[SPEAKER_01]: Om tabakatham, ritam tabtaji vanam, kavi biritam, kalmasa paham, shawmanamangalam, shri madatatam, bhuvigrinanti, bhuvridha jana.
[SPEAKER_01]: The date is Wednesday 15th November 1882, and the page is 1554.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sri Ramakrishna accompanied by Rakhaal and several other devotees came to Kalkata in a carriage and called for him at the school where he was teaching.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then they all set out for the Maidan.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sri Ramakrishna wanted to see the Wilson Circus.
[SPEAKER_01]: As the carriage rolled along the crowded
[SPEAKER_01]: Like a little child, he leaned first out of one side of the carriage and then out of the other, talking to himself as if addressing the passage by.
[SPEAKER_01]: To him, he said, I find the attention of the people fixed on earthly things.
[SPEAKER_01]: They are all rushing about for the sake of their stomachs.
[SPEAKER_01]: No one is thinking of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: They arrived at the circus.
[SPEAKER_01]: tickets for the cheapest seats where purchased, the devotees took the master to a high gallery and they all sat on a bench.
[SPEAKER_01]: He said, joyfully, ah, this is a good place.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can see the show well from here.
[SPEAKER_01]: They were exhibitions of various feats, a horse raised around a circular track, over which large iron rings were hung at intervals.
[SPEAKER_01]: The circus writer and English woman stood on one foot on the horses back and as the horse passed under the rings, she jumped through them, always alighting on one foot on the horses back.
[SPEAKER_01]: The horse raised around the entire circle and the woman never missed the horse or lost her balance.
[SPEAKER_01]: When the circus was over, and the devotees stood outside in the field near the carriage, since it was a cold night, he covered his body with his green shawl.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sri Ramakrishna said to him, did you see how the English woman stood on one foot on her horse while it ran like lightning?
[SPEAKER_01]: How difficult a feat that must be?
[SPEAKER_01]: She must have practiced a long time, the slightest carelessness, and she would break her arms or legs.
[SPEAKER_01]: She might even be killed.
[SPEAKER_01]: one face is the same difficulty leading the life of a householder, a few succeed in it through the grace of God and a result of their spiritual practice.
[SPEAKER_01]: But most people fail entering the world they become more and more involved in it, they drown in worldliness and suffer the agonies of death.
[SPEAKER_01]: A few only like Janaka have succeeded through the power of their austerity in leading the
[SPEAKER_01]: therefore spiritual practice is extremely necessary, otherwise one cannot rightly live in the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: The master got into the carriage with the devotees and went to Balarambo's house.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was taken with his companions to the second floor.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was evening and the lamps were lighted.
[SPEAKER_01]: The master described the feet, see at scene at the circus.
[SPEAKER_01]: Gradually other devotees gathered
[SPEAKER_01]: The conversation turned to the caste system.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sri Ramakrishna said, the caste system can be removed by one means only, and that is the love of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Lovers of God do not belong to any caste.
[SPEAKER_01]: The mind, body and soul of a man becomes purified through divine love.
[SPEAKER_01]: Chaitanya, Nithyan and the scattered the name of Hari to everyone, including the paraya and embrace them all.
[SPEAKER_01]: A Brahmin without this love is no longer a Brahmin, and a paraya with the love of God is no longer a paraya.
[SPEAKER_01]: Through bhakti, an untouchable becomes pure and elevated.
[SPEAKER_01]: Speaking of householders and tangled in worldiness, the master said, they are like the silkworm.
[SPEAKER_01]: They come out of the cocoon of their worldly life.
[SPEAKER_01]: They can come out of the cocoon of their worldly life if they wish.
[SPEAKER_01]: But they can't bear to.
[SPEAKER_01]: For they themselves have built the cocoon with great love and care, so they die there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or they are like the fish in a trap.
[SPEAKER_01]: They can come out of it by the way they entered, but this port inside the trap with other fish and here the sweet sound of the murmuring water and forget everything else.
[SPEAKER_01]: They don't even make an effort to feed themselves from the trap.
[SPEAKER_01]: The lisping of children is the murmur of water and other fish other relatives and friends.
[SPEAKER_01]: Only one or two make good their escape by running away.
