The devotee engages to the best of his ability into the play of life, fulfilling his role on this earth as student, employee, husband, wife, parent, neighbor, and community servant. But at the heart of the devotee is a burning desire for the Lord.
True realisation of the actual nature of this material world, its perishable, transitory and illusory aspects best dawns on a person in suffering.
We are responsible for what we are, and whatever we wish ourselves to be, we have the power to make ourselves. So we have to know how to act.
This is true knowledge: to seek the Self as the true end of wisdom always. To seek anything else is ignorance.
Manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others. If you have that awareness, you have good manners, no matter which fork you use.
One who is able to withdraw his senses from sense objects, as the tortoise draws his limbs within the shell, is to be understood as truly situated in knowledge.
