From ‘At Every Breath, A Teaching. Stories about the life and teachings of Swami Chinmayananda’ by Rudite Emir

Radhika ….had brought her small infant to Swamiji and asked “How do I teach him to become a good human being?”

“You don’t have to mold him or teach him anything,” was Swamiji’s reply. “You just keep improving as a person, and he’ll be fine.”

“There is God. There is no doubt about it. Yes, I have seen Him, but not in form. God is not a form. God is a state of consciousness. In order for the average man to conceive of the idea, a form is given. Our national flag is not the form of our country. It represents our country. Similarly, God in various forms, whether it is the cross or the crescent of Krishna, represents a state of consciousness to be reached.”

“When unwanted thoughts come to torture you, don’t try to hold them back. Don’t suppress them! Instead, shine a very bright spotlight on them. They will shy away from so much attention and scurry away out of view!”

“Soar beyond the mind,” ………. Don’t try to make a dark room bright by shoveling out darkness with a shovel, he said. Instead, simply bring in the light.

“Its very difficult to control one’s senses: seeing, hearing, touch … Even one single sense is very difficult to control, even one sense at a time. Look, sex involves all the senses at once: touch, sight, smell ….thats why it’s the last one to go. It’s natural that that’s the most difficult urge to master.”

He said that when the mind grows sluggish in this way, the seeker must give it some tapas [austerity practice]: deprive it of food or give it a cold shower. The mind will straighten out and get back into shape, he said…..