Gopal Sharma

“Association with the wise, abandonment of latent impressions, self-enquiry, control of breathing — these are the means of conquering the mind.”
― Vālmīki, Yoga Vasishta Sara

“7. It is the nature of the mind to accept certain things and to reject others; this is bondage, nothing else.”
― Vālmīki, Yoga Vasishta Sara

“Fast reading of a great novel will get us the plot. It will get us names, a shadowy idea of characters, a sketch of settings. It will not get us subtleties, small differentiations, depth of emotion and observation, multilayered human experience, the appreciation of simile and metaphor, any sense of context, any comparison with other novels, other writers. Fast reading will not get us cadence and complexities of style and language. It will not get us anything that enters not just the conscious mind but the unconscious. It will not allow the book to burrow down into our memory and become part of ourselves, the accumulation of knowledge and wisdom and vicarious experience which helps to form us as complete human beings. It will not develop our awareness or add to the sum of our knowledge and intelligence. Read parts of a newspaper quickly or an encyclopaedia entry, or a fast-food thriller, but do not insult yourself or a book which has been created with its author's painstakingly acquired skill and effort, by seeing how fast you can dispose of it.”
― Susan Hill, Howards End Is on the Landing: A Year of Reading from Home

“Just as a crystal is not stained by what is reflected in it, so also a knower of truth is not really affected by the result of his acts.”
― V.S. Ramanan, Yoga Vasishta Sara