Path of Knowledge is Very Difficult

God's Grace is the Ultimate Help

You may try thousands of times, but nothing can be achieved without God's grace. One cannot see God without His grace.

Is it an easy thing to receive the grace of God? One must altogether renounce egotism; one cannot see God as long as one feels, 'I am the doer.' 
Suppose, in a family, a man has taken charge of the store-room; then if someone asks the master, 'Sir, will you yourself kindly give me something from the store-room?', the master says to him: 'There is already someone in the store-room. What can I do there?' 

God doesn't easily appear in the heart of a man who feels himself to be his own master. But God can be seen the moment His grace descends.  

- Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, P 174 
                   (14 December 1882)

Damp Match-Sticks

Jnanayoga

"One can attain the Knowledge of Brahman, too, by following the path of bhakti. 

God is all-powerful. He may give His devotee Brahmajnāna also, if He so wills. But the devotee generally doesn't seek the Knowledge of the Absolute. He would rather have the consciousness that God is the Master and he the servant, or that God is the Divine Mother and he the child." 

VIJAY: "But those who discriminate according to the Vedanta philosophy also realize Him in the end, don't they?" 

MASTER: "Yes, one may reach Him by following the path of discrimination too: that is called Jnanayoga. But it is an extremely difficult path."

  

- Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, P 171 

                      (14 December 1882)

Bhaktiyoga

The "ego of a devotee"

Purity of Heart

VIJAY: "How can one see God?"

MASTER: "One cannot see God without purity of heart. Through attachment to 'woman and
gold' the mind has become stained-covered with dirt, as it were.
A magnet cannot attract a needle if the needle is covered with mud. Wash away the mud and the magnet will draw it.
Likewise, the dirt of the mind can be washed away with the tears of our eyes. This stain is removed if one sheds tears of repentance and says, 'O God, I shall never again do such a thing.'

Thereupon God, who is like the magnet, draws to Himself the mind, which is like the needle. Then the devotee goes into samādhi and obtains the vision of God.

- Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, P 173-74
  (14 December 1882)