Top 15 Ramakrishna Quotes

First purify your heart. When the mind becomes pure, the Lord Himself comes and makes it His seat. No image of God can be set up in a dirty place. The eleven bats referred to above are the eleven senses (the five organs of knowledge, the five organs of action and the mind). First dive deep within your own self and get the gems lying hidden there. After that you can have everything else. First you have to enshrine Uddhava in the heart; then you can have enough of lecturing and preaching. (1392)

His name is Intelligence (Chinmaya): His abode is Intelligence; and He, the Lord, is All-Intelligence. (1058)

The devil nevetf" enters the house wherein songs in praise of Hari are always sung. (1043)

Heaven sometimes speaks through the mouths of lunatics, drunkards and children. (1042)

A certain father had two sons. When they were old enough, they were admitted to the first stage of life (Brahmacharya), and placed under the care of a religious preceptor to study the Vedas. After a long time the boys returned home, having finished their studies. Their father asked them' if they had read the Vedanta. On their replying in the affirmative, he asked, “Well, tell me what is Brahman.’ The elder son, quoting the Vedas and other scriptures, replied: “O Father, It is beyond words and thought. It is so and so. I know it all.” And to support what he said, he again quoted Vedantic texts. “So you have known Brahman” said the father,“ you may go about your business. Then he asked the younger son the same quest ion. But the boy remained silent; not a word came out of his mouth, nor did he make any attempt to speak. At this the father replied : “Yes, my boy. You are right. Nothing can be predicated of the Absolute and the Unconditioned. No sooner do you talk of It than you state the Infinite in terms of the finite, the Absolute in terms of the relative, the Unconditioned in terms of the conditioned. Your silence is more eloquent than the recitation of a. hundred verses and the quoting of a hundred authorities. (1117)

As long as I live, so long do I learn. (1036)

Men are quick to praise and quick to blame; so pay no heed to what others speak of you. (1023)

Do yourself what you wish others to do. (1021)

With the divine Knowledge of Advaita (non-duality) in you, do whatever you wish; for then no evil can ever come out of you. (966)

When the tail of the tadpole drops off, it can live both in water and on land. When the tail of delusive ignorance drops off from man, he becomes free. He can then live in God and the world equally well. (955)

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. (949)

As the shell, the pith and the kernel of the fruit are all produced form one parent seed of the tree, so from the one Lord is produced the whole of creation, animate and inanimate, spiritual and material. (867)

Right discrimination is of two kinds — analytical and synthetical. The first leads one from the phenomena to the Absolute Brahman, while by the second one knows how the Absolute Brahman appears as the universe. (862)

Brahman is beyond mind and speech, beyond concentration and meditation, beyond the knower, the known and knowledge, beyond even the conception of the real and unreal. In short, It is beyond all relativity. (840)

A thief enters a dark room and feels the various articles therein. He lays his hands upon a table perhaps, and saying "Not this" passes on. Next he come upon some other article — a chair, perhaps — and again saying "Not this" continues his search, till, leaving article after article, he finally lays his hands on the box containing the treasure. Then he exclaims "It is here!" and there his search ends. Such, indeed is the search for Brahman. (733)