Sri Ramakrishna Quotes

  Sri Ramakrishna Sayings and Quotes

1. If you please God, everyone will be pleased. It is God alone that exists in the heart of the holy man.
    
2. Pray to God with a longing heart. He will surely listen to your prayer if it is sincere.
    
3. People of small intellect seek occult powers—powers to cure disease, win a lawsuit, walk on water, and such things. But the genuine devotees of God don't want anything except His Lotus Feet.
    
4. 'I' and 'mine'—that is ignorance. True knowledge makes one feel: 'O God, You alone do everything. You alone are my own. And to You alone belong houses, buildings, family, relatives, friends, the whole world. All is Yours.' But ignorance makes one feel: 'I am doing everything. I am the doer. House, buildings, family, children, friends, and property are all mine.'
    
5. What you do day and night comes out through your mouth. A man belches what he eats. If he eats radish, he belches radish; if he eats green coconut, he belches green coconut. Day and night you live in
   the midst of 'woman and gold'; so your mouth utters words about that alone. By constantly thinking of worldly things a man becomes calculating and deceitful. On the other hand, he becomes guileless by thinking of God.
    
6. The sign of a man's having realized God is that he has become like a dry coconut. He has become utterly free from the consciousness that he is the body. He does not feel happy or unhappy with the happiness or unhappiness of the body. He does not seek the comforts of the body. He roams about in the world as a jivanmukta, one liberated in life.
    
7. Prema means such love for God that it makes a man forget the world and also his body, which is so dear to him.
    
8. It is good to help those who yearn for God. Thus one makes good use of one's money.
    
9. By being guileless one can speedily realize God. There are several kinds of people who do not attain divine knowledge. First, a man with a
   perverse mind; he is not guileless. Second, one who is very fastidious about outer purity. Third, a doubting person.
    
10. A little spiritual discipline is necessary. Through the practice of
    discipline one gradually obtains divine joy. Suppose a jar with money inside is hidden deep under the earth and someone wants to possess it. In that case he must take the trouble of digging for it. As he digs, he perspires. After much digging the spade strikes the metal jar. He feels a thrill at the sound. The more sound the spade makes, striking against the jar, the more joy he feels.
     
11. To attain God a man must have certain favourable conditions: the company of holy men, discrimination, and the blessings of a real teacher. Perhaps his elder brother takes the responsibility for the family; perhaps his wife has spiritual qualities and is very virtuous; perhaps he is not married at all or entangled in worldly life. He succeeds when conditions like these are fulfilled.

Sri Ramakrishna Quotes and Sayings

1. God cannot be realized by a mind that is hypocritical, calculating, or argumentative. One must have faith and sincerity. Hypocrisy will not
   do. To the sincere, God is very near; but He is far, far away from the hypocrite.
    
2. The one essential thing is bhakti, loving devotion to God. Do the
   Theosophists seek bhakti? They are good if they do. If Theosophy makes the realization of God the goal of life, then it is good. One cannot seek God if one constantly busies oneself with the mahatmas and the lunar, solar, and stellar planes. A man should practise sadhana and pray to God with a longing heart for love of His Lotus Feet. He should direct his mind to God alone, withdrawing it from the various
   objects of the world."
    
3. What will you achieve by mere reasoning? Be restless for God and learn to love Him. Reason, mere intellectual knowledge, is like a man who can go only as far as the outer court of the house. But bhakti (devotion) is like a woman who goes into the inner court.
    
4. A Jnani (self-realized soul) loves to talk only about God. He feels pained if one talks about worldly things. But a worldly man belongs to a different class. He always has the turban of ignorance on his head. He always comes back to worldly topics.
    
5. If you meditate on an ideal you will acquire its nature. If you think of God day and night, you will acquire the nature of God. A salt doll went into the ocean to measure its depth. It became one with the ocean.
    
6. When you find that the very mention of God's name brings tears to your eyes and makes your hair stand on end, then you will know that you have freed yourself from attachment to 'woman and gold' and attained God. If the matches are dry, you get a spark by striking only one of them. But if they are damp, you don't get a spark even if you strike fifty. You only waste matches. Similarly, if your mind is soaked in
   the pleasure of worldly things, in 'woman and gold', then God-Consciousness will not be kindled in you. You may try a thousand times, but all your efforts will be futile. But no sooner does attachment to worldly pleasure dry up than the spark of God flashes forth.
    
