All the time and energy spent in pursuing the Shasthras are a sheer waste, if study and reflection do not help you to recognize that the mind is worse than a drunken monkey. Pilgrimages too are for elevating the heart, sublimating the impulses and leading the lower self to higher levels of thought and action. Reason serves the same purpose, or at least, it ought to. Reason seeks to know the unity of the universe, the origin and goal of it all, the laws that govern the Anu (microcosm) and Bruhath (macrocosm); and it peeps behind the ever-receding curtain to get a glimpse of the Suuthradhaara (puppeteer), who pulls the strings.

Discourse, Adhyaathmik Conference, Venkatagiri, 12 April 1959