There are many people who fast, whose fast is nothing but hunger and thirst. There are those whose prayer is no better than wakefulness and hardship. The eating and drinking in case of the former and sleeping in the latter’s case is a far better option.
Behold the man who shields his family from all suffering. Has not his body become a willing vessel for affliction? Without good men to hold it up, the family house will fall when misfortune descends.
Ignorance is the failure to discriminate between permanent and impermanent, pure and impure, bliss and suffering, Self and non-Self.
The essence of the offering is that it be analogous to the sin, and that a man offer to God his desires and passions, for this is more acceptable than all.
Without faith there is no knowledge, without knowledge there is no virtuous conduct, without virtues there is no deliverance, and without deliverance there is no perfection.
This is peace, this is excellent, namely the calm of all impulses, the casting out of all “basis”, the extinction of craving, dispassion, stopping-nirvana.
Anyone that is fallen into the grip of lust, wrath, or attachment…by contemplation of the Supreme Being, with a moment’s remembrance of God shall he be saved.
