Sri Ramakrishna on ‘Spiritual Practice’

• The mind, in the initial stage, is like a young tree on the footpath; it may be eaten by goats or cows. A fence is needed to protect it. When, however, the trunk grows big and strong, no fence is needed. Then even an elephant tied to the trunk will not harm it.
• Take to spiritual practice and go forward. As you practice and advance further, you will come to know in the end that God is the only Reality and all else is unreal – and that the aim of life, truly, is to realize God.
• What will you learn of God by reading books? Until you have reached the marketplace, you only hear noises in the distance. It is quite different when you reach the market. Then you see clearly, you hear clearly: ‘Take these potatoes. Pay for them.’
• The almanac says that it will rain twenty adas, but squeeze the almanac and not a drop will come out. Not a single drop!
• You’ve been born in this world to worship God. Try to gain love and devotion for His lotus feet! Why bother with other things? What will you gain by philosophizing? Look, you can get drunk with only a little wine. Why do you have to know how many measures of wine there are in the wine shop.
• You can’t get high even if you rub hemp-paste on your body. You have to eat some. Which is number 41 grade yarn and which is number 40? You can’t tell unless you work in the yarn trade. So I say, practice some spiritual disciplines. Then you will know it all – the gross, the subtle, the causal and the Great Cause.
• Tantra talks of sadhana in the company of women. It is not a good path. It is very difficult and often brings about the downfall of the aspirant. Spiritual disciplines can be practiced with the attitude of a hero, a maidservant, or even the attitude of a mother to a child. I have the attitude of a child to his mother. The attitude of a maidservant is also good. The path of sadhana with the attitude of a hero is very difficult. The attitude of a child is very pure.
• Sadhana (practice of spiritual disciplines) is essential. Why will you not succeed if you practice sadhana? If you have genuine faith, you don’t have to work too hard.
• The sadhaka (aspirant) must be very cautious. He should remain far away from women. He should not associate frequently even with a woman of great devotion. When you are climbing up onto the roof, you must not sway. If you are unsteady, there is a danger of falling. The weak should hold onto a support when they climb.
• Some sadhana (spiritual practice) is essential. When you perform sadhana, you gradually feel joy in it. If there is a pot of treasure buried very deep in the ground and one wants to possess it, one has to work hard to dig it out. One perspires, but if the spade touches the pot while digging, one hears its metallic sound and feels joy. The louder it sounds, the more joy.
• “Sir, can one know the Lord’s attributes through knowledge?” Thakur says, “Not through ordinary knowledge. You cannot know Him by that. You need to practice spiritual disciplines. And you must adhere to one attitude, for instance that of a servant. The rishis have the shanta bhava (of peace and serenity). Do you know the attitude of the jnani? To meditate on one’s own real Self.
• Go deeper! You will get sandalwood. Go deeper still and you will come upon a silver mine! Yes, deeper still and you shall come upon a gold mine! Move on still further and you shall be placed in the midst of diamonds, rubies and sapphires! Yes, go forward!
• In the beginning you must be up and doing, but you don’t have to work so hard later on. As long as there are storms, tempests and rough water, the boat has to be steered along zigzag routes; so long does the boatman stand and hold the rudder – but he no longer does so when he is past them. When the boat rounds a bend and a favourable wind blows, he can sit down and relax and just touch the rudder. Then he prepares to hoist the sail and sits down for a smoke. There is peace when the storm and tempest of ‘lust and greed’ pass.
• The fact is that you need to practice spiritual disciplines to understand. If you want to take jewels from a locked room, you have to make some effort to find the key to open the lock. Then you can remove the jewels from it. If you just stand before a locked room thinking, ‘I have now opened the door, now broken the strong-box and now taken the jewels out’ – such reflection is of no avail. One must practice spiritual disciplines.
• Spiritual practice is needed. It is essential that an aspirant live in solitude in the initial stages of practice. When an Ashwattha tree is only a plant, it must be fenced, otherwise a goat or a cow may eat it. But when it grows a thick trunk, the fence can be removed. Then even if an elephant is tied to it, no harm can be done to the tree.
• In the early stage of spiritual life, one must go away and live in solitude from time to time. Spiritual discipline is needed. One wants to eat rice. Is it possible to get cooked rice by just saying there is fire in the wood and rice is cooked over this fire? Fire is produced when one rubs one piece of wood against another.
