[SPEAKER_00]: Oṁṭākataṁ rītām rītāṚṭaṭaṭaṭaṭaṭaṭaṭaṭaṭaṭaṭaṭaṭaṭaṭaṭaṭaṭaṭaṭaṭaṭaṭaṭaṭaṭaṭaṭaṭaṭaṭaṭaṭaṭaṭaṭaṭaṭaṭaṭaṭaṭaṭaṭaṭaṭaṭaṭaṭaṭaṭaṭaṭaṭaṭaṭaṭaṭaṭaṭaṭaṭaṭaṭaṭaṭa�
[SPEAKER_00]: Actually, the portion I'm going to read is something that we had read last time, but we hadn't discussed it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a long portion.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is on Sunday 22 October 1882 and we're going to go back to page 128 same day.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot of discussion here, which we haven't actually talked about.
[SPEAKER_00]: So just quickly read through and we'll talk about it as we go along.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we read all this last time, page 128.
[SPEAKER_00]: So M had asked, what does one feel when thinking about God without form isn't it possible to describe it?
[SPEAKER_00]: And then Sri Ramakrishna says something.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then follows it by saying that one must understand, one must practice spiritual discipline to understand this correctly.
[SPEAKER_00]: Suppose there are treasures in a room, if you want to see them, it won't do to just stand near the door and say that now I'm opening the door, now I'm unlocking the chest, breaking open the chest, now I'm taking out the treasures.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing will happen that way.
[SPEAKER_00]: You will actually have to do all that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Similarly, spiritual practice is necessary.
[SPEAKER_00]: And spiritual practice, broadly speaking, is action, devotion, meditation, and knowledge
[SPEAKER_00]: even, so action is, first of all, there is ritualistic action, which religions prescribes.
[SPEAKER_00]: So in the Vedas, there is a whole portion of actions, the karma khanda.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we have replaced it, especially in Hinduism, a wide range of very elaborate rituals are available.
[SPEAKER_00]: Often, the danger is that too much is there.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's like weeds overgrowing a beautiful garden.
[SPEAKER_00]: I remember,
[SPEAKER_00]: in our main monastery, Beludmat.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are all rituals are performed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Actually, Swami Vivekanam had started these two places.
[SPEAKER_00]: He writes in a letter, I have started these two places.
[SPEAKER_00]: One on the bank of the Ganges, that was Beludmat.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the other in the Himalayas, that's actually adwaitasha.
[SPEAKER_00]: And one is without any rituals.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there you hold only to the spirit of adwaita.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the other one, with the entire range of rituals, but performed in a very satvically, without too much emphasis on the externals.
[SPEAKER_00]: But all rituals are there.
[SPEAKER_00]: All pujas are there.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so this other one is bellur but on the bank of Ganga.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I mean, we've become the rights in a letter.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let us see how it goes.
[SPEAKER_00]: So 100 years later, how is it going?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I always see among the senior monks,
[SPEAKER_00]: they keep on scolding the Pujar is the monks who are in charge of the Pujas, the rituals.
[SPEAKER_00]: To keep it short, to carry it, make it shorter, less.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is a tendency, if you are a ritualist, a poojari, it's those who like it, it's beautiful for them.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have seen some monks who were worshipers in the main temple of Sri Ramakrishna, wonderful lives.
[SPEAKER_00]: All throughout the day, one particular monk I know, he was the head poojari for many, many years, decades.
[SPEAKER_00]: wonderful Swami.
[SPEAKER_00]: All throughout the day he'll be chanting hymns, shanskrit, stothras, wherever he goes.
[SPEAKER_00]: So when he takes a break from the arduous performance of the daily rituals in the Ramakrishna temple there in Belud, he goes somewhere else.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the thing is, wherever he goes
[SPEAKER_00]: Whenever the Pujah is being performed, he will go and sit there.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it says just strong, some scarara in him, that he cannot stay away from the daily Pujah.
[SPEAKER_00]: It'll go and sit there.
[SPEAKER_00]: When he's I've heard when he goes in a train, right at the time of the Pujah, he starts he has a little kit for performing Pujahs and he starts performing the Pujah in the train itself.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he used to with that one time.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that happens.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's a good thing, actually.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that should be controlled.
[SPEAKER_00]: the purpose is not the ritual is not to end up that it's it's a practice and in one beautiful article on the meaning and use of the rituals so I mean Ashokan and the G. He was a strict non-dualist.
[SPEAKER_00]: He has said how helpful it was to him to practice ritualistic pooja in the early years of spiritual life.
[SPEAKER_00]: So when we are novices we are trained to do everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: I also did ritualistic pooja and it's really wonderful and then there is
[SPEAKER_00]: devotional practices apart from the ritualism.
[SPEAKER_00]: There may be hymns and prayers and singing and all of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then there is actual meditation, repetition of the mantra.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then there is...
[SPEAKER_00]: by the way, a ritualistic practice that is common to all religions and one can and one should convert one's daily activities into a ritual.
[SPEAKER_00]: So which is being offered to God, whether you are in office, in your schools, hospitals and the community are at home.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whatever work that we are doing, actually mentally it can be offered to God.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like a ritual.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a cosmic ritual being performed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Saddamakrishna often wouldn't like the flowers in the garden to be picked.
[SPEAKER_00]: Remember, he stayed in a temple, but he still would want a lot of the flowers to remain on the plants and trees, because he felt there's a cosmic ritual worship going on.
[SPEAKER_00]: Worship of God is going on and the flowers and the trees are being offered to God.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, our work daily work also can be ritual ritual in the sense that two technical terms in Vedanta are logica and Vedica.
[SPEAKER_00]: Loki Cummings worldly, our worldly activities, whatever they are, they can be offered to God.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Vedika, which is the Vedic ritualism, or our modern Hindu ritualism, or ritualism, which we have, some religions have more sum up less.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, Catholicism, Christianity, has more rituals.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in fact, one of the things that Protestantism was a protest against was that too much ritualism in Catholicism.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, their ritual, more or less it depends on the tradition.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then there's meditation, pure meditation, the goal where the goal is to withdraw from action, not even the cultivation of devotional feelings towards God, but a calmness of mind.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the peaceful mind, God is revealed.
[SPEAKER_00]: And finally, the highest is the inquiry into reality, philosophical inquiry into reality,
[SPEAKER_00]: So, these are all practices, even at Dway Tavay Dhantha, when you do Shavada, Manda, Nityath, and these are also practices.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, what all of that is included under what Saddam Krishna is saying, must do something, practice.
[SPEAKER_00]: You must practice discipline, then he goes on to at Dway Tavay Dhantha.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, there are these two phases in this dialogue.
[SPEAKER_00]: On one side, he will talk about the Vedantic worship, because M had asked about God without
[SPEAKER_00]: and a rejection of Tism, devotional approach to God, and on the next part of the dialogue, he will go to extreme devotional bhakti, Krishna bhakti, and both are there in the same dialogue.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now he says, the Ghani's think of God without form.
