[SPEAKER_01]: So this is our weekly class on Sri Ramakrishna Katham Rita, which is translated into the English as the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we were on 24th October 1882.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a Tuesday, 24th October 1882.
[SPEAKER_02]: We can just start that.
[SPEAKER_02]: In my book, it's page 130, page 130.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was three or four o'clock in the afternoon.
[SPEAKER_02]: The master was standing near the shelf, where the food was kept.
[SPEAKER_02]: When Balarama and M arrived from Calcutta and saluted him.
[SPEAKER_02]: So this is in the Daksine Shwar.
[SPEAKER_02]: And this is in Sri Ramakrishna's room in Daksine Shwar.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sri Ramakrishna said to them, with a smile, I was going to take some sweets from the shelf.
[SPEAKER_02]: But no sooner did I put my hand on them, then a lizard dropped on my body.
[SPEAKER_02]: The dropping of a lizard on the body is considered a madwoman at once I removed my hand all laugh oh yes one should observe all these things you see raka is ill and my limbs ache too do you know what's the matter this morning as I was leaving my bed I saw a certain person
[SPEAKER_02]: We also dox Hindus in Bengal believe or believed at that time that the first face seen in the bonding indicates whether the day will bring good or evil.
[SPEAKER_02]: Who might look for Rakhaal or laugh?
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh yes, physical features should be studied.
[SPEAKER_02]: The other day Narendra bought brought one of his friends, a man with only one good eye.
[SPEAKER_02]: Though the other eye was not totally blind, I said to myself, what is this trouble that Narendra has bought with him?
[SPEAKER_02]: Has brought with him.
[SPEAKER_02]: A certain person comes here, but I can't eat any food that he brings.
[SPEAKER_02]: He works in an office at a salary of 20 rupees and earns another 20 by writing false bills.
[SPEAKER_02]: I can't utter a word in his presence because he tells lies.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sometimes he stays here two or three days without going to his office.
[SPEAKER_02]: Can you guess his purpose?
[SPEAKER_02]: It is that I should recommend him to someone for a job somewhere else.
[SPEAKER_02]: Ballaram comes from a family of devout-wise lovers.
[SPEAKER_02]: His father, now an old man, is a pious devotee.
[SPEAKER_02]: He is a tough-to-hair on his head.
[SPEAKER_02]: A rosary of filthy beads round his neck.
[SPEAKER_02]: and a string of beads in his hands, in his hand.
[SPEAKER_02]: He devotes his time to the repetition of God's name.
[SPEAKER_02]: He owns much property in Orysa and has built temples to Radha Krishna in Kothar, Rindavan, and other places, establishing free guest houses as well.
[SPEAKER_02]: To Balaram, a certain person came here the other day.
[SPEAKER_02]: I understand he's the slave of that black hag of a wife.
[SPEAKER_02]: Why is it that people do not see God?
[SPEAKER_02]: It is because of the barrier of lust and gold.
[SPEAKER_02]: How impudent he was to say to you the other day, Aparamahamsa came to my father, who fed him with chicken curry.
[SPEAKER_02]: Again, a footnote, Orthodox Hindus are forbidden to eat chicken.
[SPEAKER_02]: In my present state of mind, I can eat a little fish soup if it has been offered to the Divine Mother beforehand.
[SPEAKER_02]: I can't eat any meat, even if it is offered to the Divine Mother.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I taste it with the end of my finger, less she should be angry, laughter.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, can you explain this state of my mind?
[SPEAKER_02]: Once I was going from bird one to Kamar Pukur in a bullet cart, when a great storm arose, some people gathered near the cart.
[SPEAKER_02]: My companion said, they were robbers.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I began to repeat the names of God, calling sometimes on Kali, sometimes on Rama, sometimes on Hanuman.
[SPEAKER_02]: What do you think of that?
[SPEAKER_02]: was the master hinting that God is one, but is addressed differently by different sects.
[SPEAKER_02]: Master, to Balarama.
[SPEAKER_02]: My eyes nothing but lust and gold, a man living in its midst, gradually loses his spiritual alertness.
[SPEAKER_02]: He thinks all is well with him.
[SPEAKER_02]: The scavenger carries a tub of night soil on his head, and in course of time loses his repulsion to it.
[SPEAKER_02]: One gradually acquires love of God through the practice of chanting God's name and glories to M. One should not be ashamed of chanting God's holy name.
[SPEAKER_02]: As the saying goes, one does not succeed, so long one has these three, shame, hatred and fear.
[SPEAKER_02]: At Kamar Pukur they sing Kitan very well.
[SPEAKER_02]: The devotional music is sung to the
[SPEAKER_02]: to Balaram, have you installed any image at Vindavan?
[SPEAKER_02]: Balaram, yes sir.
[SPEAKER_02]: We have a grow where Krishna is worshiped.
[SPEAKER_02]: Master, I have been to Vindavan.
[SPEAKER_02]: The Nidhu grow is very nice indeed.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, this ends the section.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'll quickly go through some of the points raised here.
[SPEAKER_02]: So they,
[SPEAKER_02]: little observances which were common in India in little beliefs.
[SPEAKER_02]: common to different cultures, places in India, different parts of the society, which I think many of us have seen in our parents and grandparents, but not so much, disappearing pretty fast in our generation suddenly in the next generations, more or less gone.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now Sri Ramakrishna, so it starts with that funny incident, he says, I was going to take some sweets and then the lizard dropped on my hand and I quickly removed my hand from there.
[SPEAKER_02]: When people, of course, burst out laughing and then you can already see the change in culture and thought, you know, between Sadama Krishna who is a very typical Brahmin priest from the villages of Bengal and his visitors who are calcated educated, which means they are big city folk and educated in English education.
[SPEAKER_02]: We started by the British.
[SPEAKER_02]: So they don't think that they should observe these little things.
[SPEAKER_02]: They would consider them superstitions
[SPEAKER_02]: Now Sri Ramakrishna says, one should observe all these things, and then he gives one more example.
[SPEAKER_02]: In that, you know, Rakha is ill and I'm not, my body is aching to, and you know what happened?
[SPEAKER_02]: This morning when I saw somebody, I saw who my took for Rakha, and that person is,
[SPEAKER_02]: not supposed to be a good person.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I started the day by seeing somebody's face who's not a good person.
[SPEAKER_02]: Again, I believe I think in many of us, we might have seen in our seniors or parents or grandparents.
