Twenty Spiritual Sparks

1. I follow the religion of love.

2. I am a true Christian, a true Musalman, a true Hindu, a true Buddhist, a true Sikh and a true Parsi.

3. I can come nearer to you, but you must draw me by a purified heart and a strong, pure will.

4. No religion has monopoly over Truth or God. Each has a particular feature which it specially treasures, but there are also essential aspects common to all.

5. All prophets have only delivered and proclaimed in different languages the same principles of Eternal Goodness and Eternal Truth.

6. The lovers of God have no religion, but God alone.

7. Religion is essentially the art and the theory of the remaking of man. Man is not a finished creation.

8. Man is spiritually impoverished. He has the need for religion. And there is a need for co-operation among religions.

9. Man's pilgrimage through the many to the one is the most sacred pilgrimage. His pilgrimage is his journey through sorrow and pain to the goal of bliss in God.

10. Money can help you to get medicines but not health. Money can help you to get soft pillows, but not sound sleep. Money can help you to get material comforts, but not eternal bliss. Money can help you to get ornaments, but not beauty. Money will help you to get an electric earphone, but not natural hearing. Attain the supreme wealth wisdom, you will have everything.

11. Pain and death exist. Their ultimate cause is ignorance. Their cure is knowledge of Brahman or experience of the eternal bliss of the Supreme Self.

12. One need not necessarily or always have to wait for another birth to enjoy the fruits of present Karmas. According to the demerit of the Karmas one can experience their fruits within years, months, weeks, or days.

13. Ethics and spiritual practices open the door to Truth or the spirit.

14. Let your service be free from the taint of seeking recognition, power or position. Let your motive be altruistic.

15. Sacrifice means an act directed to the welfare of all life without receiving or desiring a return for it, either of a temporal or spiritual nature.

16. Cultivate cosmic love. Cultivate divine love. It will finally merge in the ocean of beauty, Truth and Bliss.

17. Endeavour enables man to endure and endurance stimulates his endeavour.

18. Purification, illumination, unification, perfection and liberation are the stages in the spiritual path.

19. Samadhi is seeing things as a whole as one.

20. Swim in the ocean of spiritual awareness. Enjoy the stupendous stillness of God-consciousness. Plunge in the river of eternal life. Behold the eternal light of Divine Beauty.


-Swami Sivananda