God can be realized through truth alone.
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Hindu
Ramakrishna Paramhamsa
Hindu1836 – 1886Kamarpukur, Bengal, India3,647 quotes· 3 sources
Ramakrishna Paramhamsa was a 19th-century Bengali mystic and devotee of the goddess Kali who personally practiced the disciplines of Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity and declared from direct experience that all paths lead to the same God. His life and teachings became the inspiration for the global Vedanta movement.
Born in a poor Brahmin family in rural Bengal in 1836, Ramakrishna came to serve as a priest at the Kali temple at Dakshineswar near Calcutta, where he entered prolonged states of spiritual ecstasy (samadhi) and vision. Tormented by his longing for direct experience of God, he undertook intense sadhana under various teachers: Tantric practice under Bhairavi Brahmani, Advaita Vedanta under Totapuri, and then Sufi and Christian disciplines — concluding each time that he experienced the same divine Reality through different forms. He was largely illiterate but spoke in vivid, down-to-earth parables and metaphors that made the deepest spiritual truths accessible to the fishermen and housewives who gathered around him as well as to the educated young Bengalis like Narendra (later Swami Vivekananda) whom he trained as future teachers. His recorded conversations, compiled as The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna by his disciple Mahendranath Gupta, is one of the most remarkable documents of living mystical experience in any tradition. Through Vivekananda, his teachings on the harmony of religions and the divinity of the human soul reached the world stage at the Parliament of World's Religions in 1893.
Wisdom
Yes, spiritual discipline is necessary.
Everything depends upon the mind. The pure mind acquires a new attitude.
They are like vultures, which soar very high but keep their gaze fixed on the charnel-pit.
Whatever you do, whatever you eat, whatever you give away, and whatever austerity you practice, do it all as an offering to me.
Whoever sees me in all things and all things in me, will never be separated from me, and I will never be separated from them.
The yogi who, having attained unity, worships me dwelling in all beings, remains in me, regardless of his way of life.
Brahman is beyond knowledge and ignorance, virtue and vice, merit and demerit, cleanliness and uncleanliness.
One cannot attain knowledge unless one is free from egotism.
'I' and 'mine' represent ignorance, while 'Thou' and 'Thine' represent knowledge.
A true devotee says, 'O God, you alone are the doer; you alone do everything.
You have been born in this world as a human being to worship God, so try to cultivate love for his divine presence.
There's only a thin line between the two, so that I can experience divine bliss.
The goal is clearly visible, but it's extremely difficult to reach.
However, if someone who has already reached the goal drops down a rope, they can pull someone else up.
The jnani lets go of his identification with worldly things, distinguishing 'not this, not this'.
You may believe in a God with form or a formless God, but your faith must be genuine and complete. It is through faith alone that one achieves everything.
But, my child, who wants to see God? People cry buckets of tears for money, their spouse, and children. If they would cry for God for just one day, they would surely see Him.
Yes, I have seen God. I have seen Him more tangibly than I see you. I have talked to Him more intimately than I am talking to you.
The Divine Mother says that I love you because I see God in you. If I ever stop seeing God in you, I won't be able to stand the sight of you.