[SPEAKER_02]: I knew the certain head of a monastery who, at breakfast, he bemoaned the fact that he had seen a certain person and he believed that no more donations would come that day because that person is not lucky.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, he said, after mourning meditation, I saw the face of that particular brimachary, then that's, it's no good.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think any donations are good.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's worried about donations coming to the market to the Asha.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now.
[SPEAKER_02]: What do we take away from this?
[SPEAKER_02]: Do we take away that we have to rescue all these little beliefs?
[SPEAKER_02]: There are any number of these beliefs.
[SPEAKER_02]: And there are some peculiar to rural Bengal, off Sri Ramakrishna's time, and there would be so many such beliefs in different parts of India, and in different parts of the world also.
[SPEAKER_02]: Little customs, little rights, little superstitions, and so on.
[SPEAKER_02]: In calms superstitions or not.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now the point here is that notice,
[SPEAKER_02]: and he took it quite seriously in a certain child like naïve.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, suppose you don't believe those things, can you still be spiritual?
[SPEAKER_02]: Certainly.
[SPEAKER_02]: You look at someone like just the opposite.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sudama Krishna's closest disciple, like Swami Vivekananda, who wouldn't have any truck with such things, you know, he would make fun of it and laugh at it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's not that he changed his ways data on started believing in a lizard dropping on his hand.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, he had, he would, you know, sharply scored anybody who had who held down to such beliefs.
[SPEAKER_02]: He was extraordinarily spiritual, spiritual, giant, so was his guru, Sri Ramakrishna, one believed in these coins, the other one did not at all and would rail against it and scold anybody who tried to believe in those things.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, both were very, very spiritual and just because, notice, when Vivekananda Narayana does not believe in Kali,
[SPEAKER_02]: The Divine Mother, you know, doesn't want to bow down before an image, that worries straight Ramakrishna.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he's very happy when he finally accepts Kali, when Narendra, not accepts Kali, Ramakrishna's very happy.
[SPEAKER_02]: But whether the lizard falls in your arm and you don't, you take it as a bad moment whether Narayanra believes in that or not, Sri Ram Krishna doesn't bother.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's very interesting.
[SPEAKER_02]: It doesn't make Narayanra believe that all of those things also you have to follow.
[SPEAKER_02]: So clearly there's a difference in priority and importance here.
[SPEAKER_02]: There are some central truths of spiritual life.
[SPEAKER_02]: renunciation of lust and gold, renunciation of hypocrisy and dishonesty, then devotion to God, seeking of true nature of things, you know, Brahman or Brahman's artman, this is what Sri Ramakrishna wanted in everybody.
[SPEAKER_02]: After that, if you have a certain set of beliefs, which as long as it does not interfere with your spiritual quest,
[SPEAKER_02]: then it's perfectly alright.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you don't have those beliefs and yet you are sincere in your spiritual path, then again it's perfectly alright.
[SPEAKER_02]: What is not alright is that there are the problems on both sides, there are those who make these little beliefs and practices all in all in spiritual life and we have seen that in India.
[SPEAKER_02]: In earlier generations not so much
[SPEAKER_02]: little customs, little rights, what Vivekananda would later on scold Indians for.
[SPEAKER_02]: He called it Deshachar, Lokachar.
[SPEAKER_02]: Deshachar, Lokachar means particular custom of my village, a particular practice of my family may be.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that becomes all of Sanatana Dharma, eternal religion for me.
[SPEAKER_02]: Where is the Upanishads, where is the Gita, where is Yoga and Bhakti and Karma?
[SPEAKER_02]: No.
[SPEAKER_02]: All of those are secondary, but but little ritual that I have to follow that has been in my family or in my village that becomes religion and spirituality for me.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that definitely is a big problem that one must rise above such things.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's on one end.
[SPEAKER_02]: Taking any of those little practices, making it all in all.
[SPEAKER_02]: Without looking at the principles behind it, without looking at the ultimate goal of human life and the important practices, the important practices are knowledge, devotion, meditation and service.
[SPEAKER_02]: Ghanav Bhakti, Karmadhyaana, these are the core of the heart of spirituality.
[SPEAKER_02]: On the other hand, the other way around, which is a disease of our modern times,
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I don't believe in those things.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm so superior and I know all that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I am scientific and rational, but along with the bath water, we throw out the baby also.
[SPEAKER_02]: That is, we throw out spirituality, we throw out the spiritual quest.
[SPEAKER_02]: It is entirely materialistic, after being so rational, after being so logical, where do I end up in a terrible mess?
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, I'm at the mercy of this little, I mean, I become the grossest materialist, that is not very intelligent.
[SPEAKER_02]: In some sense, in that case, the simple, our producers, ancestors, producers who were simple village folk, who observed maybe these things we would consider superstitions.
[SPEAKER_02]: But they're also hardworking and, and,
[SPEAKER_02]: Pure in heart and given to a devotional lifestyle, maybe they were more intelligent than us.
[SPEAKER_02]: In that case, at the end of the day, they were happier and we are miserable with all our intelligence and our, you know, we are not superstitious, we are rational.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, the proof of the pudding is in the eating as they say.
[SPEAKER_02]: How does your life feel at the end of the art of the art of the art of the art of that?
[SPEAKER_02]: One is, too much, giving into ritualism and superstitions and all of that, you know, the little practices making them all in all.
[SPEAKER_02]: Other, other end is this endless agnosticism and skepticism, which does not allow you, which becomes an excuse for not being spiritual, which becomes an excuse for not having, and we will even leave the world's spiritual, becomes an excuse for not having any ideal in your life.
[SPEAKER_02]: not reaching out for any higher idea in the name of being, I don't believe in those things.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's the other end.
[SPEAKER_02]: So two kinds of problems.
[SPEAKER_02]: Then the next thing, physical features should be studied.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now what a person looks like, we think that has nothing to do with character and spirituality.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we would probably be right.
[SPEAKER_02]: But the thing is, in Saddam Krishna's case, he would study a person very carefully, just even the looks of the person, and the behavior of the person.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the thing is, we might not believe in these things, but he would see straight through to a character of a person.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, we have to see this, for example, this person who comes here, how does Sri Ramakrishna, who is so childlike and naive in all other ways, know that this person cheats at office and gives false receipts and makes money of it, and Sri Ramakrishna doesn't feel like talking to such a person.