7. Some may say about the devotees: 'Day and night these people speak about God. They are crazy; they have lost their heads. But how clever we are! How we enjoy pleasure—money, honour, the senses!' The crow, too thinks he is a clever bird; but the first thing he does when he wakes up in the early morning is to fill his stomach with nothing but others' filth. Haven't you noticed how he struts about? Very clever indeed!.
    
8. There are two types of paramahamsas: the jnani and the premi. The jnani is self-centred; he feels that it is enough to have Knowledge for his own self. The premi, like Sukadeva, after attaining his own realization, teaches men. Some eat mangoes and wipe off the traces from their mouths; but some share their mangoes with others. Spades and baskets are needed to dig a well. After the digging is over, some throw the spades and baskets into the well. But others put them away; for a neighbour may use them. Sukadeva and a few others kept the spades and baskets for the benefit of others.
    
9. Add your tears to your yearning. And if you can renounce everything through discrimination and dispassion, then you will be able to see God. That yearning brings about God-intoxication, whether you follow the path of knowledge or the path of devotion.
    
10. You may learn a great deal from books; but it is all futile if you have no love for God and no desire to realize Him. A mere pundit, without discrimination and renunciation, has his attention fixed on 'woman and gold'.

Sri Ramakrishna Quotations and Sayings

1. You should renounce mentally. Live the life of a house holder in a
   spirit of detachment.
    
2. You should live in the world in a spirit of detachment.
    
3. Man cannot see God on account of his ego. You cannot see the sun when a cloud rises in the sky. But that doesn't mean there is no sun; the sun is there just the same.
    
4. One can realize God through intense renunciation. But the soul must be restless for Him, as restless as one feels for a breath of air when one's head is pressed under water.
    
5. You acquire the nature of the people whose company you keep. Therefore even pictures may prove harmful. Again, a man seeks the company that agrees with his own nature. The paramahamsas keep near them a few young boys five or six years old. They allow such boys to be near them. Attaining the state of a paramahamsa, a man loves the company of boys. Like the paramahamsas, the boys are not under the control of the gunas—sattva, rajas, or tamas.
    
6. One must take up a definite attitude toward God. Then alone can one realize Him. Rishis like Sanaka cherished the attitude of santa; Hanuman the attitude of a servant; the cowherd boys of Vrindavan, like Sridama and Sudama, the attitude of a friend; Yasoda the attitude of a mother; and Radha the attitude of a sweetheart.
    
7. Pray to the Divine Mother with a longing heart. Her vision dries up all
   craving for the world and completely destroys all attachment to 'woman and gold'. It happens instantly if you think of Her as your own mother. She is by no means a godmother. She is your own mother. With a yearning heart persist in your demands on Her. The child holds to the skirt of its mother and begs a penny of her to buy a kite. Perhaps the mother is gossiping with her friends. At first she refuses to give the penny and says to the child: 'No, you can't have it. Your daddy has asked me not to give you money. When he comes home I'll ask him about it. You will get into trouble if you play with a kite now.' The child begins to cry and will not give up his demand. Then the mother says to her friends: 'Excuse me a moment. Let me pacify
   this child.' Immediately she unlocks the cash-box with a click and throws the child a penny.
    
8. When one develops love of God, one likes to talk only of God. If you love a person, you love to talk and hear about him. A worldly persn's mouth waters while he talks about his son. If someone praises his son, he will at once say to the boy, 'Go and get some water for your uncle to wash his feet.
    
9. A householder, of course, needs money, for he has a wife and children. He should save up to feed them. They say that the bird and the sannyasi should not provide for the future. But the mother bird brings food in her mouth for her chicks; so she too provides. A householder needs money. He has to support his family.
    
10. You don't have to renounce everything. Live in the world the way
    the tortoise does. The tortoise roams about in the water but keeps its eggs on land. Its whole mind is on the eggs.

Sri Ramakrishna Quotes and Sayings

1. You may indulge in reasoning or discussion, but if you feel no longing or love.
    
2. Woman and gold' alone is the world. It makes one forget God.
    
3. A man cannot realize God unless he renounces everything mentally.
    
4. Pray to God with a yearning heart. Pray to Him for discrimination. 'God
   alone is real and all else illusory'—this is discrimination.
    
5. A man achieves neither Knowledge nor liberation as long as he has egotism. He comes back again and again to the world.
    
