All Quotes by Sri Chinmoy
“Man invents war. Man discovers peace. He invents war from without. He discovers peace from within. War man throws. Peace man sows. The smile of war is the flood of human blood. The smile of peace is the love, below, above.”
“War forgets peace. Peace forgives war. War is the death of the life human. Peace is the birth of the Life Divine. Our vital passions want war. Our psychic emotions desire peace.”
“A human being has many divine qualities. But there has never been another unparalleled divine quality like man's self-sacrifice, nor can there ever be.”
“If failure has the strength to turn your life into bitterness itself, then patience has the strength to turn your life into the sweetest joy. Do not surrender to fate after a single failure. Failure, at most, precedes success.”
“Man forgets. God forgives. Man forgets God's Truth. God forgives man's ignorance.”
“Now what should be the relation between science and spirituality? It should be a relation of mutual acceptance and true understanding. It is an act of folly on our part to expect the same truth, the same knowledge and the same power from both science and spirituality. We must not do that. Neither must we set up the same goal for science and spirituality.”
“Science depends on outer experiment. Spirituality depends on inner searching and seeking. A scientist discovers the power that very often threatens even his own life. A spiritual seeker discovers the power that guides and moulds his life into a life of divine fulfilment.”
“Death is not the end. Death can never be the end. Death is the road. Life is the traveller. The soul is the guide.”
“What is love? From the spiritual and inner point of view, love is self-expansion. Human love binds and is bound. Divine Love expands, enlarges itself.”
“No religion is absolutely perfect. Yet not only do we fight for religion, but also are we often willing to sacrifice our lives for it. And what we hopelessly fail to do is to live it. A true religion is that which has no caste, no creed, no colour. It is but an all-uniting and all-pervading embrace.”
“The Buddha appeared on earth to dispel by the illumination of knowledge the ignorance that had enveloped the human mass, to release the human soul from the prison-cell of desire into the wideness of the silence and peace of Nirvana.”
“No mind, no form, I only exist; now ceased all will and thought; the final end of [Nature's dance, I am it whom I have sought.”
“Barren of events, rich in pretensions my earthly life. Obscurity my real name. Wholly unto myself I exist. I wrap no soul in my embrace. No mentor worthy of my calibre have I. I am all alone between failure and frustration. I am the red thread between nothingness and Eternity.”
“No more my heart shall sob or grieve. My days and nights dissolve in God's own Light. Above the toil of life, my soul is a Bird of Fire winging the Infinite.”
“First of all, let us try to know what love is. If love means to possess someone or something, then that is not real love, not pure love. If loves means to give oneself, to become one with everything and everyone, then that is real love. Real love is total oneness with the object loved and with the Possessor of love.”
“Where love is thick, faults are thin. If you really love someone, then it is difficult to find fault with him. His faults seem negligible, for love means oneness.”
“Spirituality tells the seeker not to live in the hoary past, not to live in the remote future, but to live in the immediacy of today, in the eternal Now.”
“Don't suffer! O my body, O my vital, O my mind, O my heart, do not suffer. Do not cherish suffering. Don't act like a fool. Don't think that your suffering is going to accelerate your spiritual progress.”
“If you do the right thing, eventually you will inspire others to do the right thing.”
“Love the world. Otherwise, you will be forced to carry the heaviest load: your own bitter self.”
“Since life is but a continuous series of experiences, everything ultimately helps me towards my final enlightenment.”
“Not the power to conquer others but the power to become one with others is the ultimate power.”
“The very nature of kindness is to spread. If you are kind to others, today they will be kind to you, and tomorrow to somebody else.”
“The world's oldest wisdom: each evil thought infuses the mind, sooner or later, with an unholy fear.”
“The waves of hatred-night can easily be dissolved in the sea of oneness-love.”
“I do not give up, I never give up, for there is nothing in this entire world that is irrevocably unchangeable.”
“To deliberately criticise another individual may cause an indelible stain on the critic.”
“Be kind, be all sympathy, for each and every human being is forced to fight against himself.”
“Alas, why does my mind have to walk through the dust of the past every day?”
“There is no human being on earth who does not have the capacity to offer the message of peace to the world at large. But what is needed now is the soulful willingness.”
“If you do not find peace inside your own heart, then you will not find it anywhere else on earth.”
“Either consciously or unconsciously we are searching for the highest Self, which is at once eternal and infinite.”
