Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Quotes & Sayings

free of the five evils which assail men: excessive sleep, fear, anger, weakness of mind, and procrastination. — Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

The sattvic perform sacrifices with their entire mind fixed on the purpose of the sacrifice. Without thought of reward, they follow the teachings of the scriptures. 12 The rajasic perform sacrifices for the sake of show and the good it will bring them. 13 The tamasic perform sacrifices ignoring both the letter and the spirit. They omit the proper prayers, the proper offerings, the proper food, and the proper faith. — Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

To save the family, abandon a man;
to save the village, abandon a family;
to save the country, abandon a village;
to save the soul, abandon the earth. — Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

Pleasure from the senses seems like nectar at first, but it is bitter as poison in the end. — Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

Krishna was the unborn original Personality of Godhead, appearing on earth to destroy demonic men and to establish the eternal religion, pure love of God. — Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

Scriptural knowledge is successful when it results in humility and good conduct, wealth is successful when it is both enjoyed and given away in charity, and marriage is successful when the wife is enjoyed and bears offspring. — Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

This chapter also explores the question, "Who is the true yogi?" This word yogi may bring to mind images of amazing people who do strange contortions with their bodies. — Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

Ramakrishna says, "One who has merely heard of fire has ajnana, ignorance. One who has seen fire has jnana. But one who has actually built a fire and cooked on it has vijnana." In — Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

Pleasures conceived in the world of the senses have a beginning and an end and give birth to misery, Arjuna. — Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

O Krishna, the mind is restless — Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

the Gita is not a book of commandments but a book of choices. — Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

The wise unify their consciousness and abandon attachment to the fruits of action, — Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

We must act in a selfless spirit, Krishna says, without ego-involvement and without getting entangled in whether things work out the way we want; only then will we not fall into the terrible net of karma. We cannot hope to escape karma by refraining from our duties: even to survive in the world, we must act. — Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

Perform all work carefully, guided by compassion. — Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

The awakened sages call a person wise when all his undertakings are free from anxiety about results; all his selfish desires have been consumed in the fire of knowledge. — Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

Renounce and enjoy." Those who are compulsively attached to the results of action cannot really enjoy what they do; they get downcast when things do not work out and cling more desperately when they do. So the Gita classifies the karma of attachment as pleasant at first, but "bitter as poison in the end" (18:38), because of the painful bondage of conditioning. Again, — Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

there is more to life than the everyday experience of our senses. — Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

Guna means strand, and in the Gita the gunas are described as the very fabric of existence, the veil that hides unity in a covering of diversity. Tamas is maya's power of concealment, the darkness or ignorance that hides unitive reality; rajas distracts and scatters awareness, turning it away from reality toward the diversity of the outside world. Thus the gunas are essentially born of the mind. When the mind's activity is stilled, we see life as it is. — Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

What is the greatest wonder in the world?
That, every single day, people die,
Yet the living think they are immortal. — Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

Our mistake is in taking this for ultimate reality, like the dreamer thinking that nothing is real except his dream. — Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

Be aware of me always, adore me, make every act an offering to me, and you shall come to me; this I promise; for you are dear to me. — Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

If I could offer only one key to understanding this divine dialogue, it would be to remember that it takes place in the depths of consciousness and that Krishna is not some external being, human or superhuman, but the spark of divinity that lies at the core of the human personality. This is not literary or philosophical conjecture; Krishna says as much to Arjuna over and over: "I am the Self in the heart of every creature, Arjuna, and the beginning, middle, and end of their existence" (10:20). — Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

But when you move amidst the world of sense, free from attachment and aversion alike, 65 there comes the peace in which all sorrows end, and you live in the wisdom of the Self. 66 — Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

we never really encounter the world; all we experience is our own nervous system. — Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

We are not cabin-dwellers, born to a life cramped and confined; we are meant to explore, to seek, to push the limits of our potential as human beings. The world of the senses is just a base camp: we are meant to be as much at home in consciousness as in the world of physical reality. — Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

Before creation I alone was, there was no other existence of the nature of cause and effect different from Me. After the creative cycle ends also, I alone exist. For, this universe is also Myself, and when everything is dissolved in its cause in Pralaya, what remains is only Myself. — Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

makes his sun rise on the wicked and on the good, and sends rain to the righteous and to the unrighteous — Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

