Ramakrishna Quotations

Through love one acquires renunciation and discrimination naturally.

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

If you first fortify yourself with the true knowledge of the Universal Self, and then live in the midst of wealth and worldliness, surely they will in no way affect you.

A man is truly free, even here in this embodied state, if he knows that God is the true agent and he by himself is powerless to do anything.

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.

The fabled musk deer searches the world over for the source of the scent which comes from itself.

Pray to God that your attachment to such transitory things as wealth, name, and creature comforts may become less and less every day.

If you must be mad, be it not for the things of the world. Be mad with the love of God.

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.

To work without attachment is to work without the expectation of reward or fear of any punishment in this world or the next. Work so done is a means to the end, and God is the end.

God is in all men, but all men are not in God; that is why we suffer.

When one has love for God, one doesn't feel any physical attraction to wife, children, relatives and friends. One retains only compassion for them.

Disease is the tax which the soul pays for the body, as the tenant pays house-rent for the use of the house.

When the flower blooms, the bees come uninvited.

God is everywhere but He is most manifest in man. So serve man as God. That is as good as worshipping God.

It is easy to talk on religion, but difficult to practice it.

One must be very particular about telling the truth. Through truth one can realize God.

If you want to go east, don't go west.

Through selfless work, love of God grows in the heart. Then through his grace one realize him in course of time. God can be seen. One can talk to him as I am talking to you.

The physicians of one class feel the patients and go away, merely prescribing medicine. As they leave the room they simply ask the patient to take the medicine. They are the poorest class of physicians.

Travel in all the four quarters of the earth, yet you will find nothing anywhere. Whatever there is, is only here.

God can be realized through all paths. All religions are true. The important thing is to reach the roof. You can reach it by stone stairs or by wooden stairs or by bamboo steps or by a rope. You can also climb up by a bamboo pole.

More are the names of God and infinite are the forms through which He may be approached. In whatever name and form you worship Him, through them you will realise Him.

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

Many are the names of God and infinite the forms through which He may be approached.

The world is indeed a mixture of truth and make-believe. Discard the make-believe and take the truth.

Many good sayings are to be found in holy books, but merely reading them will not make one religious.

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

Longing is like the rosy dawn. After the dawn out comes the sun. Longing is followed by the vision of God.

Unalloyed love of God is the essential thing. All else is unreal.

A poor devotee points to the sky and says, "God is up there." An average devotee says, "God dwells in the heart as the Inner Master." The best devotee says, "God alone is and everything I perceive is a form of God.

God laughs on two occasions. He laughs when the physician says to the patient's mother, 'Don't be afraid, mother; I shall certainly cure your boy.' God laughs, saying to Himself, 'I am going to take his life, and this man says he will save it!' The physician thinks he is the master, forgetting that God is the Master. God laughs again when two brothers divide their land with a string, saying to each other, 'This side is mine and that side is yours.' He laughs and says to Himself, 'The whole universe belongs to Me, but they say they own this portion or that portion.'

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

It is true that God is even in the tiger, but we must not go and face the animal. So it is true that God dwells even in the most wicked, but it is not meet that we should associate with the wicked.

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

As long as I live, so long do I learn.

You should love everyone because God dwells in all beings.

Why does God allow evil in the world? To thicken the plot.

Wisdom leads to unity, but ignorance to separation. So long as God seems to be outside and far away, there is ignorance. But when God is realised within, that is true knowledge.

One should not think, 'My religion alone is the right path and other religions are false.' God can be realized by means of all paths. It is enough to have sincere yearning for God. Infinite are the paths and infinite are the opinions.

So long as one does not become simple like a child, one does not get divine illumination. Forget all the worldly knowledge that thou hast acquired and become as a child, and then will thou get the divine wisdom.

Different people call on [God] by different names: some as Allah, some as God, and others as Krishna, Siva, and Brahman. It is like the water in a lake. Some drink it at one place and call it 'jal', others at another place and call it 'pani', and still others at a third place and call it 'water'. The Hindus call it 'jal', the Christians 'water', and the Moslems 'pani'. But it is one and the same thing.

He is born in vain, who having attained the human birth, so difficult to get, does not attempt to realize God in this very life.

The tree laden with fruits always bends low. If you wish to be great, be lowly and meek.

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.

Sunlight is one and the same wherever it falls; but only a bright surface like that of water, or of a mirror reflects it fully. So is the light Divine. It falls equally and impartially on all hearts, but the pure and pious hearts of holy men receive and reflect that light well.

The Man who works for others, without any selfish motive, really does good to himself.

Spirituality automatically leads to humility. When a flower develops into a fruit, the petals drop off on its own. When one becomes spiritual, the ego vanishes gradually on its own. A tree laden with fruits always bends low. Humility is a sign of greatness.

Too much study of the scriptures does more harm than good. The important thing is to know the essence of the scriptures. After that, what is the need of books? One should learn the essence and then dive deep in order to realize God.

The winds of God's grace are always blowing, it is for us to raise our sails.

The world is impermanent. One should constantly remember death.

Great men have the nature of a child.

Do not be small minded. Do not pray for gourds and pumpkins from God, when you should be asking for pure love and pure knowledge to dawn within every heart.

Through selfless work, love of God grows in heart.

