Sunday 2 September 2018

The Journey Within: Exploring the Path of Bhakti by Swami Radhanath







The mind is responsible for thinking, feeling, and intention…. Like a computer’s hard drive, the mind is a repository of facts and memories.  It doesn’t necessarily understand the significance of the information it processes, but it places sensation into two broad categories, pleasure and pain, and responds accordingly.




Just as the height of an ocean’s wave is influenced by the weather, so the mind, according to how it has been influenced by the sensory experiences we’ve had, responds to new sensory input with either desire or repulsion, elation or depression, courage or fear, celebration or lamentation.




The software of the mind is constantly updated through daily experience.




The mind changes constantly based on the ever-shifting experiences.




If we identify with the mind, we subject ourselves to all these shifting emotional states.




We are separate from our thoughts.  If we weren’t, how could we direct the mind away from them?




Self-realization and humility are inseparable.




Lying doesn’t refer only to untruths but to rationalizations as well.  Lies, rationalizations, justifications, hypocrisy: all of them accustom us to duplicity, or falsity.




There are several reasons that people choose not to speak the truth.  One is selfishness, but another is fear.




Humility gives us access to the grace required to overcome obstacles, especially the most difficult one, the ego.




Think of dharma as thing’s inherent quality – the part of something that cannot be separated from it.




We see everything according to our own mental state.




It is not a spiritual quality to remain passive where action may be required.




When we can stop thinking of “me” and “mine” and instead think of “ours”, our roots will hold strong in the soil of love, trust, and grace, reminding us that in giving we receive.




If we understand the reality of death, we would treat each other differently.




Spiritual knowledge is not just about knowing but transforming.




Every time we give in to anger, greed, or the cravings of the mind and senses, we’re watering the roots of those behaviors.



We create our own destiny by the choices we make.  But while we are free to make choices, once we have acted on them, we are bound to live with their consequences.  That’s karma.



There may not be anything you can do about what’s happened but as difficult as it is, you still have the freedom to choose how to respond to it.  How you respond now will determine your future in this life and beyond.