"When the mind can't find the answer to the why, then you have the opportunity to go beyond the mind.  In this way, the UNANSWERABLE WHY becomes a cosmic doorway that leads beyond the level of the thinking mind.”

~ Manorama

From: Thread of Wisdom

Yoga Pearls vol1 - pg 41

"Yoga practices are about honoring manifestation in such a way that manifestation leads us back to source."

~ Manorama

"How do we use what is at our disposal, the body, mind and prana, to lead us back to what is unchanging?

How can we utilize the material aspect to draw us towards source?

Practice.

How do we experience silence within?

Practice.

How do we make the leap from the manifest to the unmanifest?

Practice."

~ Manorama

"Cultivate a yogic perspective and yoga will be at your disposal at all times."

~ Manorama

"We pull in towards source so that we can know how to act from there....

sometimes you have to be fierce...

sometimes you have to yield."

~ Manorama

"God is available in surrender.  Surrender comes from practice"

~ Manorama

"The key is to fall in love with the journey - that's being in the moment. "

~ Manorama

"Look how everything in the

subjective and object universe,

rises and falls into the great collapsing OM.

But the real You is beyond these phases

In the cave of the heart,

You remain ever the Bindu...the stable point."

~ Manorama

"In Meditation you will discover that

Rich is no more rich

Poor is no more poor

Sick is no more sick and

Healthy no more healthy

You simply are That.

The eternal light of beingness.

And contact with That brings great Peace."

~ Manorama

“You are a light to many but the most important thing is to first be a light to yourself.”

~ Manorama

"You can not make peace.  You are peace.  When you meditate on I-AM then naturally you become tranquility itself."

~ Manorama

“Put the ego on trial what you will find is the silent source of all”

~ Manorama

"If you can't feel your own aloneness you will always be lonely."

~ Manorama

"Meditation is resting the body/mind in a state of awareness… the key is awareness."

~ Manorama

"The amount of awareness you bring to each experience in your life

will turn your life into a meditation."

~ Manorama

"With attention on the point – we become quiet….

It doesn’t happen right away… so we must practice.

Through practice we create the bridge between the manifest and the unmanifest."

~ Manorama

"The journey; if we go on it all at once,

it seems like so far to go,

but if we just keep practicing

it seems like so much less."

~ Manorama

"How can you turn your individual journey into a journey to the cosmic?"

~ Manorama

"Sometimes it takes a whole lotta something to get to nothing"

~ Manorama

"Practice helps prepare us for the experience – but don’t miss the experience!"

~ Manorama

"If you can't feel your own aloneness you will always be lonely."

~ Manorama

"We get a mixed bag in life...then we have to raise ourselves."

~ Manorama

"Meditation is the process of becoming nobody but everybody is always trying to get you to be somebody."

~ Manorama

"This life is like a fire that is always purifying.  Develop Santosha (contentment) by surrendering to what is."

~ Manorama

"Be open and loving with others... and ultimately ourselves.

This then becomes wisdom."

~ Manorama

"The more sacred we see ourselves, the more sacred the world becomes."

~ Manorama

"Whether or not you call it Yoga...

awareness is the only way out....

How you get to awareness is your  way out."

~ Manorama

"How are you going to play in this life?

God has another story for us ... wholeness/Union."

~ Manorama

“Unless you’re tired of the drama you’ll never see Rama.”

~ Manorama

"We are always with the turnings

and never here

but in reality we are always here

and never really with the turnings."

~ Manorama

“Mind is a good employee, not a good employer.”

~ Manorama

"The more you are with yourself in all things the more the Self is with you in all things."

~ Manorama

"Is happiness met by running from unhappiness?

I have not seen it happen

But I have met a happy man

And he was right in the

Eye of the storm"

~ Manorama

"The greatest warrior keeps his awareness on the point.

What is the point?  Consciousness..."

~ Manorama

“What’s safer than a quiet mind.”

~ Manorama

“Be where you are and all will come to you”

~ Manorama

“If we don’t find the balance, God finds it for us.”

~ Manorama

"No state ever remains, everything moves in the cycle of Om"

~ Manorama

“A certain kind of grace happens with surrender and that grace is awareness.”

~ Manorama

“The more sacred we see ourselves, the more sacred the world becomes.”

~ Manorama

"Letting go of everything is the getting of everything."

~ Manorama

"It’s not the individual that has consciousness, but consciousness that has assumed innumerable forms (in all beings).

We are that light."

~ Manorama

"When you become wholeness, what isn’t the play?  Drop drama , to be Rama.  Yoga is a state of balance."

~ Manorama

"You think you will leap off the edge of a cliff but it's only in reality a step into grace."

~Manorama

"Don't buy anything the mind is selling."

~ Manorama

"Love is the essential ingredient in the blossoming."

~ Manorama

"You don’t want to become more of something else, you want to become more YOU."

~Manorama

"Vastness keeps us humble & humility keeps us away from the mind."

~ Manorama

"See the extraordinary in the ordinary."

~ Manorama

"Where you are, There you are."

~Manorama

"Awareness is the key factor in any transformation.

How do you know you have transformed?

You feel it.”

~ Manorama (from Thread of Wisdom - Yoga Pearls - Vol1)

“You can fake a lot of things in life, but you can not fake knowing yourself to your Self.”

~Manorama

“You are the only one going all the way with you in this life. So it’s best to get to know your Self.”

~Manorama

“Problems bring suffering, and suffering makes us reach out to become more aware.”

~Manorama

“When you feel parched in life..

bereft of your center,

Inner life will suddenly reach forward,

leap almost to the front and shout

I AM!”