[SPEAKER_00]: They don't accept the divine incarnation.
[SPEAKER_00]: Praising's secretion, Arjuna said, thou art Brahman absolute.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then secretioner takes Arjuna, says, shows him a huge tree in which there seem to be blackberries, clumps of blackberries.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when you go near, you see that they are not blackberries.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is, they're all little Krishna's.
[SPEAKER_00]: when you go close and the tree is the tree of Brahman.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, this is a symbology which shows in the unlimited ocean of existence consciousness place, words without end arise, exist in fall and disappear.
[SPEAKER_00]: So many living beings are born, they exist, they play around and they disappear.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not only then, God takes so many incarnations.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there have been so many Krishna as he says.
[SPEAKER_00]: Krishna himself points out.
[SPEAKER_00]: The reality is Brahman.
[SPEAKER_00]: And all of us is that even the incarnations of God are like little berries, blackberries in a huge tree.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are like little ocean, little waves, bubbles in a vast ocean.
[SPEAKER_00]: The ocean is Brahman.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then he gives another example.
[SPEAKER_00]: Kavid Das.
[SPEAKER_00]: the great mystic of Medieval India.
[SPEAKER_00]: Kavid was strongly inclined to the formless God.
[SPEAKER_00]: At the mention of Krishna's name, he would mock.
[SPEAKER_00]: He would say, why should I worship him?
[SPEAKER_00]: The gopis would clap their hands while he performed the monkey dance with his mind.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, Sri Ramakrishna says, what is his view?
[SPEAKER_00]: So, is his view that the world,
[SPEAKER_00]: People, even the incarnation of God, everything is to reject it and there's only one formless reality existence consciousness, please.
[SPEAKER_00]: So.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is the story of how Ramachandra, the incarnation of God, when he is sent on exile with Sita and Lakshmana, he goes first to the ashram of sages, and they're all Vedant, it's non-duelist, they are merged in the meditation on Brahman.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Ramachandra goes there, and they smile, and they not and digrete him, and they say to him, you, we know who you are, but to us you are the son of Dasha Rath.
[SPEAKER_00]: You are not, that means Lord Rama, the incarnation of them, they know, but still, for them, they treat him as, you son of the Sharatra, Prince, your prince in exile, the only reality they are interested in is the, the formless absolute.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's one attitude, that's the attitude of the Ghani, that is the Advaita Vedanta attitude.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would say strict Advaita Vedant that it should not a wider or liberal Advaita Vedant that it should.
[SPEAKER_00]: But what does Sri Ramakrishna say?
[SPEAKER_00]: Here is the unique thing with a smile.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I accept God with form when I'm in the company of people who believe in that ideal and I also agree with those who believe in the formless God.
[SPEAKER_00]: M, you are as infinite as he of whom we have been talking.
[SPEAKER_00]: Truly, no one can fathom your depth.
[SPEAKER_00]: Master smiling, ah, I see your found it out, let me tell you one thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: One should follow various paths.
[SPEAKER_00]: One should practice each creed for a time in a game of satirantia piece, can't reach the center square until it completes the circle.
[SPEAKER_00]: But once in the square, it can't be overtaken by any other piece.
[SPEAKER_00]: M, that is true, sir.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, here, he is saying something interesting.
[SPEAKER_01]: These are all paths.
[SPEAKER_00]: Remember, one sadhu saying, do you want Brahman or do you want Adwaita Vedanta?
[SPEAKER_00]: You want to realize Brahman?
[SPEAKER_00]: I am Brahman and get liberation becoming enlightened.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or do you want to be an Adwaita Vedant in?
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you want Adwaita Vedanta, you will get Adwaita Vedanta.
[SPEAKER_00]: But you want Brahman, you will get Brahman.
[SPEAKER_00]: That means, don't be stuck on a particular framework.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm saying that with all, you know, being fully centered in that way, the way Dante, it is my favorite thing, but I also still, I know very well that it's a framework.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a very sophisticated framework, very subtle, very direct, very powerful.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think there's nothing that compares with it, but still, it's not the destination.
[SPEAKER_00]: it's a path.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I fully accept that other people can attain to the same realization, can attain motion through other paths.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not that they'll get a lower grade of realization, a lower kind of Brahman, a diluted kind of Brahman because they came to through devotion, not meditation or by some other path.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, it's the same real.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's only one reality.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of our great swamis, Swami Sharvarnanda.
[SPEAKER_00]: He wrote a letter to Swami Thuriananda and the answer to this letter is available in the letters of Swami Thuriananda towards the end of the collection of the letters of Swami Thuriananda.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sharvarnanda's questions are not available to us, but from the answers we can see, you can sort of surmise what the questions were.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we think the questions that this monk asked so Amiturian and the words, what is the philosophy of Sri Ramakrishna?
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it Adwaita Vedanta?
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it Vishishthad Vedanta?
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it Dwaita?
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it all of these?
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, all of these as at once, it can't be done because it's a subtle question.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are logical inconsistencies if you put them all together.
[SPEAKER_00]: So which one?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a long reply, very beautiful reply by Swami Thuriyar and Duchi, and what reading the whole letter, but at the end he says, if you press me, as we know, tell me one philosophy which was Sri Ramakrishna's philosophy.
[SPEAKER_00]: was he an Advaiting, was he a Advaiting, did he believe in the form, the form this God is the ultimate reality or God with form is the ultimate reality.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tell me one.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you press me like that, then I shall be forced to say Sri Ramakrishna's philosophy is by what swearever means as fast as you can realize God.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the philosophy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, notice what Sri Ramakrishna says here.
[SPEAKER_00]: he says, when I am in the company of people who believe in that ideal, God with form, I accept God with form.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I also agree with those who believe in the formless God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why does he do that?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because he treats them as paths.
[SPEAKER_00]: It does not treat them as conflicting theologies or philosophies which have to be argued or fought over.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is a big insight.
[SPEAKER_00]: this kind of thinking is available within Hinduism, always it has always been synthetic and synthetic, but it needed to be stated explicitly.
[SPEAKER_00]: Among the Hindu philosophies, don't the criticise or fight among each other.
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, there are like thousands of years of debates and every path trying to apply, every philosophy trying to prove itself superior and there is vastly treasured there.
[SPEAKER_00]: But what Sri Ramakrishna is saying at the end of it they are facts and they are meant to take you somewhere, to give you some realization, which will result of which will be going beyond some sorrow, attaining the goal of human life, God realization.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that is the point.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then he says something unique here that, not only are the paths, you follow it and realize, but he also says, good to see it through different paths.
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, it may not be possible for ordinary seekers like us to go through multiple paths, but we see that in three-drama Krishna and the direct disciples of Sri Ram Krishna who had an appreciation of the multiple paths.
[SPEAKER_00]: They did not insist on one thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is a unique thing of the Sri Ram Krishna avatar and very suited to this day and age.
[SPEAKER_00]: where we are all thrown together in this global village, especially the global cyber village.
