Thus Spake Sri Rama

The sayings in this section have been collected from various sources like the Valmiki Ramayana, Adhyatma Ramayana and the Yoga Vasishtha Ramayana. 

• It is egoism that has spread the net of attachment for the wife and children - a net our of which no magical spell will bring escape. So all mental pain automatically vanishes when egoism is eschewed.
• Rama to Kaikeyi:
• O Mother, why do you say thus to me? I am prepared to give up even my life for the sake of my father (King Dasharatha). I can drink deadly poison to serve him. I will renounce the kingdom, Sita or Mother Kausalya (Rama's mother) for his sake.
• Discharge of swadharma (duties allotted to you) is only a sAdhanA, means to an end, namely, gaining Atma-jnAna. It is not an end in itself.
• Therefore always meditate upon the Atman on the lotus of your heart, realizing that it is something other than intelligence, senses etc. Then you will not be sorry. Bear all the prArabdhas that are allotted to you, whether it is happiness or misery.
• Doing your work as if being carried away by the current, you will not become attached to it. Whatever work you do outwardly, O Raghava, let your mind and character be pure.
• The worldly-minded attain the company of the holy saints and sages by the effect of their merits earned by them in their previous births.
• Man does not give up pride. With our mind we always create misery and fear but it is all like a dream. The magic performed by a magician is, as everybody knows, utterly false.
• I (Ishwara) view everyone equally. No particular person is very dear to me, and none is hated by me also. Like the Kalpaka tree, I give whatever is requested of me.

|| Hari Aum Tat Sat ||

Thus Spake Sri Rama

The sayings in this section have been collected from various sources like the Valmiki Ramayana, Adhyatma Ramayana and the Yoga Vasishtha Ramayana. 

• Timely doing of good actions and obeying the age-old laws are especially necessary to gain mukti.
• But if these good deeds are done with a sense of ego, they only bind you to this world. So to gain knowledge you should work without the least trace of pride.
• Pure knowledge is that which kills all desires and attachments. Any work with a particular motive behind it should be given up, it only binds you to the cycle of births and deaths. It is harmful for your attaining real knowledge.
• Like the fowler spreading his net, egoism creates various fascinating illusions in the minds of men. Terrible grief arises from egoism. It is the Rahu for the moon of peace; it is like frost for a bed of lotuses.
• As long as a man is egotistical, he is bound to suffer. And when there is no egoism, there is no suffering. So the best course is to remain without egoism.

Thus Spake Sri Rama

The sayings in this section have been collected from various sources like the Valmiki Ramayana, Adhyatma Ramayana and the Yoga Vasishtha Ramayana. 

• Verily I tell you, even if Ravana himself came to me for sanctuary, I would accept him without hesitation.
• It is a heinous crime not to give shelter to those who petition for it. One will be deprived of heaven and glory as also of one's strength and powers, if shelter is denied to him who surrenders.
• A person who pursues the path of duty should regard his elder brother, the one who has begotten him, and the one who instructs him in wisdom, as his three fathers.
• Righteousness demands that a younger brother, a son and a virtuous disciple should be regarded as one's own offspring.
• Even for the virtuous, duty is subtle and not easy to grasp; the soul residing in the heart alone knows what is right and what is wrong.
• So always be calm and sinless and meditate on me daily. You will be rescued from this dreadful sea of samsara.

Thus Spake Sri Rama

The sayings in this section have been collected from various sources like the Valmiki Ramayana, Adhyatma Ramayana and the Yoga Vasishtha Ramayana. 

• When you dream of something, it seems real as long as the dream lasts. Similarly, to a man who always thinks of the senses and the pleasures derived therefrom, this world seems real.
• He plunges into samsara to gain his own selfish ends. It is full of hatred, greed, jealousy etc. Mind is the creator of samsara and again it is mind that binds you to it.
• Hatred should cease along with the other one's death. You should never hate a dead man.
• If a man comes as a friend, how can I reject him? It is against the law of my life. Once a man surrenders himself, one should overlook all his faults. 
• When someone comes to me for refuge, I cannot disappoint him. This is my dharma. It does not matter if as a result I suffer. Even at the cost of my life, I must do the duty of mine. Never can I deviate from this.

Thus Spake Sri Rama

The sayings in this section have been collected from various sources like the Valmiki Ramayana, Adhyatma Ramayana and the Yoga Vasishtha Ramayana. 

