The path to spiritual growth is much easier with the help of people who have already achieved perfection and can answer your questions about overcoming the many obstacles that come up. Back in print after many years, this is the original collection of the sayings of the disciples of Ramakrishna, 
arranged by subject. From the Table of Contents: Fundamental Tenets; External Behavior: The Guru and Holy Company; Service; General Advice; Food and Personal Habits; Pilgrimages; Moral Principles: Morality; Truth; Duty;Forbearance and Compassion; Purity; Continence and Self-Control; Mental Attitudes; Spiritual Practices: Ritualistic Worship; Pranayama; Prayer; Japa; Meditation; Realization..
Life is a constant fight.You must fight hard with the senses;the result is all in the hands of God.To fight is your duty.Whether you gain or lose depends entirely upon God.
We must not cease to strive for the highest even though it seems unattainable. We must keep God as our ideal and aim;that will pullus on.If he aims at the top of a tree, he may not get above the ground.
Truth is never realized by the weak. Throw away all these false notions that you are tall or short,fair or dark, man or woman.Do you remember while asleep that you are tall or short,man or woman?No;then you are calm,peaceful,and self-existent.That which you relize involuntarily,learn to relize voluntarily.
The weaker a thing,the more it is restless;the stronger it is, the camer and steadire it is. A little plant bends and quivers at the slightest breeze,but the Himalayas remain unmoved in the fiercest storms…Constant restlessness of the mind shows its weakness,its flimsiness.
When a man is physically weak,he takes to cunning;when he is spiritually weak,he takes to mystery.
Let God shine alone in His glory.Too often we let the ego shine above Him the last conisderation. We seek matter first and spirit afterwards. Reverse the process.
Egotism is an imitation-God;Paramatman is the real God. The difference is like that of an imitation-mango and a real mango.Take a real mango and you will find it full of juice and good to eat,but bite a clay mango and your mouth will be full of mud.
As long as a man vainly thinks that by his self-exertion alone he will be able to do anything and everything,so long he will not be willing to obey a superior power.He will find out little or nothing.Only when he fails…he will care to hear God.
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 realfaith,you can never grow anxious.
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. Onlywhen the last anna is gone and we do not know where to get another do we begin to trust in God.
