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Swami Ramakrishnananda Quotes and Teachings

Teachings and quotes of Swami Ramakrishnananda, a direct disciple of Sri Ramakrishna. 

Mind is like a big mirror which gives a perfect reflection but which has been so thickly covered with dirt that nothing can be seen in it. The more you can rub off that dirt the more you will be able to see yourself in it. The more you can remove the least speck of dust the more you can get a perfect image of your true Self. What is that dirt that hides the image? Selfish desires.

Few of us believe in God all the time. As long as we have two or three rupees in the pocket, we think we can depend on ourselves. Only when the last anna is gone and we do not know where to get another do we begin to trust in God.


To remove the eye trouble, put on green spectacles instead of painting the whole world with the green paint. So set the mind right and not attempt to right the world.

There is no difference between the purified mind and the true Self of man. The mind is pure when it is single, that is, when it is devoted to one object. If you wish to see God, the only way is to get rid of all selfish desires and make the mind single.

All our power comes from renunciation. Only when we have given up our life do we begin to live. At present we are like prisoners. We may get a glimpse of freedom now and then but the world falls upon us when we are off our guard and drags us once more into our prison cells. As soon as a man finds out, however, that these little pleasures of the flesh are nothing compared with the infinite pleasures of the spirit, he wants to renounce, not for the sake of renunciation but because he has found something better. He realizes the hollowness of the worldly enjoyments and can be satisfied with the higher enjoyments only. Renunciation means giving up a lesser thing for a greater one.

Intellectuality and spirituality are diametrically opposed to each other. Intellectuality is based on ego, and spirituality is based on annihilation of ego. A man who is very shrewd and clever and asserts his opinions will never realize God, for that means he is full of egotism, and until egotism is destroyed he cannot begin to be spiritual.

Self existent bliss comes from God alone. The little happiness of this world are only reflection of perennial bliss.

When the mind is pure, that is, when it is free from all sorts of debasing desires, then alone is it fit to think of God.

Only when a man can go beyond the ordinary perception of the sense and the intellect can he realize what God is; and only he who lives beyond all touches, tastes, forms who is absolutely pure, from who the last taint of impurity has been washed off, can become truly one with Him.

True seekers after freedom are not concerned to have their desires satisfied. They want to go straight to the Supreme.

Our vision is but limited. There are many beings living beyond our ken. Microscopes and telescopes increase the power of our vision; there is another and far superior method to make our vision limitless, and that is disentangling it from its seats, the eyes, which are limited by their very nature. The eyes only circumscribe our vision, and although they may be helped by microscopes and telescopes, their limitations never leave them. If, by means of introspection, you can gradually separate the powers of your vision from its limited seats, the eyes, the optic nerves, and the centre in the brain, you will make that power infinite, and see yakshas, vidyadharas, siddhas, charanas, kinnaras, and many gods and demigods. The infinite caught in the network of the nerves appears to be finite. By means of mental concentration you can disentangle your senses, your mind, and your self from it.

Almost all men in the world have usurped the throne where God should sit. On that throne where God should be, a most worthless slave has been given place. This is the ego. When you know this, then drive out the ego. When you do this and become the slave or servant of God  instead, you will realize your eternal nature.

Whatever progress and success humanity has achieved ever since the creation of the world is all due to the concentration of the mind.

The leaders of our civilization during the early ages were men who were really Yogis. Every invention, every new discovery is purely the outcome of concentration.

A poet, a philosopher, a scientist, a warrior — all these have to be Yogis in the first place; then alone can they turn out to be great. Although these may not style themselves Yogis, they are actually so. A rose called by any their name will
not be the less sweet for that. You should all be good Yogis, and then alone can you be ideal among mankind.

In whatever station of life you may be, if you can concentrate your mind, you are sure to be best in that field. When such is the case, is it not the duty of all to struggle hard to attain this mental concentration?

Concentration is the mother of untold wealth, both material and spiritual.

Do your duty; never grow anxious and do not think of the future. Whenever anxiety arises in you, you become an atheist; you do not believe in God and that He cares for you. If you have real faith, you can never grow anxious.

When you have altogether resigned yourself at the feet of God, you have known the secret of a peaceful, blissful life.

If God allots sorrows and sufferings to anyone, then know it for certain that it is His blessings in disguise . . . We forget God in our greed for transient pleasures. So, He makes us remember Him by these little miseries. His kindness is expressed through both favorable and unfavorable circumstances.

Self-expansion should be the end and aim of true education and that can only come when it enables us to disentangle ourselves completely from the meshes of the body. What is it that binds, limits and weakens us? Desire, and not the body which is rooted in it. … by controlling the senses alone, we can control desires and controlling the latter again we can get rid of them and thus expand ourselves in all ways, so that the whole universe may form part of us, instead of our being mere insignificant particles of it.

We require a strong desire to control our desires for seeing, touching, tasting, hearing, smelling, thinking, feeling and willing. As a thorn is required to extricate the thorn that gets into the body and causes trouble to it, so an intense desire is necessary to extricate all those desires that have rooted themselves in the man to cause him various miseries, says Bhagavan Sri Ramakrishna and when thus one desire extricates other desires, he should throw away both of them, like the thorns.

Swami Ramakrishnananda, a direct disciple of Sri Ramakrishna