• As long as I live, I cannot violate the promise given to the ascetics. I may give up my life or even Sita as well as Lakshmana, but I cannot be false to a vow made to a devotee.
• Our predicament is not different from that of the deer that runs from horizon to horizon in search of water led on by the sight of mirage at a distance. Even while perfectly aware of the deception of the senses, we are like fools behaving like their slaves.
• Smiles and tears, decrepitude and death eternally recur. Our lot is to pine away like a cluster of plants battered by random gusts of wind, and all this is due to the object of enjoyments of no worth. Men, devoid of intelligence, fail to realize this position.
• These worldly enjoyments are as fleeting as the streak of lightning emerging from the clouds. 
• As long as you identify yourself with this body you will feel miserable. Atman is not the body, sense or ego. It is due to ignorance that you are affected by these worldly sorrows.

Thus Spake Sri Rama

The sayings in this section have been collected from various sources like the Valmiki Ramayana, Adhyatma Ramayana and the Yoga Vasishtha Ramayana. 

• Since you are dear to me, I have told you this. Whosoever thinks over this advice of Mine and acts accordingly, is really a wise man. He will be liberated from all sins. O Brother! Witnessing this whole world as being pervaded by Me, serve Me with great faith. You will thus be pure, happy, blissful and healthy.
• Whoever serves Me at least once, mentally regarding Me as saguna (with attributes) as well as nirguna (without attributes) will be purified by the sacred dust of My feet, as the three worlds are purified by the rays of the Sun. This advice is not insignificant. This is the essence of all that is said in the srutis.
• What I have advised you is the knowledge that can be obtained only by the study of vedanta. He who studies this with great faith and devotion to Me and My words will surely attain union with Me.

Thus Spake Sri Rama

The sayings in this section have been collected from various sources like the Valmiki Ramayana, Adhyatma Ramayana and the Yoga Vasishtha Ramayana. 

• The Atman has no emotions and qualities, but it is supreme bliss itself. It has no beginning and no end. It is all-pervading, indivisible, one, non-dual, supreme, devoid of qualities, filling the whole universe, and formless. It is the paramount truth, not to be measured by one's intelligence or knowledge and it is untouched by Maya.
• To experience this directly you should seek the help of a Guru who will explain this to you from the sastras. When you experience that you and every other jiva are none other than the paramatman itself, then you gain mukti (salvation). Without jnana, vijnana and vairagya, it is not possible to attain mukti. And one who has got it is very rare in this world.
• For attaining this state, devotion to Me is most important. Even if you have got eyes, you need a light to see your steps in darkness. In the same way, even if you have enough knowledge, you need devotion to Sri Rama in order to see the right path.
• If you have it, then what more do you want? My bhakta will get jnana, vijnana and vairagya automatically. The sages says like this. Thus at your request I have explained to you the way of salvation (mukti marga). Whosoever digests this properly and follows it, will attain liberation.

Thus Spake Sri Rama

The sayings in this section have been collected from various sources like the Valmiki Ramayana, Adhyatma Ramayana and the Yoga Vasishtha Ramayana. 

• Do not give up truth. Be always cheerful. The thought of enjoying the senses should immediately be controlled. Thinking that birth, old age and death are your lot, be always humble. Do not have intense love or attachment to your wife and children.
• You should avoid mixing with crowds as far as possible. Stay in a pure secluded place and do not keep company with crooked people. Try to live all alone eager to know the paramatman by searching into the vedas and vendantas and their commentaries, and doing all the vedic rites.
• Do not be overjoyed if you get a fortune, neither should you be dejected if you lose it. Your mind should be well balanced. I, Rama, is the life of all souls. Your mind should be fixed on Me alone.
• Thus you will get the realization in your mind that you are the ever pure chidatman who is different from the senses, attributes and forms. When you gain this, then I think you have gained supreme knowledge. You will be able to experience this yourself in your life, namely, that Atman is not the body, breath, intelligence or this ego.

Thus Spake Sri Rama

The sayings in this section have been collected from various sources like the Valmiki Ramayana, Adhyatma Ramayana and the Yoga Vasishtha Ramayana. 

• The ocean produces and destroys a series of waves in a single operation. Likewise Time maintains on its bosom the flux of creation - originating our species now, destroying it next moment, and creating another, endlessly. The numberless worlds are like falling figs, the innumerable living things are like mosquitoes and Time is like the fig tree that bears the figs.
• O Lakshmana! Paramatman and Jivatman are the two names of the one self-same thing. There is no difference between the two.
• Only the ignorant think that they are different. You should give up pride, egoism, wickedness and crookedness. You should never care for the criticism of others.
• Neither should you find fault with any one. Control your mind, speech and body, and never be perturbed. Daily do service to your Guru with devotion and mind. Do not be slack in doing good actions even for a single day.

Thus Spake Sri Rama

The sayings in this section have been collected from various sources like the Valmiki Ramayana, Adhyatma Ramayana and the Yoga Vasishtha Ramayana. 