6. The truth is that a man succeeds to a great extent because of
   tendencies inherited from his previous births. People think he has attained the goal all of a sudden. A man drank a glass of wine in the morning. It made him completely drunk. He began to behave improperly. People were amazed to see that he could be so drunk after one glass. But another man said, 'Why, he has been drinking all night.
    
7. A man thinks of God, no doubt, but he has no faith in Him. Again and
   again he forgets God and becomes attached to the world. It is like giving the elephant a bath; afterwards he covers his body with mud and dirt again. 'The mind is a mad elephant.' But if you can make the elephant go into the stable immediately after bathing him, then he stays clean. Just so, if a man thinks of God in the hour of death, then his mind becomes pure and it gets no more opportunity to become
   attached to 'woman and gold'
    
8. Man has no faith in God. That is the reason he suffers so much. They say that when you plunge into the holy waters of the Ganges your sins perch on a tree on the bank. No sooner do you come out of the water after the bath than the sins jump back on your shoulders. A man must prepare the way beforehand, so that he may think of God in the hour of death. The way lies through constant practice. If a man practises meditation on God, he will remember God even on the last day of
   his life.
    
9. The swan are those who think of God, who pray day and night to get rid of their attachment to worldly things and their love for 'woman and gold', who do not enjoy anything except the nectar of the Lotus
   Feet of the Lord, and to whom worldly pleasures taste bitter. If you put a mixture of milk and water before the swan, it will leave the water and drink only the milk. And haven't you noticed the gait of a swan? It goes straight ahead in one direction. So it is with genuine devotees: they go toward God alone. They seek nothing else; they enjoy nothing else.
    
10. A man can see God if he unites in himself the force of these three attractions: the attraction of worldly possessions for the worldly man, the husband's attraction for the chaste wife, and the child's attraction for its mother. If you can unite these three forms of love and give it all to God, then you can see Him at once.

Sri Ramakrishna Quotes and Sayings

1. One can meditate even with eyes open. One can meditate even while talking.
    
2. All trouble and botheration come to an end when the 'I' dies.
    
3. If a devotee prays to God with real longing, God cannot help revealing Himself to him.
    
4. As long as the Kundalini remains asleep, you have not attained knowledge of God. You may be spending hours poring over books or discussing philosophy, but if you have no inner restlessness for God, you have no knowledge of Him.
    
5. All worship and spiritual discipline are directed to one end alone, namely, to get rid of worldly attachment. The more you meditate on God, the less you will be attached to the trifling things of the world. The more you love the Lotus Feet of God, the less you will crave the things of the world or pay heed to creature comforts. You will look on another man's wife as your mother and regard your own wife as your companion in spiritual life. You will get rid of your bestial desires and
   acquire godly qualities. You will be totally unattached to the world.
    
6. What need is there of renouncing the world altogether? It is enough if
   you can rid yourself of attachment. But you must have sadhana (spiritual practice) you have to fight the sense-organs.
    
7. A fakir came to visit Akbar (Emperor). The Emperor was saying his prayers. In his prayers he was asking God to give him wealth and riches. Thereupon the fakir was about to leave the. room quietly. Later, when the Emperor asked him about it, the fakir said, 'If I must beg, why should I beg of a beggar?'"
    
8. Woman and gold' alone is the world; that alone is maya. Because of it you cannot see or think of God. After the birth of one or two children, husband and wife should live as brother and sister and talk only of God.
   Then both their minds will be drawn to God, and the wife will be a help to the husband on the path of spirituality. None can taste divine bliss without giving up his animal feeling. A devotee should pray to God to help him get rid of this feeling. It must be a sincere prayer. God is our Inner Controller; He will certainly listen to our prayer if it is sincere.
    
9. One must have for God the yearning of a child. The child sees nothing but confusion when his mother is away. You may try to cajole him by putting a sweetmeat in his hand; but he will not be fooled. He only says, 'No, I want to go to my mother.' One must feel such yearning for God. Ah, what yearning! How restless a child feels for his mother! Nothing can make him forget his mother. He to whom the enjoyment of worldly happiness appears tasteless, he who takes no delight in anything of the world—money, name, creature comforts, sense pleasure—, becomes sincerely grief-stricken for the vision of the Mother. And to him alone the Mother comes running, leaving all Her other duties.
    
10. The thing is somehow to unite the mind with God. You must not forget Him, not even once. Your thought of Him should be like the flow of oil, without any interruption. If you worship with love even a brick or stone as God, then through His grace you can see Him.

