Swami Sivananda Quotes

He whose book of the heart has been opened needs no other books.

We can find Nature outside us only if we have first learned to know her within us. What is akin to her within us must be our guide. This marks out our path of enquiry.

I can tell you that what you're looking for is already inside you.

He whom the sages have been seeking in all these places is in our own hearts; the voice that you heard was right, says Vedanta, but the direction you gave to the voice was wrong.

Knowledge is inherent in man; no knowledge comes from outside; it is all inside. We say Newton discovered gravitation. Was it sitting anywhere waiting for him? It was in his own mind; the time came and he found it out. All knowledge that the world has ever received comes from the mind; the infinite library of the universe is in our own mind. The external world is simply the suggestion, the occasion, which sets you to study your own mind.

Spiritual growth requires the development of inner knowing and inner authority. It requires the heart, not the intellect.

I cannot tell you any spiritual truth that deep within you don't know already. All I can do is remind you of what you have forgotten.

Knowing yourself has to always come from within. The outside can inspire or guide you, but knowing has to come from within you.

A man of knowledge chooses a path with a heart and follows it and then he looks and rejoices and laughs and then he sees and knows.

I found thee not, O Lord, without, because I erred in seeking thee without that wert within.

The real truths of life are never entirely new to you or to anybody because there is a level deep down within you where you already know all the things, all those spiritual truths that you read or hear, and then recognize them. I say 'recognize' because you're not... it's not new.

I was on my own at Wellesley, surrounded by a lot of young women who were motivated and intellectually curious. I started to read because I was required to do so for class, but I soon found myself enjoying the seclusion of the library. I came to see reading as an important way to learn about people, including myself.

We have what we seek, it is there all the time, and if we give it time, it will make itself known to us.

A truth which comes to us from outside always bears the stamp of uncertainty. We can believe only what appears to each one of us in our own hearts as truth.

The deity is within you, not in ideas and books. Truth is lived, not taught.

The soul - your soul - knows all there is to know all the time. There's nothing hidden to it, nothing unknown. Yet knowing is not enough. The soul seeks to experience.

It's okay to ask questions, but get the answers. So, where are the answers? Since the questions came from within you, guess where the answers are? Within you.

Without going out of my door, I can know all things on earth. Without looking out of my window I could know the ways of heaven. The farther one travels, The less one knows, the less one really knows.

In the poorest cottage are Books: is one Book, wherein for several thousands of years the spirit of man has found light, and nourishment, and an interpreting response to whatever is Deepest in him.

A book is a mirror that offers us only what we already carry inside us.

To understand oneself requires patience, tolerant awareness; the self is a book of many volumes which you cannot read in a day, but when once you begin to read, you must read every word, every sentence, every paragraph for in them are the intimations of the whole. The beginning of it is the ending of it. If you know how to read, supreme wisdom is to be found.

Keep growing quietly and seriously throughout your whole development; you cannot disturb it more rudely than by looking outward and expecting from outside replies to questions that only your inmost feeling in your most hushed hour can perhaps answer.

Creatures are cups. The sciences and the arts and all branches of knowledge are inscriptions around the outside of the cups. When a cup shatters, the writing can no longer be read. The wine's the thing! The wine that's held in the mold of these physical cups. Drink the wine and know what lasts and what to love. The man who truly asks must be sure of two things: One, that he's mistaken in what he's doing or thinking now. And two, that there is a wisdom he doesn't know yet. Asking is half of knowing.

Books simply help you to see what is already within your self. That's what enlightenment is all about.

Why do you want to read others' books when there is the book of yourself?