“You must first purify your mind by keeping company with holy men and devotees and receiving instructions from your Guru. Next, you must undertake hard spiritual discipline. Only then will you feel a yearning for God.”
(p.42, Spiritual Talks, Swami Brahmanandaji’s instruction to a devotee at Belur Math on this date.)
There is no condition for meditation. All that it requires is solitude. It must be practised not for an hour or for a day. The more you practice, the more benefited you will be. Go wherever you choose. If you find a place with good scenery, immediately sit for meditation. Seek Him and Him alone. Give up lust and greed. First practice renunciation in the mind, drawing away the mind from earthly things.
(p.209, Eternal Companion, Swami Brahmanandaji’s instruction on 1June, 1913.)
The grace of the Lord is always there; it is never absent. When the mind is purified, one experiences and tastes fully that divine grace. Self-knowledge is ever-existent; it has no past or future.
(p.152-3, Spiritual Treasures, Swami Turiyanandaji’s letter to Swami Prajnananda on 1 June, 1916 from Almora.)