Sri Ramakrishna on Yoga

• There are three kinds of yogas: the yoga of knowledge, the yoga of action and the yoga of love and devotion.
• The fact is that unless your mind is steady, there can be no yoga, whatever path you may take. The mind of a yogi is under his control. The yogi is not controlled by the mind.
• Hatha Yoga and Raja Yoga. In Raja Yoga one unites with God through the mind. One communes with God by means of love and reason. It is a good path of union with God. Hatha Yoga is not well-suited for the age of Kali in which life depends on food.
• One can attain nothing unless one concentrates the mind to a point. The Bhagavata mentions that Shukadeva would walk around looking like a soldier with a bayonet. He would see neither this way nor that – his eyes were glued to his goal, Bhagavan. This is called yoga.
• ‘Lust and greed’ are the obstacles to yoga. They make one deviate from yoga and fall into worldliness – if there is still any desire for sense enjoyment. When this desire is fulfilled, the person will again turn toward the Lord – he will again attain the state of yoga.
• If the mind is restless, yoga is not possible. The wind of the world always distracts the flame of the mind. When the flame does not waver, one attains a perfect state of yoga.
• One is able to renounce the attachment to ‘lust and greed’ by the yoga of practice. The Gita says this. Practice brings extraordinary strength to the mind. Then you don’t find it difficult to subdue the senses, to control passions like lust and anger. For instance, a tortoise doesn’t bring out its limbs once it has drawn them inside its shell, even if you cut it into four pieces with an axe.
• The Gita says that the one who falls from yoga is reborn as a devotee in a rich family.
• In the village [Kamarpukur] a mongoose was living in a hole in the wall. As long as it was in the hole it felt comfortable. Someone tied a brick to its tail and it was forced to come out of its hole by the pull of the brick. Every time it tried to go back into the hole for peace, it was pulled out by the pull of the brick. Worldly thoughts divert the mind of the yogi from meditation.
• Broadly speaking, there are two kinds of yoga: Karma Yoga and manoyoga – union with God through work and union through mind.
• When a person falls from yoga, he takes birth in a prosperous family. This enables him to renew his spiritual practices for the realization of God.
• To remain united with God no matter what work you do. There are two paths: the path of karma yoga, or work, and the path of manoyoga, or mental effort.
• Householders unite themselves with God through work. There are four stages of life: brahmacharya, garhasthya, vanaprastha and sannyasa. A sannyasin has to give up working with desire (i.e. hankering after health, wealth, long life, progeny, name, fame, title, and social status) but must perform his daily duties without any desire for reward. Carrying a staff, begging for food, pilgrimage, worship, and japa – this work unites one with God.
• Whatever work you do, if you renounce the desire for its fruit, without craving anything, you will be united with Him.
• Work falls off in the stage of a paramahamsa. Such people remember God and meditate upon Him always. Their minds ever remain united with Him. If a paramahamsa ever performs work, it is to teach others.
• Whether union with God is achieved by work or through concentration, a person knows everything when love of God is developed.
• Do you know what the six centres are like? There are ‘lotuses inside the subtle body’. Yogis can see them – like the leaves and fruits of a wax tree.

Bhakti Yoga

• In the Kaliyuga one should practice Bhakti Yoga, chanting the Lord’s name and His glories, and prayer. Indeed, Bhakti Yoga is the law of this age.
• In the Kaliyuga life depends on food. With the conviction that I am the body, ‘I-ness,’ does not disappear. So the path of devotion is enjoined for the Kaliyuga. It is an easy path. If you sing His names and glories and pray to Him longingly from the core of your heart, you will attain God.
• You may cut down an ashwattha tree and think its roots are dead, but the very next morning you will see that a new sprout has appeared. The feeling of the body does not go away. Thus the path of devotion is a good and easy path in this age.
• I don’t want to become sugar, I want to taste it. I never feel like saying, ‘I am Brahman.’ I say, ‘You are my Lord and I am Your servant.’ It is good to play between the fifth and sixth planes. After crossing the sixth plane, I have no desire to stay on the seventh plane for long.
• For the Kaliyuga, Bhakti Yoga is best suited – the path of love and devotion enjoined by Narada: chanting the name and glories of God and praying with a longing heart, ‘O Lord, grant me knowledge and devotion, reveal Yourself to me.’ Karma Yoga is very difficult.
• Bhakti Yoga is the path of devotion, Bhakti Yoga, is in fixing the mind on God by repeating His name and singing His glories. Bhakti Yoga is the easy path for the Kaliyuga. It is indeed the path for the present age.
• The path of love and devotion is best. One can approach God more easily through it than by any other path.
• Bhakti Yoga is the religion for this age. This does not mean that a lover of God reaches one goal and the followers of the path of knowledge and action reach another.
• You can attain Him by the path of devotion too. If you once develop love for the lotus feet of God, if you begin to enjoy chanting His name and glories, you don’t have to try to control your passions any more. They are subjugated automatically.
• When the Kundalini power awakens, one experiences bhava, bhakti and prema. This is called Bhakti Yoga.
• Bhakti yoga and Jnana Yoga are both paths to realize God. You may take any path and you will reach Him. The path of bhakti is an easy path. The path of jnana and discrimination, however, is difficult.
• You can achieve everything through bhakti yoga. I said to the Divine Mother, weeping, ‘Mother, let me know what yogis came to know by practicing yoga, what men of knowledge have known by discrimination. Please reveal it to me.’ The Divine Mother showed it all to me. When one weeps before Her with yearning, She conveys all knowledge. She has revealed to me everything that is in the Vedas, the Vedanta, the Puranas, the Tantra – all these scriptures.
• For the Kaliyuga, the path of devotion is especially good. God can be realized by love and devotion. As long as you have body-consciousness, you are conscious of objects – form, taste, smell, sound, and touch. These are all sense objects. It’s very difficult to get rid of the consciousness of sense objects. As long as you are conscious of objects, you can’t say, ‘I am He.’
• There is hatha yoga and raja yoga. A hatha yogi practices physical exercises. His ideal is to attain occult powers and a long life. His aim is the eight occult powers. The goal of raja yoga is to develop love for God – ecstatic love for Him – knowledge and non-attachment. Raja yoga is better.
• The path of devotion is for this age. It is easier to reach God by it than by other paths. You can reach God by jnana yoga or karma yoga or other paths, but they are all difficult paths.
• The path of knowledge is very difficult to practice in this age. Life depends on food, and this requires hard work – but life is short. And it is impossible to get rid of body-consciousness. On the other hand, until you can get rid of body-consciousness completely, you can’t attain the knowledge of the Absolute. A man of knowledge says, ‘I myself am that Brahman. I am not the body – I am beyond hunger, thirst, disease, sorrow, birth, death, happiness, pain, and so on.’ So if you have disease, sorrow, happiness, pain, how can you be a knower of the Absolute?