• There are the Vedas and other scriptures. But unless one practices spiritual disciplines and austerities, it is not possible to realize God. One cannot see God in the six systems of philosophy, or in the Vedas, or the Tantras. Higher than reading is hearing and higher than hearing is seeing. One internalizes more when one hears from the lips of the guru, or from a holy man. Then one doesn’t have to think about the nonessential part of the scriptures.
• The almanac forecasts twenty measures of rainfall. But squeeze the almanac and not a single drop of water falls out. Not even one drop falls.
• There are three classes – sattvic, rajasic and tamasic. In the sattvic practices, one calls upon Him with intense yearning, or simply repeats His sacred name without expecting any result. In rajasic disciplines one practices various kinds of exercises – purascharana, visits to places of pilgrimage, a certain duration of panchatapa, worship with sixteen articles, and so forth. The aspirant who practices tamasic sadhana takes recourse to the qualities of tamas. Such an aspirant calls out, ‘Victory to Kali! Why will You not grant me Your vision? I’ll cut my throat with a knife if You do not reveal Yourself to me!’ The last kind of discipline is not morally pure – it is like the practices prescribed in the Tantra.
• As long as we practice spiritual disciplines, we should call Him compassionate. But when one has realized God, one rightly feels that He is one’s own Father or Mother. As long as one has not realized God, one feels distant from Him – like somebody else’s child.
• One should hear the scriptures in the early stages of spiritual practice. But after attaining God, there’s no lack of spiritual knowledge. The Divine Mother provides it more and more. When learning to write, you have to spell out every word, but later you can write fluently.
• You have to be up and doing while melting gold. You have to hold the bellows in one hand, the fan in the other, and the pipe in your mouth till the gold is melted. When the gold is melted, you pour it in the mould and you can sit down in peace.
• While practicing spiritual disciplines, one must renounce, saying to oneself, ‘Not this. Not this.’ After attaining God, one realizes that God Himself has become everything.
• Spiritual practice [on the formless] is not possible until one is completely rid of worldliness. The mind has to be completely free from the sense of form, taste, smell, touch, and sound. Only then is it purified. That pure mind is the same as the pure Atman. It must be absolutely free from ‘lust and greed.’
• What use is mere scholarship? Some austerity is necessary. One has to practice some spiritual disciplines.
• When you see your Self within yourself you have attained the goal. It is to attain this that all spiritual practices are undertaken. The body is also to carry out spiritual practice. As long as a gold image is not cast, one needs a clay mould. When the image is made, the clay mould is thrown away. One can give up the body after God-realization.
• Without practicing spiritual disciplines, you cannot understand the true meaning of the scriptures. What use is it to shout, ‘Hemp, hemp?’ Scholars quote verses from the scriptures, but what use is that? You feel no intoxication by just rubbing hemp on your body. You have to swallow it.
• What use is it to just repeat that there is butter in milk? You have to curdle the milk and then churn it. Only then do you get butter.
• There is the yoga of practice. Practice it. You will see that your mind will go wherever you take it. The mind is like a freshly laundered cloth. It will get dyed red if you put it in red dye, and you can dye it blue by putting it in blue dye. Whatever colour you dye it in, it will take that colour.
• After getting all the information, dive in. Having made sure where the pot is lying on the bottom of the pond, dive only there.
• You have to hear the essence of the scriptures from the lips of the guru and then take to spiritual practices. When you are absolutely sure what the right spiritual practice is for you, you begin to perceive God directly.
• You can be sure of the right spiritual practice only when you dive. What use is it to sit down and reason about what you have read in the scriptures? Fools just reason about the way and then perish, because they don’t dive.
• You must practice disciplines even after you attain spiritual knowledge. The Naked One used to say, ‘What is the use of cleaning a brass pot only once? It will get tarnished if you don’t polish it.’
• You have to work hard in the stage of practicing spiritual disciplines. Later on, the path is easy. Detach the boat from the bank and let it sail with a favourable wind.
• Only when you stand a little away from ‘lust and greed’ and practice spiritual disciplines and austerities is the darkness of the mind dispelled. The cloud of ignorance and egotism is burned away. And you gain spiritual knowledge. Again, ‘lust and greed’ is the cloud.
• All kinds of disciplines have been practiced here: jnana yoga, bhakti yoga, and karma yoga. Even hatha yoga, to add years to the life. A person dwells within this. How else could I have love for God and live with devotees after samadhi? Koar Singh said, ‘I have never seen a person returning [to life] after samadhi. You are none other than Nanak.’