[SPEAKER_02]: who is so childlike and yet Sri Ramakrishna is so childlike and yet sees through the motivations of this very complex and you know sort of crooked person who is staying there pretending to be a devotee but just really wants Sri Ramakrishna to you know put him in touch with some of the important people who come to visit and so that he can get a better job.
[SPEAKER_02]: probably that man might think I'm very clever and this poor Paramahamsa, she doesn't understand anything, understands much more than anybody else.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, saints are, you know, they are just the opposite of childishness.
[SPEAKER_02]: Childish and childlike are two different things, saints are childlike.
[SPEAKER_02]: but they are not ignorant.
[SPEAKER_02]: They may be innocent, but not the ignorant kind of innocent of children.
[SPEAKER_02]: The ignorant, you know, since of children is quickly lost as they grow up.
[SPEAKER_02]: The innocence of a saint is different.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's at the other end of the spectrum.
[SPEAKER_02]: Who knows everything.
[SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely understands much better than us.
[SPEAKER_02]: And yet it is above everything.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like
[SPEAKER_02]: maybe a grandfather or a grandmother, you know, playing with the grandchild, a baby, a baby might sometimes babies are pretty deceptive or they think they are being deceptive.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're trying to trick you and you might find it very funny.
[SPEAKER_02]: The grandfather grandmother might find it funny and be affectionate and go along with the play.
[SPEAKER_02]: The baby might think that it's fooling the grandfather or the grandmother.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not fooling anybody.
[SPEAKER_02]: You just see through the
[SPEAKER_02]: Similarly, I have seen in the cases of this highly advanced spiritual seekers, householders and monks, they understand us thoroughly, but they are also affectionate and they are our well-bishes.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, their entire beautiful thing about them is they are entirely on your side, whoever you are, whatever you are, they are on your side, they want your welfare.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you want to progress in spiritual life, they are always ready to healthy.
[SPEAKER_02]: If one does not want to progress in spiritual life and trying to pull a fast one on them, then they see through, until just ignore it and they will just, you know, avoid.
[SPEAKER_02]: I remember
[SPEAKER_02]: going to this monk's room very elderly Swami, he has passed now, Ram or both of these Swami I am going to talk about both have passed, so that was Ram or Swami, Moksha down in the G. And I was a young novice, so he was one of the most spiritual men I have ever met.
[SPEAKER_02]: So once I went to meet him in his room in Belurmat, and he was talking with another monk,
[SPEAKER_02]: was universally regarded as an eccentric, but everybody knew he was brilliant.
[SPEAKER_02]: He was academically brilliant, he was a brilliant musician, extraordinary person, but people were little afraid of him because he could be asserted by him difficult.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so, so I went in there and as I bowed down to both of the swamis,
[SPEAKER_02]: Ram Maharaj Mokshad Anandji, who always had a smile and a twinkle in his face, even in great illness and suffering in the midst of all of that.
[SPEAKER_02]: He was reclining on his bed and he looked down at me and asked the strangest of questions.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's why remember the incident, he suddenly said, what do you think of me?
[SPEAKER_02]: And I don't know why I give the strangest of answers spontaneously.
[SPEAKER_02]: I still don't know why.
[SPEAKER_02]: I said, Swami, I think you can see into my mind, but I'm not afraid of you.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then he looked at me and said, good, what do you think of him?
[SPEAKER_02]: I looked around to the other Swami, I was also little scared of him, I looked at him and I said and I said, I don't know why I got why I was so free with him that day, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: I spontaneously said, I think he too can see through into my mind but I'm afraid of him, I'm scared of him.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then Rammaraj looks immediately at that Swami and says, see, what did I tell you?
[SPEAKER_02]: And that Swami is just, you know, his head was a little reclined at downwards and he was nodding as if there was some discussion which I missed before I entered the room and this strange old man had, you know, power to use me as a way of making a point to that old Swami.
[SPEAKER_02]: But yes, you could feel that they understand you deeply and they are on your side where you're real good well wishes.
[SPEAKER_02]: They want nothing but the best for you.
[SPEAKER_02]: They also come in three different natures.
[SPEAKER_02]: One is the one who is your well-bisher and highly advanced spiritual.
[SPEAKER_02]: So then we'll tell you what is to be done.
[SPEAKER_02]: Give you good advice.
[SPEAKER_02]: The second one will mentor you.
[SPEAKER_02]: We'll give you good advice.
[SPEAKER_02]: We'll scold you.
[SPEAKER_02]: We'll help you.
[SPEAKER_02]: We'll persuade you.
[SPEAKER_02]: to walk on the path right path and the third one is the one who takes you by the scruff of your neck and drags you towards the spiritual life.
[SPEAKER_02]: I have seen all three.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, all are wonderful in their own way.
[SPEAKER_02]: Some give you good advice and blessings and that's it.
[SPEAKER_02]: They don't want to get involved with you anymore.
[SPEAKER_02]: The second category is they keep at it.
[SPEAKER_02]: They keep on helping you advising you, encouraging you, maybe scolding you a little bit and third one takes over.
[SPEAKER_02]: make sure that you do become a spiritual.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, he talks about Balaram, he is one of his closest devotees, and then he mentions, can you explain the state of mind?
[SPEAKER_02]: So, in the midst of danger, he was began to repeat the names of God, sometimes calling on Kali, sometimes on Rama, sometimes on
[SPEAKER_02]: So here, what do you think of that?
[SPEAKER_02]: And M himself come in, he gives the answer to that question.
[SPEAKER_02]: He says, was the master hinting that God is one, but is addressed differently by different sects.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we extend that differently in different religions of the world.
[SPEAKER_02]: but it's the same reality.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then he says, why don't people realize God?
[SPEAKER_02]: Maya is nothing but lust and gold.
[SPEAKER_02]: Usually when he's talking to men, he would make it much more direct and make it woman and gold.
[SPEAKER_02]: But there are enough records to show when he would talk separately with women devotees.
[SPEAKER_02]: He would warn them against too much close association with men.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it basically means the same thing, lust and gold.
[SPEAKER_02]: and he says the person who lives in the midst of that gradually loses his spiritual alertness.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is an important point that Sri Rama Krishna makes that you can't have both at the same time because both are on different extremes of the spectrum.
[SPEAKER_02]: If one wants God, one wants God realization, purity of mind is required and purity of mind means rising above a position and pursuing sensual desires.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that clouds the mind deeply, not only clouds the mind, it also colors the mind.
