The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna - 6

[Guest guest]

• There are certain signs of God-realization. A man who longs

for God is not far from attaining Him. What are the outer indications

of such longing? They are discrimination, dispassion, compassion for

living beings, serving holy men, loving their company, chanting God's

name and glories, telling the truth, and the like.

 

• How can one develop love for God? Repeat His name, and sins

will disappear.

 

• As is a man's feeling, so is his gain.

 

• The Lord looks into a man's heart and does not judge him by

what he does or where he lives.

 

• The way is - attachment to God, or, in other words, love for

Him; and secondly, prayer.

 

• One must always chant God's name and glories and pray to Him.

 

• One must practise discrimination and renunciation; one must

be conscious of the unreality of the world.

 

• Those who have not yet come to the end of their enjoyments

should not renounce the world.

 

• Dispassion is not possible unless there is satiety through

enjoyment.

 

• After having the vision of God, man is empowered with bliss.

 

• Under the spell of God's maya, man forgets his true nature.

This divine maya is made up of three gunas. And all three are

robbers; for they rob man of all his treasures and make him forget

his true nature. The three gunas are sattva, rajas, and tamas. Of

these, sattva alone points the way to God. But even sattva cannot

take a man to God.

 

• One cannot attain the Knowledge of Brahman unless one

transcends the three gunas.

 

• I found maidens to be the embodiments of the Divine Mother

Herself.

 

• If the devotee practises spiritual discipline a little, the

guru explains everything to him. Then the disciple understands for

himself what is real and what is unreal.

 

• Even after attaining Knowledge through the guru's grace, one

can very well live in the world as a jivanmukta.

 

• One is aware of pleasure and pain, birth and death, disease

and grief, as long as one is identified with the body. All these

belong to the body alone, and not to the Soul.

 

• Attaining Self-Knowledge, one looks on pleasure and pain,

birth and death, as a dream.

 

• It is good to meditate in the small hours of the morning and

at dawn. One should also meditate daily after dusk.

 

• A guileless man easily realizes God. There are two paths: the

path of righteousness and the path of wickedness. One should follow

the path of righteousness.

 

• It is enough to believe that all is possible in God's

creation. Never allow the thought to cross your mind that your ideas

are the only true ones and that those of others are false. Then God

will explain everything.

 

• God has covered all with His maya. He doesn't let us know

anything. Maya is 'woman' (lust) and 'gold' (greed). He who puts maya

aside to see God, can see Him.

 

• Every man believes he is wise. In reality, all are ignorant.

 

• Dwell in the truth and you will certainly realize God.

 

• Some persons must perform selfless work a long time before

they can practise dispassion and direct their minds to the spiritual

ideal. In the end, they too are absorbed in God.

 

• There is a great deal of difference between daya-compassion

and maya-attachment. Daya is good, but maya is not. Maya is love for

one's relatives, one's wife, children, brother, sister, nephew,

father, and mother. But daya is the same love for all created beings

without any distinction.

 

• Sattva preserves, rajas creates, and tamas destroys.

 

• " I " and " mine " indicate ignorance. Without ignorance, one

cannot have such a feeling as " I am the doer " .

 

• The " unripe I " makes one feel: " I am the doer. These are my

wife and children. I am a teacher. " Renounce this " unripe I " and keep

the " ripe I " , which will make you feel that you are God's servant,

His devotee, and that God is the Doer and you are His instrument.

 

• The ego that feels, 'I am the servant of God and lover of

God' does not injure one.

 

• It is extremely difficult to go beyond the three gunas. One

cannot reach that state without having realized God.

 

• Man dwells in the realm of maya. Maya does not permit him to

see God. It has made him a victim of ignorance.

 

• Brahman alone is real and the world is illusory. Nothing

exists, in reality, except Brahman. But there is an appearance of the

manifold because of maya, egotism.

 

• After realizing God, one does not identify oneself any more

with the body. Then one knows that body and soul are two different

things.

 

• When you see a man doing great works, you may know that God's

special power is manifested through him.

 

• After realizing God, one sees Him in all beings.

 

• Many spiritual emotions have passed through your body;

therefore it has fallen ill. At the time, an emotion is aroused, one

understands very little about it. The blow that it delivers to the

body is felt only after a long while.

 

• The elephant of divine emotion enters the hut of this body

and shatters it to pieces.

 

• The fire of Knowledge at first destroys such enemies of

spiritual life as passion, anger, and so forth. Then comes the turn

of ego. And lastly, a violent commotion is seen in the physical frame.

 

• A house without light becomes stricken with poverty.