Sri Daya Mata Best Quotes

Relationships

God gave us human relationships in various forms for one reason: we are to learn from one another. Everyone is in a sense our ‘guru’, our teacher. ... From all these relationships we acquire an expansion and purification of our love; and I believe that, in the ultimate sense, only love can change others. (ol)

Trouble in our relationships—with husband or wife, or children, or others—comes because we are constantly demanding that they satisfy our need for happiness. And we in turn think that just giving material things to our loved ones will be enough to satisfy their longing for fulfillment. That will never be enough, my dears — never! The more we depend on outer things for fulfillment, the more we create an ever deeper hunger within ourselves —a hunger in our souls that only God can satisfy. (fj)

God

I know that my Divine Beloved is essentially without form. But that does not make Him any less real. Love has no form, wisdom has no form, joy has no form; yet we experience them, don't we? They are more real to us than form. Well, that is what God is. In the ultimate sense, He is infinite love, wisdom, joy. Nevertheless, some devotees find it helpful and spiritually captivating to think of Him in one of His divine forms, such as incarnate in Lord Krishna, Jesus Christ, Buddha; or as the Heavenly Father, Mother, Friend, or Beloved. (fj)

"What is God?"

God can manifest as any divine quality or in any form, but He cannot be confined to any particular concept; He is all ideas. He is within everything in this universe, and everything is contained within Him. Any thought that man has, the Divine has already thought; otherwise, man could not think it.

Krishna taught Arjuna to become anchored in That which is changeless. The only changeless principle in creation is God. Everything else is subject to change because it is only a dream-thought of His. (ol)

God and His love are the only reality in this world; everything else is part of His maya, His creative delusion.

There is a fruit of great sweetness called cherimoya. It is round, with a green skin; the inside is a soft white pulp, throughout which are large black seeds. I have described this fruit to you, but do you actually know what a cherimoya is and how it tastes? Not if you have only heard my description of it, but have never seen or eaten the fruit.

So it is with the Lord. Saints and rishis have described their experiences of God, but the mere reading of their accounts will not enable you to know Him. We cannot realize God merely through a description given to us by others. We ourselves must experience His presence in the great state of ecstasy that comes from prolonged and deep meditation.

The purpose of life — the only purpose — is to know that we are made in the image of God. Knowing this, we realize our true nature, which is ever blissful — ever-existing, ever-conscious, ever-new Bliss. (fj)

Humility

Practice humility and surrender; these are absolutely essential. The struggle to surrender the ego-self is the purpose behind religious vows.

Simplicity, or poverty, teaches surrender of desire for material possessions; chastity, surrender of bodily attachments; obedience and loyalty, surrender of egotistic self-will. The householder devotee as well as the renunciant can follow these vows in principle by performing all actions with detachment. Eventually, the practice of these principles frees the soul: we are released from the mental and material attachments that have enslaved us to the body and kept us from God. (fj)

Intuition

When man learns by deep meditation to still his body and shut off the five senses, a sixth sense, intuition, begins to express itself. God can be known only through the sense of intuition. He wants us to know Him. Hence every man is endowed with intuition. (ol)

Dealing with Anger

If anything in this world can make us angry or make us lose control of ourselves, it means simply that we do not have right attitude. If you analyze it, you will find that anger is a result of a desire frustrated. It may well be a noble desire, but still the basic fact is there: anger comes when we are going in a certain direction and then find we have met an obstacle—our desire to go ahead is obstructed. Attitude determines our reaction to this. If our attitude is right, we will, at those times, be able to say, "Lord, not my will, but Thine be done." This brings complete release from the emotion of anger—if we practice it sincerely. Right attitude comes when we work at it steadily; and it always brings peace of mind. (ol)

Next Page »