Brahmananda was a man of few words. His life was his teaching. Rather than preaching religion he demonstrated it. Swami Basudevananda recalled:
It was 2:00 or 3:00 p.m. on a hot summer day. Swami Brahmananda was seated in his room at the Belur Monastery. His attendant was fanning him. As soon as I entered his room he said: “Welcome. It is very hot today. Let us meditate on the snow-clad Himalayas; then the whole atmosphere will be cool. Do you know this mystery? First empty the mind completely. There should not be any samskaras [impressions]. Then the mind will automatically fill itself with God-consciousness. When water is poured out of a pitcher, does the pitcher remain empty? At once it is filled with space. Didn’t space exist in the pitcher before? Yes, it did. It existed mixed with water. We see only the gross water [and not the subtle space], so we think only the water exists. Similarly, although the impressions of external objects and Pure Consciousness are both in the mind, we perceive only the mind’s gross impressions because they are within the reach of our senses. We do not see the Pure Consciousness, which is also in the mind.
“If one can make the mind free from impressions, Pure Consciousness, which is Satchidananda, will be immediately revealed. Otherwise, through discrimination one can get a little inkling of Satchidananda. One should discriminate, combining devotion and meditation, and then one will understand the real import of the scriptures, the teachings of the holy men, and Sri Ramakrishna.”
“Again, when a particular sattvic [good] impression is established in the mind, replacing other worldly impressions, then that established impression becomes luminous by the light of Brahman. At that time the snow-clad mountain turns into an effulgent form like the living Shiva, and that radiance of Shiva makes the body-mind organism of the meditator cool and calm.”
“Thus, after cleansing the mind-lake, whatever ideal, or Ishtam [chosen form of God], you place there will be radiant and living. Brahman, the Pure Consciousness, cannot be reflected on a polluted, muddy mind-lake where many worldly waves are agitating.”
“Now go ahead. I have given you a very secret teaching. Keep it secret and practise it wholeheartedly. Have you not read Sri Ramakrishna’s parable of the wonderful tub of dye? Whenever the dyer was requested to dye a cloth a particular colour, he would dip it into that miraculous tub and it would immediately be dyed that colour. This mind-lake is like that wonderful tub of dye.” (Source: God Lived with Them)