The process of living is the swinging of a pendulum from smile to tear. Childhood is too tender and innocent, youth is too full of folly and faults, middle age is muddled with problems and possible remedies, and old age is spent in regret over past failings. When can you taste some real happiness? Joys and sorrows are the results of the mind's involvement in the transient and the trivial. The inner core of each living being is God. The Sun is not tarnished by its rays falling upon anything harmful. The Self too is unaffected by the effects of the mind pursuing the senses wherever they lead it. When one becomes aware that the Self is God, there can be no fear of death haunting him. Faith is life; absence of faith is death. Only the body dies; the Divine Self (Atma) is beyond birth and death. Aware of this, one is soaked in Ananda (Divine Bliss).

- Divine Discourse, Jan 08, 1983.