Worship is just a means of educating the emotions. Human impulses and emotions have to be guided and controlled. Just as the raging waters of a river have to be curbed by bunds, halted by dams, tamed by canals and led quietly to the ocean, which can swallow all floods without a trace, so too the age long instincts of man have to be trained and transmuted by contact with higher ideals and powers. When the fruit is ripe, it will fall off the branch of its own accord. Similarly, when vairaagya (renunciation) saturates your heart, you lose contact with the world and slip into the lap of the Lord.

- Divine Discourse, October 26, 1961.

Self-realisation is the goal. Love is the means. - Baba