- That only God is real, all else is unreal. Thinking this way is discrimination. ‘Real’ means eternal, and ‘unreal’ means transient.
- Live in the world like an ant. In the world is both the True (nitya; the absolute; the eternal) and the transitory, all mixed up, just as sugar is mixed with sand. Be an ant and take only the sugar.
- Water and milk are mixed together, and so are spiritual joy and worldly pleasures. Like a swan, you must take only the milk and leave the water.
- Be like the waterfowl. When water touches its body, it flutters its wings and shakes it off. Or become like a mud fish. It lives in mud, but look at its body: it is clean and shines brightly.
- In the world (gol-mal) there is indeed a mixture of truth (mal) and make-believe (gol). Discard the make-believe and take the truth.
- The Absolute is the identical substance from which you derive the concept of the individual soul and the world. The phenomenal must be traced to that very Being, the Absolute must be traced.
- There is no danger of thorns, if one is wearing shoes. One has no fear of ‘lust and greed’ when one knows that ‘God is the only Reality and all else ephemeral.’
- Is it that He is visible only when you shut your eyes, and He does not exist when you don’t? The Absolute belongs to the same Reality as the phenomenal world; the phenomenal world belongs to the same Reality as the Absolute.
- A pure-hearted devotee sometimes dwells on the Absolute and at times on the phenomenal world. The Absolute and the phenomenal belong to the same Reality. It is all one – neither two nor many.
- The Absolute and the phenomenal. The Absolute is the indivisible Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute. The divine play, or the phenomenal, is play as God, play as deities, play as human beings, and play as the universe.
- Look, all this is impermanent – all these meetings, schools, and offices. God is the only reality, and all else is unreal. You must worship Him alone with your whole mind.
- Everything else is transitory – the body now is and then is no more. You mustn’t hesitate to call upon Him.
- I (Sri Ramakrishna) see it all as a magician and his magic. Only the magician is real; all his magic is ephemeral, like a dream. “I realized this when I listened to a recitation of the Chandi. First I heard that the demons Shumbha and Nishumbha were born, and shortly after I heard that they were dead.
- The Tantra also speaks of the same Being as the Vedas. The Puranas also speak of the same Being – Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute. The Absolute belongs to the same as the phenomenal belongs.
- That Brahman, the real nature of existence, is eternal. It exists in the present, it existed in the past, and it will exist in the future. It is without beginning or end. It cannot be described in words. The most you can say is that It is of the very nature of Consciousness and Bliss.
- The world is impermanent, Brahman is eternal. The world is like magic. The magician is real, but the magic of the magician is transitory.
- After gaining perfect knowledge, one feels that dying and killing are the same. When one dies nobody dies, and when one kills nobody is killed. The phenomenal belongs to the same reality as the Absolute. It is He Himself who is the Absolute in one form and the phenomenal in another. Even if the relative is destroyed, the Absolute exists. Water is water, whether it is moving or still.
- In one form God is the Absolute and in another He is the phenomenal. What does Vedanta say? That Brahman is real and the world illusory. But as long as God keeps the feeling of I-ness in a devotee, the relative is real. When He takes it away, then whatever is remains. This cannot be explained in words.
- As long as He has kept I-ness in you, you have to accept everything. When the sheathes of the banana tree are peeled off, there is pulp inside. When there are sheathes, there is pulp – the pulp belongs to the sheathes and the sheathes belong to the pulp. When you speak of the existence of the Absolute, you comprehend that the phenomenal exists. And when you speak of the phenomenal, you understand that the Absolute also exists.
- Living in the relative world after reaching the Absolute is like going to the other bank and then returning. It is for teaching people and for enjoyment, for pleasure.
- You go to the Absolute by holding on to the phenomenal, step by step – like going up to the roof by stairs. After realizing the Absolute, you must come back down to the phenomenal and live there loving God in the company of devotees. This is the surest way.
Absolute
- Shakti cannot be thought of apart from Brahman, nor can Brahman be thought of apart from Shakti. Nitya (the Absolute) and lila (the relative phenomenal world) cannot be thought of apart from each other.
- The Absolute belongs to the same Being as the phenomenal world, and the phenomenal belongs to the same as the Absolute.
- It is very difficult to understand that He is both limitless and limited. The Absolute belongs to the same Being as the phenomenal world.
- In worldly life sugar and sand are mixed together. Like an ant, you must leave the sand and sift out the sugar. Only the adept can sift the sugar out. Arrange for a solitary place to contemplate Him – a place for meditation.
Phenomenal
- There is a way out, yet the fish do not escape. The silkworm dies in its own secretions. This world is unreal, it is impermanent.
- If you live in the world after knowing Him, the world is no longer ephemeral.
- All this is transitory – home, family and children are all for two days. Only the palm tree is real. One or two fruits have dropped from the tree. Why sorrow for them?
- Rakhal and others know very well what is right and what is wrong, what is real and what is unreal. If they lead a family life, they do so intentionally. Rakhal has a wife and a son has been born to him too, but he has understood that all this is illusory and perishable. Rakhal and others will not get attached to the world. They are like mud fish. It lives in mud but its body is not stained by the mud.