First Skandham
56) Meditation of God’s form and recital of God’s names will easily infuse divine powers in man.
57) The end-result of Kama (desire) is unwholesome. By the mere thought of lustful persons, our minds also will become subjected to desires.
58) Make it a regular habit to remember the Lord everyday at dawn, at mid-day and at bed-time.
59) Repeated thought of the same form (of God) will make Sadhana easy and will yield quick results.
60) Worship all forms of God. But remember that all are different forms of the one and only God. While worshipping different forms of God, remember only your Ishtadevatha (that form of God which appeals to you most)
61) While meditating on your Ishtadevatha ,if you can’t visualize that form in your mind, continue the meditation and recite the holy names of that Ishtadevatha.
62) Let your words recite the Lord’s divine Names. Let your eyes see everything as different forms of the Lord. This practice will purify your mind very quickly.
63) Attraction towards worldly pleasures is the main reason for not getting full concentration during meditation of God. So, put in constant efforts to develop dispassion towards worldly objects.
64) Do not get upset even if you are not able to concentrate on God while meditating. It will be enough if you can reduce your thoughts on women and other worldly pleasures.
65) Temples
66) Never pray to God for selfish gains.
67) God at first takes away all our belongings and finally gives us everything. 68) Do not beg for anything to God. If possible keep a small idol of God with you always, so that you can maintain your devotion to God uninterrupted, at any place, whatever be the circumstances.
69) To feel happiness when you see others happy is evidence of Prema (true love).
70) Those who seek refuge in God whole-heartedly,will become happy and desire-less.
71) Devoid of Bhakthi (devotion), Jnana (knowledge) and Vairagya (detachment) are useless.
72) Hatred is man’s greatest enemy.
73) Listen to the stories of God. Also try to follow the principles underlying those stories in actual life.
74) Man’s spiritual uplift is impossible if he cannot get rid of anger.
75) Prayer to God should not be postponed till the completion of house-hold duties. Attend to those duties after finishing your prayer. If you practice this, all your actions will get transformed into prayer. Performance of duties, side by side with recital of God’s Names will then become easy.
76) If you don’t have the thirst or strong desire to see God, you won’t get the good fortune to see or come in contact with Mahatmas (godly men). Even if you get, it won’t serve any purpose.
77) Listen to God’s stories over and over again. Then devotion and love of God will take shape very quickly.
78) Women, wealth and children are hindrances to Thapas.(a life of penance) 79) Death means the day which indicates the end of your life. That can happen any day, any moment. Remember this and be ready to meet death at any time. 80) Those who lead a pure life will ultimately become one with God, the very source of purity.
81) Sinners get scared at the time of their death because all the sins they have committed will appear before them assuming fierce shapes.
82) If you get the good fortune to serve God all the 24 hours of the day, that itself is called Bhakti(devotion)
83) If your body alone is engaged in the service of God and your mind is involved in worldly affairs, you won’t get even an iota of happiness from that service. Those who do real service to God will not find favour with worldly things.
84) If love towards God has to be strengthened, love towards worldly objects should necessarily be given up.
85) There is no need to abandon the world. What should be given up by man is his desire for worldly things.
86) Attraction towards temporal things will hinder the spiritual progress of man. It entangles man and pulls him down.
87) Bhakthi (devotion) is another name for offering the best among best things to God.
88) Bhakthi, (devotion) devoid of Jnana (knowledge) and Vairagya (dispassion), cannot be effective. Worldly pleasures will stand in the way of Bhakthi.
89) If you want to be happy, you should give up your interest in worldly objects.
90) The plant of Bhakthi which grows with the aid of Jnana and Vairagya will yield flowers and fruits leading to God- realisation.
91) To increase your love towards God , you should listen to the stories of God’s incarnations, study them with keen interest, meditate on them and actually feel the presence of God through them.
92) The very sight of godly men will infuse dispassion in you.
93) Those who can defeat Nidra (sleep) and Ninda (insult) i.e. those who are not affected by these two, are well qualified for practicing Bhakthi.
94) Other people or creatures are not responsible for our sorrows. The actual cause for man’s sorrows lies in his ignorance and self-conceit.
95) Man does not see his own faults. Do not see fault in others. It is our own fault that we attribute to others. Gradually, when the mind becomes pure, we will be able to see our faults.
