Monthly Readings

March 5, 2004

Conversations with Swami Turiyananda – Part 5

SWAMI TURIYANANDA: “Swamiji used to say: ‘The mind has to be made malleable like clay. Just as clay sticks wherever you throw it, so the mind must be made to dwell upon whatever object you concentrate it.’”
February 5, 2004

Conversations with Swami Turiyananda – Part 4

There are three steps to spiritual realization: hearing the truth, reasoning upon the truth, and meditation on the truth. What is hearing the truth like? It is like listening to music as the deer does, fascinated by it. He is completely unaware of the hunter aiming at him. To meditate on the truth is to become absorbed—like the legendary cockroach, which gives up its own nature and becomes a caterpillar by constantly thinking of a caterpillar.
January 5, 2004

Christ the Messenger – Part 2

We have read different stories that have been written about him; we know the scholars and their writings, and the higher criticism; and we know all that has been done by study. We are not here to discuss how much of the New Testament is true, we are not here to discuss how much of that life is historical. It does not matter at all whether the New Testament was written within five hundred years of his birth, nor does it matter even, how much of that life is true.
December 5, 2003

Christ the Messenger – Part 1

The wave rises on the ocean, and there is a hollow. Again another wave rises, perhaps bigger than the former, to fall down again, similarly, again to rise—driving onward. In the march of events, we notice the rise and fall, and we generally look towards the rise, forgetting the fall. But both are necessary, and both are great.
November 5, 2003

Conversations with Swami Turiyananda – Part 3

The wise do not teach spiritual precepts unless they are asked to do so; they hide their wisdom. They impart knowledge only when there is genuine earnestness in the seeker. They do not enter into arguments. Spiritual teachers are like physicians: First, they have to diagnose at the disease of the patient, then they administer the medicine.