• There is no entity in this world which does not fall a prey to this all-swallowing Time. Time is very terrible. Time swallows up everything that is visible, sparing nothing. It does not spare even outstanding personalities.
• Time which is collossal in its dimensions, brings a thing into being in a trice and breaks it to pieces in a moment. Time recurrently shifts, from heaven to hell and back, a creature which identities itself with its body.
• Time devours everything. Man's ill luck and good fortune, restlessness and composure, greed and infatuation - everything resides in the womb of Time.
• From a blade of grass and particle of dust to the oceans and the Sumeru and even Indra himself - all are subject to the mercy of Time.
• Causing the rain and the moon to rise and set in this firmament, Time plays, as it were, with them in the fashion of a boy with his ball.

Thus Spake Sri Rama

The sayings in this section have been collected from various sources like the Valmiki Ramayana, Adhyatma Ramayana and the Yoga Vasishtha Ramayana. 

• Aeons after aeons pass, and the flux that is called Time remains unaffected and steady. Time has therefore neither rise, nor movement, nor a static condition.
• Time again is the moon for the lotus of man's youth, and a lion to the elephant of men's span of life. There is nothing to be found on earth, big or small, which Time does not make an end of.
• With no device of the intellect could man penetrate the mystery of Time. For, in the world of life, Time is the most patent entity.
• Just as the fire burns the abode of men, Time burns men by rousing various ambitions in their hearts. This tyrant of Time has no compassion even for one who is laden with sorrow.
• O Sage, what ignorant people take for an abode of enjoyment is in fact a receptacle of pangs: life is fleeting, youth short-lived, childhood darkened by lack of intellect, and death terrible.

Thus Spake Sri Rama

The sayings in this section have been collected from various sources like the Valmiki Ramayana, Adhyatma Ramayana and the Yoga Vasishtha Ramayana. 

• Just as a river produces a series of swirling waves during the rains, wealth too whirls the foolish men into eddies of pride and haughtiness.
• As the billows are born of the stream, worries without number are born of wealth. It causes man to be as restless as the billows, and prompts him to perpetrate evil deeds.
• As a gem covered with ashes becomes dirty, so also scholars, heroes, humble and grateful persons lose their respective nature and become corrupted when they amass wealth.
• As the poisonous creeper becomes the cause of death, so also worldly property brings only sorrow instead of happiness. There is possibility of losing the self if a man spends all his energy only to preserve his property.
• The fool feels in his heart that wealth is the highest good and the only way to happiness. In reality, it causes ignorance, sorrow and all untoward circumstances.
• Just as the dust tarnishes even the brightness of a gem, wealth too contaminates the virtues of the wise.
• Lakshmi charms the imagination of men with fleeting colors as of a rainbow; she is restless like the lightning.

Thus Spake Sri Rama

The sayings in this section have been collected from various sources like the Valmiki Ramayana, Adhyatma Ramayana and the Yoga Vasishtha Ramayana. 

• Possessions and enjoyments are the root of all anxieties; far better is the cultivation of the equable temperament in seclusion unperturbed by any thought.
• The objects of sense enjoyment are the real poison, and not what is popularly known as poison. For the so-called poison destroys the body in one birth, while the poison of sense enjoyments hurts from birth to birth through a countless series of embodiments.
• The world is transitory, having not a grain of happiness in it. I do not desire death nor do I covet life; I have no eagerness for kingdom, wealth, enjoyments and desires, for I have relinquished egoism which is the root of all these.
• It is true that the world is apparently beautiful but in its true nature, it is very ugly. In this world, everything ends in sorrow. Nothing in this world can afford real peace to the mind.

Thus Spake Sri Rama

The sayings in this section have been collected from various sources like the Valmiki Ramayana, Adhyatma Ramayana and the Yoga Vasishtha Ramayana. 

• The world that is before us is fleeting like a dream. The mountain ranges that kiss the clouds today may within a short lapse of time be reduced to a plain stretch of land.
• Everything in this world has to undergo changes - even childhood, youth and old age in the case of embodied beings. Everything is passing from state to state like waves.
• Every single day sees the destruction of things as well as their generation; but this cursed world never comes to a close. Men are reborn as animals, the lower animals are again born as men; the gods are demoted. So where shall we look for permanence in this world?
• The beauties of nature are as impermanent as flashes of light - Brahma, Vishnu and Rudra are rushing towards annihilation like the waters that flow into a desert.

Thus Spake Sri Rama

The sayings in this section have been collected from various sources like the Valmiki Ramayana, Adhyatma Ramayana and the Yoga Vasishtha Ramayana. 

