Ramakrishna famous quotes

It is true that God is even in the tiger, but we must not go and face the animal. So it is true that God dwells even in the most wicked, but it is not meet that we should associate with the wicked.
-- Ramakrishna

#Animal #Wicked #Faces

As long as I live, so long do I learn.
-- Ramakrishna

#Long

God is in all men, but all men are not in God; that is why we suffer.
-- Ramakrishna

#Inspirational #Men #Suffering

One should not think, 'My religion alone is the right path and other religions are false.' God can be realized by means of all paths. It is enough to have sincere yearning for God. Infinite are the paths and infinite are the opinions.
-- Ramakrishna

#Mean #Thinking #Religion

God can be realized through all paths. All religions are true. The important thing is to reach the roof. You can reach it by stone stairs or by wooden stairs or by bamboo steps or by a rope. You can also climb up by a bamboo pole.
-- Ramakrishna

#Important #Bamboo #Stones

Bondage is of the mind; freedom too is of the mind. If you say 'I am a free soul. I am a son of God who can bind me' free you shall be.
-- Ramakrishna

#Son #Soul #Mind

Sunlight is one and the same wherever it falls; but only a bright surface like that of water, or of a mirror reflects it fully. So is the light Divine. It falls equally and impartially on all hearts, but the pure and pious hearts of holy men receive and reflect that light well.
-- Ramakrishna

#Fall #Heart #Men

The winds of God's grace are always blowing, it is for us to raise our sails.
-- Ramakrishna

#Wind #Grace #Sail

Pray to God that your attachment to such transitory things as wealth, name, and creature comforts may become less and less every day.
-- Ramakrishna

#Attachment #Names #May

The Man who works for others, without any selfish motive, really does good to himself.
-- Ramakrishna

#Selfish #Men #Doe

If you feel proud, let it be in the thought that you are the servant of God, the son of God. Great men have the nature of a child. They are always a child before Him; so they are free from pride. All their strength is of God and not their own. It belongs to Him and comes from Him.
-- Ramakrishna

#Children #Pride #Son

Disease is the tax which the soul pays for the body, as the tenant pays house-rent for the use of the house.
-- Ramakrishna

#House #Soul #Body

If you must be mad, be it not for the things of the world. Be mad with the love of God.
-- Ramakrishna

#God #Mad #World

Spirituality automatically leads to humility. When a flower develops into a fruit, the petals drop off on its own. When one becomes spiritual, the ego vanishes gradually on its own. A tree laden with fruits always bends low. Humility is a sign of greatness.
-- Ramakrishna

#Spiritual #Wisdom #Flower

The magnetic needle always points to the north, and hence it is that sailing vessel does not lose her direction. So long as the heart of man is directed towards God, he cannot be lost in the ocean of worldliness.
-- Ramakrishna

#Ocean #Heart #Men

Do yourself what you wish others to do.
-- Ramakrishna

#Wish

An ocean of bliss may rain down from the heavens, but if you hold up only a thimble, that is all you receive
-- Ramakrishna

#Ocean #Rain #Heaven

The winds of grace are always blowing, but you have to raise the sail.
-- Ramakrishna

#Wind #Grace #Sail

When the flower blooms, the bees come uninvited.
-- Ramakrishna

#Inspirational #Flower #Bees

More are the names of God and infinite are the forms through which He may be approached. In whatever name and form you worship Him, through them you will realise Him.
-- Ramakrishna

#Hypocrite #Names #May

Through selfless work, love of God grows in the heart. Then through his grace one realize him in course of time. God can be seen. One can talk to him as I am talking to you.
-- Ramakrishna

#Heart #Talking #Grace

When the divine vision is attained, all appear equal; and there remains no distinction of good and bad, or of high and low.
-- Ramakrishna

#Vision #Divine #Lows

When the fruit appears the blossom drops off. Love of God is the fruit, and rituals are the blossom.
-- Ramakrishna

#Fruit #God Love #Ritual

The sun can give heat and light to the whole world, but he cannot do so when the clouds shut out his rays. Similarly as long as egotism veils the heart, God cannot shine upon it.
-- Ramakrishna

#Heart #Light #Clouds

Through selfless work, love of God grows in heart.
-- Ramakrishna

#Heart #Selfless #God Love

If there are errors in other religions, that is none of our business. God, to whom the world belongs, takes care of that.
-- Ramakrishna

#Errors #World #Care

The supreme purpose and goal for human life... is to cultivate love.
-- Ramakrishna

#Goal #Purpose #Life Is

Different creeds are but different paths to reach the same God.
-- Ramakrishna

#Path #Different #Creeds

The breeze of grace is always blowing; set your sail to catch that breeze.
-- Ramakrishna

#Determination #Grace #Breeze

Unalloyed love of God is the essential thing. All else is unreal.
-- Ramakrishna

#Essentials #God Love #Unreal

Travel in all the four quarters of the earth, yet you will find nothing anywhere. Whatever there is, is only here.
-- Ramakrishna

#Travel #Four #Earth

Unless one always speaks the truth, one cannot find God Who is the soul of truth.
-- Ramakrishna

#Soul #Speak #Speak The Truth

The winds of grace blow all the time. All we need to do is set our sails.
-- Ramakrishna

#Blow #Wind #Grace

Common men talk bagfuls of religion but do not practise even a grain of it. The wise man speaks a little, even though his whole life is religion expressed in action.
-- Ramakrishna

