Achariya Ajay Jeffrey Bauer
Speaks on "Sacred Verses"
Sunday, October 4, 2015 at 11:00am
Letters are bound together through meaning to form words; words are bound together through meaning to form sentences; sentences are bound together through meaning to form the verses of a holy scripture. The sacred thread of deep meaning, the sutra that binds that holy scripture together, is the ideal of God and God realization. Indeed the sacred ideal of God and God realization is the sutra that unifies all the seemingly disparate elements of life itself. The ostensibly fragmented and unrelated “verses” of our lives are unified through the ideal of God and God realization.
—Acharya Ajay
From the Gurus and Swamis: AUM
"Spiritual life cannot be compartmentalized. True and holistic awareness of life is the goal of subjectivity and comes from the consciousness that every expression, perception and aspect of life is permeated by the same spirit that is within us. Meditation therefore is as broad as life itself. To be spiritual is to see all, to do all, to love all in the consciousness of God."
—Swami Kamalananda, “Reflections on Still Waters”
"Sutras is the plural form of the singular noun sutra, a Sanskrit word meaning thread. The implication here is that, just as the pearls of a beautiful necklace are held together by a central thread, even so all the ideals, concepts, principles, techniques and methods of yoga are coordinated with and guided by the central truth of God and the realization of God."
—Swami Premananda, “Raja Yoga”
In waking, eating, working, dreaming, sleeping,
Serving, meditating, chanting, divinely loving,
My soul will constantly hum, unheard by any:
God! God! God!
—Swami Yogananda Paramhansa
Noble Thoughts: ("Let Noble Thoughts come to us from all sides." —Rigveda)
"The meaning of the living words that come out of the experiences of great hearts can never be exhausted by any one system of logical interpretation. They have to be endlessly explained by the commentaries of individual lives, and gain an added mystery in each new revelation."
—Rabindranath Tagore, "Sadhana"
"I believe in you my soul, the other I am
must not abase itself to you,
And you must not be abased to the other.
Loafe with me on the grass, loose the stop from your throat,
Not words, not music or rhyme I want, not custom or lecture,
not even the best,
Only the lull I like, the hum of your valved throat."
Walt Whitman, "Leaves of Grass"
"Try and realize always the presence of God. To attain this, we must convince ourselves of what is of faith, vis., that God dwells in the inmost heart of man, that we shall find Him within ourselves, if we will only enter in and seek Him there, that He is in our heart, to inspire us with holy thoughts, and with good desires, which incline us to what is right ... The great thing is always to be attentive and faithful to this voice within us."
—John Nicholas Grou, "Manual for Interior Souls"