[SPEAKER_02]: So later it becomes that much more difficult to be spiritual.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that that conditioning has to be deconditioned earlier.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, somewhere I was reading somewhere that we have given up the language of the ancients.
[SPEAKER_02]: We have got our modern secular language.
[SPEAKER_02]: So instead of calling it sin, we call it conditioning now.
[SPEAKER_02]: It sounds better and you don't feel too bad about it.
[SPEAKER_02]: But the effect is just as bad, all it does is keeps us away from God.
[SPEAKER_02]: It raises a huge barrier between us and God.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, purification of that.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he gives a particularly ugly example.
[SPEAKER_02]: In those days, there was no sewage system and there was a whole class of people, usually poor people belonging to a particular caste who would clean toilets and would actually carry away the night soil and he says that, doing that for some time, a person loses the repulsion of that work, the nasty smell and all of that loses because one gets used to almost anything.
[SPEAKER_02]: and he compares it with remaining in the midst of a material thinking, sensuousness, and just in the midst of worldiness, and generally that degrades a person over time.
[SPEAKER_02]: A person becomes worse and worse and worse.
[SPEAKER_02]: The opposite, he says, one gradually acquires love of God to the practice of chanting God's name and glories.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then to M, he says, one should not be ashamed of chanting God's holy name.
[SPEAKER_02]: As the saying goes, one does not succeed when one has these three, shame, hatred and fear.
[SPEAKER_02]: In Bengali, Lokja Greenabhai, Tintakthenai, it is a alliteration is there.
[SPEAKER_02]: Lokja means shame, and Greenabhai means hatred, and high means fear.
[SPEAKER_02]: If these three are there, one does not progress in the paths to God.
[SPEAKER_02]: That is, you have to see where do you have shame?
[SPEAKER_02]: So he's saying this to M, who is the schoolmaster, and who is well-educated.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so at that time, a kind of feeling came among the educated people, the gentleman in Calcutta, you know, it is sort of, today Americans would call, not cool, not cool to be religious or spiritual, you know.
[SPEAKER_02]: So one is actually ashamed of singing and dancing,
[SPEAKER_02]: So Sri Ram Krishna wants to say here, you have shame for the wrong things, you will just give the example of a person in the midst of less than gold for getting God.
[SPEAKER_02]: That is what one should be a deeply ashamed of.
[SPEAKER_02]: Rather, you'll see, this is the effect of Maya, the person who is in the midst of a great deal of loneliness.
[SPEAKER_02]: All that matters is money and the latest gadgets and clothes and vacations, and what not, that is great.
[SPEAKER_02]: And whatever I've posted today on social media, that is, I'm really proud of that.
[SPEAKER_02]: And,
[SPEAKER_02]: any kind of spirituality and religion up to downplay that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, either I don't have it, or even if I have it up to hide that.
[SPEAKER_02]: We can slightly ashamed because what will my friends think that I'm not cool about, I'm not cool.
[SPEAKER_02]: So Sri Ram Krishna says, that's not cool.
[SPEAKER_02]: One must be very happy that I'm taking the name of God.
[SPEAKER_02]: One must not have any shame there, and he's telling M particularly, because M was little shy about that.
[SPEAKER_02]: He noticed that when others would sing, gender names of God and dance, M certainly wouldn't dance.
[SPEAKER_02]: He was too shy to do that, and Siram Krishna noticed that and scolded him.
[SPEAKER_02]: about it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Not only that, he follows up by saying, making it, what seems to be an off-hand remark.
[SPEAKER_02]: At Kamar Pukur, they sing Kitan very well.
[SPEAKER_02]: The devotional music is sung to the accompaniment of drums.
[SPEAKER_02]: Kamar Pukur is the village he comes from, which is a rural Bengal.
[SPEAKER_02]: poor people illiterate and the city folk like M and Balaram and others would look down upon you know they are ignorant villagers and Sri Ramakrishna praises them.
[SPEAKER_02]: Their singing and Kaitan is good.
[SPEAKER_02]: You all he seems to imply, you all city folk, you are ashamed of singing and dancing in the name of God.
[SPEAKER_02]: It reminded me many years ago.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was giving a talk to a group of professors from, you know, there's university in Calcutta, Bird one university, and they were professors from Shantinikaet and also these are universities in Bengal, and so they were all professors and lecturers, and they were, it was a talk on philosophy, I think, yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: And most of you may not know, those were from India, some of you may know, at that time, about 10 years ago, 10, 15 years ago, Bengal, that place was dominated by communists.
[SPEAKER_02]: So most of the, you know, the intellectual elite, including the academia, where all left
[SPEAKER_02]: And I still remember this particular thing that after my talk, during the Q&A, somebody made a disparaging remark about religion and God and one of the professors.
[SPEAKER_02]: Just before that, we had talked about the heroes of Bengal who are Rabindra Natagore and Subhash Bose.
[SPEAKER_02]: Arabindo, Vivekananda, they wouldn't take into account because Vivekananda is too religious, a spiritual for them.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that time, now it's all right.
[SPEAKER_02]: But 10 years, 15 years ago, it was, they would rather ignore Vivekananda.
[SPEAKER_02]: So after that, someone made a disparaging remark about God and spirituality now.
[SPEAKER_02]: And remember, these are communists.
[SPEAKER_02]: So they are all for the poor people,
[SPEAKER_02]: So, I replied and I said, look, notice one thing that the people you worship, Tagore, Gandhi, Orobindo, and Subhash Boshana, you take them minus their spirituality, they were all highly spiritual people.
[SPEAKER_02]: then I quoted one after another to their great annoyance, I think.
[SPEAKER_02]: Rubin did not take over himself, there was this English lady who wrote to Rubin did not take over after the first World War.
[SPEAKER_02]: She was a widow and she had lost her own be son in the war.
[SPEAKER_02]: And she wrote to Rubin did not take over because his poems had been translated into English at that time.
[SPEAKER_02]: She wrote that, I read your poems and it gives me great solace.
[SPEAKER_02]: And Rubin did not take over reflects.
[SPEAKER_02]: by the time he had already got the Nobel Prize for Quatiano.
[SPEAKER_02]: So he reflects in his writing said, I wondered what was it in my writing that could give Solace to the heart, the wounded heart of this lady from England, from a distant culture, was lost, her husband, her son, and his alone in life, and yet she feels Solace by reading my poems.
[SPEAKER_02]: What is there in my poems?
