Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa used to say, “Forget all you have learned; become a child again. Then it will be easy to realize that wisdom.” Sometimes, learning becomes an obstacle if you don’t know what and how much to learn. So, limit your reading and put into practice what you read. Just select one or two books—anything that will remind you of

only when we become prophets ourselves will we fully understand the scriptures. That is nature’s law. If you want to understand me fully, you must become me. Otherwise, you can understand me only according to your own capacity. In the same way, God cannot be understood by books alone. God can only be understood when you become God. A Tamil proverb

“Satyam bruvat priyam bruvat.” “Speak what is true, speak what is pleasant.” And

If tapas is understood in this light, we will look forward to pain; we will even thank people who cause it, since they are giving us the opportunity to steady our minds and burn out impurities.

“Mauna vākya Prākṛtita Parabrahma tattvam.” “The Parabrahma tattvam, or unmanifested supreme principle, can only be explained by silence, not by words.” In not only the physical silence, but in the real mental silence, the wisdom dawns.

As the Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad says, “Nantaḥ-prajñām, na bahis-prajñām, nobhayataḥ-prajñām, na prajñāna-ghanam, na prajñām, naprajñām.” “Not inside knowledge, not outside knowledge, not knowledge itself, not ignorance.” It’s all expressed in the negative: you can’t grasp it, you can’t think of it, you can’t mark it with a symbol; it has no name or form,

The great South Indian saint, Thirumular, said, “Where the mind goes, the prāṇa follows.”

By cultivating attitudes of friendliness toward the happy, compassion for the unhappy, delight in the virtuous and disregard toward the wicked, the mind-stuff retains its undisturbed calmness.

should not disturb other people’s faith, nor let ourselves get disturbed from our faith. Stick to one thing and forge ahead with that. Why do you want to have this one-pointed concentration? To make the mind clear so you can transcend it. You are not going to cling to the object but just use it as a ladder to climb up. Once you have reached the