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..
Maya is like a painted harlot appering on the stage. The moment she is detected to be an old woman, she gives up her tempting coquetries.
In the dualistic meathod, to taste the bliss of God is the ideal. In the monistic, freedom is the ideal. By the first the lover gets his Beloved at last, and by the second the slave becomes the master. Both are sublime. One has on need to go from one ideal to the other.
As the Self resides within, every man is a temple of God. Wise man of the past realized this. They built these outer temples to show man how he must go from enclosure to enclosure of his being until in the innermost shrine he will find God seated.
External experiences are like pieces of glass which reveal more or less of your own nature.The opaque glass, whichveils the face of happiness,is what is called pain;the clear glass, which lets the flame shine through, you call joy,buy that flame is always burning inside you and nowhere else.
This then is the difference between an incarnation of God and the ordinary created beings of the universe. Man is always consciously finite and unconsciously infinite, while an incarnation ofGod is always consciously infinite and finite.
You must become a god in order to worship God. What is the use of imagining youself a sinner? You are infinite;it is sheer ignorance that makes you imagine that you are finite.
God was not discovered only by Christ. He was not discoverd solely by Buddha, nor by Mohammed. He is revealing Himself all the time. He has revealed Himself throughout the beginningless past and He will continue to reveal Himself throughout the endless future.
In order to ascertain the true existence of God, one has but to study attentively the marvellous secrets of creation. The existence of God can be easily understood by the chain of cause and effect. No effect is possible without a precedent cause. So long as creation exists, there must be its Creator. There cannot be any doubt about it.
All maya is localized in ego. Pull out the foundation, and the whole house will collapse. Take away the ego, and the whole structure of maya will fall. Then you will realize a state of perfect calmness. Maya traps us through the senses. He who has conquered his senses has conquered the whole universe.
Maya is like a painted harlot appearing on the stage. The moment she is detected tobe an old woman, she gives up her tempting coquetries.
