"Pashupati (smiling): Everything will continue as long as the Divine Mother will keep it going.
Sri Ramakrishna: That is true. But it is good to keep one's mind on God. It is not good to forget Him.
Nanda Bose: How can our mind turn to Him?
Sri Ramakrishna: It happens if He is gracious.
Nanda Bose: But where is His grace? Has He the power to bestow it?
Sri Ramakrishna (smiling): I see. You hold the view of the pundits. A person reaps results according to his actions. Give that up! Karma is destroyed if one takes refuge in God. I prayed to the Divine Mother with flowers in my hand. "Mother! Here is your sin and here is your virtue. I do not want anything. Please give me pure devotion.
Mother! Here is your good and here is your bad. I do not want either good or bad. Please give me pure devotion.
Mother! Here is your dharma (laws) and here is your adharma (transgression). I do not want any of them, laws or transgressions. Please give me pure devotion.
Mother! Here is your knowledge and here is your ignorance. I do not want either knowledge or ignorance. Please give me pure devotion.
Mother! Here is your purity and here is your impurity. Please give me pure devotion."
“Sri Ramana Maharshi spoke and wrote most about the vichara or Self-enquiry, and therefore the opinion arose that He prescribed only jnana-marga, the Path of Knowledge, which most people find too sheer in this age. But in fact He was universal and provided guidance for every temperament, by the path of Devotion no less than of Knowledge.
Love and devotion to Him are a bridge across the abyss to salvation.
He had many devotees for whom he prescribed no other path.”
(Ramana Maharshi and the Path of Self-Knowledge,
Arthur Osborne, p. 174.)
"Fix your mind on Me, be devoted to Me, sacrifice to Me, bow down to Me.
You shall come even to Me; truly do I promise unto you,
(for) you are dear to Me." (Bhagavad Gita 18:65)
"A Master of the Law asked Jesus: Lord, tell me what to do
that I may have eternal life?
And Jesus said, You know the law; what does it say?
The lawyer answered, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, with all your mind,
you shall love your neighbor as yourself.
And Jesus said, Lo, you have answered well; this do and you shall live."
Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ
A disciple of Paramhansa Yogananda: "It all seems hopelessly complex, Master. Just think how many laws are passed in a single year by the government of one country. The laws of the universe, then, must number infinity!"
The Master chuckled: "Really, it isn't so complicated at it seems. In the Bhagavad Gita, the forces of evil are described as many, while those on the side of good number only a few. Jesus Christ, too, described the way to perdition as a broad highway - but, he said, 'strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life.'
"The ways of error are endlessly winding, but the way out of error is direct. A few simple rules will suffice.
And the most important of these is simply this: Love God." *
"To those who loves much, Jesus said, much is forgiven." **
_____________________________
*The Essence of Self-Realization, The Wisdom of Paramhansa Yogananda
**Matthew 7:14
From the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, Ramana Maharshi and the Lords Krishna and Jesus on Love of God
