Gems of Wisdom

[AZGAL]

“It is only through inner peace that we can have true outer freedom.” —Sri Chinmoy


No price is too great to pay for inner peace. Peace is the harmonious control of life. It is vibrant with life-energy. It is a power that easily transcends all our worldly knowledge. Yet it is not separate from our earthly existence. If we open the right avenues within, this peace can be felt here and now.

Peace is eternal. It is never too late to have peace. Time is always ripe for that. We can make our life truly fruitful if we are not cut off from our Source, which is the Peace of Eternity.

 

[AZGAL]

Psalm 46:1

God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.

 

[Skull]

When fear and suffering are disliked
By me and others equally,
What is so special about me,
So that I protect myself and not others?

Someone who wishes to end suffering
And go to the utmost limit of happiness
Should securely plant the root of faith,
And then fix the mind unwaveringly on Awakening.

Shantideva

 

[Skull]

The gods are immortal mortals and men are mortal immortals.

Heraclitus

 

[Skull]

The Tathāgata’s wisdom is measureless, unimpeded, and universally able to benefit all beings. It resides in complete abundance within the persons of all beings. It is solely because of all foolish common people’s false conceptions and attachments that they fail to know this, fail to realize this, and fail to acquire its benefits.
Then, the Tathāgata, using his unimpeded pure wisdom eye, universally contemplates all beings throughout the Dharma realm and utters these words: “It is strange. It is strange. It is so strange indeed. How could it be that all of these beings completely possess the Tathāgata’s wisdom, yet, because of their stupidity and delusions, they fail to realize this, even fail to perceive this. I should instruct them in the path of the Sages and cause them to forever abandon false conceptions and attachments. Then they will succeed in seeing that, within their very own persons, they possess vast wisdom of the Tathāgata that is no different from that of the Buddha himself."

From ch. 37 of the Avatamsaka Sutra.

 

[Skull]

For it is not Nature’s way to let good ever do harm to good; between good men and the gods exists a friendship sealed by virtue. Friendship, do I say? No, rather it is a bond of relationship and similarity, since undoubtedly a good man differs from God only in the sphere of time; he is God’s pupil and imitator, his true offspring whom that illustrious parent, no gentle trainer in virtue, rears with severity, as strict fathers do.

Seneca, On Providence

 

[Skull]

Swami Yogananda comments on verse 7 of Chapter XIV in the Bhagavad Gita:

O Son of Kunti (Arjuna), understand that the activating rajas is imbued with passion, giving
birth to desire and attachment; it strongly binds the embodied soul by a clinging to works.

The performance of worldly activity without wisdom gives rise to an unquenchable thirst of longings for
and attachments to material objects and egotistical satisfactions. The man who acts for selfish reasons
becomes deeply attached to bodily activities and desires.
Such worldly activity binds the majority of persons to earthly rebirths, owing to the ceaseless desires
it engenders, many of which remain unfulfilled at the time of death. To perform worldly activities only to
please God, however, is never binding.
A few persons are sattvic. There are also a few men of exceedingly tamasic nature—those who are
effortlessly disposed to commit evil. But the greatest number of human beings are rajasic by inclination;
impelled by the passion characteristic of rajoguna, they remain absorbed in worldly and selfish interests.