- You should live in the world like a torn-off leaf in a storm. The storm sometimes takes it inside a house, sometimes to a garbage heap. The leaf is carried away wherever the wind takes it sometimes to a clean place and sometimes to a dirty one. He has put you in the world; it is good that you stay there. Again, He may lift you from there and carry you to a better place. Let it happen as it will.
- According to the Vedanta philosophy the world is all maya, all illusory like a dream. The Supreme Self is the witness – the witness of the three states of waking, dreaming, and deep sleep. The waking and dreaming states are equally true.
- To be able to live unattached in the world, some spiritual practice is necessary. You have to live in solitude for some days – a year, six months, three months – and meditate on God. You must pray to Him earnestly to grant you love and devotion.
- The world is like water and man’s mind is like milk. If you keep milk in water, the milk and water become one. That is why one has to curdle milk in a quiet corner. When the milk is curdled, you can extract butter from it. And this butter, when placed in water, does not dissolve in it, but floats on the surface unattached.
- Why do you say that the world is a well or a deep dense forest? These epithets are all very good for a beginner. Away with all fear when you are fastened to God!
- Verily is this world a mansion of joy. Let me pass my days eating, drinking and rejoicing. Janaka, the royal sage, how great was his power! Was there anything in which he was found wanting – spiritual, or temporal? Ah, no! He was loyal to both matter and spirit and drank his cup of milk at the same time!
- The world is like a whirlpool of Vishalakshi. Once a boat is caught in it, nothing can save it. Or it’s like a thorny bush. You pull yourself out of one thorn and get entangled with another. Once you enter a labyrinth, it’s difficult to find the way out of it. A man becomes scorched in the world of lust and gold.
- Why doesn’t He free you from the world? He will do so when you are cured. He’ll free you when you have rid yourself of the desire to enjoy ‘woman and gold’. Having been registered as a patient in the hospital, you can’t run away. As long as your disease is not fully cured, your doctor won’t discharge you.
- This world is like play. In this game there is sorrow and happiness, virtue and vice, knowledge and ignorance, good and bad – everything. If there were no sorrow, no sin, the play couldn’t go on.