[SPEAKER_01]: They are the liberated souls.
[SPEAKER_01]: The master then sang,
[SPEAKER_01]: When such delusion wails the world through Mahamaya spell, that Brahma is bereft of sense, and Vishnu loses consciousness.
[SPEAKER_01]: What hope is the left form in?
[SPEAKER_01]: The narrow channel first is made and there the trap is set.
[SPEAKER_01]: But open to though the passage lies, the fish once safely through the gate do not come out again.
[SPEAKER_01]: The silkworm patiently prepares for it's closely, prepares it's closely spun cocoon.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yet even though our way leads forth, in case within its own cocoon, the worm remains to die.
[SPEAKER_01]: The master continued.
[SPEAKER_01]: Man may be likened to grain.
[SPEAKER_01]: He has fallen between the millstones and is about to be crushed.
[SPEAKER_01]: Only the few grains that stay near the pig escape.
[SPEAKER_01]: men should take refuge at the peg that is to say in God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Call on him, sing his name, then you will be free, otherwise you will be crushed by the king of death.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Master sang again, Mother, Mother,
[SPEAKER_01]: My boat is sinking here in the ocean of this world.
[SPEAKER_01]: Fearsley, the hurricane of delusion rages on every side.
[SPEAKER_01]: Clumsey is my hemp's man, the mine, stubborn, my sixth horsemen, the passions into a pitiless wind, I sail my boat, and now it is sinking.
[SPEAKER_01]: Split is the rudder of devotion, tattered is the sail of face, into my boat, the waters are pouring.
[SPEAKER_01]: Tell me what shall I do for with my failing eyes, Alas, nothing but darkness do I see.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here in the waves I swim, oh mother and cling to the raft of dinane.
[SPEAKER_01]: Mr. Vishwas had been sitting in a room a long time.
[SPEAKER_01]: He now left.
[SPEAKER_01]: He had once been wealthy, but had squandered everything in an immoral life.
[SPEAKER_01]: Finally, had become indifferent to his wife and children.
[SPEAKER_01]: Referring to Mr. Viswas, the master said, he is an unfortunate wretch.
[SPEAKER_01]: A householder has his duties to discharge his debts to pay.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is debt to the gods, is debt to his ancestors, is debt to the rishis, and is debt to wife and children.
[SPEAKER_01]: If a wife is chased, then a husband should support her.
[SPEAKER_01]: He should also bring up their children until they are of age.
[SPEAKER_01]: Only a monk must not save the bird and the monk do not provide for the moral.
[SPEAKER_01]: But even a bird provides when it has young.
[SPEAKER_01]: It brings food in its bill for its chicks.
[SPEAKER_01]: Balaram.
[SPEAKER_01]: Mr. Vishwas now wants to cultivate the company of holy people, master with a smile.
[SPEAKER_01]: Amongst common delu, that is the water pitcher.
[SPEAKER_01]: Amongst common delu goes to the four principal holy places, there's a good note.
[SPEAKER_01]: At the four cardinal points of India, namely Kedarnat in the Himalayas, Dwaraka in the West, Rameshwar in the South and Puri in the East.
[SPEAKER_01]: A monk's commandalu goes to the four principal holy places with him, but it still tastes bitter.
[SPEAKER_01]: Likewise, it is said that the Malaya breeze turns all trees into sandalwood, but there are a few exceptions such as the cotton tree dashwath and the hog plum.
[SPEAKER_01]: Some frequent the company of holy men in order to smoke hemp, many monks smoke it and these householders stay with them to pair the hemp and partake of the Prasad.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, there are a number of things we can take a look here.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the beginning, you can see the Sri Ramakrishna.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're taking him to see a circus.
[SPEAKER_01]: So notice, Sri Ramakrishna was interested in many things.
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't, if a person is spiritual enlightened, it doesn't mean the person is dead to the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: So Sri Ramakrishna wanted to see, for example, how photography is done.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was explained to him.
[SPEAKER_01]: He wanted to see in a studio.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was interested in a telescope.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was interested in the museum.
[SPEAKER_01]: The ACI technology, they took him to the museum.
