Thus spake Holy Mother:
"Practise meditation, and by and by your mind will be so calm and fixed that you will find it hard to keep away from meditation."
She would say "Japat Siddhi" i.e. regular practice of japa leads to realization. Blessed are those who pray to her and receive her boundless love.
“A man had two sons. The father sent them to a preceptor to learn the Knowledge of Brahman. After a few years they returned from their preceptor’s house and bowed low before their father. Wanting to measure the depth of their knowledge of Brahman, he first questioned the older of the two boys. ‘My child,’ he said, ‘you have studied all the scriptures. Now tell me, what is the nature of Brahman?’ The boy began to explain Brahman by reciting various texts from the Vedas. The father did not say anything. Then he asked the younger son the same question. But the boy remained silent and stood with eyes cast down. No word escaped his lips. The father was pleased and said to him: ‘My child, you have understood a little of Brahman. What It is cannot be expressed in words.'
"Men often think they have understood Brahman fully. Once an ant went to a hill of sugar. One grain filled its stomach. Taking another grain in its mouth, it started homeward. On its way, it thought, ‘Next time I shall carry home the whole hill.’That is the way shallow minds think. They don’t know that Brahman is beyond one’s words and thought. However great a man may be, how much can he know of Brahman? Shukadeva and sages like him may have been big ants; but even they could carry at the utmost eight or ten grains of sugar!
-The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
Man cannot really help the world. God alone does that.
He has created the sun and the moon, who has put love for their children in parents' hearts, endowed noble souls with compassion, and holy men and devotees with divine love. The man who works for others, without any selfish motive, really does good to himself. There is gold buried in your heart, but you are not yet aware of it. It is covered with a thin layer of earth. Once you are aware of it, all these activities of yours will lessen. Through selfless work, love of God grows in the heart. Then, through His grace, one realizes Him in course of time. God can be seen, one can talk to Him, as I am talking to you.
(Ramakrishna : Prophet of New India)
Love is its own end. It can never be the means. The man who says, "I love you for such and such a thing", does not love. Love can never be the means; it must be the perfect end. What is the end and aim of love? To love God, that is all. Why should one love God? [There is] no why, because it is not the means. When one can love, that is salvation, that is perfection, that is heaven. What more? What else can be the end? What can you have higher than love?
I am not talking about what every one of us means by love. Little namby-pamby love is lovely. Man rails in love with woman, and woman goes to die for man. The chances are that in five minutes John kicks Jane, and Jane kicks John. This is a materialism and no love at all. If John could really love Jane, he would be perfect that moment. [His true] nature is love; he is perfect in himself. John will get all the powers of Yoga simply by loving Jane, [although] he may not know a word about religion, psychology, or theology. I believe that if a man and woman can really love, [they can acquire] all the powers the Yogis claim to have, for love itself is God. That God is omnipresent, and [therefore] you have that love, whether you know it or not.
(Complete Works, Volume IV, Vedanta and the West)
After so much austerity I have known that the highest truth is this: He is present in every being! These are all in manifold forms of him. There is no other God to seek for! He alone is worshipping God, who serves all beings!
Vivekananda : The Yogas and Other Works (1953)
Men may be divided into four classes: those bound by the fetters of the world, the seekers after liberation, the liberated, and the ever-free.
Suppose a net has been cast into a lake to catch fish. Some fish are so clever that they are never caught. They are like the ever-free. But most of the fish are entangled in the net. Some of them try to free themselves from it; they are like those who seek liberation. But not all the fish that struggle succeed. A very few do jump out of the net, making a big splash in the water. Then the fishermen shout, ‘Look! There goes a big one!’ But most of the fish caught in the net cannot escape, nor do they make any effort to get out. On the contrary, they burrow into the mud net and all, and lie there quietly, thinking, ‘We need not fear anymore; we are quite safe here.’But the poor things do not know that the fishermen will drag them out with the net. These are like the men bound to the world. “The bound souls are tied to the world by the fetters of lust and greed. They are bound hand and foot. They think that ‘woman’and ‘gold’will make them happy and give them security, they do not realize that it will lead them to annihilation.
- Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
"Those who belong to a very high plane of existence alone can take to the monastic life and free themselves from all bondages. Again there are some who are born to have a little taste of this worldly life. I say that one should see through worldly enjoyments. …Let X — marry and finish all enjoyments in this life; otherwise there is no knowing when he may fall a victim to some unfulfilled desire. But you may be sure of this, that so long as he remains under the Master's protection he can never slip."
Teachings of Sri Sarada Devi, Chapter VII
Here's another parable told by Sri Ramakrishna to illustrate the negative role played by worldly desires in the path of spiritual progress:
"It is narrated in the Bhagavata that the Avadhuta had twenty-four gurus, one of whom was a kite. In a certain place the fishermen were catching fish. A kite swooped down and snatched a fish. At the sight of the fish, about a thousand crows chased the kite and made a great noise with their cawing. Whichever way the kite flew with the fish, the crows followed it. The kite flew to the south and the crows followed it there. The kite flew to the north and still the crows followed after it. The kite went east and west, but with the same result. As the kite began to fly about in confusion, lo, the fish dropped from its mouth. The crows at once let the kite alone and flew after the fish. Thus relieved of its worries, the kite sat on the branch of a tree and thought: 'That wretched fish was at the root of all my troubles. I have now got rid of it and therefore I am at peace.'
"The Avadhuta learnt this lesson from the kite, that as long as a man has the fish, that is, worldly desires, he must perform actions and consequently suffer from worry, anxiety, and restlessness. No sooner does he renounce these desires than his activities fall away and he enjoys peace of soul." Courtesy: RKM Nagpur