[SPEAKER_02]: And then he himself writes, Robin, the tiger himself writes,
[SPEAKER_02]: It is all from the open issues.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's why it gives up so much to the human heart.
[SPEAKER_02]: I could see the anoints in their professors, many of them were from Shantiniki, and the University established by Robin Rattagor.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I said, you want to take over minus the open issues, minus the minus spirituality.
[SPEAKER_02]: Mahatma Gandhi, you want Gandhi as the politician Gandhi, the freedom fighter Gandhi, the social reformer, but you don't want Gandhi, the Mahatma, the saint, Mahatma Gandhi himself says, again I quoted from Gandhi's own writing, saying that when people ask me, who are you, people think that I am a freedom fighter, people think that I am a political politician,
[SPEAKER_02]: But if you ask me, I will say that I am a simple man in search of God.
[SPEAKER_02]: I said, that's the Gandhi you don't want to hear about.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then I said, out of wind, of course, goes without saying, he's a highly spiritual man.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you don't want to hear about out of wind of the spiritual teacher.
[SPEAKER_02]: You just want out of wind of the revolutionary enough.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: on these are the people you worship and they are you you can't know no Bengali can say anything against them.
[SPEAKER_02]: So they are like icons in Bengali.
[SPEAKER_02]: So they're kept quiet.
[SPEAKER_02]: On the other hand, the
[SPEAKER_02]: the simple tribals you were just talking about, you know, being communists, we support hymna.
[SPEAKER_02]: We, the santa all tribals and they are absolutely no doubt that God exists in their own local beliefs, in their own tribal belief systems.
[SPEAKER_02]: They are no doubt, they have a simple natural faith in God.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, these, these, the poorest, the most dispossessed, these forest dwelling folk, they have no doubt that God exists in the simple and sophisticated way.
[SPEAKER_02]: The greatest people of whom you would look up to, Tagore and Gandhi and Arabindo and Bose, they have no doubt that God exists.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, only people who have doubt that God exists are, is, is you.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, I still see that they were little shocked at the harshness of that, but it hit home, maybe all kept quiet after that, which is true, you know.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, this is what I think Saddam Krishna is pointing at, he says, these three things, shame, hatred and fear.
[SPEAKER_02]: But what do you have to have shame and hatred and fear of and where you should not have shame and hatred and fear?
[SPEAKER_02]: We have just the opposite.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's what stops us from a God realization.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because the Holy Mother also says, the one who has fear has victory.
[SPEAKER_02]: Jara Chibhaitara Chibhaitara Chibhaitara.
[SPEAKER_02]: So the Holy Mother says, the one who has fear has victory.
[SPEAKER_02]: And Sri Ram Krishna says, the one who has fear does not get God realization.
[SPEAKER_02]: What does that mean?
[SPEAKER_02]: What are we afraid of?
[SPEAKER_02]: Are we afraid of getting caught in some sorrow and in immorality of unethical behavior?
[SPEAKER_02]: Are we afraid of losing the presence of God in our life?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that is one kind of fear.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that is what the Holy Mother says.
[SPEAKER_02]: One should be afraid of that.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we are afraid of any kind of spirituality and religion in our lives.
[SPEAKER_02]: No.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's what we should not be afraid of.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's what Sri Ram Krishna means.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then he makes it a point to ask Balarama.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you have got to space in Vindavan.
[SPEAKER_02]: Have you got like a worship of Krishna going there?
[SPEAKER_02]: Balarama says, yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: By the way, he mentioned here, Balarama's father has property in Kothar, Vindavan, and other places.
[SPEAKER_02]: is property in Qatar that the holy mother went and stayed there for some time and that's now an ashram.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've never been there but that's the part of India I come from and it's a remote area which I've never visited but it is now one of our ashrams Qatar.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, let us now move on to the next section, which is an important big section, Birkishab, saying the great leader of the Brahms comes visiting to Sri Ram Krishna, and they meet on a big boat, it's a very beautiful section.
[SPEAKER_02]: But before that, let me quickly take a look at the discussions.
[SPEAKER_02]: Anurada says, you please define the Sanatana Dharma.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sanatana Dharma is the Dharma, the Hinduism, it's based on the Vedas,
[SPEAKER_02]: So Vedant Yoga, Bhakti, they all parts of Sanatana Dharma, and divided into so many samtarais, the Vaishnava, the Shaktas, the Shibas, the Ganapatiya, all of these various traditions stretching all the way back to prehistoric times.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, we are all followers of Sanatana Dharma.
[SPEAKER_02]: take the fundamentals of that.
[SPEAKER_02]: That is important.
[SPEAKER_02]: One problem with so much diversity is then one becomes concerned only with one little corner of the whole mansion.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now the whole mansion belongs to you.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, people talk about Sanatana Dharmah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like it is our ancient Dharmah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: So they don't mean any particular
[SPEAKER_02]: Because, yes, it looks particular.
[SPEAKER_02]: It is Hinduism, what we might call Hinduism today.
[SPEAKER_03]: No, but what I'm seeing, that the lot of others came long after Vedas.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you consider also them as Sanatana Dharma?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, yes, because Sanatana Dharma is a dynamic thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: It has developed and morphed and grown and spread over the centuries and over the millennia.
[SPEAKER_02]: Anything that is not contrary in these practices and new texts and teachers who are not contrary to the core ideas of the Upanishads and the Gita, can be accepted as Sanatana Dharma.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, for example, more than a thousand years ago, Islam came to India and Islam says does not have, for example, a belief in the multiplicity of life, you know, reincarnation and karma, it cannot be considered part of some of the other.
[SPEAKER_02]: they don't obviously consider themselves part of some of them, but we also cannot, because there are certain things in that which are contrary to some of some of them, but does not mean again, as Saddam Krishna says, all religions are valid and true.
[SPEAKER_02]: So even if it's not part of some of some of them, does not mean it's not true.
[SPEAKER_02]: Other religions, anything that takes you to God is a true and a valid religion.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sanatana Dharma just happens to be the spiritual tradition of India, ancient spiritual tradition of India.
[SPEAKER_02]: So definitely it includes all of what we consider to be Hinduism down to today from most ancient times.
[SPEAKER_02]: In its broad sense, broad sense, I'm saying, it will include Sikhism,
[SPEAKER_02]: Neither Sikhs nor Hindus considered Sikhism to be a separate religion, I mean they were seen as another kind of you know section of society which practice something broadly similar to Hindus.