• In the world, good company is rare to find, and truth is manifest nowhere. The mind is darkened by ignorance, and the qualities like ignorance, and the qualities like friendliness and joy are not in evidence. Only depravity finds a rich soil in this world.
• In this world, people are born to die and they die to be born again. All these things of enjoyment are evanescent and are roots of sins and dangers. The mutual relations of the objects of senses are mere figments of imagination. The world is as it is presented in the mind, and the mind appears to be without existence.
• I am said at heart pondering over the ways and means as to how to remove these causes of grief. The thought of the sorrows of this world has made my heart bleak and dreary like a cremation ground. Thinking of the transience and other various demerits of the world, I am restless like a wild elephant in a chain.
• Can a seeker after truth find his sole satisfaction in such a cavern of sense enjoyments? Time swallows them up, who think that they find happiness in such a world.

Thus Spake Sri Rama

The sayings in this section have been collected from various sources like the Valmiki Ramayana, Adhyatma Ramayana and the Yoga Vasishtha Ramayana. 

• At sunrise men rejoice thinking they may work and earn. At sunset they rejoice thinking they can enjoy themselves. But they do not realize that their lives are shrinking.
• As the seasons come round, men fancy they will ever be fresh and feel happy. But with each cycle of the seasons, our lives are shortened.
• As logs of wood come together on the wide ocean, and having drifted together for a time, part from one another, so do wives, sons, kinsmen and possessions come together and separate. This separation is unavoidable.
• None on earth ever escapes the course of nature. So mourning for the dead is of no avail. Nor can one escape when one's turn comes.
• As a man falling in with a caravan on the move, says to those there, "I too will accompany you", so is the journey of life, which has already performed by our fathers and grandfathers. If one joins the journey, which knows no change, how can one complain?
• Life is a stream that never reverses its course, so one's life ever lessens in duration.

Thus Spake Sri Rama

The sayings in this section have been collected from various sources like the Valmiki Ramayana, Adhyatma Ramayana and the Yoga Vasishtha Ramayana. 

• The night that passes away, never returns. The Ganges discharges her waters into the great ocean but never turns back in her course.
• Days and nights pass over the heads of all creatures on earth and soon consume their lives as the sun's rays dry up the water in summer.
• Whether you stand still or move, your days diminish. Grieve then for yourself. Why grieve for aught else?
• Death travels with one; death rests with one. However far one goes, one cannot leave death behind.
• The skin is wrapped in folds and wrinkles. The hairs turn white. Age destroys a man. What can he do to avoid this?

Thus Spake Sri Rama

The sayings in this section have been collected from various sources like the Valmiki Ramayana, Adhyatma Ramayana and the Yoga Vasishtha Ramayana. 

• Life is evanescent, but fools take it to be real and they get entangled in it. The sun comes and goes every day; our life time also is getting shorter and shorter along with that. Even by witnessing the old age and death of others, none realizes that it is going to be his fate also.
• All accumulation comes to an end by depletion. Elevations end by crumbling and falling. Unions end by separation. Life ends by death.
• As ripe fruits must inevitably fall to the ground, so much a man, once he is born on earth, inevitably perish.
• Just as a building supported by strong pillars decays  in course of time and comes down, so do men pass away, being victims of old age and death.

Thus Spake Sri Rama

The sayings in this section have been collected from various sources like the Valmiki Ramayana, Adhyatma Ramayana and the Yoga Vasishtha Ramayana. 

• Despite this hollowness of life, fools desire longevity. But that brings only sorrow in its train.
• Just as the mice burrow into the earth inch by inch everyday, time takes away the lives of living beings minute by minute.
• Like the cat keenly watching the mouse, death keeps watch on the life of every one.
• The ignorant man thinks that as far as he is concerned, night and day will come and go till eternity. Immersed in sense enjoyments, he does not see the march of time.
• Like the water contained in an unburnt pot, man's life is getting extinguished every second. Enemies like diseases catch hold of man's body and destroy it. Old age like a tigress jumps upon it and attacks it. Death is always watching when to come and take possession of it.

Thus Spake Sri Rama

The sayings in this section have been collected from various sources like the Valmiki Ramayana, Adhyatma Ramayana and the Yoga Vasishtha Ramayana. 

• Like drops of water hanging from the tip of a leaf, the life of a man leaves this dirty body all of a sudden.
• Life is the cause of sorrow to those who have not developed the power of discrimination and whose heart is oppressed owing to contact with the serpent of sense objects.
• On the contrary, life means happiness to those who have found peace in the knowledge of Reality.
• This, our life, is evanescent like the clouds of autumn; it is like the lamp of which the oil has been exhausted; it is like the ripple on a sheet of water.