#Wise #Men #Littles

We laugh at the efforts of the musk deer to find the source of the scent which comes from itself and despair at our efforts to find the peace which is our essence.
-- Ramakrishna

#Essence #Laughing #Effort

One day, it was suddenly revealed to me that everything is pure spirit.
-- Ramakrishna

#One Day #Spirit

As for myself, I look upon all women as my Mother. This is a very pure attitude of mind. There is no risk or danger in it. To look upon a woman as one's sister is also not bad. But the other attitudes are very difficult and dangerous. It is almost impossible to keep to the purity of the ideal.
-- Ramakrishna

#Inspirational #Mother #Attitude

I have now come to a stage of realization in which I see that God is walking in every human form and manifesting Himself alike through the sage and the sinner, the virtuous and the vicious. Therefore when I meet different people I say to myself, “God in the form of the saint, God in the form of the sinner, God in the form of the righteous, God in the form of the unrighteous.
-- Ramakrishna

#People #Different #Saint

If you spent one-tenth of the time you devoted to distractions like chasing women or making money to spiritual practice, you would be enlightened in a few years.
-- Ramakrishna

#Spiritual #Years #Practice

It is the mind that makes one wise or ignorant, bound or emancipated.
-- Ramakrishna

#Wise #Ignorant #Mind

Try to cultivate love of God. You are born as a human being only to attain divine love.
-- Ramakrishna

#Love #Trying #Divine

God is everywhere but He is most manifest in man. So serve man as God. That is as good as worshipping God.
-- Ramakrishna

#Men #Worship #Manifest

The fabled musk deer searches the world over for the source of the scent which comes from itself.
-- Ramakrishna

#World #Scent #Deer

What Brahman is cannot be described. All things in the world — the Vedas, the Puranas, the Tantras, the six systems of philosophy — have been defiled, like food that has been touched by the tongue, for they have been read or uttered by the tongue. Only one thing has not been defiled in this way, and that is Brahman. No one has ever been able to say what Brahman is.
-- Ramakrishna

#Philosophy #World #Able

It is on account of the ego that one is not able to see God. In front of the door of God's mansion lies the stump of ego. One cannot enter the mansion without jumping over the stump.
-- Ramakrishna

#Lying #Doors #Jumping

God laughs on two occasions. He laughs when the physician says to the patient's mother, 'Don't be afraid, mother; I shall certainly cure your boy.' God laughs, saying to Himself, 'I am going to take his life, and this man says he will save it!' The physician thinks he is the master, forgetting that God is the Master. God laughs again when two brothers divide their land with a string, saying to each other, 'This side is mine and that side is yours.' He laughs and says to Himself, 'The whole universe belongs to Me, but they say they own this portion or that portion.'
-- Ramakrishna

#Mother #Brother #Boys

If you want to go east, don't go west.
-- Ramakrishna

#West #East #Want

Many people think they cannot have knowledge or understanding of God without reading books. But hearing is better than reading, and seeing is better than hearing. Hearing about Benares is different from reading about it; but seeing Benares is different from either hearing or reading.
-- Ramakrishna

#Book #Reading #Thinking

Longing is like the rosy dawn. After the dawn out comes the sun. Longing is followed by the vision of God.
-- Ramakrishna

#Vision #Sun #Dawn

Wisdom leads to unity, but ignorance to separation. So long as God seems to be outside and far away, there is ignorance. But when God is realised within, that is true knowledge.
-- Ramakrishna

#Ignorance #Long #Meditation

Do not be small minded. Do not pray for gourds and pumpkins from God, when you should be asking for pure love and pure knowledge to dawn within every heart.
-- Ramakrishna

#Love #Heart #Asking

Dislodging a green nut from it's shell is almost impossible, but let it dry and the lightest tap will do it.
-- Ramakrishna

#Nuts #Dry #Green

The waves belong to the Ganges, not the Ganges to the waves. A man cannot realize God unless he gets rid of all such egotistic ideas as "I am such an important man" or "I am so and so". Level the mound of "I" to the ground by dissolving it with tears of devotion.
-- Ramakrishna

#Men #Ideas #Important

So long as the bee is outside the petals of the lily, and has not tasted the sweetness of its honey, it hovers around the flower emitting the buzzing sound; but when it is inside the flower, it noiselessly drinks the nectar. So long as a man quarrels and disputes about doctrines and dogmas, he has not tasted the nectar of true faith; when he has tasted it, he becomes quiet and full of peace.
-- Ramakrishna

#Flower #Men #Long

A man is truly free, even here in this embodied state, if he knows that God is the true agent and he by himself is powerless to do anything.
-- Ramakrishna

#Men #Agents #States

He is born in vain, who having attained the human birth, so difficult to get, does not attempt to realize God in this very life.
-- Ramakrishna

#Doe #Birth #Realizing

It is very pleasant to scratch an itching ring-worm, but the sensation one gets afterwards is very painful and intolerable. In the same way the pleasures of this world are very attractive in the beginning, but their consequences are terrible to contemplate and hard to endure.
-- Ramakrishna

#Scratches #World #Way

Who is whose Guru? God alone is the guide and Guru of the universe.
-- Ramakrishna

#Guru #Guides #Universe

You should not feel that your path is the only right path and that other paths are wrong. You mustn't bear malice toward others.
-- Ramakrishna

#Path #Bears #Should