- Better to Marry Than to Burn – Sri Ramakrishna
- Sri Ramakrishna’s Experience of Oneness
- God May Come at Any Time – Sri Ramakrishna
- Don’t See Fault in Others
- A Real Lover
- Wishes of a Knower of Brahman
- How Can One Be a Good Preacher?
- I Only Fulfill The Vow I Have Taken – Swami Ramakrishnananda
- God Will Help
- You Want to Test Me? – Swami Ramakrishnananda
- Highest Worship
- Renunciation and Unselfishness
- Dryness in Spiritual Life
Observing that other disciples were experiencing ecstasy and devotion, one day Shashi prayed to the Master for those spiritual experiences. The Master said to him, “If you have that experience, you won’t be able to serve me.” “Then I don’t need it,” replied Shashi. “I don’t care for that ecstasy which will take away my opportunity to serve you.”
The Master said, “If you will practise even one-sixteenth part of what I have practised, you will surely reach the goal.” That sixteenth part of individual striving, however, was essential. He could not impose realization as one pastes a picture on a page. Someone said to him once, “You have the power by a touch to make a man perfect, so why do you not do it?” “Because if I did,” he answered, “the person would not be able to keep perfection. He must grow to it and be ready to take it.”
At one time there was a very poor boy who used to come almost daily to Sri Ramakrishna, but the Master would never take any of the food he brought. We did not know why. Finally one day Sri Ramakrishna said: “This poor fellow comes here because he has a great desire to be rich. Very well. Let me taste a little of what he has brought.” And he took a small quantity of the food. The boy’s situation began to improve immediately, and today he is one of the most prosperous men of Calcutta.
To realize God one needs a pure mind, and the mind becomes pure through unselfish action. Karma yoga, or unselfish action, is sometimes confusing to people. To explain this, one day Ramakrishnananda told Sister Devamata: “Work for others is self-amelioration. We need to serve others in order to lift ourselves up out of the state of degradation and selfishness into which we have fallen. We should be grateful to the needy for making it possible for us to raise ourselves. That is the only real good that comes out of all that we do for others; we merely better ourselves.”