- Can one reach God by reading scriptures? By reading scriptures you might at most understand that He exists. But unless you yourself dive deep, you cannot see God. Only when you have dived deep and He lets you know Him are all your doubts removed.
- You may read a book a thousand times, you may chant a thousand verses, but you cannot comprehend God without earnestly diving into Him. By mere scholarship you may deceive man, but you can’t attain God.
- Books, scriptures, and the like only show the way to realize God. When you know the way, the means, what need is there for books and scriptures? One only has to act.
- In the scriptures you will find ways to realize God, but after knowing them, you have to get to work. Then only will you attain the goal.
- A pundit may know a number of couplets, a number of scriptures. But he who is attached to the world, who has love for ‘lust and greed’ in his mind, has not internalized the contents of the holy books.
- Do you know the use of scriptures? Somebody wrote a letter asking for five seers of sandesh and a piece of cloth. The recipient read the letter, remembered ‘five seers of sandesh and a piece of cloth,’ and threw the letter away. Of what use was the letter then?
- Mere learning is of no avail. It is for finding the means for attaining Him and knowing Him that one reads books. A sadhu had a book with him. Somebody asked him what it was about. The sadhu opened it and on every page was written, ‘Om, Rama’.
- What is the purpose of studying holy books or scriptures? It is the realization of God. Somebody opened a sadhu’s book to see what was in it. There was nothing written but the name of Rama – on every page. Nothing else.
- The Gita is the essence of all scriptures. A sannyasin may or may not have any other book, but he must have a pocket Gita with him.
- There are two interpretations of religious texts: the literal and the real. One should only take the real – that which tallies with the words of God. There is a great difference between what you read in a letter and what you hear from the lips of the letter writer. A religious text is like the words of a letter, and the Lord’s word is like the words of the letter writer. I accept nothing till I have seen that it agrees with the Divine Mother’s words.
- The practice of spiritual disciplines is essential. Mere study of scriptures does no good. I found Vidyasagar very learned. But to what end? Didn’t you see that his only joy was to teach boys how to read and write? He has never tasted the Bliss of God. What will mere study do?