[SPEAKER_00]: So everybody's everybody else is neighbor.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we are very different from each other, you know, especially from the point of view of religions, very different religions.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if this kind of thinking is not there, there will be conflict.
[SPEAKER_00]: There always will be my way or the highway.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am right and you are wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Siram Krishna points out, no,
[SPEAKER_00]: here somebody may ask.
[SPEAKER_00]: So all that vast literature Hinduism fighting with Buddhism, all the debate, Shankara and the Buddhists and the non-dwellist versus the dualists, all that is useless then.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, there is a higher purpose to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I find that when I study the criticisms of Advaita Vedanta, a very deep and searching criticisms leveled against Advaita by Ramana Jyacharya, Madhva Charya, and the followers of Ramana Jyant Madhva, the dualists, the qualified monists, what happens is my understanding of Advaita becomes deeper.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not that when understanding of Advaita is shaken.
[SPEAKER_00]: I now know, when you ask a question, I now begin to understand what the teaching is even better, various sides of it are revealed to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is a phrase used in a metaphor used in Indian philosophy, Stuna and Kandana, Nihaya.
[SPEAKER_00]: That means a pillar, like a wooden post, when it is driven into the ground,
[SPEAKER_00]: what you do is you shake it a little bit, pull it out half way and drive it back further.
[SPEAKER_00]: When you pull it out half way and drive it back further, it goes deeper than the first time.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, that shaking it and pulling it out a little bit in time, that is the questioning criticism debate.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, I am just defending that the 1000 to 3000 year old tradition of Indian philosophy has not been rendered obsolete by this teaching of Sri Ramakrishna that these are all paths they are all correct.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is no need to fight among each other that fighting is not necessary.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the questioning the debates and the argumentation to the quite useful for those who are interested in that way.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, Sri Ramakrishna goes to another point.
[SPEAKER_00]: Two classes of yogis, bahodaka kutichaka.
[SPEAKER_00]: The bahodaka's roam about visiting various holy places, not yet found peace of mind.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the kutichaka's having visited all the sacred places have quite in their minds, feeling serene and peaceful, the settled down in one place and no longer move about.
[SPEAKER_00]: In that place, the one place they are happy, they don't feel the need of going to any sacred place.
[SPEAKER_00]: If one of them ever visits a place of pilgrimage, it's only for the purpose of new inspirations.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had to practice each religion for a time, Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, had to, if you ask for a Ram Krishna, what do you mean, had to?
[SPEAKER_00]: He would say it is inspired by the Divine Mother, from his perspective.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had to practice each religion for a time, Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, further I followed the paths of the Shaktas, Vaishnavas and Vedantists, I realized there is only one God towards whom they are all traveling, but the paths are different.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is something that can be written in golden letters in each place of worship, I think, and the day will come.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this will be understood.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have it in our shrine downstairs.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is, but that is from the Vedas.
[SPEAKER_00]: It comes at Biprabhu Dhabha.
[SPEAKER_00]: The truth is, one, the wise peak of it differently.
[SPEAKER_00]: But in this day and age, so practically and so vividly, Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, and all the variety of traditions within Hinduism.
[SPEAKER_00]: Shaktav was the Divine Mother, Vaishnavas, Vaishnavas, Vaishnava, Rama, Krishna, Vedantists, to a path of knowledge, realization of non-dual drummen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Also, I mean, that includes Tantra, all of these are there.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I realized that there is only one God towards whom all are traveling, but the paths are different.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's very, very important.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is different from the old idea
[SPEAKER_00]: Look, truth is one, falsity is many, and I have got the truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: So all of, I have argument from different people, some, some, some are Christian pastors, Muslims, and also Hindu, I will not name the particular Hindu group who were famous for this kind of argument.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the argument is, look, one thing is true, and false can be many.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it cannot be that all religions, all the teachings are true.
[SPEAKER_00]: how can it be true?
[SPEAKER_00]: How can it be that Friday is a holiday and Saturday is a holiday and Sunday is also the holiday.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of them has to be the holiday.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, all these teachings seem to be contradictory, only one can be true.
[SPEAKER_00]: Therefore, the rest are false and uncannily turns out whatever path that person is following, that is the truth, everything else is false.
[SPEAKER_00]: that approach is replaced by this model of a path, the multiple paths to the same goal, the same reality, and so this is what Sri Ramakrishna is saying.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I have heard criticism of this from different people.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, this is not acceptable, including some reputed academicians.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're saying all of them are saying, this is not acceptable at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: Saddam Krishna never said all of them are same.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the amazing thing that how do they accuse them of this?
[SPEAKER_00]: They are pointing towards Saddam Krishna or to us.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Ramakrishna, the kind of movement that you say, all the religions are the same.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, that's a strange, a very,
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, there shows a lack of careful thinking or careful reading.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, I am pushing again and again clearly says, but the paths are different.
[SPEAKER_00]: He recognizes the uniqueness and the beauty of each path.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's obvious that the paths are different.
[SPEAKER_00]: Who would go and say all the paths are literally the same?
[SPEAKER_00]: Even the names and the spelling of the names or religions are not the same.
[SPEAKER_00]: How can the paths be the same?
[SPEAKER_00]: So they are all different and it's good that they're different.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a worrying tendency that we want to force everybody into the monotonous oneness, that it has to be in this room.
[SPEAKER_00]: I remember at Harvard University, Professor Kroni was talking about the rise of Protestantism.
[SPEAKER_00]: One idea was the Catholic Church had become corrupt and people were not allowed to read the Bible, which was in Latin, only educated priests could read it, and common people were not allowed to read it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So let's go directly to the scripture.
[SPEAKER_00]: So last scripture, that was the cry.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's go to the scripture and find out what the Bible says.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then we will get the truth and we will be free of the control of the Catholic Church.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I asked the question, but was the result of that?
[SPEAKER_00]: did you get to the truth by going directly to the Bible?
[SPEAKER_00]: That was a very good thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was published in German at that time the printing press was invented, Gutenberg Press.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so the Bible was translated into local European language, German and then other languages and then printed and distributed among common people.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yes, scripture alone.
[SPEAKER_00]: So everybody raised directly to scripture.
[SPEAKER_00]: We won't go to Catholic Church.
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll read the scripture ourselves.
[SPEAKER_00]: Good.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I asked the question, what happened
[SPEAKER_00]: What happened was, instead of one church, you had 500 churches.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everybody who read the scripture got a different meaning out of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now my point is, so why blame the Catholic church alone?
[SPEAKER_00]: They have, by now, by the time of Martin Luther, they had a 1500 year old tradition.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now it's 2000 years old.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, they have been trying their best through to interpret and explain the scripture.
[SPEAKER_00]: which is exactly what you did.
[SPEAKER_00]: When you went to the scripture directly, which is good, you went to the scripture directly, but that's what you did.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you had dozens, hundreds of interpretations.
[SPEAKER_00]: What's your Ramakrishna is saying, that's also all good.
