1st February 2023- There are many who, though immersed in ignorance, yet in the pride of their hearts, think they know everything, and not only do not stop there, but offer to take others on their shoulders, and thus “the blind leading the blind, they both fall into the ditch.” The world is full of these; everyone wants to be a teacher, every beggar wants to make a gift of a million dollars. Just as the latter is ridiculous, so are these “teachers.”
2nd February 2023- The metaphysical and the physical universe are one and the name of this Once is Brahman. The perception of separatedness is an error called maya or avidya. This is the culmination of knowledge.
6th February 2023- Liberty is our natural right to be allowed to use our own body, intelligence, or wealth according to our will, without doing harm to others; and all the members of a society ought to have the same opportunity for obtaining wealth, education, or knowledge.
7th February 2023- If a very small fractional part of human beings living today can put aside the idea of selfishness, narrowness, and littleness, this earth will become a paradise tomorrow; but with machines and improvements of material knowledge only, it will never be. These only increase misery, as oil poured on fire increases the flame all more.
8th February 2023- When our nature has yet some impurities left in it, then alone can we work. It is in the nature of work to be impelled ordinarily by motive and by attachment.
9th February 2023- Learn not the truth of the Self except from who has realized it; in all others it is mere talk.
10th February 2023- We always forget that religion does not consist in hearing talks, or in reading books, but it is a continuous struggle, a grappling with our own nature, a continuous fight till the victory is achieved. It is not a question of one or two days, or years, or of lives, but it may be hundreds of lifetimes, and we must be ready for that. It may come immediately, or it may not come in hundreds of lifetimes; and we must be ready for that. The student who sets out with such a spirit finds success.
14th February 2023- Thakur.. Every devotee colors Sri Ramakrishna in the light of their own understanding and every one forms their idea of him from their own standpoint. Sri Ramakrishna was, as it were, the great sun and every one of us is eyeing him through a different colored glass and we naturally understand him in our own way.
15th February 2023- The practice of yoga will tone down nervous excitement, bring calmness, enable us to see things more clearly. The temperament will be better, and the health will be better. Sound health will be one of the first signs, and a beautiful voice. Defects in the voice will be changed. This will be among the first of the many effects that will come.
16th February 2023- A devotee must have real thirst after knowledge. Who wants? That is the old question. We get whatever we want-that is an old, old law. Whoever wants, gets. To want religion is a very difficult thing, not so easy as we generally think.
18th February 2023- Without the knowledge of the Spirit, all material knowledge is only adding fuel to fire, only giving into the hands of the selfish one more instrument to take what belongs to others, to live upon the life of others, instead of giving up one’s own life for them.
20th February 2023- There is the danger of frittering away your energies by taking up an idea only for its novelty, and then giving it up for another that is newer. Take one thing up and do it, and see the end of it, and before you have seen the end, do not give it up.
21th February 2023- Neither we in the East nor they in the West understand how the One became the many. We have offered the solution of this question by saying that it is beyond our understanding, as our understanding is limited. But the variations that the One has undergone, the different sorts of species and individuality it is assuming- this can be understood, and the enquiry into this is called science.
22nd February 2023- Those who can become mad with an idea, they alone see light. Those that only take a nibble here and a nibble there will never attain anything. They may titillate their nerves for a moment, but there it will end. They will be slaves in the hands of nature, and will never get beyond the senses. Those who really want to be Yogis must give up, once for all, this nibbling at things.
27th February 2023- It will not do merely to listen to great principles. You must apply them in the practical field and turn them into a continual practice. What will be the good of cramming the high-sounding teachings of the scriptures? You have to first grasp the teachings and then work them out in life. This is called practical religion.
28th February 2023- Realization is beyond virtue and vice, beyond future and past; beyond all the pairs of opposites. “The stainless one sees the Self, and an eternal calm comes in the soul.” Talking, arguing, and reading books, the highest flights of the intellect, the Vedas themselves, all these cannot give knowledge of the Self.