Sri Ramakrishna Quotes and Sayings

1. The aim of life is the attainment of God.
    
2. In our part of the country I have seen peasants bringing water into their paddy-fields. The fields have low ridges on all sides to prevent the water from leaking out; but these are made of mud and often have holes here and there. The peasants work themselves to death to bring the water, which, however, leaks out through the holes. Desires are
   the holes. You practise japa and austerities, no doubt, but they all leak out through the holes of your desires.
    
3. The traits of a worldly man endowed with tamas are sleep, lust, anger, egotism, and the like.
    
4. You are no doubt in the world. What if you are? You must Surrender the fruit of your action to God. You must not seek any result for yourself. But mark one thing. The desire for bhakti (devotion) cannot be called a desire. You may desire bhakti and pray for it. Practise the tamas of bhakti and force your demand upon the Divine Mother.
    
5. Be firm in one ideal—either in God with form or in the formless God. Then alone will you realize God; otherwise not. With firm and unwavering belief the followers of God with form will realize Him, as will those who speak of Him as formless. You may eat a cake with icing either straight or sidewise; it will taste sweet either way.
    
6. You must have firm conviction, you must pray to Him whole-heartedly.
    
7. By certain signs you can tell when meditation is being rightly practised. One of them is that a bird will sit on your head, thinking you are an inert thing.
    
8. Hanuman burnt down the golden city of Lanka. People were amazed that a mere monkey could burn the whole city. But then they said, 'The truth is that the city was burnt by the sighs of Sita and the wrath of Rama.'
    
9. Ah, that restlessness (longing for god) is the whole thing. Whatever path you follow—whether you are a Hindu, a Mussalman, a Christian, a Sakta, a Vaishnava, or a Brahmo—the vital point is restlessness. God is our Inner Guide. It doesn't matter if you take a wrong path—only you must be restless for Him. He Himself will put you on the right path.
    
10. There are errors in all paths. Everyone thinks his watch is right; but as
    a matter of fact no watch is absolutely right. But that doesn't hamper one's work. If a man is restless for God he gains the company of sadhus and as far as possible corrects his own watch with the sadhu's help.

Sri Ramakrishna Quotes and Sayings

1. Be mad! Be mad with love of God!
    
2. Take shelter in God.
    
3. It is good to keep pictures of sannyasis and holy men in one's room. When you get up in the morning you should see the faces of holy
   persons rather than the faces of other men.
    
4. They catch fish with a bamboo trap. The bamboo is naturally straight. But why is it bent in the trap? In order to catch the fish. Desires are the fish. Therefore the mind is bent down toward the world. If there are no desires, the mind naturally looks up toward God.
    
5. Spend a few days thinking of God. You have seen that there is nothing to the world.
    
6. The time is ripe for you to devote your mind to the Lotus Feet of God. If you realize God, you will get everything else. First God, then charity, doing good to others, doing good to the world, and redeeming people.
    
7. I am the machine and She is the Operator. I am the house and She is
   the Indweller. I am the chariot and She is the Charioteer. I move as She moves me; I speak as She speaks through me. In the Kaliyuga one does not hear the voice of God, it is said, except through the mouth of a child or a madman or some such person.
    
8. Through restlessness—the restlessness a child feels for his mother.
   The child feels bewildered when he is separated from his mother, and weeps longingly for her. If a man can weep like that for God he can even see Him. At the approach of dawn the eastern horizon becomes red. Then one knows it will soon be sunrise. Likewise, if you see a person restless for God, you can be pretty certain that he hasn't long to wait for His vision.
    
9. The other day I told you the meaning of bhakti (devotion). It is to adore God with body, mind, and words. 'With body' means to serve and worship God with one's hands, go to holy places with one's .feet, hear the chanting of the name and glories of God with one's ears, and behold the divine image with one's eyes. 'With mind' means to contemplate and meditate on God constantly and to remember and think of His lila (divine play). With words' means to sing hymns to Him and chant His name and glories.
    
10. What can you achieve by mere lecturing and scholarship without discrimination and dispassion? God alone is real, and all else is unreal. God alone is substance, and all else is nonentity. That is discrimination.

Sri Ramakrishna Quotes and Sayings

1. You must be firm in one ideal. Dive deep. Otherwise you cannot get the gems at the bottom of the ocean. You cannot pick up the gems if you only float on the surface.
    
2. As without strong determination the farmer cannot bring water to his field, so also without intense yearning a man cannot realize God.
    
