TRAINING THE MIND FOR WISDOM

First Steps;
We are to take care of ourselves-that much we can do-and give up attending to others for a time. Let us perfect the means; the end will take care of itself. For the world can be good and pure. Only if our lives are good and pure. It is an effect, and we are the means. Therefore, let us purify ourselves. Let us make ourselves perfect. (2; 9)

Duty is seldom sweet. It is only when love greases its wheels that it runs smoothly; it is a continuous friction otherwise. (1:67)

He who wants to enter the realms of light must make a bundle of all “shop keeping” religion and cast it way before he can pass the gates. It is not that you do not get what you pray for; you get everything, but it is low, vulgar, a beggar’s religion. (7:83-84)

Believe, therefore, in yourselves, and if you want material wealth, work it out; it will come to you. If you want to be intellectual, work it out on the intellectual plane, and intellectual giants you shall be. And if you want to attain to freedom, work it out on the spiritual plane, and free you shall be. (3:427)

He, who always speculates as to what awaits him in the future, accomplishes nothing whatsoever. What you have understood as true and good, just do that at once. What’s the good of calculating what may or may not befall in the future? The span of life is so, so short – and computing results? God is the only dispenser of results; leave it to Him to do all that. What have you got to do with it? Don’t look that way, but go on working. (6; 455)

We must not be extremely attached to anything excepting God. See everything, do everything, but be not attached. As soon as extreme attachment comes, a man loses himself, he is no more master of himself, and he is a slave. If a woman is tremendously attached to man, she becomes a slave to that man. There is no use in being slave. There are higher things in this world than becoming a slave to a human being. Love and do well to everybody, but do not become a slave. In first place, attachment degenerates us individually, and in the second place, makes us extremely selfish. Owing to this failing, we want to injure others to do well to those we love. A good many of the wicked deeds done in this would are really done through attachment to certain persons. So all attachment excepting that for good works should be avoided; but love should be given to everyone. (4:6)

A man used to solitude, if brought in contact with the surging whirlpool of the world, will be crushed by it; just as the fish that lives in the deep sea water, as soon as it is brought to the surface, breaks into pieces, deprived of the weight of water on it that had kept it together. Can a man who has been used to the turmoil and the rush of life live at ease if he comes to a quiet place? He suffers and perchance may lose his mind. The ideal man is he who, in the midst of the greatest silence and solitude, finds the in tensest activity, and in the midst of the in tensest activity finds the silence and solitude of the desert. (1:34)

Always keep your mind joyful; if melancholy thoughts come, kick them out. (6:130)

[Will not the spirit break down at the thought of death and the heart be over powered by despondency?] Quite so. At first, the heart will break down, and despondency and gloomy thoughts will occupy your mind. But persist, let days pass like that-and then?
Then you will see that new strength has come into the heart, that the constant thought of death is giving you a new life and is making you more and more thoughtful. (5:239)

Isolation of the soul from all objects, mental and physical, is the goal; when that is attained, the soul will find that it was alone all the time, and it required no one make it happy. As long as we require someone else to make us happy, we are slaves. (5:239)

Do not pity anyone. Look upon all as your equal; cleanse yourself of the primal sin of inequality. We are all equal and must not think, “I am good and you are bad, and I am trying to reclaim you. “Equality is the sign of the free”. (8.18)

- Swami Vivekananda.