[SPEAKER_02]: So now because we are in a classificatory age you have to declare what religion so and immediately the moment you say religion I am this one and therefore I am not the other one.
[SPEAKER_02]: India earlier it was not like that.
[SPEAKER_02]: In fact it seems in 1911 census there were large numbers
[SPEAKER_02]: that's a category which makes no sense now, but that's we are poorer because of it.
[SPEAKER_02]: We we lost that syncretic idea because of this modern way of sinking.
[SPEAKER_03]: So Sanatana Dharmar is not the acre-mayver adwithyam.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're quoting from the Upanishads.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, like you know why should it not be Sanatana Dharmar?
[SPEAKER_02]: Isn't that the core of anathana Dharmah that is only one true one ishwara one ishwara but that itself is not enough because then the Judaism Christianity Islam all of them they say there is only one ishwara there is only one reality, ultimate reality what will
[SPEAKER_02]: You see modern thinkers said recently, we Hindus
[SPEAKER_02]: a lack, a concept of substance and salience.
[SPEAKER_02]: Substance and salience means what is it that we have in common and what is it that sets us apart from others.
[SPEAKER_02]: This has been our weakness and our strength also throughout the ages.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we generally tend to think anybody who comes who has come kind of religious practice in spiritual very good.
[SPEAKER_02]: So they worship certain great, someone called Jesus, well that's nice.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, the Hindus think in this way, Hindus often don't recognize that the others don't think in that way.
[SPEAKER_02]: But, so Hindus just think, all right, we worship Krishna, they were surprised in both our incarnations of God, fine, it's all fine.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, they don't see it as separating, this is what separates you from us.
[SPEAKER_02]: But it does, there are certain things which do separate.
[SPEAKER_02]: So belief in karma, for example.
[SPEAKER_02]: That is shared by Hindus, Buddhists, Jain, Sikhs, but not by Christians, Muslims, Jews, or other, some other religions, some other belief systems.
[SPEAKER_02]: So there are certain things.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm Vivekan, the gave a talk, the common basis of Hinduism.
[SPEAKER_02]: What are the central characteristics of Hinduism?
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think what you're trying to say is that isn't Adwaita Vedanta Sanna Sanna Sanna Sanna?
[SPEAKER_03]: No, no, no, I'm not saying that.
[SPEAKER_02]: And what are you saying?
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not very clear.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because you know, like I also... We come here with Adwityam is a sentence from the Upanishads.
[SPEAKER_02]: From the Upanishads.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: Then what is it that you're trying to say?
[SPEAKER_03]: You see our Parabhakti and Ganam, they're all comes to the same.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, you know, it is one ishwara.
[SPEAKER_03]: That we...
[SPEAKER_03]: do the worship with so many other forms.
[SPEAKER_03]: So, because, you know, Sanatana Dharma now is used like in so many things so that's my mixing up.
[SPEAKER_03]: I wanted to hear it from you that what is it
[SPEAKER_02]: It is the Vedic religion and it's in its full and total development which you see till today.
[SPEAKER_02]: So when I say Vedas, I don't exclude the puranas.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't exclude the smithies.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't exclude the tantras.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't exclude the darshanas, the shard darshanas, and in a broad sense.
[SPEAKER_02]: In one sense, I will exclude Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism.
[SPEAKER_02]: In another broad sense, I will include Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism.
[SPEAKER_02]: But in Sanatana Dharma, I will not include Christianity, Islam, Judaism.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, and in a deeper sense, there's a deeper sense to that also, in which is not the sense in which you're not going to notice you, but good to know that.
[SPEAKER_02]: What I'll just actually call the perennial philosophy, it is the core spirituality, which is part of every religion, not just Hinduism or Buddhism, but also Christianity, also Islam, also Judaism.
[SPEAKER_02]: and that perennial philosophy it states that there is an ultimate reality, a spiritual reality.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now you may call it in any way.
[SPEAKER_02]: You may not even call it Brahman, each forever.
[SPEAKER_02]: You may not even believe in God.
[SPEAKER_02]: You may be a Buddhist who believes in Nirvana and there is an ultimate reality.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's a spiritual reality, not a material reality.
[SPEAKER_02]: There is a way of accessing that reality.
[SPEAKER_02]: What is that way may be different?
[SPEAKER_02]: It may be knowledge, may be meditation, may be devotion, may be surrender, may be good works, may be combination of all of them, but there is a way.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that getting that is the goal of human life.
[SPEAKER_02]: also it includes ethics and morality.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, in the beginning of his book, I will just actually define the perennial philosophy.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, that is the deepest way of understanding perennial philosophy literally, almost literally translates into sanatana Dharma.
[SPEAKER_02]: Perennial is sanatana.
[SPEAKER_02]: But, there he means the core idea of spirituality in all religions and such an idea, this approach is supported by Swami Vivekananda.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, yes, so that's what I meant.
[SPEAKER_02]: Patrick's is funny of all of Swamiji's amazing traits of reason.
[SPEAKER_02]: He was pretty bad judge of character.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, actually, so I'm going to be back on the, you know, he dragged all these characters to Sri Ramakrishna and Sri Ramakrishna disapproved of many of them.
[SPEAKER_02]: But Swamiji, it was more his heart.
[SPEAKER_02]: He really, really felt for everybody and he felt that Sri Ramakrishna could help these people.
[SPEAKER_02]: So Ramakrishna had a slightly derogatory term for all these characters which so I way can't drag to him.
[SPEAKER_02]: Often these people are not particularly interested in spiritual life but they were suffering in some sense they were unhappy.
[SPEAKER_02]: So Sri Ramakrishna used to call them Narendh friends, and he would have this very heavily accented by of saying friends, he would say parent.
[SPEAKER_02]: Narendh's parents is one of those parents has come, which means a pretty useless character, but somehow Narendh has taken pity on that person.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's a wonderful class of people.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, once Swami told me once, we all belong to that category.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's because of Swami Vivekananda's great, great compassion and great heart that He has dragged us in front of Sri Ramakrishna who would say, would probably be rolling His eyes and saying, another one of those.
[SPEAKER_02]: But Nareena is saying, this one is suffering, this one is weeping and crying and helpless.
[SPEAKER_02]: Does not even know the trouble He or She is in?
[SPEAKER_02]: You can help.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not anything.
[SPEAKER_02]: If it were in my power, I would help.
[SPEAKER_02]: He says, if I'm to go to hell, I would go to hell with you to help you.