3. All sins vanish if one only remembers God. His name breaks the fetters
   of death. You must dive; otherwise you can't get the gem.
    
4. You do not see God because you busy yourself with such things as name and fame and scholarship.' The mother does not come to the child as long as it sucks its toy—a red toy. But when, after a few minutes, it throws the toy away and cries, then the mother takes down the rice-pot from the hearth and comes running to the child.
    
5. Worldly people have no stuff in them. They are like a heap of cow-dung. Flatterers come to them and say: 'You are so charitable and wise! You are so pious!' These are not mere words but pointed bamboos thrust at them. How foolish it is! To be surrounded day and night by a bunch of worldly brahmin pundits and hear their flattery!
    
6. Worldly men are slaves of three things: they are slaves of their wives, slaves of their money, slaves of their masters. Can they have any inner stuff? There is a certain person whom I shall not name; he earns eight hundred rupees a month but is the slave of his wife. He stands up or sits down at her bidding.
    
7. About the occult powers, Sri Krishna said to Arjuna, 'Friend, if you find anyone who has acquired even one of the eight powers, then know for certain he will not realize Me.' For powers surely beget pride, and God
   cannot be realized if there is the slightest trace of pride.
    
8. Sri Krishna has a peacock feather on His crest. The feather bears the sign of the female sex. The significance of this is that Krishna carries Prakriti, the female principle, on His head. When Krishna joined the circle of the gopis to dance with them, He appeared there as a woman. That is why you see Him wearing women's apparel in the company of the gopis. Unless a man assumes the nature of a woman, he is not entitled to her company. Assuming the attitude of a woman, he can sport with her and enjoy her company.
    
9. Devotion as described by Narada is suited to the Kaliyuga. It means to chant constantly the name and glories of God. Let those who have no leisure worship God at least morning and evening by whole-heartedly chanting His name and clapping their hands.
    
10. The worldly man is a hypocrite. He cannot be guileless. He professes to love God, but he is attracted by worldly objects. He doesn't give God even a very small part of the love he feels for 'woman and gold'. But he says that he loves God.

Sri Ramakrishna Quotes and Sayings

1. You want to eat butter. But what will you achieve by simply repeating that there is butter in milk? You have to work hard for it. Only thus can you separate butter from milk. Can one see God by merely repeating, 'God exists'? One needs sadhana (spiritual practice).
    
2. Bondage is of the mind, and freedom is also of the mind.
    
3. There is no harm in disobeying your elders for the sake of God.
    
4. Pray to Him with a yearning heart, and weep. That will purify your heart. You see the reflection of the sun in clear water.
    
5. If I see that a scholar has no discrimination and renunciation, I regard him as worthless straw. I see that he is like a vulture, which soars high but fixes its look on a charnel-pit down below.
    
6. When a man dies after attaining Knowledge, he doesn't have to go
   to another plane of existence; he isn't born again. But as long as he has not attained Knowledge, as long as he has not realized God, he must come back to the life of this earth; he can never escape it. For such a person there is a hereafter. A man is liberated after attaining Knowledge, after realizing God. For him there is no further coming back to earth. If a boiled paddy-grain is sown, it doesn't sprout. Just so, if a man is boiled by the fire of Knowledge, he cannot take part any more in
   the play of creation; he cannot lead a worldly life, for he has no attachment to 'woman and gold'. What will you gain by sowing boiled paddy?"
    
7. If a householder gives in charity in a spirit of detachment, he is really doing good to himself and not to others. It is God alone that he serves— God, who dwells in all beings; and when he serves God, he is really doing good to himself and not to others. If a man thus serves God through all beings, not through men alone but through animals and other living beings as well; if he doesn't seek name and fame, or
   heaven after death; if he doesn't seek any return from those he serves; if he can carry on his work of service in this spirit—then he performs truly selfless work, work without attachment. Through such selfless work he does good to himself. This is called karma yoga.
    
8. He who has seen God finds that God alone has become the world and all its living beings; it is He who has become all. Such a person is called a superior devotee.
    
9. Those who have money should give in charity. The miser's wealth is spirited away, but the money of the charitable person is saved. He spends it for a righteous purpose.
    
10. Unless, the soul is pure, it cannot have genuine love of God and single-minded devotion to the ideal. The mind wanders away to various objects.

Sri Ramakrishna Quotes and Sayings

1. It is good to live in the company of holy men now and then. The
   disease of worldliness has become chronic in man. It is mitigated, to a great extent, in holy company.
    
