Ramakrishna Quotes

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.

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

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

All troubles come to an end when the ego dies

A boat may stay in water, but water should not stay in boat. A spiritual aspirant may live in the world, but the world should not live within him.

When the flower blooms, the bees come uninvited.

You should love everyone because God dwells in all beings.

If you meditate on your ideal, you will acquire its nature. If you think of God day and night, you will acquire the nature of God.

That knowledge which purifies the mind and heart alone is true Knowledge, all else is only a negation of Knowledge.

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.

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.

Knowledge leads to unity, but ignorance to diversity.

Sugar and sand may be mixed together, but the ant rejects the sand and goes off with the sugar grain; so pious men lift the good from the bad.

The ego is like the root of a banyan tree, you think you have removed it all then one fine morning you see a sprout flourishing again.

Only two kinds of people can attain self-knowledge: those who are not encumbered at all with learning, that is to say, whose minds are not over-crowded with thoughts borrowed from others; and those who, after studying all the scriptures and sciences, have come to realise that they know nothing.

There are three kinds of love; unselfish, mutual, and selfish. The unselfish love is of the highest kind; The lover only minds the welfare of the beloved and does not care for his own sufferings. In mutual love the lover not only wants the happiness of his beloved; but has an eye towards his own happiness also. It is middling. The selfish love is the lowest. It only looks towards its own happiness, no matter whether the beloved suffers weal or woe.

Once a person has faith, he has achieved everything.

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.

Make your meditation a continuous state of mind. A great worship is going on all the time, so nothing should be neglected or excluded from your constant meditative awareness.

Have love for everyone, no one is other than you.

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.

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

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

Bondage and Liberation are of the mind alone.

The world is impermanent. One should constantly remember death.