[SPEAKER_00]: As long as it takes you to God, that's fine.
[SPEAKER_00]: My point was that what was the impulse between the solar scripture, that there is a truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: and these fathers are hiding it, we will go and get the truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: But what happened was when you tried to get the truth, you get dozens and hundreds of interpretations of it, and so many churches.
[SPEAKER_00]: All by the way, claiming that we have got the truth, and everybody else is around now.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, instead of that, freedom Krishna says, if you make a sincere effort to read the scripture, whichever scripture it is, and sincere spiritual practices, important to practice, not just quibble over words and interpretations, then that path will work for you, and it will be different from the others, and there is no harm in it being different.
[SPEAKER_00]: It does not mean you have only the truth and others are wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: just by the way, one interesting thing I saw in the widener library at Harvard was a original Bible, which was the first edition, Gutenberg Press when it was published first.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, there are a few copies in the world left.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, one of them, they have big and gorgeously made, so it's there on display, and there's a heavy security there, and there's a very interesting story.
[SPEAKER_00]: At one time, it was on display, and there was no security, and the thief came to steal those.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was about 50 years ago, and the thief took, and they're so heavy.
[SPEAKER_00]: The thief had come through the window, climbed the pipes and come to the window.
[SPEAKER_00]: The window, it was somehow open or something, at night, into the library to steal it.
[SPEAKER_00]: and he had not calculated, it would be so heavy.
[SPEAKER_00]: So when he tried to go out of the window with those heavy volumes, he fell and he injured himself.
[SPEAKER_00]: Next morning, they discovered him and recovered the bribes, and so now they are under heavy guard, now with a lot of security.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, he will make a transition to guard with form, from the firmless existence consciousness place to guard with form, from the path of philosophical investigation knowledge to the path of devotion.
[SPEAKER_00]: while visiting holy places, I would sometimes have a great agony.
[SPEAKER_00]: Once I went with Muthu to Rajabha was drawing room.
[SPEAKER_00]: So here we read that he's found that they were all talking about money and real estate and all material things.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he's out in Banaras.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why are people talking about worldly things?
[SPEAKER_00]: The situation has not changed.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure when Banaras was first established, it would have been the same.
[SPEAKER_00]: And today, 21st century also you will find all sorts of worldly things going on there.
[SPEAKER_00]: But Sri Ram Krishna couldn't bear it.
[SPEAKER_00]: He whipped, whipped to the Divine Mother mother.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why have you brought me here?
[SPEAKER_00]: I was fine in Daksaneshwar.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then he says, that I noticed it's still the same things.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everywhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he says, Alabad, which is now Praya Agraj.
[SPEAKER_00]: Same puns.
[SPEAKER_00]: This pawns have water, the grass is green, trees are there with leaves, same tamarind and so on.
[SPEAKER_00]: What he means by that is, as place is they are the same, there is nothing particularly good or great about it, the same God dwells everywhere, you can find God everywhere, then he comes to the speciality of bhakti, next, but, so does it mean that it is not important, holy place is, he says no, but,
[SPEAKER_00]: One undoubtedly finds inspiration in a holy place.
[SPEAKER_00]: I accompanied Mathurba to Bindavan, Ridae and the ladies of Mathur's family, wherein our party, no sooner did I see the Kaliya Dhamankhaat, then a divine emotion searched up within me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was completely overwhelmed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ridae used to bathe me there as if I were a small child.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the dusk, I would walk on the bank of the Gemana.
[SPEAKER_00]: the cattle returned home.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said at the very site of the cows, the thought of Krishna would flashing my mind.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would run along like a mad man.
[SPEAKER_00]: and crying over his Krishna, where is my Krishna.
[SPEAKER_00]: And even to these places, Shyam Kundan, Raja Kundan, and a palanquin, Mount Kovat, which is associated with the story of Krishna lifting the Mount God, then on his little finger to protect the cowards from storms.
[SPEAKER_00]: When he saw that, he said, I was overpowered with divine emotion and ran to the top.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a low hill, so it's not a mountain which had to climb all the way to the top.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a low hill, and it climbed to the top and became absorbed.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, he lost all consciousness of the world around me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Dave, see, whenever he says the lost consciousness, it means just the opposite.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is far more conscious than anybody else, but he has become so intense.
[SPEAKER_00]: Imagine, when you focus on something, reading a book or doing a task, you generally, you lose awareness of surroundings or things going around outside, and inside also, in your own mind or in the body, for the time being, in your performing some task, a surgeon who is doing surgery, a person who is doing research, things like that,
[SPEAKER_00]: When you are actually you feel the presence of God, you'd be so stunned and absorbed in that, you would be aware of anything else.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that's not a state of unconsciousness.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a fully aware there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Compared to that, we are all sleepwalking, our half-escalate.
[SPEAKER_00]: I lost all consciousness of the world around me.
[SPEAKER_00]: The residents of the place helped me to come down.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he says, I saw the same, the trees and meadows, shrubs and birds and deer and overcombat ecstasy.
[SPEAKER_00]: My clothes became wet with tears.
[SPEAKER_00]: I said, Oh, Krishna, everything here is as it was in the olden days, you alone are absent.
[SPEAKER_00]: Seated in the Palinquin, I lost all power of speech.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ridae followed the Palinquin, he had warned the bearers to be careful about me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, we are in an entirely different realm altogether.
[SPEAKER_00]: If we don't have ceramic-richness magic mantra that they are different paths to the same reality, we will think that these are entirely different things.
[SPEAKER_00]: One seems to be highly philosophical, you know, shawana, manana, and it has to now you study, and you philosophize, reason it out.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are enormously difficult and subtle texts, which will raise all sorts of questions and then you get a clarity and then you stay with that clarity till you realize that you are drumman.
[SPEAKER_00]: It seems to be a different path.
[SPEAKER_00]: And here is this whole story about Krishna's avatar, entire Leela of Krishna, the way to enter this realm which Ram Krishna is talking about is Bhakti, is devotion.
[SPEAKER_00]: Bhakti is very powerful, extraordinary powerful.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sri Ram Krishna says again and again in Kratam Rittta, Bishashikhey, how do you get hold of Satjit down in the Brahman?
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, Satjit is happening there.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, it's like a log of wood submerged in water.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's a small chain tied to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And one end of the chain, one link is given to you ahead.
[SPEAKER_00]: that is faith.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then you follow that until you come to reality then it's not faith anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: See, what is faith earlier, which was in Vedanta, it is Shuddha.
[SPEAKER_00]: Once you discover it, it's not that Shuddha the faith goes away, rather it becomes reality.
[SPEAKER_00]: So then the new word for that is Nishta, Nishta means staying with it.
[SPEAKER_00]: you are centered in it.
[SPEAKER_00]: You first, you are now seeking it, you say that what the text settling me teaches at telling me is real and I am going towards it following the method which has been pointed out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now I get it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Once you get it, you are not searching anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: Once you get it, the question in Vedanta who am I is not meant to get you give you lots of answers.