Practice

• You should practice concentrating the mind on God as hard as you practice singing, playing musical instruments and dance. You have to practice worship, japa and meditation regularly.
• In Kamarpukur the women of carpenter families use a husking machine to flatten rice. One woman presses one end of the wooden beam with her foot and the other woman spreads the paddy into a mortar with her hand. She is careful that the pestle doesn’t fall on her hand. At the same time, she nurses her baby. And with all this, she talks to a buyer: ‘You owe us so much. Please come and pay us.’
• Keep your mind on God and at the same time attend to your many duties of the world. But you have to practice, and you have to be careful. Only then can you take care of both things.
• The yoga of practice. You have to call on Him daily. It doesn’t happen in one day. Yearning comes when you call on Him daily.
• The way out is the yoga of practice. I’ve seen carpenters’ wives in the village [Kamarpukur] pounding flattened rice with one hand, being careful that the pestle doesn’t mangle their fingers. And at the same time they nurse their babies at the breast and talk to customers, demanding payment before they leave.
• That’s why practice is essential – to repeat His name and qualities, to sing His glory, to meditate on Him, to contemplate Him, to pray – in order to get rid of the desire for enjoyment and attachment and fix the mind on His lotus feet.

Path

• One can reach God through various paths. But as long as one retains the ego, it is easier and more straightforward to follow the path of love and devotion.
• I had to practice disciplines of all the religions: Hinduism, Islam and Christianity. I also followed the paths of the Shaktas, Vaishnavas, Vedantists and other sects. I saw that it was the same Lord toward whom everybody was moving. Only their paths were different.
• Both Vaishnavas and Shaktas have the same goal. It is only their paths that are different. True Vaishnavas do not run down Shakti.
• There are so many views. Every belief is a path to reach God. But everybody thinks that only his belief is right, that only his watch is giving the right time. Even so, howsoever the watches may give incorrect time, the sun always moves correctly. One should match the time of the watch with the sun.
• Stricken by sorrow over the troubles of others, saintly people show the way to God. Shankaracharya retained the ego of knowledge to teach humanity.
• How many doctrines there are? Every belief is a way to reach God. Innumerable are the beliefs and paths.
• You have to hold on to one of the paths tightly. To reach the roof, you can climb brick steps. You can also climb a bamboo ladder or a ladder made of rope. Also a piece of rope or a piece of bamboo will take you up. But if you place your foot first on one path and then on another, your effort will be in vain. You have to hold tightly to one. If you want to attain God, you have to take one path resolutely.
• You should think of all religions as so many paths. You must never entertain the idea that your path is correct and all others are false. You must have no feeling of malice toward other beliefs.
• The path of Sat, or existence, is the path of knowledge. The path of Chit is the path of yoga, the path of karma yoga, which includes the duties of the four stages of life. And the path of Ananda, or the way of bliss, is the path of love and devotion for God. You know all three paths and give information on all of them.
• You can reach God by treading any path, all religions are true. You have to climb up onto the roof with the help of something. You can go by brick steps, by wooden steps, and you can also do it with the help of a bamboo ladder or a rope. You can even climb with the help of a bamboo pole.
• You can reach Him by any path. God is one, but he is called various names. Hindus, for example, take water from one spot at a pond and call it jal. At another spot, Christians take water and call it water, and yet at another, Muslims take water and call it pani.
• You have to attain your goal, whether you go through a forest of thorns or along a good road.
• ‘Only Brahman is real and the world an illusion’ is the idea – that everything is a dream! It’s a very hard path. In this path God’s play is like a dream and so unreal. The ‘I’ also vanishes. In this path an incarnation of God is not accepted. Very difficult. Devotees shouldn’t listen to much of such ideas.
• A person can attain God by following any one path properly. Then he can learn about all the other paths. It’s like climbing up to a roof, whether you do it by a wooden ladder or brick steps or even by a rope.
• There is the path of reasoning. Jnana Yoga. It is the path of the Vedantists. The other path is devotion. Bhakti Yoga. If a devotee weeps longingly for the knowledge of Brahman, he can attain it too.
• You can attain the knowledge of Brahman by following either path. Some people retain love for God even after attaining the knowledge of Brahman, to teach others. For example, incarnations of God.
• Whatever path – whether Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Shakta, Brahmo – whichever path you take, the basic condition is yearning of this kind. He is the inner controller of the heart. There is no harm falling into a wrong path if you have yearning. He Himself will put you back on the right path.
• There are short-comings in all paths. Everybody thinks his own watch gives the right time, but nobody’s watch is perfect. But that does not stop anyone’s work. If there is yearning, holy company comes to help you correct your watch.
• God can be realized by all paths. Just like some of you have come here by carriage, some by boat, some by steamer, and some on foot – whatever way is convenient for you or according to your inclination. But the aim is only one, though some reach it earlier than others.

