Wednesday 25 March 2015

10 Spiritual Awareness Quotes and Insights

Theosophical literature, that which was given to the world through the Theosophical Society, is a great resource for those who would like to live the spiritual life. Many of the famous Theosophical authors starting from Madame H. P. Blavatsky onwards were profound thinkers and their insights on how to living a life with a spiritual focus are worth emulating.

Spiritual Awareness might be defined or understood as an awareness of your spiritual self. As Carol Tuttle points out, we have four energy bodies, namely, the spiritual, mental, emotional and physical bodies. Becoming aware of these various energy bodies will help us work on restoring health and well-being which is essential for living the spiritual life.

Theosophical literature, too, mentions the three bodies that form our personality and the spiritual self that might be called our soul. The three bodies are the mental body, astral body and the physical body respectively, starting from the subtlest and that which vibrates at the highest rate of all the four bodies.

Below are some Quotes on Spiritual Awareness:

From The Bhagavadgita (translated by Annie Besant)


He who regards impartially lovers, friends, and foes, strangers, neutrals, foreigners and relatives, also the righteous and unrighteous, he excelleth.

Yoga killeth out all pain for him who is regulated in eating and amusement, regulated in performing actions, regulated in sleeping and waking.

They who by the eyes of Wisdom perceive this difference between the Field and the Knower of the Field, and the liberation of beings from Matter [Prakriti] they go to the Supreme.

He who is harmonized by yoga, the self-purified, SELF-ruled, the senses subdued, whose SELF is the SELF of all beings, although acting, he is not affected.

Insights on the Spiritual Life:


Everything that is good, enlightening, that is calculated to alleviate another's trouble and inspire him with courage, every improvement of social, political and other conditions, is part of evolution. But we must discover what is most worth doing by us, what we should specially aim at, because the needs of humanity are so very various. -- N. Sri Ram in Human Regeneration.
 All knowledge is useful, and one day you will have all knowledge; but while you have only part, take care that it is the most useful part. -- At the Feet of the Master
Work patiently at your studies, not that men may think you wise, not even that you may have the happiness of being wise, but because only the wise man can be wisely helpful. -- At the Feet of the Master


 On Cleanliness:


Dirt is often more objectionable in the higher worlds than in the physical, and just as in the physical world, it is not only foul and poisonous in itself but it also inevitably breeds dangerous microbes, so in these higher worlds it attracts low-class nature-spirits of a kind distinctly prejudicial to man...
         The thorough daily bath, therefore, is even more an occult than a hygienic necessity, and purity of mind and feeling cannot exist without purity of body also. -- C. W. Leadbeater in The Hidden Side of Things.

On the Effects of Noise:

 


Although after a time a man gets used to the noise [on the streets], and hardly notices it, nevertheless every fresh outburst is a blow to this astral and mental bodies, and the effect of this is precisely that of constantly repeated blows upon the physical body... In the physical body this would mean pain, and we should at once understand it and refer it to its source; in the case of the astral body it means irritability; and in the case of the mental body a feeling of fatigue and inability to think clearly. -- -- C. W. Leadbeater in The Hidden Side of Things.

 On Unselfishness:


A person who thinks of himself only is constantly doing harm, even though he does not know it; so it is necessary to get into the attitude of mind that we think always of others, not of ourselves. -- C.W. Leadbeater in The Noble Eightfold Path.