All your scholarship and experience are useless if you have no control over yourself and your organs. All sensory organs are symbolic of desire. This is not a natural quality. If this were natural to us there would be no need for our Vedas to tell us what is permissible and what is not permissible, and there would be no need for a Guru to tell us about the dos and don’ts. We should give freedom to the organs but use them in complete accord and control and within the limits set by one’s country, time and circumstances. (SSB 1974, p. 120)

God is present in all living beings. When you see any one of them, you should respect him as you would respect God. If you cannot respect a living human being who is right in front of you, how can you respect God who in invisible and unreachable. Your mother and father are the first people whom you should regard as God. Neglecting your parents, even if you spend all your time in God’s worship, it becomes useless and lifeless. You should worship God as a life force and not as an inanimate picture. (SSB 1974, p. 247)

Knowledge without action is useless, and action without knowledge is foolish. (ICS , p. 113)

When defeat and disappointment stare you in the face, you must not give way to weakness or despondency. Never condemn yourselves as inferior or useless; analyse the defeat and find out the reasons in order to avoid it the next time. (SSS Vol.1)

If you have faith that He is God, He will be God to you; if you dismiss Him as mere man, He takes on that role and becomes useless for you. Search for Him with the heart, not with the eye for externals. The superpower has to be sought in the super-state itself, not in the lower states. Then, if you have the eyes that are fit to see and the wisdom to understand, you will find Him. (SSS Vol.1)

There are persons who recite mantras regularly, repeating the words correctly. But such recitation is of no use if there is not some understanding of the meaning of the mantras. Meaningless chanting of mantras, visiting temples without thoughts of God and breaking coconuts before idols without purity of the heart are spiritually useless. In every small act of worship, one must have regard for its inner significance and sacredness and do it with earnestness and purity. (SSS Vol.19)

Without a clean heart, all worship is useless. Without spiritual purity, religious observances are valueless. How can you have pure food, if the cooking utensils are unclean? (SSS Vol.19)

Make proper use of time which is both precious and sacred. Do not indulge in useless gossip. Develop good qualities like compassion, love and sympathy. Act as your own monitor and correct yourself by self-punishment. By a simple method you can control your wandering mind or your anger. Moreover, place your reliance on God. (SSS Vol.29)

A great devotee once lamented that all his limbs and organs were utterly useless unless each of them was used to serve the Divine, to see the Divine or to listen to the glories of the Divine. (SSS Vol.29)

All secular education is useless without a spiritual base. (SSS Vol. 41)