Spiritually Perfect

• There are two classes of perfect souls: one is sadhanasiddha (perfected by spiritual disciplines) and the other kripasiddha (perfected by the grace of God). Some people go to great trouble to bring water to their fields for a good harvest. Others don’t have to struggle at all; rainwater fills their fields. One has to practice sadhana rigorously to save oneself from maya. He who is a kripasiddha doesn’t have to struggle. But there are only one or two such people.
• The Vaishnavas say there are stages on the path to the realization of the Lord. There are beginners, aspirants, perfected ones and the most perfect of the perfected.
• There is yet another class, that of the most perfect of the perfect. It is another state to have an intimate acquaintance with the gentleman – to become intimately acquainted with the Lord through love and devotion.
• The perfect has no doubt attained the Lord, but the most perfect of the perfect has become intimately acquainted with Him.
• The first stage is that of a beginner. He studies and listens to the reading of scriptures. The next is that of the aspirant who calls on God, who meditates and thinks about Him and sings His Name and glories. Next, one becomes perfected and knows God intuitively. In the last stage one attains God’s vision and becomes the most perfect of the perfected.
• The Kartabhajas talk about beginners, practioners, perfected ones and the perfected among the perfect. A beginner puts a vermilion mark on his forehead, wears a rosary around his neck and practices outer rituals. Practioners don’t observe as much outer conduct – for example, the bauls. The perfected is one who has firm faith that God exists. The perfected among the perfect are like Chaitanya Deva. They have realized God and are always communicating with Him. The perfected of the perfect are called Sai. There is no one beyond Sai.
• People have realized God in many different ways. Some attain Him by long and hard spiritual practices – they become perfect through them. Some are perfect from birth – for example, Narada, Sukadeva and others. They are known as ever-perfect. And then there are those who realize Him suddenly, – not expecting it, like Nanda Basu’s inheriting great wealth.
• There are ones who attain perfection in dreams and those who attain it by God’s grace.

