Authors Topics Discover Authors NEW
Ramakrishna Icon Image
Ramakrishna
Quotes

A revered 19th-century Indian mystic whose teachings emphasized the universality of all religions and the path to experiencing God through intense devotion and surrender. His life and teachings demonstrate a deep spiritual experience and the importance of personal divine realization. His influence led to the establishment of the Ramakrishna Order, which continues to promote his ideals of spiritual unity and social service.

Ramakrishna Icon Image
Ramakrishna
Quotes

A revered 19th-century Indian mystic whose teachings emphasized the universality of all religions and the path to experiencing God through intense devotion and surrender. His life and teachings demonstrate a deep spiritual experience and the importance of personal divine realization. His influence led to the establishment of the Ramakrishna Order, which continues to promote his ideals of spiritual unity and social service.

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

Ramakrishna
20

You speak of doing good to the world. Is the world such a small thing? And who are you, pray, to do good to the world? First realise God, see Him by means of spiritual discipline. If He imparts power you can do good to others; otherwise not.

Ramakrishna
20

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
20

You see many stars in the sky at night, but not when the sun rises. Can you therefore say that there are no stars in the heavens during the day? Because you cannot find God in the days of your ignorance, say not that there is no God.

Ramakrishna
20

One cannot completely get rid of the six passions: lust, anger, greed, and the like. Therefore one should direct them to God. If you must have desire and greed, then you should desire love of God and be greedy to attain Him.

Ramakrishna
20

God reveals Himself to a devotee who feels drawn to Him by the combined force of these three attractions: the attraction of worldly possessions for the worldly man, the child's attraction for its mother, and the husband's attraction for the chaste wife. If one feels drawn to Him by the combined force of these three attractions, then through it one can attain Him.

Ramakrishna
20

A devotee who can call on God while living a householder's life is a hero indeed. God thinks: 'He is blessed indeed who prays to me in the midst of his worldly duties. He is trying to find me, overcoming a great obstacle -- pushing away, as it were, a huge block of stone weighing a ton. Such a man is a real hero.

Ramakrishna
20

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
20

As a piece of rope, when burnt, retains its form, but cannot serve to bind, so is the ego which is burnt by the fire of supreme Knowledge.

Ramakrishna
20

To work without attachment is to work without the expectation of reward or fear of any punishment in this world or the next. Work so done is a means to the end, and God is the end.

Ramakrishna
20

If diving once does not bring you pearls, you need not therefore conclude that the sea is without them.

Ramakrishna
20

God has revealed to me that only the Paramatman, whom the Vedas describe as the Pure Soul, is as immutable as Mount Sumeru, unattached, and beyond pain and pleasure. There is much confusion in this world of His maya. One can by no means say that 'this' will come after 'that' or 'this' will produce 'that'.

Ramakrishna
20

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
19

When an unbaked pot is broken, the potter can use the mud to make a new one; but when a baked one is broken, he cannot do the same any longer. So when a person dies in a state of ignorance, he is born again; but when he becomes well baked in the fire of true knowledge and dies a perfect man, he is not born again.

Ramakrishna
19

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

Ramakrishna
19

By the mind one is bound; by the mind one is freed. ... He who asserts with strong conviction: "I am not bound, I am free," becomes free.

Ramakrishna
19

God cannot be realized if there is the slightest trace of pride.

Ramakrishna
19

When the head of a goat is severed from its body, the trunk struggles for some time, still showing signs of life. Similarly, though ahamkara (egotism) is slain in the perfect man, yet enough of its vitality is left to make him carry on the functions of physical life; but it is not sufficient to bind him again into the world.

Ramakrishna
19

Bhakti is the one essential thing. To be sure, God exists in all beings. Who, then is a devotee? He whose mind dwells on God. But this is not possible as long as one has egotism and vanity. The water of God's grace cannot collect on the high mound of egotism. It runs down.

Ramakrishna
18

One cannot attain divine knowledge till one gets rid of pride. Water does not stay on the top of a mound; but into low land it flows in torrents from all sides.

Ramakrishna
18

How long do small girls play with their dolls? As long as they are not married and do not live with their husbands. After marriage they put the dolls away in a box. What further need is there of worshipping the image after the vision of God?

Ramakrishna
18

Meditate upon the Knowledge and Bliss Eternal, and you will also have bliss. The Bliss indeed is eternal, only it is covered and obscured by ignorance. The less your attachment is towards the senses, the more will be your love towards God.

Ramakrishna
17

All religions are true. God can be reached by different religions. Many rivers flow by many ways but they fall into the sea. They all are one.

Ramakrishna
17