[SPEAKER_02]: But he also knows the limits of his power.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he knows the limitlessness of Sri Ramakrishna's power.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so he brings us before Sri Ramakrishna and praying for his grace upon us.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's how we are all here as Narayan's parents.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's one Swami told me this.
[SPEAKER_02]: Girish.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, it does the innocent children mean that new bonds are aware of the true nature, Devain is obscured by the development of the mind.
[SPEAKER_02]: No.
[SPEAKER_02]: Our, no, much as we would like to think the children are wonderful angels, nothing of that sort.
[SPEAKER_02]: Children come with, with the baggage of many, many lives.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm very kind of starts one of his talks by saying that the poet says that we come trailing clouds of glory from a poem.
[SPEAKER_02]: Then he says, but it is also true that many of us become trailing black clouds of smoke and fog.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we come with enormous baggage.
[SPEAKER_02]: We are ancient creatures.
[SPEAKER_02]: It just seems because of underdeveloped minds, it seems blank and inocent at that time.
[SPEAKER_02]: Shankaracharya says in his introduction to the Brahma Sutras, Naisar Gikoham, Lokapavahara.
[SPEAKER_02]: We are Naisar Gikoham means natural.
[SPEAKER_02]: We are bored with natural ignorance and the bundles of past karma and desires and conditioning, all of that is there.
[SPEAKER_02]: And a part of it manifests as we go through life.
[SPEAKER_02]: So no, we are not aware of the true nature.
[SPEAKER_02]: If the awareness of true nature where there it would never
[SPEAKER_02]: Sangita says, the practical level one, how does one reconcile this apparently spiritual beneficial rate of repulsion towards materialism or sensual tendency with opt, spends practice not to see any fault with others, world you come in contact with.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, correct.
[SPEAKER_02]: As I just said, where you need repulsion, where you need fear and where you need shame.
[SPEAKER_02]: We shame, fear, repulsion is very good if it protects us in spiritual life, but it's not good if it protects us from spiritual life.
[SPEAKER_02]: Question, which is Gandhiji as a very readable and simple commentary on the Bhagavad Gita?
[SPEAKER_02]: True, true, I read some of that very nice.
[SPEAKER_02]: Nila Vora says, the Sanatana Dharmam in Karmma Dharmma Samsar and Liberation D.S., but Karmma Dharmma Samsar and Liberation also are part of Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism, and different interpretations it all there.
[SPEAKER_02]: Michael says in politics, why is it socially acceptable if politicians to openly claim to be religious, to religious politics, yet a spiritual leader like Mary Ann Williams and who ran for president 2020 was very open about a spirituality, somewhat ridiculed by the media for a spirituality, interesting that being religious is acceptable in mainstream politics but not being spiritual, correct?
[SPEAKER_02]: being religious is acceptable, not only that it sort of seems to be absolutely necessary to be politically successful in the United States, but from what I understand, it's not so in certain Western European countries.
[SPEAKER_02]: So in England, for example, in France and I think in some of the
[SPEAKER_02]: Scandinavian countries, you probably have to play down your religiousity if you have any in order to be seen as a serious politician.
[SPEAKER_02]: Here in order to be seen as a credible politician, you must believe in God, but it has to be of the conventional sort of religion.
[SPEAKER_02]: It can't be seen as spiritual, but not religious, not that kind.
[SPEAKER_02]: So like Mary and William sensual she is a wonderful thing, but she was always she was seen as being too strange or too otherworldly and nice target to make fun of.
[SPEAKER_02]: All the whatever she said was probably pretty sensible, but no, won't be taken seriously.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: So to some extent, it appeased the sense of my tribe, correct.
[SPEAKER_02]: So conventional religion is pretty tribal, there's a strong sense of in-group and out-group.
[SPEAKER_02]: And one good way of getting votes is if you convince everybody that I belong to your tribe, I'm your part of your people, but you can generally spiritual, that seems too liberal and too open to anything and everything.
[SPEAKER_02]: In that case, it doesn't seem that you are for me and against my enemies.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let us go ahead.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let me just read the next section.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's very beautiful, but I don't think we'll have time to discuss it.
[SPEAKER_02]: We just start that section, page 132 October 27th, 1882.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was Friday.
[SPEAKER_02]: The day of Lakshmi Pooja, Keshav Chandrasayn had arranged a boat trip on the
[SPEAKER_02]: About 4 o'clock in the afternoon, the steam boat with Keshav and his brummo followers cast anchor in the ganges alongside the Kali temple at Daksineshwar.
[SPEAKER_02]: The passengers saw in front of them, the bathing hut and the channi to their left.
[SPEAKER_02]: in the temple compound stood six temples of Shiva and then to the right another group of six Shiva temples.
[SPEAKER_02]: The white steeple of the Kali temple, the treetops of the Panchavati and the silute of the pine trees stood high against the blue autumn sky.
[SPEAKER_02]: The gardens between the Tuna Habats were filled with fragrant flowers and along the bank of the ganges were loros of flowering plants.
[SPEAKER_02]: The blue sky was reflected in the brown water of the river.
[SPEAKER_02]: The sacred ganges associated with the most ancient traditions of Aryan civilization.
[SPEAKER_02]: The outer world appeared soft and serene and the hearts of the bramwhateverties were filled with peace.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sri Ramakrishna was in his room, talking with Vijay and Haralal.
[SPEAKER_02]: Some disciples of Keshav entered, bowing before the master they said to him, Sir, the steamer has arrived.
[SPEAKER_02]: Keshav Babu has asked us to take you there.
[SPEAKER_02]: A small boat was to carry the master to the steamer.
[SPEAKER_02]: No sooner did he get into the boat than he lost
[SPEAKER_02]: M was among the passengers as the boat came alongside the steamer, all rushed to the railing to have a view of Sri Rama Krishna.
[SPEAKER_02]: Keshav became anxious to get him safely on board with great difficulty the master was brought back to consciousness of the world and taken to a cabin in the steamer.
[SPEAKER_02]: Still in an abstracted mood he walked mechanically leaning on a devotee for support.
[SPEAKER_02]: Cheshab and the others bowed before him, but he was not aware of them.
[SPEAKER_02]: Inside the cabin, they were few chairs and a table.
[SPEAKER_02]: He was made to sit on one of the chairs, Keshab and Vijay occupying two others.