Set thy heart upon thy work, but never on its reward. — Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

Never Let Your Inner Mental Peace Be Disturbed By External Circumstances. — Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

Man is the slave of money, but money is no man's slave — Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

Those unacquainted with any language but their own are generally very exclusive in matters of taste. — Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

Selfish action imprisons the world. Act selflessly, without any thought of personal profit. — Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

While seeing or hearing, touching or smelling; eating, moving about, or sleeping; breathing 9 or speaking, letting go or holding on, even opening or closing the eyes, they understand that these are only the movements of the senses among sense objects. 10 — Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

They say that life is an accident, driven by sexual desire, that the universe has no moral order, no truth, no God.

Driven by insatiable lusts, drunk on the arrogance of power, hypocritical, deluded, their actions foul with self-seeking, tormented by a vast anxiety that continues until their death, convinced that the gratification of desire is life's sole aim, bound by a hundred shackles of hope, enslaved by their greed, they squander their time dishonestly piling up mountains of wealth.

"Today I got this desire, and tomorrow I will get that one; all these riches are mine, and soon I will have even more. Already I have killed these enemies, and soon I will kill the rest. I am the lord, the enjoyer, successful, happy, and strong, noble, and rich, and famous. Who on earth is my equal? — Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

Krishna assures Arjuna that his basic nature is not subject to time and death; yet he reminds him that he cannot realize this truth if he cannot see beyond the dualities of life: pleasure and pain, success and failure, even heat and cold. The Gita does not teach a spirituality aimed at an enjoyable life in the hereafter, nor does it teach a way to enhance power in this life or the next. It teaches a basic detachment from pleasure and pain, as this chapter says more than once. Only in this way can an individual rise above the conditioning of life's dualities and identify with the Atman, the immortal Self. Also, — Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

Lust, anger, and greed are the three doors to hell — Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

How can you truly love the one you're with when you can't forget the one who got away? — Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

Over-attachment for one's close relatives is simply born of ignorance. Every creature in the world is born alone and dies alone. He experiences the results of his own good and evil deeds and in the end leaves the present body to accept another. The belief that one person is the relation of another is nothing more than illusion. — Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

Not by refraining from action does man attain freedom from action. Not by mere renunciation does he attain supreme perfection. — Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

The happiness which comes from long practice, which leads to the end of suffering, which at first is like poison, but at last like nectar - this kind of happiness arises from the serenity of one's own mind. — Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

It is Nature that causes all movement. Deluded by the ego, the fool harbors the perception that says "I did it". — Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

Krishna warns Arjuna that a life of work, even successful work, cannot be fulfilling without Self-knowledge. Ultimately, the true Self within him is not affected by what he does, whether good or bad. Only knowledge of the Self, which rises like the sun at dawn, can fulfill the purpose of his life and lead him beyond rebirth. This — Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

The true goal of action is knowledge of the Self. — Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

As for those who seek the transcendental Reality, without name, without form, contemplating the Unmanifested, beyond the reach of thought and of feeling, 4 with their senses subdued and mind serene and striving for the good of all beings, they too will verily come unto me. — Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

without being able to arrive at its end, then, O Sanjaya, I had no hope of success. When I heard that Yudhishthira, beaten by Saubala at the game of dice and deprived of his kingdom as a consequence thereof, had still been attended upon by his brothers of — Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

We behold what we are, and we are what we behold. — Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

Those who remember me at the time of death will come to me. Do not doubt this. 6 Whatever occupies the mind at the time of death determines the destination of the dying; always they will tend toward that state of being. 7 Therefore, remember me at all times and fight on. With your heart and mind intent on me, you will surely come to me. 8 — Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

Tat tvam asi: "Thou art That." Atman is Brahman: the Self in each person is not different from the Godhead. — Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

It was Vyasa's genius to take the whole great Mahabharata epic and see it as metaphor for the perennial war between the forces of light and the forces of darkness in every human heart. — Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

Having no knowledge of models other than what they meet with in their own tongue, the standard they have formed of purity and taste in composition must necessarily be a narrow one. — Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

Reshape yourself through the power of your will; never let yourself be degraded by self-will. — Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa