Live like a mud-fish: its skin is bright and shiny even though it lives in mud.
As a toy fruit or a toy elephant reminds one of the real fruit and the living animal, so do the images that are worshipped remind one of the God who is formless and eternal.
Knowledge leads to unity, but ignorance to diversity.
Infinite are the paths and infinite the opinions.
Live in the world like a waterfowl. The water clings to the bird, but the bird shakes it off. Live in the world like a mudfish. The fish lives in the mud, but its skin is always bright and shiny.
As a piece of rope, when burnt, retains its form, but cannot serve to bind, so is the ego which is burnt by the fire of supreme Knowledge.
The fool who repeats again and again: “I am bound, I am bound,” remains in bondage. He who repeats day and night: “I am a sinner, I am a sinner,” becomes a sinner indeed.
God had created the world in play.
It is easy to talk on religion, but difficult to practice it.
Have love for everyone, no one is other than you.
As for me, I consider myself as a speck of the dust of the devotee’s feet.
All troubles come to an end when the ego dies.
The world is indeed a mixture of truth and make-believe. Discard the make-believe and take the truth.
One cannot completely get rid of the six passions: lust, anger, greed, and the like. Therefore one should direct them to God. If you must have desire and greed, then you should desire love of God and be greedy to attain Him.
You speak of doing good to the world. Is the world such a small thing? And who are you, pray, to do good to the world? First realise God, see Him by means of spiritual discipline. If He imparts power you can do good to others; otherwise not.
One must be very particular about telling the truth. Through truth one can realize God.
One man may read the Bhagavata by the light of a lamp, and another may commit a forgery by that very light; but the lamp is unaffected. The sun sheds its light on the wicked as well as on the virtuous.
Man needs a guru. But a man must have faith in the guru’s words. He succeeds in spiritual life by looking on his guru as God Himself.
Only two kinds of people can attain self-knowledge: those who are not encumbered at all with learning, that is to say, whose minds are not over-crowded with thoughts borrowed from others; and those who, after studying all the scriptures and sciences, have come to realise that they know nothing.
It is very pleasant to scratch an itching ring-worm, but the sensation one gets afterwards is very painful and intolerable. In the same way the pleasures of this world are very attractive in the beginning, but their consequences are terrible to contemplate and hard to endure.