Sri Ramakrishna said: “When, hearing the name of Hari or Rāma once, you shed tears and your hair stands on end, then you may know for certain that you do not have to perform such devotions as the sandhyā any more. Then only will you have a right to renounce rituals; or rather, rituals will drop away of themselves. Then it will be enough if you repeat only the name of Rāma or Hari, or even simply Om.” Continuing, he said, “The sandhyā merges in the Gāyatri, and the Gāyatri merges in Om.”

— Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna

After having the book sit on my shelf for a couple years now I figured it’s about time I start reading it now that I’ve also been going through the Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda This is the 4th paragraph of the first chapter of the Gospel. I was surprised to find it very easy to read and follow. That being said, I also found no words wasted where there was a lot of content packed into very simple writing.

The section above is the 4th paragraph of the first chapter. A lot of people have this idea that to progress spiritually you need to do more and more complex practices. From my understanding of what Ramakrishna Paramahamsa says, this is only kind of right, it’s okay to keep doing whatever practices you’re doing but don’t try to force yourself to move onto new ones, let whatever you’re doing naturally drop themselves and new ones take their place till you end up at only repeating Om.