Love for God

Common men talk bagfuls of religion but act not a grain of it, while the wise man speaks little, but his whole life is a religion acted out.

If I hold up this cloth before me, you will not see me any more, though I shall be as near you. So also God is nearer to you than anything else, yet because of the screen of egoism you cannot see him.

If you fill an earthen vessel with water and set it apart upon a shelf, the water in it will dry up in a few days; but if you place the same vessel immersed in water, it will remain filled as long as it is kept there. Even so is the case of your love for the Lord God. Fill and enrich your bosom with the love of God for a time and then enjoy yourself in other affairs, forgetting him all the while, and then you are sure to find within a short time what your heart has become poor and vacant and devoid of that precious love. But if you keep your heart immersed always in the ocean of divine love, your heart is sure to remain ever full to overflowing with the water of divine love.

From the woks of Sri Ramakrishna, "Many Paths to the One God" Hindu Scriptures