[SPEAKER_02]: Some devotees were also seated, most of them on the floor, while many others had to stand outside.
[SPEAKER_02]: They peered eagerly through the door and windows, Sri Ramakrishna again bent into deep samadhi and became totally unconscious of the outer world.
[SPEAKER_02]: As the air in the room was stuffy because of the crowd of people, Keshab opened the windows.
[SPEAKER_02]: He was embarrassed to meet Vijay, since they had differed on certain principles of the BrahMho Samaj, and Vijay had separated himself from Keshav's organization, joining another society.
[SPEAKER_02]: The BrahMho devotees looked wistfully at the master.
[SPEAKER_02]: Gradually, he came back to sense consciousness, but the divine intoxication still lingered.
[SPEAKER_02]: He said to himself in a whisper, mother, why have you bought me here?
[SPEAKER_02]: They are hedged around and not free.
[SPEAKER_02]: Can I free them?
[SPEAKER_02]: Did the master find that the people assembled there were locked within the prison walls of the world?
[SPEAKER_02]: Did their helplessness make the master address these words to the divine mother?
[SPEAKER_02]: Sri Ramakrishna was gradually becoming conscious of the outside world.
[SPEAKER_02]: Neil mother of Gazipur and a brahmo devotee with talking about power, Ipaba.
[SPEAKER_02]: Another Brahma devotee said to the Master, Sir, these gentlemen visited Power Ibaba.
[SPEAKER_02]: He lives in Ghazipur.
[SPEAKER_02]: He is a holy man like yourself.
[SPEAKER_02]: The Master could hardly talk.
[SPEAKER_02]: He only smiled.
[SPEAKER_02]: The devotee continued, Sir, Power Ibaba keeps your photograph in his room, pointing to his body.
[SPEAKER_02]: The Master said with a smile, just a pillowcase.
[SPEAKER_02]: The Master continued,
[SPEAKER_02]: But you should remember that the heart of the devotee is the abode of God.
[SPEAKER_02]: He dwells no doubt in all beings, but he especially manifests himself in the heart of the devotee.
[SPEAKER_02]: A landlord may at one time or another visit all parts of his estate, but people say he's generally to be found in a particular drawing room.
[SPEAKER_02]: The heart of the devotee is the drawing room of God.
[SPEAKER_02]: He who is called Brahman by the Ghyanis is known as Atman by the Yogis and as Bhagavan by the Bhaktas.
[SPEAKER_02]: The same Brahmin, so this Brahmin and Brahmin here is an example is giving up for Brahmin cast.
[SPEAKER_02]: The same Brahmin is called priest when worshipping in the temple and cook.
[SPEAKER_02]: when preparing a meal in the kitchen.
[SPEAKER_02]: The Giani sticking to the path of knowledge, always reasons about the reality, saying, not this, not this.
[SPEAKER_02]: Brahman is neither this, not that.
[SPEAKER_02]: It is neither the universe, nor its living beings.
[SPEAKER_02]: Reasoning in this way, the mind becomes steady.
[SPEAKER_02]: It is the unwavering conviction of the Gany that the Brahman alone is real and the world is illusory.
[SPEAKER_02]: All these names and forms are illusory, like a dream.
[SPEAKER_02]: What Brahman is cannot be described.
[SPEAKER_02]: One cannot even say that Brahman is a person.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is the opinion of the Gany's, the followers of Vedanta philosophy.
[SPEAKER_02]: But the Bhaktas accept all the states of consciousness.
[SPEAKER_02]: They take the waking state to be real also.
[SPEAKER_02]: They don't think the world to be luxury like a dream.
[SPEAKER_02]: They say that the universe is a manifestation of God's power and glory.
[SPEAKER_02]: God has created all these sky, stars, moons, sun, mountains, ocean, men, animals.
[SPEAKER_02]: They constitute His glory.
[SPEAKER_02]: He is within us in our hearts.
[SPEAKER_02]: Again, all of this is a translation in English, so that He would probably be actually she forced Ramakrishna.
[SPEAKER_02]: Again, He is outside the most advanced devotees say that He himself has become all this, the 24 cosmic principles, the universe and all living beings.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know how the level of God feels, is that it you do is, oh God, thou art the master and I am the servant, thou art the mother and I am the child, or again, thou art my father and mother, thou art the whole and I am a part.
[SPEAKER_02]: He doesn't like to say, I am Brahman.
[SPEAKER_02]: The yogi seeks to realize the paramatman, the supreme soul.
[SPEAKER_02]: His ideal is the union of the embodied soul and the supreme soul.
[SPEAKER_02]: If it draws his mind from sense objects and tries to concentrate it on the paramatman.
[SPEAKER_02]: Therefore, during the first stage of this spiritual discipline, he retires into solitude and with undivided attention, practices meditation in a fixed posture.
[SPEAKER_02]: But the reality is one and the same.
[SPEAKER_02]: The difference is only a name.
[SPEAKER_02]: He who is Brahman is veryly Atman.
[SPEAKER_02]: And again, he is the Bhagawan.
[SPEAKER_02]: He is Brahman to the followers of the path of knowledge, Paramatman to the Yogis, and Bhagawan to the lovers of God.
[SPEAKER_02]: The steamer had been going towards Calcutta, but the passengers with their eyes fixed on the master and the years given to his nectar like words were oblivious of its motion.
[SPEAKER_02]: What a beautiful description.
[SPEAKER_02]: We'll go into this in detail.
[SPEAKER_02]: Next time there's a lot going on here.
[SPEAKER_02]: You can then obviously see there's knowledge and devotion and yoga, so much is inside here.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the beautiful harmonization of that distress on, that it is the same reality.
[SPEAKER_02]: we will see all that in a little more detail.
[SPEAKER_02]: But just look at the beautiful description of the river and the temple, the Shiva temples, the gardens, and the feelings in the hearts of the devotees.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then the dramatic thing, you know, how Sri Ram Krishna goes in that little boat and he's as lost consciousness of the external world and they are all struggling to get him onto the big, there's bigger ship this steamer.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the continuous movement surrounded by so many devotees
[SPEAKER_02]: And the little cabin where he's taken and the press of people all around trying to get a glimpse of him.
[SPEAKER_02]: So this is very the drama of it all and the extra the beauty of the of nature outside the people and also their inner feelings.
[SPEAKER_02]: Just in a few words in the sketch which M does.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's it's really isn't like a spiritual artist in where you bring it all out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Om Shandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshandeshand