- ‘Lust and greed’ bind a man. One loses one’s freedom.
- Attached to ‘lust and greed,’ the mind remains soiled, it remains covered with dirt. If a needle is covered with mud, a magnet can’t attract it. But when the mud and dirt are washed off, the magnet attracts. You can wash the dirt of the mind with the tears from your eyes. If you weep with tears of repentance, crying, ‘O Lord, I shall never do such a thing again!’ then this dirt is washed away and the magnet of God can attract the needle of the mind. You then go into samadhi and have the vision of God.
- It is ‘lust and greed’ that take a man away from God. They are obstacles to God-realization.
- Just as you roam about madly for ‘lust and gold,’ be a little mad for Him. Let people say that so-and-so person has gone mad for God. Give up everything for some days and only call upon Him secretly.
- When you have renounced ‘lust and greed’ in the mind, it goes to God and becomes absorbed in Him. When does the lower needle not point to the upper needle of the goldsmith’s scale? The moment there is a load of ‘lust and greed’ in one of its pans.
- As soon as one is freed from the attachment to ‘lust and greed,’ the mind and intellect become pure. Then pure mind and pure intellect are one. He is known by the pure mind.
- The pundits talk grandly, but where is their attention? On ‘lust and greed,’ on sensual pleasures and money.
- Vultures soar high, but their eyes remain fixed on the charnel pits. Their looks are only on charnel pits, dead animals, and corpses.
- When you live amid ‘lust and gold,’ your mind is forcefully pulled to them. So you must be cautious. But he who has renounced the world need not fear much. The genuine renouncer keeps a proper distance from ‘lust and gold’. That is how he can fix his mind on the Lord while practicing spiritual disciplines.
- In large shops big sacks of rice are placed as high as the roof. Besides rice, lentils are also stored there. To save them from mice, the shopkeeper puts some sweetened puffed rice in a straw basket. They taste sweet and have their own smell, so all the mice busy themselves eating from the basket, not knowing about the big sacks. Similarly, man is enchanted with ‘lust and greed’ and does not seek the Lord.
- One may wash a cup that contains garlic many times, but the smell of garlic will not leave the cup. The boys who have not touched ‘lust and gold’ are pure vessels. When a person is rubbed with the garlic of ‘lust and gold’ for a considerable time, the smell of garlic persists in him.
- With ‘lust and greed’ always around you, how is it possible to realize God? It is very hard indeed to live unattached in their midst. In the first place, one is a slave of one’s wife. In the second place, one is a slave to money. And in the third place, one is a slave to him whom one serves for the sake of his living.
- This does happen when one leads a worldly life. The mind is first up, then down. First you feel so strong – and then so weak. You see, it is because one has to live amidst ‘lust and greed’. In worldly life the devotee contemplates the Lord and repeats His name – but then he gives his mind to ‘lust and greed’. He is like a housefly. Sometimes it sits on sandesh, at other times on a festering wound – and even on excreta.
- A vulture soars high in the sky, but its eyes are fixed on the charnel-pits where the carcasses of animals are burned. They who are pundits due to learning are scholars in name – but they are attached to ‘lust and gold’ – they look for decomposed corpses, just like a vulture. Fondness for the world is avidya; compassion, devotion, love of God, non-attachment, are the wealth of vidya.
- Maya is only ‘lust and greed’. By living in the midst of them for a few days, one loses spiritual awareness but feels that all is well. A scavenger carries a pot of excreta and in course of time, doesn’t feel any repulsion for it.
- God has hidden everything with His maya. He doesn’t let you understand anything. ‘Lust and greed’ constitute maya. Only he who removes the veil of maya can behold His vision.
- However much one may have studied books, it is all futile unless one has love and devotion for God, unless one has the desire to realize Him. A mere pundit without discrimination and nonattachment has his attention fixed on ‘lust and greed’. A vulture soars high in the sky but its eyes remain fixed on the charnel pits where carcasses of animals are burnt.
- Beware of ‘lust and greed’. Once you are drowned in the maya of lust, it is impossible to rise. There is a deep whirlpool in the Vishalakshi river. He who falls into it once can never again rise out of it.
- One does not realize God unless ‘lust and greed’ have vanished from the mind.
- If the mind is free from ‘lust and greed,’ what else remains to be attained? Then one enjoys only the joy of Brahman.
- Unless you have rid your mind completely of ‘lust and greed,’ you cannot recognize an incarnation of God. Somebody asked an eggplant merchant to evaluate a diamond. He said, ‘I can give you ten seers of eggplants for it – nothing more than that.’
- It is indeed wonderful for one to renounce ‘lust and greed’ from one’s childhood. Very few people develop such renunciation. And without it one is like a mango pecked by a kite – the fruit can’t be used in the service of the deity. Even eating it yourself is risky.
- Worldly people are intoxicated – inebriated with ‘lust and greed’. They have lost their awareness. That is why I am fond of the young men. ‘Lust and greed’ have not yet entered their minds. They are ‘good receptacles’ and can be of use in the Lord’s work.
- What is there in the world to enjoy? ‘Lust and greed’ only bring momentary pleasures. One moment there is pleasure, the next it is no more.
- The pleasures of ‘lust and greed’ are momentary – this moment they exist and the next moment they disappear. What is there in ‘lust and greed’? Its enjoyment is like eating a hog-plum that is all stone and rind. Eat it and you get colic. The moment you swallow sweet sandesh, it is gone.
- ‘Lust and greed’ are a kind of intoxicant. When one is drunk, one fails to recognize one’s own maternal and paternal uncles. One may even say to them, ‘Cursed be your family…’ A drunkard can’t distinguish between his superiors and inferiors.