Notes from my reading of Sri Ramakrishna Life and Message by Swami Vijnananada:
Infinite are the names of God and the modes of His worship. Whatever name of God and path to reach Him we may choose is enough for us to see God.
The same water is called vāri, pānī, aqua, and so on. Similarly, the One Satchidānanda is variously called Allāh, God, Hari, Bhagavān, Brahma, and so on.
God is One, but appears to be different when worshipped in different ways.
To explain God to a person who has merely read the scriptures is as difficult as describing Varanasi to a person who has seen the city only on a map.
The one bound by māyā is jīva. The one free from it is Śiva.
You see God through sustained sādhanā and patience, just as you have to wait for the fish patiently with bait and hook in the pond.
Viveka or discrimination means the sense of distinction between truth and untruth. Vairāgya or renunciation means the removal of lust and greed from the mind.
God is attracted by the devotee who is endowed with faith and devotion.
Pure knowledge and pure devotion are one and the same.
Fire does not send out invitations to the flying insects which come on their own and surrender themselves to it. Similarly, a liberated soul does not send out advertisements, and yet hundreds of people assemble round him, attracted by a mysterious power.
A spiritual aspirant need not worry about searching for a guru. When he truly needs a teacher, he finds one.
If you consider your guru to be just an ordinary person (instead of a messenger of the Divine), you will get hardly any spiritual benefit from such a relationship.
All spiritual aspirants should remember that the paths others follow also lead to God. These paths have evolved according to people’s different natures.
You must be firm in your faith and religious path. At the same time, you must give up bigotry and intolerance towards other religions.
True religion begins when talk ends and silence reigns. A bee stops humming when it sits on the flower and drinks the nectar.
A woman who has a paramour lives with her family and performs her daily chores, but her mind is always with her lover. In the same way, a householder should perform his family duties but keep his mind always fixed on God.
True sādhanā means making your thoughts and deeds tally with each other. If you say that for you God is everything, but your actions show that worldly pleasures are most important to you, your sādhanā is worth nothing.
A boat should be in water, but water shouldn’t be in the boat. There is no harm if a spiritual aspirant stays in the world, but the world—attachment to worldly pleasures—shouldn’t enter his mind.
Money does enable you to buy food and other necessities, but you should not consider it to be the aim of life.
You may satisfy your minor desires, but should reject major attachments through discrimination. Spiritual knowledge does not emerge until the desire for enjoyment is overcome.
I am the chariot and You are the Charioteer. I do what You inspire me to do. I talk and act the way You want me to talk and act. Not I, not I, but Thou! Thou!
The moral is that in spiritual life you should follow one path with faith and determination. If you keep changing your path, you won’t get anything. You will either lose faith in God or become convinced that you’ll never be able to make spiritual progress.
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