Ever-perfect Souls

• And then there are the nityasiddhas (ever-perfect ones). They are already spiritually awakened in every life. Take the example of a plugged fountain. The plumber, while doing something else, accidentally removes the obstruction and lo! water gushes forth from the fountain. When they see the love for God in an everperfect person express itself for the first time, people are amazed. They wonder where such bhakti, such nonattachment and such intense love came from.
• The nityasiddhas (ever-perfect ones) have no fear of the world. Worldly life is like a game of chess for them; as in the game, they do not fear what the next move will bring.
• The nityasiddha may live a worldly life if he so desires. Some people can wield two swords at the same time. They become such an expert that if a sword strikes against a stone, the latter flies away at its blow.
• The nityasiddha is of an altogether different class. He is, for instance, like tinder stick. Rub it a little and it produces fire. Even without rubbing, it gives fire. The nityasiddha realizes God with very little spiritual disciplines, sometimes without performing any spiritual practices at all.
• However, the nityasiddha, does practice spiritual disciplines after attaining God. He is like the pumpkin or the gourd plants which first bear fruit, and then flowers.
• The nityasiddha is like the homa bird. Its mother soars high up in the sky. When the chick is born, it falls toward the earth. It grows wings and opens its eyes during the fall – but before striking the ground and hurting itself, it rushes up toward its mother, screaming, ‘Where are you mother, where?’
• Rakhal, Narendra, and Bhavanath are ever-perfect. They have been spiritually awake since birth. They’ve assumed human bodies only to teach others.
• Those who are born perfect don’t have to go through the householder’s life. They are already free from the desire for enjoyments since their birth.
• Worldliness has not yet entered into these youngsters’ minds. That’s why they are so pure. And many of them are ever-perfect ones. They were drawn to God since their birth. Imagine you’ve bought a garden and when clearing it, you discover a previously installed water pipe. You open it and lo, water gushes out!

Perfected by God’s Grace

• There’s another class of devotees – those who are perfected by God’s grace. All of a sudden God’s grace descends on them and immediately they have His vision and spiritual wisdom. It is like a room which has been lying dark for a thousand years; the very moment a light is brought in, it is lit up. It is not lighted little by little.

Spiritual Awakening

• Those who are born as human beings for the first time need to enjoy the things of the world. Spiritual awakening does not come until a lot of work has been done.
• An ordinary being is called manushya, or man. One whose consciousness is awakened is called manhosha, or an awakened mind. You are manhosha.
• Can one be unconscious by meditating on Consciousness? Can one go mad by meditating on God? He is the very nature of all knowledge. He is eternal, pure, knowledge itself.
• There are ordinary men and men with awakened minds. A man who is spiritually conscious is awake. Without spiritual consciousness, birth as a human being is futile.

Spiritual Discipline

• If you take a plunge, you’re bound to succeed – you’re bound to be successful if you make the jump.
• Can you reach the jewels by swimming on the surface of the water? You have to dive deep.
• You have to practice spiritual disciplines if you want to realize God and to recognize an incarnation. There are big fish in a large pond. You have to throw bait for them. Milk contains butter, but you have to churn it. Mustard contains oil – but it has to be pressed to extract the oil. Henna makes a palm red – but you have to grind it first.
• Why shouldn’t it be possible to practice discipline of the formless? But it is very difficult. You can’t practice it without renouncing ‘lust and greed’ – both outwardly and inwardly. You won’t succeed if there is even a trace of worldly calculation.
• You shouldn’t talk to devotees about the spiritual disciplines of God without form, of the path of knowledge. It’s only with a great deal of difficulty that a person develops a little love for God. Calling everything a dream can harm devotional feelings.
• Kavirdas believed in the formless God. He didn’t believe in Shiva, Kali or Krishna. He used to say, ‘Kali eats rice and bananas and Krishna danced like a monkey when the milkmaids clapped.’
• A worshipper of the formless perhaps first sees the ten-armed one and then the four-armed one. Then he sees the two-armed Gopala. Finally, he sees the indivisible light and is merged in it.
• You have to practice spiritual disciplines. Only then can you attain your objective. It doesn’t help to memorize verses of the scriptures. By repeating ‘Hemp, hemp,’ you don’t get intoxicated. You have to swallow the hemp.
• You have to work for it – practice spiritual disciplines. It won’t do to just sit and say that God exists. You have to reach Him somehow. Call on Him in solitude and pray, ‘Reveal Yourself to me!’ Weep with a longing heart. You roam around madly for ‘lust and greed’ – be a little mad for Him too. Let people say that so-and-so is mad for God.

Spiritual Seekers

• There are different kinds of spiritual seekers. Sattvic spiritual disciplines are practiced secretly – the aspirant practices in seclusion. He looks like an average person, but he meditates inside a mosquito net.
• A rajasic aspirant indulges in outward show. He wears a rosary around his neck, puts on ochre clothes, a silk dhoti, and his rosary is interspersed with gold beads. This is like sitting outside with a signboard.