[SPEAKER_00]: You find who am I according to this book and that book and this professor and that professor.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, no, no, no.
[SPEAKER_00]: The question is meant to end all searching.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ultimately, when you get it, there's the end of searching.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's not the end of spiritual life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then, so I'm a Brahman and this says, then alone spiritual life actually begins because it becomes real for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now the thing is, you are centered in it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, Nishita, you stay with it, but that is the path of gana of knowledge.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here we are talking about something different, devotion, bhakti.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here it's not so much philosophizing or reading this or that, no, it starts with love, but devotion.
[SPEAKER_00]: I make a commitment that I have been told this, and I believe in it, so something within me responds to it, and I respond with devotion, adoration, bhakti, and I fan that flame till it grows.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then only all this is meaningful.
[SPEAKER_00]: So to understand what Sri Ramakrishna was doing in Vrindavan, why is he constantly overcome with emotion?
[SPEAKER_00]: So you all need a hundred or a thousand things that we want in the world, imagine if one
[SPEAKER_00]: then bhakti will rise.
[SPEAKER_00]: What will happen is all that energy which is flowing out in a thousand different ways in desire, in greed, in blast, in anxiety, in fear, in all of those ways, all that is gathered together into a tremendously powerful force.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it flows still flows, but it flows towards God, that becomes bhakti.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's why they don't go together.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm afraid of something in the world, I'm afraid anxious, that's also worldly.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want, I want, I want, that's also worldly.
[SPEAKER_00]: Step back from it and then it becomes devotion.
[SPEAKER_00]: The path of Bhakti, you might seem very difficult to do all that.
[SPEAKER_00]: The path of Bhakti is a unique thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is that if you,
[SPEAKER_00]: catch hold of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: The catching hold of God first is through devotion, faith.
[SPEAKER_00]: That much faith one must have.
[SPEAKER_00]: You would say that, but that's a belief.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, let it be a belief.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you in Bharti, the only thing is, if you start with skepticism, if you start with questions, then Bharti is not for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: You'll be told, go to Sankhya, go to Advaita, go to Buddhism.
[SPEAKER_00]: Buddhism means the core Buddhism.
[SPEAKER_00]: But Bharti, if you're willing to start with faith, then Bharti
[SPEAKER_00]: What happens is that much faith which we start and catch hold of catch hold of Rama or Krishna or Kali, whichever way That much then there is a grace from the other side That we begin to see then our bhakti increases not by our own effort Just a little effort that we do the rest is taken care of by God You don't have to do much
[SPEAKER_00]: but you have to catch hold of card and then you have to and then it will increase by itself.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is reminded of one story, Novogopal Ghosh, he used to come to Sri Ramakrishna.
[SPEAKER_00]: You find him a few times in the hospital just a few times.
[SPEAKER_00]: He and his wife, they were very devoted to Sri Ramakrishna.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sri Ramakrishna went to their house also once, and the devotion was very great.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to tell you all the stories, but just a little bit how that one little thing grows.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, this Navagopal Ghosh, he was present on the Calpattharudi, the first of January 1886 when Sri Ramakrishna touched some of the devotees and awakened spiritual consciousness many of the mid-experiences, Navagopal Ghosh, Giri Shkosh told Navagopal Ghosh, why are you sitting here?
[SPEAKER_00]: Go quickly, Sri Ramakrishna is giving blessings to everybody.
[SPEAKER_00]: Navagopal Ghosh went, but the dialogue is interesting, I found it in an article written by Swami Chata Ghafaniji.
[SPEAKER_00]: that can you do japa and dihana meditation and japa of a mantra?
[SPEAKER_00]: Navagopal who said, I am a householder, I am a very worldly person, I have got so many people to take care of and so much to do, I can't promise, so he is honest, he is important, I can't promise, and I will be able to do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then Sri Ramakrishna said that, at least, can you chant the name of God, morning and evening, and he said, I can't promise that either.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then Sri Ramakrishna said, do you have devotion on this towards himself, you pointed?
[SPEAKER_00]: No, Kovaal's God said yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: So whenever you remember me, can you just remember me whenever it comes to your mind?
[SPEAKER_00]: No rules, I'm not saying.
[SPEAKER_00]: Can you remember me?
[SPEAKER_00]: Can you take my name?
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, we'll go back to your share shortly.
[SPEAKER_00]: That if I remember and I'll take your name, that's fine.
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, I'm always willing to take your name.
[SPEAKER_00]: But rules, I can't promise anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: Since your own Krishna says, that's enough.
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't have to do anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do anything else.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's a small thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: You might say, what will happen?
[SPEAKER_00]: There are one person cannot proceed so much of instructions.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's your own Krishna gives nothing else.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just that whenever you remember God, then you keep taking the name of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know what happened to Navagopal Gosha at the end of his life towards the end of his life, along after Sri Ram Krishna fast, in his neighborhood, he was called Jairama Krishna, because he would, all the time, morning, evening before going to office, coming back from work, he would walk along the streets chanting and singing Jairama Krishna and bands of children would gather around him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because he would give this batasha, that little sugar, boiled sweet, which is crispy, and the kids loved it.
[SPEAKER_00]: He would make them chant the name of Jairama Krishna.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like a tiny donut.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, he would make them chant the name of Rama Krishna and give them that batasha.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so this name became Jairam Krishna, the kids and even the grown-ups in the neighborhood would say, look, there comes Jairam Krishna, let's go to him and get the Bhattasya.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it would always be, he would be chanting the name of Ramakrishna and the children would be chanting the name of Ramakrishna and it would be like a pretty strange neighborhood actually.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, it was in his house, later he retired from work, he bought a house, he made a house near the bank of Ganga in Hauram.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was in his house that he invited Swami Vivekananda, Swami Brahmananda, Swami Shivananda, and some of the other direct disciples became by boat.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was, I think it was there's birthday of Sri Ramakrishna.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so Swami Vivekananda came in, Swami Brahmananda came to his house.
[SPEAKER_00]: He had made a separate shrine room, which is still there.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've gone and seen that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm revering her in the performed small worship of Sri Ramakrishna, established the image of the picture of Sri Ramakrishna there.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's why I'm revering her in the composed, Stapokaya, Chodharmas, Chayasarva, Dharmasvarupani, Vataarva, Rishthaya, Ramakrishna, Dhainama, that in his house.
[SPEAKER_00]: No Boko Palka, Chayasarthaas.
[SPEAKER_00]: So just that one little thing that will enjoy Ramakrishna from that so much came.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he passed away in all glory with the vision of Sri Ramakrishna at the end.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, Bhakti, so you have to put yourself in that intense devotion to God, which all the great three stick mystics of all the religions have had, Vaishnavas, Sharkters, Christians, Islam, Muslims.
[SPEAKER_00]: Those were the mystics of lovers of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's an incredible mindset.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it would be difficult for us to have, but we can at least imagine what it would be like.
[SPEAKER_00]: This one thing and one thing we love in life, and nothing else.
