The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna - 7

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• One must be restless for God. God will certainly listen to

your prayers if you feel restless for Him.

 

• It will be very good if you can practise unselfish love for

God.

 

• According to Vedanta, one has to know the real nature of

one's own Self. But such knowledge is impossible without the

renunciation of ego.

 

• When the ego disappears in samadhi, one realizes Brahman as

one's own inner consciousness.

 

• The company of a young woman evokes lust even in a lustless

man.

 

• Whatever is in the microcosm is also in the macrocosm.

 

• When one grows old, one should retire and devote oneself to

the thought of God.

 

• The one thing needful is to know how to cross the river of

the world. God alone is real and all else is illusory.

 

• I worship virgins because I see in them the Divine Mother.

 

• The highest devotee says: 'God alone has become everything.

All things that we perceive are so many forms of God.'

 

• All doubts disappear when one sees God. Formal worship drops

away after the vision of God.

 

• Everything is Pure Spirit. Men, animals, and other living

beings - all Pure Spirit.

 

• This Virat, this Universe, itself is Siva.

 

• Each plant is a bouquet adorning the Universal Form of God.

 

• When I see a man, I see that it is God Himself who walks on

earth.

 

• The body has, indeed, only a momentary existence. God alone

is real.

 

• The joys and sorrows of the body are inevitable. God places

one sometimes in happiness and sometimes in misery.

 

• As long as a man remains ignorant, that is to say, as long as

he has not realized God, so long will he be born. But after attaining

Knowledge, he will not have to come back to this earth or go to any

other plane of existence.

 

• Brahman alone is real and all else is maya, dreamlike and

unsubstantial.

 

• A jnani cannot injure any body. He becomes like a child. The

anger and egotism of a jnani are mere appearances; they are not real.

 

• God no doubt dwells in all, but He manifests more through man

than through other beings. In the Incarnation, there is a greater

manifestation of God than in other men.

 

• It is God who manifests Himself, in one aspect, as the

scriptures; therefore one should worship the sacred books, such as

the Vedas, the Puranas, and the Tantras.

 

• By worshipping His devotee, one worships God Himself.

 

• Pilgrimage becomes futile if it does not enable you to attain

love of God.

 

• Better than reading is hearing, and better than hearing is

seeing. One understands the scriptures better by hearing them from

the lips of the guru or of a holy man.

 

• Many things are recorded in the scriptures; but all these are

useless without the direct realization of God, without devotion to

His Lotus Feet, without purity of heart.

 

• What is samadhi? It is the complete merging of the mind in

God-Consciousness.

 

• God is the Kalpataru, the Wish-fulfilling Tree. You will

certainly get whatever you ask of Him. But you must pray standing

near the Kalpataru. Only then will your prayer be fulfilled.

 

• God knows our inner feeling. A man gets the fulfillment of

the desire he cherishes while practising sadhana. As one thinks, so

one receives.

 

• God is the Kalpataru. One should pray standing near it. Then

one will get whatever one desires.

 

• The way to realize God is through discrimination,

renunciation, and yearning for Him.

 

• The paramahamsa is like a five-year-old child. He sees

everything filled with Consciousness.

 

• The paramahamsa is like a child. He cannot distinguish

between a stranger and a relative. He isn't particular about worldly

relationships.

 

• The paramahamsa is like a child. He doesn't keep any track of

his whereabouts. He sees everything as Brahman. He is indifferent to

his own movements.

 

• Sometimes, the paramahamsa behaves like a madman.

 

• One should remember and think of God constantly.

 

• The first sign of knowledge is a peaceful nature, and the

second is absence of egotism.

 

• There are other indications of a jnani. He shows intense

dispassion in the presence of a sadhu, is a lion when at work, for

instance, when he lectures, and is full of wit before his wife.