behind any community. The very name community means let's come together to recognize the unity. Come ... unity.

Everything begins in the mind. If you want to see clearly, you need clear vision.

Yoga began with the first person wanting to be healthy and happy all the time.

Do you want to know the secret of life? If you want to have everything, don’t want anything. Everything will run after you.

The same thing can be both good and bad. Whenever you speak of good, bad is also present. The world is a mixture of both. There is not good without bad. They are both sides of the same coin. Both are necessary. We have been given free will and discriminating capacity to select what is beneficial to us and to avoid what is detrimental to us. Even Cobra poison can be used as medicine.

The purification of the mind is very necessary. (72)

We are not going to change the whole world, but we can change ourselves and feel free as birds. We can be serene even in the midst of calamities and, by our serenity, make others more tranquil. Serenity is contagious. If we smile at someone, he or she will smile back. And a smile costs nothing. We should plague everyone with joy. If we are to die in a minute, why not die happily, laughing? (136-137)

Though we can't always see it at the time, if we look upon events with some perspective, we see things always happen for our best interests. We are always being guided in a way better than we know ourselves.

If your heart is beautiful, your face will be beautiful, your life will be beautiful, everything will be beautiful.

Let us accept all the different paths as different rivers running toward the same ocean.

If you do not pour water on your plant, what will happen? It will slowly wither and die. Our habits will also slowly wither and die away if we do not give them an opportunity to manifest. You need not fight to stop a habit. Just don’t give it an opportunity to repeat itself. (67)

Death can come at any minute, in any way. We do not know what is in store tomorrow, or, whether there is a tomorrow, or even a tonight! But still, we have the golden present. Now we are alive and kicking. What should we do now? Love all, serve all.

The greatest victory you can win is over your own mind.

[O]ur own bodies are changing every second. Yet we take the body to be our Self; and, speaking in terms of it, we say, “I am hungry” or “I am lame”; “I am black” or “I am white.” These are all just the conditions of the body. We touch the truth when we say, “My body aches,” implying the body belongs to us and that therefore we are not that. (87)

Calming the mind is yoga, not just standing on the head

Don't depend on something that comes from outside. Outside things are never going to make you happy.

Every pain has a gain behind it

Not only does charity begin at home. Everything begins at home, including spirituality.

Truth is the same always. Whoever ponders it will get the same answer. Buddha got it. Patanjali got it. Jesus got it. Mohammed got it. The answer is the same, but the method of working it out may vary this way or that. (115)

..just do, leave it there, if it comes let it come, but don't look for it.

There is one Cosmic Essence, all-pervading, all-knowing, all-powerful. This nameless formless essence can be approached by any name, any form, any symbol that suites the taste of the individual. Follow your religion, but try to understand the real purpose behind all of the rituals and traditions, and experience that Oneness.

What is it that dies? A log of wood dies to become a few planks. The planks die to become a chair. The chair dies to become a piece of firewood, and the firewood dies to become ash. You give different names to the different shapes the wood takes, but the basic substance is there always. If we could always remember this, we would never worry about the loss of anything. We never lose anything; we never gain anything. By such discrimination we put an end to unhappiness. (118-119)

We can be serene even in the midst of calamities and, by our serenity, make others more tranquil.

The stones of a river start out rough, but with the current continually bumping and polishing them, they end up being beautiful.

The cause of bandha and moksha (bondage and liberation) is our own minds. If we think we are bound, we are bound. If we think we are liberated, we are liberated. . . . It is only when we transcend the mind that we are free from all these troubles. (117)

Temples and churches have become social centers. They have lost their original purpose because the minds of the people are more attracted to worldly things than to prayer. The lips repeat the prayer mechanically like a phonograph record, but the mind wanders to other places. (23-24)

At various points in our lives, or on a quest, and for reasons that often remain obscure, we are driven to make decisions which prove with hindsight to be loaded with meaning. (225)

Peace comes not from doing, but from undoing; not from getting, but from letting go.

You are the cause of your own joy or your own misery. You hold that power. You are your own friend and your own enemy.

Anything that you throw comes back. All your actions are echoes.

Yoga is not only learning to stand on your head but also learning to stand on your feet.

One truth, many paths.

When you win and the other fellow loses, what do you see? A losing face. There is great joy in losing and making the other person win and have a happy face. Who will be the happiest person? The one who brings happiness to others.

Now will never leave. It is always here. Like a clear canvas, it awaits our painting.

. . . I feel we don’t really need scriptures. The entire life is an open book, a scripture. Read it. Learn while digging a pit or chopping some wood or cooking some food. If you can’t learn from your daily activities, how are you going to understand the scriptures? (233)

You are not given the light by anyone—not even by a spiritual teacher. You are that light.

Give up the drop and gain the whole ocean.

There’s no value in digging shallow wells in a hundred places. Decide on one place and dig deep. Even if you encounter a rock, use dynamite and keep going down. If you leave that to dig another well, all the first effort is wasted and there is no proof you won’t hit rock again. (52)

Just as a little bird cracks open the shell and flies out, we fly out of this shell, the shell of the body. We call that death, but strictly speaking, death is nothing but a change of form.

Any kind of expectation creates a problem. We should accept, but not expect. Whatever comes, accept it. Whatever goes, accept it. The immediate benefit is that your mind is always peaceful.

Who will be the happiest person? The one who brings happiness to others.

[T]he period between four and six in the morning is called the Brahmamuhurta, the Brahmic time, or divine period, and is a very sacred time to meditate. (140)

True love knows no bargains. It is one-way traffic: giving, giving, giving.

Yoga says instinct is a trace of an old experience that has been repeated many times and the impressions have sunk down to the bottom of the mental lake. Although they go down, they aren’t completely erased. Don’t think you ever forget anything. All experiences are stored in the chittam; and, when the proper atmosphere is created, they come to the surface again. When we do something several times it forms a habit. Continue with that habit for a long time, and it becomes your character. Continue with that character and eventually, perhaps in another life, it comes up as instinct.