2. What will a man gain by knowing many scriptures? The one thing
   needful is to know how to cross the river of the world. God alone is real, and all else illusory.
    
3. How much of the scriptures can you read? What will you gain by mere reasoning? Try to realize God before anything else. Have faith in the guru's words, and work. If you have no guru, then pray to God with a longing heart. He will let you know what He is like.
    
4. God is our Inner Controller. Pray to Him with a pure and guileless heart. He will explain everything to you. Give up egotism and take refuge in Him. You will realize everything.
    
5. The yogi seeks to realize the Paramatman, the Supreme Soul. His ideal is the union of the embodied soul and the Supreme Soul. He withdraws his mind from sense-objects and tries to concentrate it on the Paramatman. Therefore, during the first stage of his spiritual discipline, he retires into solitude and with undivided attention practises meditation in a fixed posture.
    
6. It is all a question of the mind. Bondage and liberation are of the mind alone. The mind will take the colour you dye it with. It is like white clothes just returned from the laundry. If you dip them in red dye, they will be red. If you dip them in blue or green, they will be blue or green. They will take only the colour you dip them in, whatever it may be. Haven't you noticed that, if you read a little English, you at once begin to utter English words: Foot fut it mit?8 Then you put on boots and
   whistle a tune, and so on. It all goes together. Or, if a scholar studies Sanskrit, he will at once rattle off Sanskrit verses. If you are in bad company, then you will talk and think like your companions. On the other hand, when you are in the company of devotees, you will think and talk only of God.
    
7. One cannot get true feeling about God from the study of books. This
   feeling is something very different from book-learning. Books, scriptures, and science appear as mere dirt and straw after the realization of God.
    
8. He who has realized God has obtained the fruit of Immortality—not a common fruit like a gourd or a pumpkin. He is free from rebirth. He is not born anywhere—on earth, in the solar world, or in the lunar world.
    
9. God-vision is necessary. Now the question is, how can one get it? Intense renunciation is the means. A man should have such intense yearning for God.
    
10. What will it avail a man to have mere scholarship? A pundit may have studied many scriptures, he may recite many sacred texts, but if he is still attached to the world and if inwardly he loves 'woman and gold', then he has not assimilated the contents of the scriptures. For such a man the study of scriptures is futile. The almanac forecasts the rainfall for the year. You may squeeze the book, but you won't get a drop of water—not even a single drop.

Sri Ramakrishna Quotes and Sayings

1. You may speak of the scriptures, of philosophy, of Vedanta; but you will not find God in any of these. You will never succeed in realizing
   God unless your soul becomes restless for Him.
    
2. Dive deep. Learn to love God. Plunge into divine love.
    
3. The body has, indeed, only a momentary existence. God alone is real. Now the body exists, and now it does not.
    
4. I tell you the truth: there is nothing wrong in your being in the world. But you must direct your mind toward God; otherwise you will not succeed. Do your duty with one hand and with the other hold to God. After the duty is over, you will hold to God with both hands.
    
5. I see Rama (Hindu God) in all things. You are all sitting here, but I see only Rama in everyone of you.
    
6. The Reality is one and the same. The difference is only in name. He who is Brahman is verily Atman, and again, He is the Bhagavan. He is Brahman to the followers of the path of knowledge, Paramatman to the yogis, and Bhagavan to the lovers of God.
    
7. God has put you in the world. What can you do about it? Resign everything to Him. Surrender yourself at His feet. Then there will be no more confusion. Then you will realize that it is God who does everything. All depends on 'the will of Rama'.
    
8. If a householder is a genuine devotee he performs his duties without
   attachment; he surrenders the fruit of his work to God—his gain or loss, his pleasure or pain—and day and night he prays for devotion and for nothing else. This is called motiveless work, the performance of duty without attachment. A sannyasi, too, must do all his work in that spirit of detachment; but he has no worldly duties to attend to, like a householder.
    
9. Why shouldn't a man be able to realize God in the world? But he must
   have discrimination and dispassion; he must have the unshakable awareness that God alone is real and all else is unreal and has but a two days' existence. It will not do to float on the surface. You must dive deep.
    
10. The mother of a certain Mallick, who belonged to a very noble family, asked me if prostitutes would ever be saved. She herself had led that kind of life; that is why she asked the question. I said: 'Yes, they too will be saved, if only they cry to God with a yearning heart and promise not to repeat their sins.' What will the mere chanting of Hari's name accomplish? One must weep sincerely.