Swami Sivananda Quotes

There isn't anything except your own life that can be used as ground for your spiritual practice. Spiritual practice is your life, twenty-four hours a day.

. . . in the spiritual life you must practice. And the only way to practice is by trying to solve your problems with prayer. This develops your spiritual power and it also trains you to use that spiritual power in the most effective way.

A primary goal of the spiritual life is to learn to quiet the mind through prayer and meditation, through spiritual practice, so that we can hear what in both Judaism and Christianity, is called the small, still voice within.

By growing a spiritual practice, we are given all that we need.

I think we have to be careful about what we label as a prerequisite for spirituality. I don't think you have to know a lot to have a spiritual life, but knowing gives life richness.

The spiritual life is not a life before, after, or beyond our everyday existence. No, the spiritual life can only be real when it is lived in the midst of the pains and joys of the here and now.

Meditation is not a means to an end. It is both the means and the end.

The only trouble is that in the spiritual life there are no tricks and no shortcuts. Those who imagine that they can discover spiritual gimmicks and put them to work for themselves usually ignore God's will and his grace.

Do you know that the words meditation and medicine come from the same root? Meditation is a kind of medicine; its use is only for the time being. Once you have learned the quality, then you need not do any particular meditation, then the meditation has to spread all over your life. Only when you are meditative twenty-four hours a day then can you attain, then you have attained. Even sleeping is meditation.

Waiting time is not wasting time. Waiting patiently in expectation is the foundation of the spiritual life.

Know this also to be one of the spiritual practices, a discipline for God - realisation. Its aim also is Self - realisation.

I'm not religious, but I am spiritual and I am creating my own practice.

Meditation means to know life beyond the sphere of the physical; to know and experience life not just at the surface but at the source.

To live a spiritual life we must first find the courage to enter into the desert of loneliness and to change it by gentle and persistent efforts into a garden of solitude.

The greatest help to spiritual life is meditation. In meditation we divest ourselves of all material conditions and feel our divine nature. We do not depend upon any external help in meditation. The touch of the soul can paint the brightest color even in the dingiest places; it can cast a fragrance over the vilest thing; it can make the wicked divine-and all enmity, all selfishness is effaced.

The way you get more is by having a daily spiritual practice.

I believe joy is a spiritual practice we have to work at.

You can set your intention to better understand your soul, your spirit, through daily practices like prayer, yoga and meditation, etc.

There is no better means of attainment to the spiritual life Than by continually beginning again.

I encourage people to have a daily spiritual practice; that's the best way to take care of yourself. If you have that daily practice, it means you're getting divine guidance, and you're not being guided by your ego or your personality.

I find that when I put my spiritual life first, the rest of my life is easy. When I put my career first, that's when I have problems.

My lectures, based on Islamic teachings, were on various subjects. Some of the titles were, 'The Intoxication of Life,' 'The Purpose of Life,' 'The Real Cause of Man's Distress,' 'The Journey to the Goal in Life,' and, one of my favorites, 'The Heart of Man.' They contained important insights that spoke to something deep inside me.

I know there's a principle of spirit. It works without space-time. I am subject to that principle, in spirit and in belief of body. Learn how spirit works, a few simple rules, living a perfect spiritual life is easy.

Like Yoga, the spiritual life is actually very difficult.

An authentic life is the most personal form of worship. Everyday life has become my prayer.