Swami Satyananda Saraswati – Yoga-Vedanta, January 1956
• When suffering becomes unbearable, understand that it is the limit of suffering and there is not even an iota of delay for the experience of pure joy to make its way to you.
The sense of upliftment and fall, sunrise and sunset, sorrow and joy, highs and lows, ups and downs, victory and loss – they are but eternal laws of nature.
Has not the robber of yesterday transformed into a saint today? Lo, yesterday’s sinner is a saint today. The demon alone needs transformation, so he can become a human.
After facing defeat in life and becoming disappointed, blaming the creator and sitting with folded hands, is like applying demonic darkness to the bright face of humanity.
Creations of happiness and sorrow are certainly imaginations of the mind.
Unbroken remembrance alone is not a sign of love, but one out of many aspects of love. Unbroken remembrance is one of the highest aspects.
Did you ask about the questions of sacrifice for a true devotee? If you give something in full consensus of your heart that is called a ‘gift’. A consensus act of sacrifice done willfully and wholeheartedly is synonymous to voluntary self-restraint, temperance and love. The gift is given, while the sacrifice is taken as an offering.
Where there is true love, is there any question of freedom or bondage? Wanting to be free from your ishta devata so your whims and fancies are met, is that really freedom? Can a truthful and devout lover experience bliss in the absence of his ishta devata? While remembering your ishta devata, yet being opiniated towards the codes set by him, why do you desire to fulfil your own set of principles? Why fall in the maze of these conflicts? Let devout love in all its purity be the ruling principle of your life. (Every disciple aiming to achieve guru-prem must know, understand and embrace these pearls of wisdom in life.)
Can there be happiness without shram, hard work to exhaust karma? Can there be destiny without purushtartha, self-effort?