- If I can quench my thirst with one glass of water, what need is there for me to measure the quantity of water in the lake? If I get intoxicated with half a bottle of wine. What is the need to know the quantity of wine in the wine shop? In the same way, what is the need to know the Infinite?
- Dive deep into the sweetness of God’s love. What need is there for us to find out about God’s infinite creation, His limitless splendours?
- Who can really know God? It is enough to know as much as one needs. What is the need for a whole well? A jug of water is enough. An ant went to a mound of sugar. What need had it for the whole mound? A grain or two made it happy.
- As is the disease, so is the remedy. The Lord says in the Gita, ‘O Arjuna, take refuge in me, I shall free you from all your sins.’ Take refuge in God. He will grant you right understanding. He will take up your whole burden. Then all your defects and aberrations will be wiped away.
- You’ve come to drink wine. What is the use in knowing how many maunds of wine are in the wine shop? Just a tumbler-full is enough for you. What is the need for you to know His infinite affairs?
- There are numberless paths to reach the ocean of immortality. Any path you take, it is enough if you can jump into this ocean.
- There are innumerable paths. Among them are the path of knowledge, the path of action, and the path of love and devotion. You will attain God by any path if you have sincere longing for Him.
- No one recognized the depth of Rupa and Sanatana’s emotion. If an elephant goes into a small pond, everything goes topsy-turvy. But if it plunges into a deep lake, there is no disturbance; no one even notices.
- Eat the mangoes! What’s the use of calculating how many hundreds of trees there are in the orchard, how many thousands of branches, how many millions of leaves? Why calculate all this? You’ve come to eat mangoes. Eat them!
- When the butter is taken out of the buttermilk, one realizes that the butter is not essentially different from the buttermilk, nor the buttermilk essentially different from the butter. One has full realization that God has become everything. Only at some places He manifests Himself in a greater degree than in others.
- He who is a genuine worshipper of Shiva receives a portion of Shiva. Some of Shiva’s characteristics enter into him. He who is a genuine Vaishnava is endowed with some of elements of Narayana.
- One develops the qualities of him whom one worships. If one worships Shiva, one acquires his nature. One who is born into the spiritual heritage of Shiva acquires jnana, the nature of Shiva, and one who is born into the spiritual heritage of Vishnu acquires bhakti, the nature of Vishnu. They who belong to Shiva have the nature of a jnani and they who belong to Vishnu conduct themselves as devotees.
- You must know that if a boy holds his father’s hand, he can fall into a pit. But when the father holds the boy’s hand, he need have no fear.
- It depends on physical traits. A dwarfish stature and dents here and there on the body are bad signs. Such a person takes a long time to attain jnana.
- Who is an intimate disciple? -There are inner pillars and outer pillars in the natmandir. They who remain ever close to their master are the intimate disciples.
- If you peel off the sheaths of a banana tree, one after the other, you reach its pith. The layers of sheath are different from the pith. Neither is the pith the sheath, nor the sheath the pith. At the end, the man sees that the sheath cannot exist without the pith and the pith cannot exist without the sheath. God has Himself become the twenty-four cosmic principles, He Himself has become man.
- Inclinations are different from man to man. And all men are not equally fit. Do you know what the difference in inclinations means? Some like to eat fish gravy, others fried fish, others pickled fish, yet others take fish cooked with rice. Then there is also the difference of competency. I say first learn to aim at the banana plant, then at the wick of a lamp, and then at a flying bird.
- I see Him both within and without as Indivisible Sachchidananda. Indeed, it is Sachchidananda who dwells both within, taking the cover [of the body] as its support, and without.
- Have you heard of the ‘achina tree’? It is a special kind of tree, but nobody can recognize it.
- To practice spiritual disciplines to win a lawsuit, or to earn a lot of money – or to help somebody win a lawsuit, or to procure property! These are matters of very low intelligence!
- If a light is brought into a room that has been dark for a thousand years, does it take long to light the room? Is it not illuminated immediately?
- After awhile Sri Ramakrishna adds, “God keeps a teacher of the holy word tied by a single string. Otherwise, who would propagate the holy word? He keeps this bond to enable him to teach humanity. The Divine Mother has kept you in the world just for this.”
- An ‘ordinary receptacle’ can’t contain ecstasy. A ‘big receptacle’ can enter into a deep ecstatic mood, but it does not show outwardly. As, you said, the surface of a big lake remains undisturbed when an elephant enters it, but when the elephant goes into a small pond, it produces a lot of commotion and the water splashes over the edges of the pond.
- Everything is possible for God. It is He who casts the spell. The magician can thrust a dagger into his throat and take it out again. He can even swallow pieces of brick!
- I said to Keshab Sen, ‘If I talk to you of higher spiritual ideas, your organization and group of devotees will break up.’ In the state of divine knowledge, groups and organizations are illusory – like a dream.
- It is His will. It is by His ‘Yea’ that everything happens in this world. When He says, ‘Nay,’ it all comes to a halt. Why should one man not bless another? Because nothing happens by man’s will. It is by God’s will alone that everything happens.
- Water is God. There is water all around. But one kind of water is used for drinking, the other for bathing, and yet another for washing dirty things.
- Everyone will know Her – everyone will indeed be liberated. Some people get their meal in the morning, others at midday and yet others in the evening – but no one will remain hungry. Indeed, everyone will realize his own true nature.
- Why worry about all these calculations? Eat mangoes. What is the use of knowing how many mango trees, how many branches, how many millions of leaves are in the garden? I have come to the garden to eat mangoes. Let me eat and go.
- When a tree is almost axed in two, the person who is felling it stands some distance away after his last blow. In a little while the tree falls by itself.
- A Muslim was loudly calling out, ‘O Allah! O Allah!’ during his offering of Namaz. Someone said to him, ‘Why are you shouting so loudly when you are calling upon Allah? He can hear even the sound of little anklets on an ant’s feet!’