For him who has been blessed by an awareness of the atma (soul), how can anything worldly bring grief or joy?             ~Gita Vahini p.39

These words, like a soothing balm, to inspire us to aspire for the most extraordinary: realization of our reality. However, many steps need to be taken along the way toward this goal. Swami says:

“Now there are two processes in this. To give up all promptings of desire in the mind is the negative process; to implant joy, ever present joy therein, is the positive aspect. The negative process is to remove all the seedlings of wrong and evil from the mind; the positive process is to grow, in the field cleansed thus, the crop of attachment to God! The cultivation of the crop you need is positive; the plucking of the weeds is the negative stage. The pleasures the senses draw from the objective world are weeds; the crop is attachment to God. The mind is a bundle of wishes, and unless these wishes are removed by their roots, there is no hope of destroying the mind, which is a great obstacle in the path of spiritual progress. When the yarn that comprises the cloth is taken out, one by one, what remains of the cloth? And when mind vanishes, the stithprajna is made.” (Stithprajna is defined as one who is “stable in the knowledge and awareness of the atma only.”)

Gita Vhini P. 37

When man is entangled until the moment of death in stilling the clamor of the senses and catering to the needs of this illusory world, how can he thrill with the ecstasy of the awareness of his own atmic core? From the monarch in the palace to the beggar in the streets, all are caught up in the game of extracting pleasure from the outer world.”

Sanathana Sarathi, January 1980 p.5

“So, the first thing to be conquered is Kama, the demon of desire. For this, it is unnecessary to wage a huge war. It is also unnecessary to use pleasing words to persuade the desire to disappear. Desires will not disappear for fear of the one or for favor of the other. Desires are objective; they belong to the category of the “seen”. With the conviction that “I am the see-er only, not the seen,” sthitaprajna releases himself from attachment. By this means, he conquers desire. You must watch the working of the mind, from outside it; you must not get involved in it. That is the meaning et this discipline.”

Gita Vahini, p.38