96) We must be grateful to those great men who point out our faults.
97) To do only good to others, is the habit of great men. We should never forget the invaluable service they are putting in.
98) There is a great fault in man; and that is to think of himself as faultless. 99) Satsang (company of holy men) and Bhajan (prayers to God) will help man to correct his faults.
100) Listening to the stories of God and rendering service to great men make the human life purposeful.
101) If you do not get the good fortune to serve great men directly, you will not be able to control your mind and to root out Vasanas (innate tendencies) in you.
102) Love every living thing in the creation of God. If that is not possible, love the very Creator. Loving the God’s creations is not different from loving God. 103) Talk less. Don’t waste your energy by talking excessively.
104) Man runs after this world madly. If he can turn back and direct the chase towards God, that is to say, if his attachment to the world becomes attachment to God, he or that Jiva (soul) becomes Siva (God)
105) The grace of great men falls under three classes. The life of those who come within the glance of great men is definitely fulfilled. Secondly, if great men while engaged in thoughts of God, remembers or calls any person, the life of that person is fulfilled. Thirdly, the life of those who earn the love of great men is also fulfilled.
106) The eyes of great men are the synonyms of purity.
107) Be careful to avoid break while performing Japa (recital) of the Names of God.
108) God dwells in those who perform Japa regularly. When the number of Japa reaches 32 lakhs, destiny can be overcome. All your sins get rooted out by that time.
109) Always maintain the feeling that ‘Lord Sri Krishna revels in me’ and ‘I too revel in the Lord Sri Krishna.’
110) Make it a habit to perform Japa before retiring to bed at night. Practice Japa through the mouth during the first year, through the throat during the next three years, and mentally during the next three years. By this practice, you can reach the state of Ajapa.( a stage at which japa becomes natural to you, without any effort)
111)He who lives a life devoted to God, should necessarily give up the habit of accumulating wealth.
112) We are bound to continue our service to God even after getting the vision of God.
113) Man should remember, recite and praise the Names of God till his last breath.
114) If you can completely forget worldly objects while reciting the Names of God, you will get a very special and unprecedented experience of bliss.
115) Good qualities like control of the mind, righteousness, love, and service-mentality cannot be acquired without Satsang
116) Mere knowledge (Jnana) without devotion (Bhakti) is dry. It will make the time of death gruesome.
117) Try to develop good qualities like control of the mind, righteousness etc. gradually. That will make your life happy.
118) A luxurious life, that is, a life fully immersed in worldly pleasures, is verily the axe that cuts at the root of devotion.
119) When your mind becomes the growing field of good qualities, you will easily come in contact with great men.
120) Keep your eyes pure and without blemish. If you do so that eye cannot find fault in any person or thing.
121) Ego is the cause for man’s downfall.
122) Change or conversion of attire is not essential. But conversion of mind is unavoidable.
123) Don’t be controlled by the mind; controlling the mind is fulfillment of life.
124) One can become a great man by controlling his mind.
125) Death will undoubtedly occur at any time. A human being worth the name should always keep this in memory .
126) Don’t try to see and correct the faults in others. A man, worth the name, is he who makes earnest efforts to correct himself. When we correct ourselves, the whole world gets corrected.
127) Renunciation confers immense spiritual powers on us. We are unhappy when worldly objects leave us. But if we leave them voluntarily, we will get boundless happiness.
128) If you want to establish friendship with God, you have necessarily to give up your friendship with Kama (desires)
129) God is the only person worthy of our love.
130) Grief always causes uneasiness.
131) Those who engage themselves in worldly pleasures on the belief that such pleasures are true and lasting, they forget God. More over, they look down upon God as insignificant and insult Him.
132) When we are in grief, God remains with us in a subtle form and looks after our welfare.
133) Good traits like absence of hatred, love and respect to others will subdue negative qualities like enmity, jealousy etc.
134) God loves only those persons whose habits are most beautiful and friendly to all.
135) Do not make others cry. Cry yourself. If you cry , all your accumulated sins will melt and wash away in your tears .
136) By repeated meditation and remembrance of God, you can easily acquire purity of mind.
137) You can easily bind God by your devotion .
138) Make it a regular practice to chant the hymns in praise of the Lord, with intense devotion. Do it at morning, at noon, at evening, in pleasure, and in pain. By this practice, you will be able to remember the Lord even at the time of your departure from this world.