[SPEAKER_00]: And all love flows to that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Imagine the kind of Sri Ram Krishna says, the worldly person loves all his possessions and money and with all that love.
[SPEAKER_00]: the love between, say, husband and wife, love of a worldly man towards possessions and one more.
[SPEAKER_00]: See, these three are concentrated in one and focused on God.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can get a taste of what Bhakti would be like.
[SPEAKER_00]: With that attitude, he goes to Vindavan and one can feel the vibration.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you go to Rindavan, Mathurayan Rindavan, you clearly feel the moment you enter that area, you feel it's different.
[SPEAKER_00]: And these holy places are like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Ram Krishna said, it's not that the holy place is not helpful.
[SPEAKER_00]: They are helpful.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, I mean, I am not going to Jerusalem or SCC, but Swami Aproprian just said he had gone there.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said he felt this distinct, very deep vibration in places in Jerusalem and again in SEC, Saint Francis of SCC and SCC also.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, in different holy places you have that feeling, so then he gives an example of one
[SPEAKER_00]: Bhakti, Divine Love, and the other is the Krishna Vedanta.
[SPEAKER_00]: What is the Krishna of Rindavan, where the devotion of the Gopis, and the Shefford boys, the Gopas, and the Kahvad women, the Gopis for Krishna, that we study that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then there is the Krishna of Kuruksetra, the battlefield of Kuruksetra, where it teaches
[SPEAKER_00]: Let the Krsna of Rindavan is higher.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the Krsna of Rindavan is higher.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Krsna of Bhakti is higher, a pure Bhakti of Rindavan.
[SPEAKER_00]: But he says, the general need of the age of the masses is the Krsna of Purukshetna, but what we need in this day and age.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that, I think, only when one advances in spiritual life, one can appreciate more and more
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, why I said all that, one example of that is coming and to appreciate what is going to happen here, you will see this.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, there is this very elderly lady who had lived all her life doing spiritual practices in Dindavan, Ganga Mai.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ganga Mai became very fond of me in Dindavan.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was an old woman who lived all alone in a heart near the Nidhu one.
[SPEAKER_00]: Referring to my spiritual condition and ecstasy, she said he is the very embodiment of Radha.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, she saw Radha in Sri Ramakrishna, a man with a beard no less, and she sees Radha in the outward form is what we see is a very gross way of looking at people.
[SPEAKER_00]: More spiritually
[SPEAKER_00]: He's a very embodiment of Raja and Ganga may recognize it at that time Sri Ram Krishna was not well known for them who is Ram Krishna.
[SPEAKER_00]: A holy man, a priest who has come from a distant place called Calcutta.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's Sri Ram Krishna.
[SPEAKER_00]: But Ganga may recognize it, this is an extraordinary being.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's the very embodiment of Raja.
[SPEAKER_00]: He addressed me as Dullali.
[SPEAKER_00]: Dullali is a girl's name.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's a name for Raja in Rindavan.
[SPEAKER_00]: When with her, I used to forget my food, my drink, my bath, and all thought of going home.
[SPEAKER_00]: On some days, Rida used to bring food from home, that means, they were staying in the river.
[SPEAKER_00]: From home and feed me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ganga Mai would also serve me with food prepared by her own hands.
[SPEAKER_00]: For her, for Ganga Mai, her whole life's spiritual practice is culminated here, because she vividly feels that the one whom she was shipped
[SPEAKER_00]: the dual form of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, Radha is in front of her.
[SPEAKER_00]: Imagine if you worship God in a particular form.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, one day, if you actually meet God, God comes to your home.
[SPEAKER_00]: What will he probably go mad with joy?
[SPEAKER_00]: So, that's what happened to Gangamai.
[SPEAKER_00]: And she was herself well-known.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was on Krishna describes.
[SPEAKER_00]: She used to go into ecstases and they would be like a festival.
[SPEAKER_00]: People would come from all over their new.
[SPEAKER_00]: These were special occasions when she was having the vision of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: So she was well-known as the saint.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nungamai used to here, used to experience chances.
[SPEAKER_00]: At such times a great crowd would come to see her.
[SPEAKER_00]: One day in a state of ecstasy, she climbed on Ridae's shoulders.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm reminded of another incident.
[SPEAKER_00]: who was in the temple of Jagannath in Puri.
[SPEAKER_00]: So every day he would go to have the vision of Lord Jagannath in Puri, he would go into an ecstasy.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he would stand, is that this pillar called the Garuda Sambha, stone pillar.
[SPEAKER_00]: It said that his body radiated so much heat, that the stone there, very hood put his hand to lean on it, and look at Jagannath for distance.
[SPEAKER_00]: that melted.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's a hand print of Jaitan Yamaha Prabhupada at the same.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we see in three Ramakrishna's life also the incident recorded how tremendous amount of heat was once generated by his body at in a particular state anyway.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's to be huge crowd there even now there are huge crowds every big press of people trying to have the darshan of Lord Jagannat and those
[SPEAKER_00]: So, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's disciples would surround him because he would be an ecstasy, he would be aware of his surroundings.
[SPEAKER_00]: They would surround him so that nobody would touch him in that state.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, one old lady who had come from a village,
[SPEAKER_00]: She was probably no saint or anything like Ganga Amai, but just she had come to see the Lord have a darshan.
[SPEAKER_00]: In her frenzy to see, she couldn't because and Chaitanamapu was very tall.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was a very powerful int, I mean, if you see the description of his body, so he literally physically towering.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this woman couldn't see a lot, Chaitanamapu was standing in front of her.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, unmindful of anything, she climbed on his shoulder to see.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the devotees were about to thrash her, and the Jaitan Mahaprabhu was prevented, it absolutely not.
[SPEAKER_00]: See, the kind of unwanted God and only God, I am not aware of what I am doing anywhere else.
[SPEAKER_00]: On a one day in a state of ecstasy, she climbed on three, on three, there is shoulders.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't want to leave her.
[SPEAKER_00]: Notice the immediate attraction, this attraction is gone, this attraction of the divinity, both see the same divinity in each other.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't want to leave her and return to Calcutta.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this was in Nidhu Bandoza, I'm going to Vindavan.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's the place where it is said that Radha and the Gopis had their Rastlila at night, they would sing and dance with Krishna.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's the Nidhu Bandoza.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's a very sacred place in Vindavan.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you go there, you're bound to be underwhelmed.
[SPEAKER_00]: because it's a small dusty garden, the place is dusty, and all the trees are stunted and little, because it's become a desert over time.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the trees are still there.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, but even now it is regarded as so holy that people are not allowed to stay there at night.
[SPEAKER_00]: They will be asked to leave before sunset because they say that it's so surcharged with the divine emotion there.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you stay at night, you will have a vision of
[SPEAKER_00]: the Rastil, of Krishna, and the Radha, and the Gopis, and then you won't survive anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so the legend goes that people who sneaked in try to stay there, they gave up their bodies, but they have this vision of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now,
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't want to leave one return to Calcutta and he insisted that I'll stay here and things were arranged for everything was arranged for me to stay with her.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was to eat devil-boiled rice and we were to have our beds on either side of the cottage.
