To understand anything is to find in it something which is our own.
—Swami Chinmayananda

      Knowledge can never be created—it can only be discovered. And every man who makes a great discovery is inspired.
—Swami Vivekananda

      Unless there is the wisdom of the creative God surging forth in our souls, detachment is impossible. Viveka or discriminating the Real from the unreal, is a prerequisite for vairagya, or non-attachment. One cannot detach oneself from anything unless there is an understanding of the nature of the relationship with that thing for oneself…When knowledge dawns, there is a spontaneous dropping out of all relationship. And the highest form of detachment is not a sundering of oneself from anything existent but the raising of oneself to a consciousness of the pervasive character of the Reality that exists equally in the subject and the object, as well as in between the two. The great non-attachment of which the Bhagavad Gita speaks is not an ordinary austere attitude of the individual but a flowering of wisdom in the form of the recognition of the omnipresence of the Supreme Creator…Here is an automatic rising of the soul to an awareness where desires have no significance whatsoever.
—Swami Krishnananda

      The whole cosmos is a vehicle rushing in tremendous speed towards Universal Selfhood, the great Atman of the cosmos, the God of creation, the Absolute, the Brahman…Hence, perform action with the consciousness of its being a sacrifice of your individuality, gradually, by degrees, towards the larger purpose of the consciousness of the deity that is transcending both you as an agent and the end as the limited object outside. This synthesis between the subject and the object is the deity…We cannot step over the present state of finitude and enter the higher dimension until we enter the deity which is transcendent to our present state of finitude…a higher consciousness of our own self. It is our higher self calling us…
      There are eighteen days of the Mahabharata War. Maybe there are eighteen stages of the ascent. It is difficult to imagine what stages there are, how many steps we have to climb to win the last battle.
—Swami Krishnananda

     Live in the world like an ant. The world contains a mixture of truth and untruth, sugar and sand. Be an ant and take the sugar.
—Ramakrishna

      Just as electrons, or atoms of hydrogen and oxygen that compose steam, water, and ice, are manifestations of different rates of vibration of one primal energy, so man, beasts, worlds and all projections of creation are changeable forms of the One Spirit. Even if planets were hurled from their orbits, even if all matter were to melt into nothingness, there could be no iota of vacant space—space empty of Spirit. Forms of creation and the Great Void—both are equally pervaded by Spirit. Kingdoms may topple, oceans evaporate, and the earth turn into vapor—still Spirit remains untouched, hidden and indestructible.
      When through meditation, man chooses to be identified with the unchangeable Spirit, he will no longer be deluded and tortured by the pandemonium of change.
—Paramahansa Yogananda

      Ordinary human beings, studying and working with material life, are circumscribed in their understanding by their sense perceptions and rationalizing intelligence. With undeveloped intuition, their limited power of intellectuality cannot truly comprehend matters of the spirit even when such truth is expounded to them. Though colossal intellects and famous theologians may be well read about the soul, they may nevertheless understand little about it! On the other hand, even illiterates given to deep meditation will be able clearly to describe the nature of the soul from their knowledge of the soul and actual realization of the divine Self.
      Soul and Spirit and all inner truths can be apprehended only by developing the power of intuition by regular deep meditation. Intelligence and sense perceptions can perceive only phenomena or qualities of the Eternal substance; intuition alone can perceive the essence of that substance. Therefore, it is evident that the culture of intuition by meditation must precede true perception.
      All power of knowing borrows its ability from intuition. The highest experience of intuition is that by which the soul knows Itself; the knower, knowing and known exist as one.
—Paramahansa Yogananda

      The body is neither yours nor mine nor anybody's. These bodies are coming and going by the laws of nature. But we are free, standing as a witness.
—Swami Vivekananda

     All other kinds of knowledge are but non-knowledge in comparison with Self-knowledge.
—Swami Vivekananda

      Real religion begins where this little universe ends. There is only one way to attain to freedom...by giving up this little life, giving up heaven, body, mind, everything that is limited and conditioned. If we give up our attachment to this little universe of the senses or of the mind, we shall be free immediately. The only way to come out of bondage is to go beyond the limitation of law, to go beyond causation...I am free, and was free, and always will be free.
—Swami Vivekananda

     The true offering to a guru is to know your self.
—Sri Sathya Sai Baba