139) The poison of Samsara(materialistic world) will constantly torment the lives of those who are deeply involved in it.
140) Everyday let this be your prayer to the Lord:-“Oh! My Lord! May thou appear before me at the time of my death”
141) Real human characteristic lies in surrendering one’s mind and intellect to God.
142) Sinful persons will, at the time of their death, experience such excruciating pain as caused by the stinging of 200 million scorpions.
143) The verses (in Bhagavatham) sung by Bhishma in praise of Lord Sri Krishna are matchless and are worthy of being learned by heart. This is renowned as “Bhishma Sthava Raja Sthothram”.
144) The final test in a man’s life is his death. He who leads a pure life will have a marvelous death too. That means he has won the test. As death can happen any moment, the fact is that the winners of this test will win every moment of their life. As they have conquered Time, they know the value of time. Every moment of their life is spent purposefully. It should, there fore, be our effort to spend our lives for noble purposes only.
145)The desire for worldly pleasures is deep-rooted in us, through the past many births. It is not possible to deface it easily. But it becomes possible when Bhakti, accompanied by Jnana and Vairagya arises in us.
146) Worshipping the Sun, as the visible representation of God, is nothing but worshipping God.
147) Noble deeds should be done without pomp and publicity.
148) If you engage yourself too much in sinful activities, in youthful days, you cannot sleep well in your old age.
149) If in a man’s horoscope Jupiter is in Ninth or the fortune- house and that happens to be the own house or house of elevation for Jupiter, he will be a man virtues.
150) When virtuous men face sufferings, Mahatmas will appear and mitigate their sufferings.
151) Who is a true Vaishnava? He who sees his own faults and do not see any faults but only merits in others, is a true Vaishnava.
152) Desist from doing what the mind desires too much and also from meeting all its demands. If you can control your mind in this manner you will be happy.
153) Man seeks and calls God only when he is in danger.
154) We must offer some Naivedyam(food) to God daily. If our Lord Kannayya(Krishna ) accepts our offering at least once, all our worries will vanish instantly.
155) When a virtuous person who led his entire life in accordance with the dictates of the Lord passes away, it is known as Prayanam. The term ‘death’ applies to the departure of those who grieve themselves about the miseries of life .
156) Purity of thought and purity of action are mutually dependant. When thoughts and actions become pure, evils of Kali yuga will not affect you even slightly.
157) It is man’s duty to protect cows with purity of the three karanas( thought, word and action)
158) He who has been given wealth by God should necessarily breed and protect cows.
159) If you can avoid eating rice on Ekadasi days, your body and mind will be purified.
160) Untruthful persons lose their Punya (merits) instantly. Truthful are those Punyatmas who speak moderately and that too for the welfare of the world. 161) Proper observance of penances will mitigate your sins.
162) Do not allow all that your tongue demands. Control of the tongue is a great penance.
163) Lakshmi(Goddess of wealth) is not constant. Moving from place to place is her nature.
164) Keep a very calm and cool temperament. It is the time, temperament and action that cause all the worries for man.
165) Avoid physical contact with impure persons. When you touch a person, minute particles from his body will enter into your body.
166) Gambling, drinking of liquor, illicit contact with women, violence, untruth, vanity, cruelty, greed etc. are the places where Kali resides.
167) Wealth acquired through sinful methods takes the shape of Kali, as soon as it enters your house.
168) Wealth acquired through illicit means, will cause untold miseries not only to the person who earned it, but to his descendents also.
169) Do not go near Mahatmas when they are in prayer or meditation. If unwittingly went, depart quietly from there after obeisance.
170) Do not talk or discuss worldly subjects with Mahatmas.
171) By trying to disgrace others you are bringing disgrace to your self. In other words, if you are insulting others, you are insulting yourself.
172) If intellectual aberration occurs, understand that it is the beginning of some impending misfortune.
173) If you happen to commit a sin knowingly or unknowingly, repent for it and give suitable punishment to your own body.
174) Observe fasting on the day on which you commit any sinful act. This practice will keep the mind away from sinful thoughts..
175) If a person can declare his sins in public, he will soon get rid of the tendency to commit sin.
176) Avoid brooding over the past. Do not entertain anxieties about the future also. Think of the present alone and make it pure.
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