[SPEAKER_01]: They had to take a look at the museum.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the circus, he was interested in the zoo.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they took him to the zoo to show him a zoo.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now he was interested in knowing all these things and yet he couldn't, because whatever was shown to him, he would immediately find a connection with spiritual life and his mind would go into Samadhi.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we'll see in the circus what happens.
[SPEAKER_01]: In the zoo, he sees the lion and he says, it is the, you know, the iconography of Durga sitting on the lion so he's the mind
[SPEAKER_01]: In the Asia-Tic Society Museum, he sees a skeleton, and he says, he prays to the mother, at that time, his health was weakening.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just as the bones of the skeleton have been strung together with wires, no mother, keep this body together.
[SPEAKER_01]: He could fly into some of the artist's lightest suggestion.
[SPEAKER_01]: His mind was so tuned to God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Somebody folded a umbrella.
[SPEAKER_01]: So this folding of the umbrella, it immediately suggested to him the inwardness, turning inwardness of the mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he plunged into deep samati, completely folded in his senses from the external world, mind from thoughts, intellect from things, from external world, and quietening the mind, folded inwards.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just folding a umbrella, that was enough to send him off.
[SPEAKER_01]: So here he is going to the museum and they're taking him there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Joyful, like a child.
[SPEAKER_01]: Notice he doesn't avoid crowds.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is perfectly comfortable in a crowd.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's perfectly comfortable in solitude.
[SPEAKER_01]: Ashtawa Krasings.
[SPEAKER_01]: I who do not see duality in the midst of a crowd, what need do I have of a solitary desert?
[SPEAKER_01]: In the midst of a crowd, I do not see a second-second entity.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's nobody else, other than the self.
[SPEAKER_01]: My real nature, other than that, there's nobody else.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're all me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Real alaudeness is oneness.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he's deeply alone in the midst of a crowd.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why does he need to go to a mountain top or a desert to be a landlord?
[SPEAKER_01]: Of course, don't misunderstand that.
[SPEAKER_01]: We need it.
[SPEAKER_01]: We are not a starvakra.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we need to withdraw sometimes.
[SPEAKER_01]: We go to an ashram to a retreat to a meditation room.
[SPEAKER_01]: So those things we need to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, he looks out of the carriage, like a child.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he sees the people.
[SPEAKER_01]: And all his observations are about spiritual life.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says, I notice the attention of people is on worldly things.
[SPEAKER_01]: On money, the next deal, anxiety about poverty, it's all of it is the stomach.
[SPEAKER_01]: Some of me basically decides.
[SPEAKER_01]: See, it's not literally the stomach because we don't require that much.
[SPEAKER_01]: We shelter, medicine, little bit of food, clothing, all of our requirements are minimal actually.
[SPEAKER_01]: The rest of it is desire.
[SPEAKER_01]: So New York is just thinking today's of foodies place.
[SPEAKER_01]: Manhattan.
[SPEAKER_01]: How much of it is there to satisfy hunger?
[SPEAKER_01]: Not really for satisfying hunger.
[SPEAKER_01]: New York, Manhattan outside is a fashion designer space.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a clothing place.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you go walk out there, there's shop fronts showing the various kinds of clothing.
[SPEAKER_01]: How much of it is there to close the body?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not that is not the purpose.
[SPEAKER_01]: All of these are to satisfy desires.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he says, it is all for the sake of stomach means all for the sake of fulfilling desires.
[SPEAKER_01]: They are rushing around.
[SPEAKER_01]: No one is thinking of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's surprised that no one is thinking of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then he goes to the circus.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then he sees that
[SPEAKER_01]: lady who is in the midst of the tremendous speed of the horse, she is jumping through the hoops and landing again on the back of the horse and she never fails and if he fails she would fall and hurt herself terribly.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's impressed by that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he says that it's very difficult to do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's he compares it to life in the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: To keep your mind on God, it can be done.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it requires effort and practice.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just like that lady must have practiced a long hours of practice in order to put up such a wonderful display, similarly.
[SPEAKER_01]: to go through the hoops that Samsara and Maya has kept for you in relationships, marriage, children, job, career, personal health, community, physical mental issues, all of those are hoops you have to jump through and still you have to land on guard.
[SPEAKER_01]: The horse's back is the minus to come back and be centered on guard.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not so easy.
