Ramakrishna

If you desire to be pure, have firm faith, and slowly go on with your devotional practices without wasting your energy in useless scriptural discussions and arguments. Your little brain will otherwise be muddled.

The winds of grace are always blowing, but you have to raise the sail.

A man develops a subtle power as a result of the strict observance of celibacy for twelve years. Then he can understand and grasp very subtle things which otherwise elude his intellect. Through that understanding the aspirant can have direct vision of God. That pure understanding alone enables him to realize Truth.

You see many stars in the sky at night, but not when the sun rises. Can you therefore say that there are no stars in the heavens during the day? Because you cannot find God in the days of your ignorance, say not that there is no God.

Bondage is of the mind; freedom too is of the mind. If you say 'I am a free soul. I am a son of God who can bind me' free you shall be.

Whoever wants God intensely, finds Him. Go and verify it in your own life.

One day, it was suddenly revealed to me that everything is pure spirit.

The goal of life is not the earning of money, but the service of God.p.114

We laugh at the efforts of the musk deer to find the source of the scent which comes from itself and despair at our efforts to find the peace which is our essence.

One cannot completely get rid of the six passions: lust, anger, greed, and the like. Therefore one should direct them to God. If you must have desire and greed, then you should desire love of God and be greedy to attain Him.

Unless one always speaks the truth, one cannot find God Who is the soul of truth.

What is the use of merely listening to lectures? The real thing is practice.

I have now come to a stage of realization in which I see that God is walking in every human form and manifesting Himself alike through the sage and the sinner, the virtuous and the vicious. Therefore when I meet different people I say to myself, “God in the form of the saint, God in the form of the sinner, God in the form of the righteous, God in the form of the unrighteous.

If diving once does not bring you pearls, you need not therefore conclude that the sea is without them.

The magnetic needle always points to the north, and hence it is that sailing vessel does not lose her direction. So long as the heart of man is directed towards God, he cannot be lost in the ocean of worldliness.

If you meditate on your ideal, you will acquire its nature. If you think of God day and night, you will acquire the nature of God.

An ocean of bliss may rain down from the heavens, but if you hold up only a thimble, that is all you receive

One cannot be spiritual as long as one has shame, hatred, or fear.

The world is impermanent. [All things change. Knowing this helps you see the end of any difficulty and thereby have hope.]

Work, apart from devotion or love of God, is helpless and cannot stand alone.

When the divine vision is attained, all appear equal; and there remains no distinction of good and bad, or of high and low.