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..
Do your duty for God’s sake; know that all belongs to Gos, and you will reach freedom and wisdom in time.This is karma yoga.
Temptations sometimes disguise themselves and assume the forms of duties; we must be vigilant enough not to be deluded by these false appearances. Constant meditation on[our]real nature…makes us unmindful of the demands of our senses till at last they demand no more…Hence we should always be meditative.
Everywhere is the same Self. God is living in the hearts of all living beings,so by giving pain to any living creature…you really give pain to yourself…
Light the fire of wisdom in your mind and heart, and nothing weak or impure will dare to approach you. Whenthat fire is kindled all imperfections and impurities are burned to ashes.
What is purity?It means only – ness or singleness.When a man’s mind is occupied by the one idea of God, when he can only talk about Him and nothing else,he is said to be absolutely pure.
He on whom faith descends…needs nothing else.He is saved,and the only prophylactic he needs is discrimination.Discrimination, as the messenger of God,moves with us always.Its forgetfulness sets at naught all our spiritual endeavours.
If you wish to be happy,if you wish to be wise,if you wish to be strong,never let the world take you.The boat may be in the water,but the water must not be in the boat;so we may be in the world,but the world must not be in us.
This desire to be desireless will take its firm root in us in proportion to the intensity of feeling with which we realize that in us[the]Self alone is real and all else evanescent. True religious life commences only after this.
Immortality can be reached by renunciation alone,and never by works, progeny, or wealth. So any search after worldly treasure or heavenly pleasure is not the right way to secure eternal life, knowledge,and bliss.We have to renounce everything that is ephemeral and think of God only all the twenty-four hours of the day.
Renunciation means giving up a lesser thing for a greater.Those who give up the world for a spiritual life are giving up the uncertain for the certain,the passing for the permanent.