~Manorama

“The force of karma is very powerful.  The only stronger force is the light of the Self.

This is the way to freedom."

~ Manorama

“Mind is always in the past or the future,

never in the present.  Bring your attention

to the present and watch the play.”

From Thread of Wisdom

Yoga Pearls vol1

With Manorama – pg 44

“The Guru is one who enlightens you to something you are not aware of, but you feel.”

From “Thread of Wisdom, Yoga Pearls vol1

With Manorama

“What you don’t want, don’t give it your energy. What you deeply want, give it your attention.”

~ Manorama

“Meditation is coming in contact with thoughtless reality.”

~ Manorama

“Mind is not a good leader but it is a great follower.”

~ Manorama

“Everything given is the gift.

Every moment the universe tests asking what do you want.

This or THAT?”

~ Manorama

“Namaste basically means  - I begin to trust that that which underlies this vehicle, that which is me is you.”

~ Manorama

“The Self is the back drop for all experience.”

~ Manorama

“Something is rising in you or yoga would not be calling to you.”

~ Manorama

“Coming to understand yourself is purification.”

~ Manorama

“If you speak with a silent mind, then your sound has great power.”

~ Manorama

“In pure experience, the mind has no place.”

~ Manorama

"The more you can be in the moment, the more you are free."

~ Manorama

Sanskrit is realized...

it is forces of nature,

realities that are underlying everything.

~ Manorama

“The best thing about surrender is it tempers the ego, brings about humility and is always in the now.”

~ Manorama

“What if enlightenment is the unified field where there is no separation?”

~ Manorama

"The beginning of anything always has seeds of the ending, so make the beginning auspicious."

- Manorama

"The essential ingredient in the transformative process is love -- Self love."

~ Manorama

"We are not supposed to crush our humanity in yoga; we are supposed to see it,  support it, and understand how it is a divine force."

~ Manorama

"Everything, if properly understood, is the doorway in."

~ Manorama

"There is something important about the foundation of the things that allows for the free flow of energy."

~ Manorama

"If the question is repeated (more than once) you may want to look at your answer."

~ Manorama

"Real friendship is practicing harmony"

~ Manorama

“Compassion is the understanding that there is not two of us here – we are only one.  If you suffer then I suffer.”

~ Manorama

“If you want to get to the center, you have to sit still and watch the movement.”

~ Manorama

“You are the moving vibration of God.”

~ Manorama

“Concentration underlies meditation; energy underlies the mind.  Concentration helps us get to that energy -  we can come in contact with what we are underneath that.”

~ Manorama

"When you want something, everything moves in that direction.  So ask yourself what do I want?"

~ Manorama

‎

"Everything you are is in everything you do."

~ Manorama

‎

"Nothing can be more mad than the obsession with desires as a way to freedom."

~ Manorama

‎

"Growth only comes with friction."

~Manorama

"Meditation is the grand intimacy.  You have to be able to look at yourself."

~ Manorama

Guru ji (Shri Brahmananda Sarasvati) used to say that everyone will have to ask the question in life. We feel afraid, hearing of its magnanimity or its vastness. We say it and then defend against it by trying to qualify and quantify it.  I have found that often not having the answers and sitting with the questions teaches the deepest lessons. Practice sitting with the questions themselves.  It is a bit Buddhist and/or particularly Zen like. This process makes each experience in life into a koan.

All questions contain the answers in them. If we use the Yogic formula and turn everything on its head, so to speak and instead of seeking resolution and answers we learn to sit with the deepest questions in life like 'Who am I?' We will see how being with the question prepares us for the relationship with the eternal unknown, the luminous Self.”

~ Manorama

www.sanskritstudies.org

Copyright 2009 Manorama & Luminous Shabda

"Kindness is the reality that you and another are not separate."

~ Manorama

"Real maturity is Being, everything else is evolution."

~Manorama

"When the dark aspects of ourselves won't give any light, then the battle must ensure."

~ Manorama

From Year of Living Gita Teleclass

"When we are involved with the thinking mind alone, we crash.  When we are connected to the silent center we fly."

~ Manorama

Thread of Wisdom

Yoga Pearls vol 1

Copyright Manorama and Sanskrit Studies 2009

What Is Beyond Thought?

Yogis advise that you go beyond thought to feel what you are. Many students try this practice and eventually find themselves asking, “What is beyond thought? Guru ji, Shri Brahmananda Sarasvati, would reply, “You, real You, is beyond thought.” He was referring to the limitless Self. We all want access to the real us. But how do we get there?

Through Sanskrit chanting we have the opportunity to cultivate connection with pure vibration and that takes us beyond the level of the thinking mind. It works like this, we focus on the mantra, that sound merges into pulsation, pulsation draws us inward and once we are in eventually we feel inner stillness where the mind in silent. The experience of inner silence is a primary focus for the yogini. In such silent connection, a yogini realizes her Self. Therefore, Sanskrit chanting is an intentional yogic practice that develops freedom from thoughts. This doesn’t mean we won’t ever go to work, see our family and friends, use language in a common every day sense or think again. No, of course we will. It does however mean that through Sanskrit and the awakening of inner nadam, we have the opportunity to explore what we are beyond thought. And beyond thought is where we are.

~ Manorama

Excerpt from Manorama’s Blog dated 3/21/2012

http://www.livinginlightmanorama.blogspot.com/

" So much of practice is being in the light.  When you feel the lightness, you have control."

~ Manorama

"Love is a force of evolution, deeply meaningful and incredibly transforming."

~ Manorama

“The force of karma is very powerful.  The only stronger force is the light of the Self.

This is the way to freedom."

~ Manorama