[SPEAKER_00]: All the arrangements had been made.
[SPEAKER_00]: When Rida said, you should as a week's stomach who will take care of you look after you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why, said Ganga May, I shall look after him, I shall nurse him, as Riddhad, this is a funny scene, as Riddhad dragged me by one hand and she by the other.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if he means it figuratively or literally, I think he means it literally.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was pulling him from his one hand to stay here with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Riddhad was pulling him on the other hand.
[SPEAKER_00]: Come, let's go back to Calcutta.
[SPEAKER_00]: But then did I have the last word, because he suddenly remembered his own mother.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm remembered his own mother who is still alive, who is living alone in the Nabat of the Temple Garden.
[SPEAKER_00]: I found it impossible to stay away from her and said to Kanga Mai, no, I must go.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love the atmosphere of Rindavan.
[SPEAKER_00]: About 11 o'clock, the master took his meal and offerings from the temple of Kali after taking
[SPEAKER_00]: Every now and then, he uttered the Holy Word home.
[SPEAKER_00]: He repeated the sacred names of the deities.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it was Durga Puja, actually.
[SPEAKER_00]: After sunset, evening worship was performed at temples, since it was the day of Bijaya.
[SPEAKER_00]: The devotee's first saluted the divine mother and then took the dust of the master's feet.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a footnote which explains it.
[SPEAKER_00]: form of reverence elucation in one, but that is the feat of a superior with one's forehead.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or with hands.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me take a quick look at some of the comments before we go to the next section.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sri Ramakrishna's advice to devotees of personal God, Jajjar, Ishtar, Shaita, Arathma is based on the foundation of Advaita Vedant.
[SPEAKER_00]: Harmony between different names and forms of one-seguhna Brahman, who is none other than the Nidhna Brahman is based on Advaita Vedant.
[SPEAKER_00]: Devotion eventually culminates to having Nishta to the Swarupa of the personal God, from one's quotation from.
[SPEAKER_00]: Uriya Baba.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Uriya Baba was this great saint, great Mahatma, who lived there in Mathura.
[SPEAKER_00]: His ashram is there.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, in Windawan, in Windawan.
[SPEAKER_00]: I went to visit his ashram, not only a few grandmacharies elected, but he was a very great non-dualist.
[SPEAKER_00]: He used to call Odeyababa because he was from Orisa, he's Sanyas name was different, very great teacher, non-dualist master, in the early middle 20th century, let's laugh century.
[SPEAKER_00]: So let's a quote from him, Sanghita says, referring to story you have mentioned,
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, he's encountering Lord Rama, who's still choosing to be strictly Advaitants, committed only to non-dewal Brahman, as you said, leaving aside with this and completely wearing the history of Advaita, who's strictly Advaita, ever documented.
[SPEAKER_00]: The earliest Guru Parampara we have seen in Gaurapada, Sharmath and Shringeri, Diva Parampara, Gaurabarship is irrevocably established in tradition.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, but you often come across instances of people like Tothapuri, for example, who is a traditional Advaiting monk, but who is completely focused only on Iam Bramman.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, traditional Advaita Vedanta, like all traditional Indian paths, it's very inclusive.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, there will be a component of the worship type of Sagarna Bramman.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, if you follow the Upanishadic path,
[SPEAKER_00]: Then, we are just reading in kato-opanishad, we hire Brahman in the lower Brahman, we Brahman opinions, parabh Brahman, uparabh Brahman, ohm stands for both.
[SPEAKER_00]: One is to be realized, I am Brahman, the other one is to be worshipped.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, Rupanishadik Pat, Sagoda Brahman and Nirguna Brahman are both there, and the goal is, of course, realization of oneself as Nirguna Brahman, I am Brahman, that is the goal.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Sagoda Brahman worship is underway, and always part of an integral part of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But there have been cases, suppose you take something like Ashhtavakra, or Avaduta Gita.
[SPEAKER_00]: there we will find it is distinguished by singular lack of presence of second upper manner issue.
[SPEAKER_00]: But traditional aspect of Vedanta is perfectly inclusive and you see often it is a kind of incomplete understanding of Vedanta.
[SPEAKER_00]: When people often ask us if this is the truth,
[SPEAKER_00]: Why, how can we have devotion, how can we worship God and realize that I am God?
[SPEAKER_00]: So, it is not end.
[SPEAKER_00]: If I can realize I am Brahman and also eat and walk and talk, why can't I worship God?
[SPEAKER_00]: Eating, walking, talking, those are dualistic activities.
[SPEAKER_00]: Who is eating, walking and talking?
[SPEAKER_00]: It is the Jeeva from that perspective.
[SPEAKER_00]: If I, if the reality is the screen, does not mean you will switch up the movie, does not mean the plot of the movie will change.
[SPEAKER_00]: So similarly, realizing I am such a darn under that is, that is the realization to level of knowledge, then you live your life, how will you live your life?
[SPEAKER_00]: What will you do in your life?
[SPEAKER_00]: You can remain immersed in the understanding that I am such a darner, that's also fine.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if you move about and interact with society at the world, then not to accept sub-nobroman.
[SPEAKER_00]: You accept everything else, accept sub-nobroman, that shows a kind of limitation of understanding.
[SPEAKER_00]: If this world is nothing at the Ben-Gramman, sub-nobroman also is nothing at the Ben-Gramman.
[SPEAKER_00]: and it's a great power and support.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a support, as long as you live this limited life for Jiva.
[SPEAKER_00]: What is the position of the sages in Bhagavad-gharata, it is said, great sages who have realized that we are Brahman and who have nothing to gain from God?
[SPEAKER_00]: We have got so much to gain from God.
[SPEAKER_00]: We want protection in this life.
[SPEAKER_00]: We want spirituality.
[SPEAKER_00]: We want bhakti.
[SPEAKER_00]: We want God realization.
[SPEAKER_00]: All of that we have got to get.
[SPEAKER_00]: God alone can give us all those things.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, these enlightened beings have nothing to gain from God.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Bhagavatam says, they are ever overflowing the devotion.
[SPEAKER_00]: It tumbhuta, harer, gonaaha.
[SPEAKER_00]: Such are the excellent qualities of hari.
[SPEAKER_00]: So wonderful is God that for those who are actually realized God, they are spontaneously overcome the devotion.
[SPEAKER_00]: If this is not realized, questions like that will come.
[SPEAKER_00]: How did Shankara write devotional hymns to God?
[SPEAKER_00]: If you understand Advait in this traditional way, you'll never ask that question.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is very obvious how Shankara wrote those hymns to God in multiple forms.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's a good question.
[SPEAKER_00]: Krishnamu Thivishwanakun says Bhagavan Bhashakara also needed to write and debate because what was the Sonakana Dharmani did at that time?