“If we live in our oneness-heart, we will feel the essence of all religions which is the love of God. Forgiveness, compassion, tolerance, brotherhood and the feeling of oneness are the signs of a true religion.”
“What we need is a life of balance — neither to wallow in the pleasures of wealth nor to lead a life of asceticism, but to embrace a life of simplicity and a heart of purity.”
“In my philosophy everyone, including the poor, sick and aged, belongs to one family — God’s Family. God is at once poor and rich, sick and healthy, young and old, for He exists inside each and every individual. Here on earth we are all God’s children.”
“I feel it is through prayer, meditation, and dedicated service that world peace can take place. Each individual has to try to make others happy, for it is only through happiness that we can have peace.”
“A true spiritual seeker will have the deepest respect and utmost reverence for all religions. We can treasure all religions and claim them as our very own.”
“The very acceptance of the spiritual life demands enormous courage. This courage is not the courage of a haughty, rough person who will strike others to assert his superiority; it is totally different. This courage is our constant awareness of what we are entering into, of what we are going to become, of what we are going to reveal.”
“Fear is bound to disappear when you realize that failure is not something shameful, damaging, destructive, or painful, but something natural.”
“Hatred is a disguised form of love. You can only hate someone whom you really wish to love, because if you were totally indifferent to that person, you could not even get up enough energy to hate him.”
“If you really want to love humanity, then you have to love humanity as it is now.”
“Life is nothing but the expansion of love. We can cultivate divine love by entering into the Source. The Source is God, who is all Love.”
“Man is by nature a lover. Only he has yet to discover the real thing to love. This quest awakens him to the fulfillment of his real Self.”
“Lack of harmony comes when I feel that I know how to do something better than you. Lack of harmony is the song and dance of superiority. Because everybody feels superior, disharmony at every moment is entering into our lives.”
“Unless and until you have developed a heart inundated with compassion, do not sit on the seat of judgement.”
“Is the world so unbearable? No! What we need is only a little more love for the world.”
“Love is something that never cared to learn how to judge anybody.”
“It is better to make mistakes than to lie idle.”
“Instead of creating a reason why you cannot love the world, try to create a reason why you should and must love the world.”
“The human mind is utterly stupid when it carries, quite willingly, the heavy burden of resentment.”
“To be rich is to give a smile with no expectation of return.”
“To be true to oneself is the hardest test of life.”
“Those who run after happiness will never be happy. Happiness is something that has to come to the fore from within.”
“Hope knows no fear. Hope dares to blossom even inside the abysmal abyss. Hope secretly feeds and strengthens promise.”
“A single thought has the power of a bullet: either it can destroy you or it can help you immensely.”
“The difficulty is that we try to perfect others before we perfect ourselves.”
“World-peace can be achieved when the power of love replaces the love of power.”
“No price is too great to pay for inner peace.”
“Do not judge but love and be loved, if you want to be really happy.”
“America’s special strength lies not in frightening the weak and challenging the strong, but in strengthening the weak and illumining the strong.”
“He was very pure in mind and heart. He was a lover: a lover not only of his race but a lover of all mankind. His heart was so broad, so great, so magnanimous, and this gave him a most sincere feeling of absolute oneness with everyone. This is what made him so divinely great.”
“Death is not the end death can never be the end. Death is the road. Life is the traveller. The Soul is the Guide”
“Death is not the end death can never be the end. Death is the road. Life is the traveller. The Soul is the Guide”
“Death is not the end”
“When the power of love replaces the love of power, man will have a new name: God.”
“Some seekers will do anything for their Self-realisation — except work for it.”
“I take the greatest lesson from compassion — it takes away all the conceit out of my life.”
“Our human nature likes more to destroy than to build, more to cry than to smile, and more to correct the world than to love and embrace the world.”
“Anger has an enemy: Peace. Peace has no enemy. Peace has a special friend: Joy. Anger has only one friend: Destruction.”
“What you do not use yourself, do not give to others. For example, advice.”
“The atom has taught me that the little things do count — most.”
“When we try to express the experience of the Infinite Consciousness, our human tongue loses all its power of expression. What shall we do then? We shall have to remain silent. Lo! In no time we shall realise that Silence is infinitely more eloquent and more fruitful than words.”
“I love my enemies for two reasons: they inspire me to recognise my weakness. They also inspire me to perfect my imperfect nature.”
“Try not to change the world. You will fail. Try to love the world. Lo, the world is changed. Changed forever.”