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..
The personal God is realized just as you see your friends in a wakeful condition.Senses are not overpowered but become wide awake.
People quarrel over theories and dogmas of religion,but those who devote their lives to the attainment of the bliss of God and know the Reality have no quarrel with other faiths,nor do they antagonize them,for they speak the same tongue.
It [Vedanta]is neither scripture nor a code of laws.It is not religion or a system of philosophy,for it is the Philosophy of all philosophies,the Science of all sciences.It is not made at all.It is ever-existent,embracing the sun,moon,the stars,and all the universe.
Vedanta is the essence of religion.When you have seen the full moon in all its glory,who cares to look at apainting of the moon on canvas?
God is with form and also without form;again,He is beyond both.He transcends all our conceptions of Him.He can be meditated upon in any oe of His many aspects.
God is the wish-granting tree.Whatever a man asks of Him,He grants…you are sitting under this wish-granting tree.Ask Him to make you divine and you will become divine.Ask Him to make you a brute and brute you will become.
Whatever you want you will get.Be sure of it.If you want enterainment,you will get entertainment.If you want Mother,you will get Mother.So be careful.
It is maya which prevents the mind and senses from desiring to experience God,but a man who has realized Him has risenabove all the chains and attractions of maya.Maya reveals her mysteriesonly to him who has gone beyond maya.
Good and evil are equally instructive and educative.They come to teach us the lesson that under all circumstances we should adhere to the divine Being.No sooner do we forget Him than He comes to us…in the guise of adversity to remind us of our life’s ideal.That is spiritual law.
There is mercy in what He gives,and there is mercy in what He denies.
