Swami Rama Says

• In the words of the sages, he used to say, “You have a body, but you are not the body. You are in the body, yet you are beyond the body. Birth and death are like two commas in the poem of life. For a yogi there is nothing like death. Just as an ordinary person takes off an old tattered garment and puts on a new one, so does a yogi cast off his worn-out body and assume a new one.”
  
  
• You are a child of the Divine and you have infinite potential to become and to be anything you wish
  
  
• “Chinnamasta is one of then ten mahavidyas [the exalted paths of tantra sadhana]. Only the most advanced yogis dare to undertake the practice that reveals this supreme knowledge, and only those who have conquered the fear of death are fit to follow this path. Death is not an obstacle to this practice; rather, it becomes a doorway to the inner chamber of the Divine Mother Chinnamasta, wherein she stands on the pedestal of Shiva.
  
  During this practice there are three different ways to pass through the corridor of death and still continue the practice. First, you can cast off your body voluntarily before death approaches and enter another body, bypassing the process of birth. In the yogic tradition this method is known as para-kaya pravesha.
  
  Another way is to die a normal death; the accomplished master accompanies you spiritually during this transition, and pushing the forces of nature aside, he takes charge of your destiny and decides when, where, and how you are going to be reborn. During the pregnancy he prevents you from being affected by the nine-month slumber. He preserves the knowledge you gained before you died and gradually deposits it as the brain matures in the new body, and throughout all this the master continues the practice on your behalf. When the time comes, he initiates you and you pick up the practice.
  
  The third way is to go through the experience of death and yet remain physically alive. For who is ignorant, social death is even more painful than physical death. When your reputation is ruined, when you are socially humiliated and abandoned by those you love, when people suddenly change their perception of you and identify you as something you are not – that is death: the disappearance of the old persona and the appearance of the new.
  
  
• Sages do not belong to any culture, religion, caste or creed. They belong to God. They move like the wind and cannot be captured by anyone. Their religion is the religion of love. They converse among themselves in the language known as sandhya bhasha, the twilight language
  
  
• Only one who remains unaffected by honor and insult can keep the divine flame alive.
  
  
• As part of a systematic practice, first learn to sit with your head, neck and trunk straight. It is the healthiest and most comfortable way of sitting. The pressure at the base of the spine creates heat, and as heat increases, the pranic forces expand and rise upward. Because the spine is straight and the nervous system is relaxed, the pranic energy flows freely upward along the spinal column toward the head. In this pose, you are free from sloth and inertia. Without a proper posture you will face numberless obstacles in your practice.
  
  ……..As far as technique is concerned, first relax your body and mind. Calm your breath. Detach yourself from the external world and watch your breath.
  
  Have faith in yourself, in your practice, in the master who taught you, and in grace, which accompanies you all the time. The combined force of your burning desire, the actual practice, and God’s grace will guide u. And whenever you are about to make a mistake, that same force will guide you.
  
  
• “Tapas means to practice brahmacharya,” said Aghori Baba. “There is so much fuss about brahmacharya. Generally people think it means celibacy. That is only partially true. Brahmacharya means to delight in supreme consciousness. Driven by the primitive urges of hunger, sleep, sex and self-preservation, consciousness slides to its lowest rung, and is there. It manifests in the form of sense cravings, which human beings drain a great deal of energy to fulfill, and there comes a time when both body and mind become weak and eventually empty. A weak body and mind cannot withstand the storms of disease, old age and death. Brahmacharya means to conquer the cravings of the senses and mind, to preserve energy, to become strong in body and mind. Only then, by using the body and mind as a tool, is it possible to rediscover the highest level of consciousness, which is the finest aspect of yourself.”
  
  
• Knowledge without direct experience is like being married to someone who lives in a picture. For direct experience, you need to do the practices. First learn to sit properly, breathe properly and meditate properly. Those who practice what is written in the scriptures enjoy silence; those who simply worship the scriptures become defensive and prone to argument.
  
  
• The first step is to overcome your identification with your body. ‘This body is me’ or ‘I am this body’ is what causes consciousness to remain bound. Free your consciousness from the identification with your body. Then you will neither find yourself the doer of your action nor be affected by the fruits of your action.
  
  The realization that the body and mind are motivated by the intrinsic attributes of nature to perform actions will loosen your karmic bonds. Body, breath, mind and soul are held together by the strings of karma, and strongest among all strands of this rope is attachment to the body. That is why despite excruciating pain, people are still not able to leave the body easily. Attachment clouds the inner vision and thus the person fails to know that even though he has a body, he is separate from the body.
  
  Knowing the difference between the body and the soul is called discrimination. Experiencing oneself as independent from the existence of the body is called ‘self-realization’.
  
  
• The Divine is all-pervading, residing in its full brilliance in every heart. You connect yourself with the Divine with relative ease by doing your sadhana at shrines and holy sites, but if you get attached to these places, your consciousness will contract. These shrines are doorways, not destinations. Move on to the next holy site and see where that doorway leads you.
  
  
• To start with A, B, C and at the time of death lose everything you have learned, and in the next life to start again with A, B, C! What a waste of time! The yogis retain their memory by casting off their bodies without dying. When they enter a new body they can pick up where they left off.
  
  
• ……without living in silence for a considerable time, maintaining a deeper state of meditation is not possible
  
  
• A human being is not body alone, not mind alone. Between body and mind there is something called breath………If you want to be healthy and happy and if you wish to experience everlasting peace and tranquility, better pay attention to your breathing.
  
  
• ……..on yoga nidra (yogic sleep)………….when you are awake your mind resides at the center between the eyebrows; during the dreaming state it is at the throat center, and during deep sleep it is at the heart center……the important thing in yoga nidra is to pass quickly through the intermediate state of dreaming, which requires training your mind to spend as little time as possible at the throat center while it travels from the eyebrow center to the heart center.
  
  …..yoga nidra is a practice that allows you to fall asleep at will, remain aware of yourself and return to the waking state at will
  
  
• The word guru means ‘one who dispels the darkness of ignorance’; gurudeva means ‘divine being, the bright being that dispels the darkness of ignorance