Jnana Yoga

• The path of knowledge is very difficult. Knowledge can’t be attained without ridding yourself of the conviction that you are the body.
• Jnana Yoga is the path of knowledge, the jnani wants to know Brahman, the Absolute. He says to himself, ‘Not this, not this.’ He reasons, ‘Only Brahman is real and the world unreal.’
• The path of knowledge is also very difficult in this age. In the first place, human life is dependent on food. Second, life is short. Third, it is not possible to rid oneself of body consciousness.

Karma Yoga

• Karma yoga is very hard indeed. The rituals laid down in the sacred books are very hard to practice in the Kaliyuga. Life is dependent on food.
• Working unattached in this way is called Karma Yoga. But it is very difficult. Thus, it is only possible for those who have seen God to be completely unattached.
• If householders attend to their duties in life in an unattached manner with devotion for Him and surrender the result of their work to Him, it, too, is Karma Yoga.
• To perform worship, repetition of God’s name, and other such actions, surrendering the result to God, is also the path of action. The goal of this path is also God-realization.
• Karma Yoga is an extremely difficult path. By practicing Karma Yoga, one gains many occult powers – power to perform miracles.
• Do you understand the meaning of Karma Yoga? It is to surrender the fruit of all actions to God.
• Karma yoga is a very difficult path. Karma leads to bondage unless you can work without expectation of any reward. Besides, life depends on food. There is no time to perform all the rituals according to regulations. You can die by the time an ancient herbal medicine is ready. You need to take a modern fever mixture.
• Mano yoga and Karma yoga. Performing worship, going on pilgrimage, service to living beings and so on under the guru’s instruction is called karma yoga. The work Janaka used to perform is also called karma yoga. Mano yoga is what yogis do: remembering God and meditating on Him.
• Karma yoga is a very difficult path. Without practicing spiritual disciplines in seclusion for a sufficiently long period of time, one cannot work without attachment. During the time of spiritual disciplines, the guru’s direction is essential. It is a period of immaturity, so one can easily fall prey to unforeseen attachment. He may think that he is serving selflessly and practicing charity without attachment solely in the name of God, but in reality he may be doing so to gain the admiration of the world. He does not understand this. It is very difficult for an individual with hearth and home and family to learn to work for others without any motive, to understand nishkama karma, non-attachment.

Hatha Yoga

• The body, money and so on are all ephemeral. Why worry so much about them? Look at the hatha yogis. Their only concern is how to add years to their lives. They don’t aim at realizing God.

Yogi

• The mind of a yogi is always fixed on the Lord, ever absorbed in the Atman. You know it as soon as you see his eyes; they gaze in wonder. They look like the eyes of a bird hatching her eggs. Her entire mind is centered on the eggs. She sees outwardly only in name.
• There are two classes of yogis: the vahudakas and the kutichakas. The sadhu who visits many places of pilgrimage and hasn’t yet attained peace of mind is a vahudaka. But the yogi who has stilled his mind after visiting several places, who has found peace of mind, fixes an asana for himself and doesn’t move from it. He feels joy only when he sits at that same place. He doesn’t feel the need to go on pilgrimage. If he goes to holy places at all, it is to get inspiration.
• Only a few attain the knowledge of God in family life. Two kinds of yogis are mentioned: the hidden yogi and the visible yogi. Those who have renounced the world are visible yogis; everyone can recognize them. The hidden yogi cannot be recognized.