- One can fix mind on God by chanting his names and glories without ceasing and keeping the company of the holy.
- The mind, a solitary corner and the forest are the places to meditate.
- A tortoise moves around in water, but do you know where its mind dwells? On the bank of the river, on dry land where its eggs are laid. Attend to all your worldly work, but take care that your mind rests in God.
- God can be seen by going into solitude from time to time, chanting His name and glories, practicing discrimination – these are what you have to do.
- Do your work with one hand and hold onto God with the other. When you finish your work, you will hold God with both hands.
- In the beginning there is a lot of activity, but the more you advance on the path towards God, the less your activities will be. At the end, all work drops away and samadhi follows.
- When you develop ecstatic love for God, work falls off automatically. Let those act whom the Lord makes act.
- These days the decoction of ten medicinal roots does not help cure a fever. By the time such a decoction begins to show effect, the patient runs the risk of being carried off. ‘Fever mixture’ is the medicine for the present age. If you ask them to perform rituals, give them fish minus the head and tail.
- How long, then, does one have to perform sandhya and such ritualistic worship? As long as tears do not flow and the hair does not stand on end at the sound of God’s name.
- The blossom falls off as soon as the fruit appears. Karma is the blossom, and love for God is the fruit.
- You have to work for it. Only then can God be seen. One day I had a vision of the Haldarpukur. I saw that a person of low caste was taking water from it after removing the scum from its surface. Each time he took water in his palm, he examined it. It was as if he was telling me that you can’t see the water unless you remove the scum.
- If you want butter, you have to make curd from milk and then keep it in a quiet place. When the milk is curdled, you have to make the effort to churn it and take out the butter.
- That’s why work for God is necessary. It does no good to say, ‘God is,’ and just sit there. Somehow you have to approach Him. Call upon Him secretly, pray to Him, Please grant me Thy vision.
- Somebody wants to meet the king. The king is beyond the seven gates. Even before passing through the first gate, he asks, ‘Where is the king?’ The way is to pass through all the gates one by one.
- You have to serve both parties. King Janaka was loyal to both matter and spirit and drank his milk from a full cup.
- Some work is necessary – you must practice some spiritual disciplines. You must finish your work quickly. The goldsmith, while melting gold, uses bellows, blow pipes and a fan to blow air so that fire may give more heat and the gold may melt. When the gold melts, he asks for a smoke. He has worked hard for a long time; he will now smoke his pipe. You have to have grit, a firm resolve. Only then can you practice spiritual disciplines.
- One has to surrender the fruit of one’s actions completely to the Lord. One must not expect any reward whatsoever. Even so, the fact is that the desire for bhakti is not to be counted as desire. It is all right to desire bhakti and to pray for it.
- One must always remember death. Death will be the end of everything. You have come here to perform some actions, the way villagers come to Calcutta from their village to work.
- Everybody performs karma. Repeating His name and singing His glories are also work. Even the non-dualists’ meditation on ‘I am He’ is also work. It is work to exhale. There is no way to give up action. So work, but surrender its result to the Lord.
- The blossom falls off when the fruit is ripe. When you have attained the Lord, you don’t have to work any longer. You won’t even want to.
- One has peace only when one has finished all karma at hand. When a housewife has finished her cooking, the serving of meals and other household chores, and goes to take her bath, she doesn’t return, even if you call for her.
- How long must one perform actions? As long as one does not realize God. One gains everything when one has attained Him. Then one goes beyond virtue and vice. When the fruit appears, the flower drops off. It is for making the fruit that the flower appears.
- How long does one have to perform sandhya? As long as the mind does not merge in Him when repeating ‘Om’.
- Does one have to perform ritualistic worship forever? How long does a bee buzz around a flower? As long as it has not alighted on it. It stops buzzing when it sips the honey.
- How long does a person have to work? As long as there is body-consciousness. That is, as long as one clings to the idea of the body being one’s self. The Gita says this. To cling to the idea that the body is one’s own self is ignorance.
- God is getting His work done through you. When you have finished it, you will not return. A housewife finishes all her domestic chores – feeds everybody, even the maids and servants – and then goes for her bath. Then even if you shout for her, she doesn’t return.
- The result of good acts is good. And the result of bad actions bring bad results. Don’t you feel the bite of chillies when you eat them? All this is God’s lila, His play.
- A person doesn’t feel yearning for God until all work and desire for enjoyment are over. A physician says, ‘Let a few days pass. Then the ordinary medicine will do him good.’
- As long as the desire for sense enjoyment is not fulfilled and duties remain unfinished, a person cannot attain samadhi.
- The Gita says: Both a sadhu and a householder first have to work without expectation of any reward according to the instructions of the guru in order to purify their minds. To think ‘I am the doer’ is ignorance; that wealth, people, work and activities – these are mine – is also ignorance.
- Knowing yourself not to be the doer, surrender the reward of your work to God and then perform whatever work you do. The Gita further says: Some people, even after attaining spiritual perfection, receive the divine command to work, like Janaka and others. This is the karma yoga that the Gita teaches.
- Worldly duty is very difficult to perform. After spinning around quickly, a person feels faint and falls. But if he holds to a pillar while he spins, there is no danger. Do your duty, but do not forget God.