M. had yet to learn the distinction between knowledge and ignorance. Up to this time his conception had been that one got knowledge from books and schools. Later on he gave up that false conception. He was taught that to know God is knowledge, and not to know Him, ignorance. When SR exclaimed, “And you are a man of knowledge!”, M’s ego was again badly shocked. M., The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, 80
Sri Ramakrishna [sharply]: That’s the one hobby of you Calcutta people—giving lectures and bringing others to the light! Nobody ever stops to consider how to get the light himself. Who are you to teach others? 80
Mere pundits are like diseased fruit that becomes hard and will not ripen at all. Such fruit has neither the freshness of green fruit nor the flavor of ripe. Vultures soar very high in the sky, but their eyes are fixed on rotten carrion on the ground. The book-learned are reputed to be wise, but they are attached to ‘woman and gold.’ Like the vultures, they are in search of carrion. They are attached to the world of ignorance. Compassion, love of God, and renunciation are the glories of true knowledge. 101
There is nothing in mere scholarship. The object of study is to find means of knowing God and realizing Him. A holy man had a book. When asked what it contained, he opened it and showed that on all the pages were written the words ‘Om Rama,’ and nothing else. 104
What can you achieve by mere lecturing and scholarship without discrimination and dispassion? God alone is real, and all else is unreal. God alone is substance, and all else is nonentity. That is discrimination. 125
Mere reading of the scriptures is not enough. A person cannot understand the true significance of the scriptures if he is attached to the world. 200
You may be spending hours poring over books or discussing philosophy, but if you have no inner restlessness for God, you have no knowledge of Him. 611
Since coming to Sri Ramakrishna, M. had lost all relish for lectures and for books written by English scholars. The only thing that appealed to him now was to see the Master day and night, and hear the words that fell from his blessed lips. 331
