Swami Vivekananda on Health and Happiness...

The easiest way to make ourselves healthy is to see that others are
healthy, and the easiest way to make ourselves happy is to see that
others are happy.

Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda Vol. I p. 146

"What is this maya?"

Question: "What is this maya?"

Sri Ramakrishna: "Whatever you see, think, or hear is maya. In a word, 'woman and gold' is the covering of maya. There is no harm in chewing betel-leaf, eating fish, smoking, or rubbing the body with oil. What will one achieve by renouncing only these things? The one thing needful is the renunciation of 'woman and gold'. That renunciation is the real and supreme renunciation. Householders should go into solitude now and then, to practice spiritual discipline in order to cultivate devotion to God; they should renounce mentally. But the sannyasi should renounce both mentally and physically."

P. 291 The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna

Excerpt from Gospel : worldly man's idea of God

Question: "Do you know what a worldly man's idea of God is like?"

Sri Ramakrishna: "It is like, the children's swearing by God when they quarrel. They have heard the word while listening to their elderly aunts quarreling."

p. 265 The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna

The Gospel of the Holy Mother Sarada Devi

Books related to Sri Ma Sarada Devi :

• The Gospel of the Holy Mother 
• Sri Sarada Devi, The Holy Mother
• Teachings of Sri Sarada Devi

Excerpt from CW : Going beyond formal worship

Thus, working through the plane of the senses, you get more and more entry into the other regions, and then this world falls away from you. You get one glimpse of that spirit, and then your senses and your sense-enjoyments, your dinging to the flesh, will all melt away from you. Glimpse after glimpse will come from the realm of spirit. You will have finished Yoga, and spirit will stand revealed as spirit. Then you will begin the worship of God as spirit. Then you will begin to understand that worship is not to gain something. At heart, our worship was that infinite-finite element, love, which [is] an eternal sacrifice at the feet of the Lord by the soul. "Thou and not I. I am dead. Thou art, and I am not. I do not want wealth nor beauty, no, nor even learning. I do not want salvation. If it be Thy will, let me go into twenty million hells. I only want one thing: Be Thou my love!"
-- Vol 6. Fromal Worship

Excerpt from CW : Vivekananda on Ramakrishna

The man at whose feet I sat all my life—and it is only a few ideas of his that try to teach—could [hardly] write his name at all. All my life I have not seen another man like that, and I have travelled all over the world. When I think of that man, I feel like a fool, because I want to read books and he never did. He never wanted to lick the plates after other people had eaten. That is why he was his own book. All my life I am repeating what Jack said and John said, and never say anything myself. What glory is it that you know what John said twenty-five years ago and what Jack said five years ago? Tell me what you have to say.
Mind you, there is no value in learning. You are all mistaken in learning. The only value of knowledge is in the strengthening, the disciplining, of the mind. By all this eternal swallowing it is a wonder that we are not all dyspeptics. Let us stop, and burn all the books, and get hold of ourselves and think.
 -- Vol 6, Formal Worship