Ramakrishna Quotes

The young bamboo can be easily bent, but the full grown bamboo breaks when it is bent with force. It is easy to bend the young heart towards God, but the untrained heart of the old escapes the hold whenever it is so drawn

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.

Why should you renounce everything? You are all right as you are, following the middle ...

How long do small girls play with their dolls? As long as they are not married and do not live with their husbands. After marriage they put the dolls away in a box. What further need is there of worshipping the image after the vision of God?

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 .

Through selfless work, love of God grows in heart.

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

A truly religious man should think that other religions also have many paths leading to the truth.
One should always maintain an attitude of respect towards other religions. Dispute not, as you rest firmly on your own faith and opinion, allow others also equal liberty to stand by their own faith and opinion.

God had created the world in play.

As for me, I consider myself as a speck of the dust of the devotee's feet.

A boat may stay in water, but water should not stay in boat. A spiritual aspirant may live in the world, but the world should not live within him.

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.

Forgiveness is the true nature of the ascetic.

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

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

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

Live in the world like a waterfowl. The water clings to the bird, but the bird shakes it off. Live in the world like a mudfish. The fish lives in the mud, but its skin is always bright and shiny.

Do yourself what you wish others to do.

God cannot be realizxd if there is the slightest trace of pride.

If a householder is a genuine devotee, he performs his duties without attachment; he surrenders the fruit of his work to God - his gain or loss, his pleasure or pain. Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna (Abridged)

Let's not go into the past.

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.

Only two kinds of people can attain self-knowledge: those who are not encumbered at all with learning, that is to say, whose minds are not over-crowded with thoughts borrowed from others; and those who, after studying all the scriptures and sciences, have come to realise that they know nothing.

Great men have the nature of a child.

The nearer you approach to God, the less you reason and argue. When you attain Him, then all sounds - all reasoning and disputing - come to an end. Then you go into samadhi - sleep - , into communion with God in silence.

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.

You speak of doing good to the world. Is the world such a small thing? And who are you, pray, to do good to the world? First realise God, see Him by means of spiritual discipline. If He imparts power you can do good to others; otherwise not.

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

With sincerity and earnestness one can realize God through all religions.

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.

Do all your duties, but keep your mind on God. Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna,p.81

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

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.

Dislodging a green nut from it's shell is almost impossible, but let it dry and the lightest tap will do it.

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'.

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

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

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.

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

He who is called Krishna is also Siva and the Primal Sakti ... He again, who is called Jesus and Allah. Truth is one.

The waves belong to the water. Does the water belong to the waves?

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

There is no hope for a worldly man if he is not sincerely devoted to God.

If you feel proud, let it be in the thought that you are the servant of God, the son of God. Great men have the nature of a child. They are always a child before Him; so they are free from pride. All their strength is of God and not their own. It belongs to Him and comes from Him.

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.

As a piece of rope, when burnt, retains its form, but cannot serve to bind, so is the ego which is burnt by the fire of supreme Knowledge.

The ego is like the root of a banyan tree, you think you have removed it all then one fine morning you see a sprout flourishing again.

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

One cannot attain divine knowledge till one gets rid of pride. Water does not stay on the top of a mound; but into low land it flows in torrents from all sides.

Now... We are going in a loop.

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.

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.

If a white cloth is stained even with a small spot, the stain appears very ugly indeed. So the smallest fault of a holy man becomes painfully prominent.

In the scriptures you will find the way to realize God. But after getting all the information about the path, you must begin to work, Only then can you attain your goal.

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

Respect is heaven, respect is liberation.

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

How dare you talk of helping the world? God alone can do that. First you must be made free from all sense of self; then the Divine Mother will give you a task to do.

Men bound hand and foot in the endless chain of cause & effect cannot free each other.

If you spent one-tenth of the time you devoted to distractions like chasing women or making money to spiritual practice, you would be enlightened in a few years.

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.

As the shell, the pith and the kernel of the fruit are all produced form one parent seed of the tree, so from the one Lord is produced the whole of creation, animate and inanimate, spiritual and material.

Finish the few duties you have at hand, and then you will have peace.

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.

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

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.

When the flower blooms
The bees come uninvited.

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.

Sugar and sand may be mixed together, but the ant rejects the sand and goes off with the sugar grain; so pious men lift the good from the bad.

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.

When an unbaked pot is broken, the potter can use the mud to make a new one; but when a baked one is broken, he cannot do the same any longer. So when a person dies in a state of ignorance, he is born again; but when he becomes well baked in the fire of true knowledge and dies a perfect man, he is not born again.

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.

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.

Men are like pillow-cases. The colour of one may be red, that of another blue, and that of the third black; but all contain the same cotton within. So it is with man; one is beautiful, another is ugly, a third holy , and a fourth wicked; but the Divine Being dwells in them all

A devotee who can call on God while living a householder's life is a hero indeed. God thinks: 'He is blessed indeed who prays to me in the midst of his worldly duties. He is trying to find me, overcoming a great obstacle
pushing away, as it were, a huge block of stone weighing a ton. Such a man is a real hero.

Through love one acquires renunciation and discrimination naturally.

You should love everyone because God dwells in all beings.

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

If one has faith, one has everything.

Do not seek illumination unless you seek it as a man whose hair is on fire seeks a pond.

It is necessary to pray to Him, with a longing Heart.

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

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.

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.

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

Those who wish to attain God and progress in religious devotion, should particularly guard themselves against the snares of lust and wealth. Otherwise they can never attain perfection.

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.

Have love for everyone, no one is other than you.

The vanities of all others may gradually die out, but the vanity of a saint regarding his sainthood is hard indeed to wear away.

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

Pray to Him anyway you like, He can even hear the footfall of an ant.

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

As for myself, I look upon all women as my Mother. This is a very pure attitude of mind. There is no risk or danger in it. To look upon a woman as one's sister is also not bad. But the other attitudes are very difficult and dangerous. It is almost impossible to keep to the purity of the ideal.

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

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

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

Once a person has faith, he has achieved everything.

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

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