Take the case of the infinite ocean. There is no limit to its water. Suppose a pot is immersed in it: there is water both inside and outside the pot. The jnani sees that both inside and outside there is nothing but Paramatman. Then what is this pot? It is 'I-consciousness'. Because of the pot the water appears to be divided into two parts; because of the pot you seem to perceive an inside and an outside. One feels that way as long as this pot of 'I' exists. When the 'I' disappears, what is remains. That cannot be described in words.

The supreme purpose and goal for human life... is to cultivate love.

There are three kinds of love; unselfish, mutual, and selfish. The unselfish love is of the highest kind; The lover only minds the welfare of the beloved and does not care for his own sufferings. In mutual love the lover not only wants the happiness of his beloved; but has an eye towards his own happiness also. It is middling. The selfish love is the lowest. It only looks towards its own happiness, no matter whether the beloved suffers weal or woe.

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.

It is on account of the ego that one is not able to see God. In front of the door of God's mansion lies the stump of ego. One cannot enter the mansion without jumping over the stump.

Honour both spirit and form, the sentiment within as well as the symbol without.

All will surely realize God. All will be liberated. It may be that some get their meal in the morning, some at noon, and some in the evening; but none will go without food. All, without any exception, will certainly know their real Self.

Make your meditation a continuous state of mind. A great worship is going on all the time, so nothing should be neglected or excluded from your constant meditative awareness.

Man suffers through lack of faith in God.

Try to cultivate love of God. You are born as a human being only to attain divine love.

Different creeds are but different paths to reach the same God.

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.

The way of love is as true as the way of knowledge. All paths ultimately lead to the same Truth. But as long as God keeps the feeling of ego in us, it is easier to follow the path of love.

So long as the bee is outside the petals of the lily, and has not tasted the sweetness of its honey, it hovers around the flower emitting the buzzing sound; but when it is inside the flower, it noiselessly drinks the nectar. So long as a man quarrels and disputes about doctrines and dogmas, he has not tasted the nectar of true faith; when he has tasted it, he becomes quiet and full of peace.

Many people think they cannot have knowledge or understanding of God without reading books. But hearing is better than reading, and seeing is better than hearing. Hearing about Benares is different from reading about it; but seeing Benares is different from either hearing or reading.

The sun can give heat and light to the whole world, but he cannot do so when the clouds shut out his rays. Similarly as long as egotism veils the heart, God cannot shine upon it.

Do yourself what you wish others to do.

The grace of God is a wind which is always blowing.

The breeze of grace is always blowing on you. You have to open the sails and your boat will move forward.

Right discrimination is of two kinds analytical and synthetical. The first leads one from the phenomena to the Absolute Brahman, while by the second one knows how the Absolute Brahman appears as the universe.

As a boy holding to a post or a pillar whirls about it with headlong speed without any fear or falling, so perform your worldly duties, fixing your hold firmly upon God, and you will be free from danger.

If you keep your heart immersed always in the ocean of divine love, your heart is sure to remain ever full to overflowing with the waters of divine love.

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

These people are like ... a frog living in a well, who has never seen the outside world. He knows only his well, so he will not believe that there is such a thing as the world. Likewise, people talk so much about the world because they have not known the joy of God.

Common men talk bagfuls of religion but do not practise even a grain of it. The wise man speaks a little, even though his whole life is religion expressed in action.

Meditate upon the Knowledge and Bliss Eternal , and you will also have bliss. The Bliss indeed is eternal, only it is covered and obscured by ignorance. The less your attachment is towards the senses, the more will be your love towards God .

The breeze of grace is always blowing; set your sail to catch that breeze.

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

If there are errors in other religions, that is none of our business. God, to whom the world belongs, takes care of that.

God has revealed to me that only the Paramatman, whom the Vedas describe as the Pure Soul, is as immutable as Mount Sumeru, unattached, and beyond pain and pleasure. There is much confusion in this world of His maya. One can by no means say that 'this' will come after 'that' or 'this' will produce 'that'.

Those whose spiritual awareness has been awakened never make a false move. They don't have to avoid evil. They are so replete with love that whatever they do is a good action. They are fully conscious that they are not the doer of their actions, but only servants of God.

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.

Bhakti is the one essential thing. To be sure, God exists in all beings. Who, then is a devotee? He whose mind dwells on God. But this is not possible as long as one has egotism and vanity. The water of God's grace cannot collect on the high mound of egotism. It runs down.

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

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

All religions are true. God can be reached by different religions. Many rivers flow by many ways but they fall into the sea. They all are one.

When the fruit appears the blossom drops off. Love of God is the fruit, and rituals are the blossom.

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

You must know that there are different tastes. There are also different powers of digestion... different temperaments... differences in the capacity to comprehend.

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

It is not lust alone that one should be afraid of in the life of the world. There is also anger. Anger arises when obstacles are placed in the way of desire.

The winds of grace blow all the time. All we need to do is set our sails.

It is the mind that makes one wise or ignorant, bound or emancipated.

The waves belong to the Ganges, not the Ganges to the waves. A man cannot realize God unless he gets rid of all such egotistic ideas as "I am such an important man" or "I am so and so". Level the mound of "I" to the ground by dissolving it with tears of devotion.

So many religions, so many paths to reach the one and the same goal.

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.