[SPEAKER_00]: Without him, they would have been no Raman Rajarya or Madhava Charya.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mr. Nakademic seemed to gloss over the fact that his primary teaching to the regular person was very devotional.
[SPEAKER_00]: He taught us to worship God again.
[SPEAKER_00]: True.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, there was once a workshop arranged in our university in Belur, for traditional scholars of Vedanta.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we had a great Advaitin, one of the greatest living scholars of Advaita Vedanta, Krishna Mutti Shastrigal, who was the principal of the Sanskrit College in Chennai, and retired now.
[SPEAKER_00]: He came to teach the Lakshmi Tathacharya, who was a very great
[SPEAKER_00]: He spent 40 years studying Bishistakwaita Vedanta.
[SPEAKER_00]: 20 years, I think, to the Sanskrit texts, and 20 years, the Tamil texts.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then there was a great scholar of Madhava Vedanta, where Kheedy, Shrini was, where Kheedy.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then one more scholar of Nimbara Vedanta.
[SPEAKER_00]: So all these big traditional scholars had come.
[SPEAKER_00]: And one rule was made at the very beginning.
[SPEAKER_00]: So interesting, they are all rival schools.
[SPEAKER_00]: But they're all pandits.
[SPEAKER_00]: So when you have a seminar or workshop, they make the senior most pundit the head of the whole panel.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the Advaita Vedanta Master, who was the senior most among them, he was made the head of the whole panel.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there are individual breakout sessions.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the panel, everybody was all sweet, sweetness and honey and everything towards each other.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the individual breakout sessions, the real colors were revealed.
[SPEAKER_00]: One, I think the Adwaita Master said, about the dualistic and qualified monastic schools, he said, but then see the traditional way of criticism.
[SPEAKER_00]: It sounds like praise.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a how great are their intellects, they're found unique and original meanings from the Upanishads.
[SPEAKER_00]: The unique and original meaning is actually a word of abuse, which means it's not the original, it's not the meaning of the Upanishads.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wonderful intellects indeed, but we shall concentrate on the non-dual interpretation of alphabet.
[SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, that's one side of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now,
[SPEAKER_00]: the Vishestadwaita Master, who is a total rival of Adwaita Vedanta and Shankara.
[SPEAKER_00]: By the way, all these sessions were in Sanskrit, fluent, beautiful Sanskrit.
[SPEAKER_00]: When we couldn't understand, they would go into English sometimes.
[SPEAKER_00]: This Master of Vishestadwaita Vedanta, he said, I have the greatest respect for Shankara, because he rescued the Atma of the Upanishads from the attacks of the Buddhists.
[SPEAKER_00]: and open the field for the devotional approaches.
[SPEAKER_00]: See, who saved the soul and who saved God?
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't, soul and God does not need saving, but who saved it from the attacks of the eighties, from the attacks of the non-theistic schools of Buddhism.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is Shankara, and also others were there, but Shankara primarily.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he says, I have the greatest respect for him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He saved the Atma of the Vedas, the Upanishads, from the attacks of the Buddhists.
[SPEAKER_00]: He also said another thing, this master of Professor Lakshmi Tathacharya, is the Pandit of Vishisthandvaita Vedanta.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, I love the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, this one, this book.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, I love the Ramakrishna Katham with the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna because, because, wait for it.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, so, obviously, a Vishisthandvaita text.
[SPEAKER_00]: qualified monastic text.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I just love it.
[SPEAKER_00]: He taught us to worship God again through one more thing I much say in this regard.
[SPEAKER_00]: Before just before Shankaracharya, these things had been done, the counter attacks against Buddhism had been done by Odaana Charya, specially by Kumari La Bhattam.
[SPEAKER_00]: who is a great poor woman, an elder contemporary of Shankaracharya.
[SPEAKER_00]: But what he established primarily was the Vedic ritualism.
[SPEAKER_00]: That would not last long.
[SPEAKER_00]: What Shankaracharya did was that he had to walk a fine line
[SPEAKER_00]: between Swami Tapasya and Ji is to say, I heard it from Swami Atma Priya and the Ji.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, Swami Tapasya and the Ji was the vice president of our order long back.
[SPEAKER_00]: He used to say that Shankara inherited two great dilapidated castles.
[SPEAKER_00]: One was the Castle of Late Buddhism.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the other was the Castle of the Purvamimamtha, Vedic ritualism.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he used the materials from that.
[SPEAKER_00]: to build up and put the, you know, path of Advaita Vedanta and form foundations, which it says can be charabri, practice simultaneous here concurrently with japa, with japa not simultaneous when actually doing japa, of course you should do japa only, but before and after certainly and other times which are but it concurrently because japa you have already put a paradigm.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ishtadevata ishtamantra and I am focusing on the ishtadevata and repeating the ishtamantra.
[SPEAKER_00]: Stay with that.
[SPEAKER_00]: With which are about which are we will do is it will deconstruct that paradigm.
[SPEAKER_00]: It will show you that who I and the one I am concentrating on are one in the same reality.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that one can do it other times.
[SPEAKER_00]: Vishwanath says, so many very referring to this on page 83, we should love God with the combined force of three attractions.
[SPEAKER_00]: worldly positions for the worldly of man, child subtraction for its mother has been subtraction for chased by PS, that one, three things.
[SPEAKER_00]: And just the opposite, love of wife towards the husband, both quotations are there in the
[SPEAKER_00]: So these three examples have been taken with Sri Ramakrishna, most powerful attractions, and you have to combine them together to show how much love of God is bhakti.
[SPEAKER_00]: How can one strengthen devotion to make it one pointed?
[SPEAKER_00]: Very important question.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not that we do not have devotion.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have devotion, but it is weakened.
[SPEAKER_00]: What we can sit will see.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, it's so nice to see the connection between these dialogues.
[SPEAKER_00]: Next, we will talk about what is Maya, what drags the mind out to the world?
[SPEAKER_00]: And last 10 gold, he says, these are the essence of Maya.
[SPEAKER_00]: He will talk about it in the next dialogue, October 24th, 1882, which we will see next time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ashok Sang Nani says, is it true that Nupanishads, there is no mention of prayer anywhere?
[SPEAKER_00]: Not really.
[SPEAKER_00]: The prayer there is of a different kind.
[SPEAKER_00]: In Gita, for example, we find which sounds very Advaita, 15 chapters.
[SPEAKER_00]: But there it says, Tamil Vachadhyam Purusham Prabhupada, Yataprabriti, Prasvita Purani.
[SPEAKER_00]: We pray to, we take refuge in,
[SPEAKER_00]: that primable Lord from which this entire manifestation has proceeded, all these activities have started.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's prayer actually.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then the adwaitiq, the Upanishadic mantras, Asato, Masad, Ghamaya, and all of that, Sahadab, over to their prayers actually.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there is prayer, but it's a very Vedic kind of prayer.
[SPEAKER_00]: it is not the later bhakti which we are used to.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, we'll stop here.