Teachings of Holy Mother - Sarada Devi

The difference between a great soul and an ordinary man is this: the latter weeps while leaving this body, whereas the former laughs.
Death seems to him a mere play.

TN253 Swami Tapasyananda and Swami Nikhilananda. Sri Sarada Devi, the Holy Mother; Life and Conversations. Madras: Sri Ramakrishna Math, 1977.

Teachings of Holy Mother - Sarada Devi

However spiritual a man may be, he must pay the tax for the use of the body to the last farthing
(i.e. undergo suffering and death incidental to the embodied state).

TN253 Swami Tapasyananda and Swami Nikhilananda. Sri Sarada Devi, the Holy Mother; Life and Conversations. Madras: Sri Ramakrishna Math, 1977.

Teachings of Holy Mother - Sarada Devi

Do you notice this human body?
Today it is and tomorrow it is not.
And the world is full of misery and pain.
Why should one be eager
to have another birth?
The body is never free
from its attendant troubles.

N204 Swami Nikhilananda. Holy Mother. New York: Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center, 1982.

15 laws of Life - Teachings of Swami Vivekananda

1. Love Is The Law Of Life: All love is expansion, all selfishness is contraction. Love is therefore the only law of life. He who loves lives, he who is selfish is dying. Therefore, love for love's sake, because it is law of life, just as you breathe to live.

2. It's Your Outlook That Matters: It is our own mental attitude, which makes the world what it is for us. Our thoughts make things beautiful, our thoughts make things ugly. The whole world is in our own minds. Learn to see things in the proper light.

3. Life is Beautiful: First, believe in this world - that there is meaning behind everything. Everything in the world is good, is holy and beautiful. If you see something evil, think that you do not understand it in the right light. Throw the burden on yourselves!

4. It's The Way You Feel: Feel like Christ and you will be a Christ; feel like Buddha and you will be a Buddha. It is feeling that is the life, the strength, the vitality, without which no amount of intellectual activity can reach God.

5. Set Yourself Free: The moment I have realised God sitting in the temple of every human body, the moment I stand in reverence before every human being and see God in him - that moment I am free from bondage, everything that binds vanishes, and I am free.

6. Don't Play The Blame Game: Condemn none: if you can stretch out a helping hand, do so. If you cannot, fold your hands, bless your brothers, and let them go their own way.

7. Help Others: If money helps a man to do good to others, it is of some value; but if not, it is simply a mass of evil, and the sooner it is got rid of, the better.

8. Uphold Your Ideals: Our duty is to encourage every one in his struggle to live up to his own highest idea, and strive at the same time to make the ideal as near as possible to the Truth.

9. Listen To Your Soul: You have to grow from the inside out. None can teach you, none can make you spiritual. There is no other teacher but your own soul.

10. Be Yourself: The greatest religion is to be true to your own nature. Have faith in yourselves!

11. Nothing Is Impossible: Never think there is anything impossible for the soul. It is the greatest heresy to think so. If there is sin, this is the only sin - to say that you are weak, or others are weak.

12. You Have The Power: All the powers in the universe are already ours. It is we who have put our hands before our eyes and cry that it is dark.

13. Learn Everyday: The goal of mankind is knowledge... now this knowledge is inherent in man. No knowledge comes from outside: it is all inside. What we say a man 'knows', should, in strict psychological language, be what he 'discovers' or 'unveils'; what man 'learns' is really what he discovers by taking the cover off his own soul, which is a mine of infinite knowledge.

14. Be Truthful: Everything can be sacrificed for truth, but truth cannot be sacrificed for anything.

15. Think Different: All differences in this world are of degree, and not of kind, because oneness is the secret of everything.

Conversations with Sri Ramakrishna - Knowing God

Can anyone ever know God?"

Sri Ramakrishna: "Who can ever know God? I don't even try. I only call on Him as Mother. Let Mother do whatever She likes. I shall know Her if it is Her will; but I shall be happy to remain ignorant if She wills otherwise. My nature is that of a kitten. It only cries, 'Mew, mew!' The rest it leaves to its mother. The mother cat puts the kitten sometimes in the kitchen and sometimes on the Master's bed. The young child wants only his mother. He doesn't know how wealthy his mother is, and he doesn't even want to know. He knows only, 'I have a mother; why should I worry?' Even the child of the maidservant knows that he has a mother. If he quarrels with the son of the Master, he says: 'I shall tell my mother. I have a mother.' My attitude, too, is that of a child." P. 299 The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna

Teachings of Holy Mother

Sri Sarada Devi, the holy mother, says: Don't be afraid my child, these earthly ties are transitory. Today they seem to be the be-all and end-all of life, and tomorrow they vanish. Your real tie is with God. God is one's very own. It is the eternal relationship. He is ever looking after you. Call on the Lord who pervades the entire universe. He will shower His blessings upon you.