[SPEAKER_01]: very difficult.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it requires practice.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like that lady has practiced, it requires regular practice.
[SPEAKER_01]: You need to keep your mind to withdraw from the world and center yourself in God and then jump into the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that must be done regularly over a long period of time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Otherwise it's very difficult.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says,
[SPEAKER_01]: how difficult it is, she must have practiced a long time and jumping ahead.
[SPEAKER_01]: One faces the same difficulty leading the house of a life of a householder.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now life of householder is difficult, but what he means here is not just the life of our soldiers, trying to be spiritual in the life of our householder.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what he means here.
[SPEAKER_01]: A few succeed, that means succeed in what?
[SPEAKER_01]: Through the grace of God, the result of this spiritual practice, that will few succeed to become enlightened in the life of householder.
[SPEAKER_01]: Of course, not that those who give up the house, the life of householder become among the all succeed.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, they're also only a few succeed, those who are sincere and those who have the grace of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: A few succeed in it to the grace of God and there is a result of this spiritual practice, but most people fail.
[SPEAKER_01]: What is failure?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not, you know, America, I'd say the loser.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not a loser in that sense.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not that you fail financially or you failed in academics or you failed in your relationships, marriage, and in divorce, not in that sense.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says, for him, that's not, if you ask Ramakrishna, he wouldn't consider those things failure.
[SPEAKER_01]: You would say that's just some sorrow.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's just the up and down of some sorrow.
[SPEAKER_01]: Some people will suffer more, some less.
[SPEAKER_01]: So all past karma, that's not important.
[SPEAKER_01]: failure here, he means the inability to hold on to God, to be swept away from God, because by the ups and downs of the world, by the rise and fall of the times of life.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he says, a few only like Janaka have succeeded, so the power of their austerity
[SPEAKER_01]: otherwise one cannot rightly live in the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: So Janaka has a classic example of a person who was an emperor and yet he was an enlightened person.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was always centered in the real nature, in Brahman, in God, whatever you call it, in the ultimate reality, in the midst of running an empire.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they are the multiple stories about Janaka, you know, with the classic story of contrasting him with that all renouncing monk, Shukadeva, who comes to meet Janaka and the Shukadeva is all renouncing monk.
[SPEAKER_01]: He has only a line plot.
[SPEAKER_01]: He has no other positions.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think he has one change of a line plot.
[SPEAKER_01]: So one line plot and one change.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he comes to talk to Janaka and they have
[SPEAKER_01]: And somebody rushes in and says, Jenner, emperor, your highness, the city is on fire.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a big fire in the city.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that quarter of the city.
[SPEAKER_01]: Immediately, Shukadeva, the monk, he jumps up and he says, oh my god, I had washed my lion cloth and hung it to dry it on a tree in that quarter.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he runs off like an arrow to save his lion cloth.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Janakha just smiles.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then after some time, Shukadeva comes back and he says, oh, it was all right.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's safe.
[SPEAKER_01]: It didn't get burnt.
[SPEAKER_01]: Janakha, you are so calm.
[SPEAKER_01]: Your city is getting burnt.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, Jonathan says, you are worried about one line clock month, and here is the capital city.
[SPEAKER_01]: Of course, he's not sitting like playing the fiddle like Nero, well, Rome, but not like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's doing whatever needs to be done.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's, I'm sure he has called 911 and all of that is being done.
[SPEAKER_01]: But he's calm.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's not rattled.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says, Mithilayam, Pralikdhaayam, Nami Dhahatik in Chana.
[SPEAKER_01]: If the whole city were to be reduced to ashes tomorrow, nothing of mine would have been reduced to ashes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Which means he has no attachment to empire.
[SPEAKER_01]: This detachment.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not a small thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the contrast is here is, I'm sure Shukadeva also is known as a great renunciant month, but it is just to prove a point.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here is a person who has renounced everything.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, having renounced everything, the one thing remaining to him, one object is a poetry line cloth, he's attached to that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And here is a person who has everything in the midst of everything.
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't have the slightest attachment.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just because his attachment is not no attachment is not indifferent.
[SPEAKER_01]: It does what has to be done.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's continuously active.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nobody can fault him there.
[SPEAKER_01]: And yet somehow internally, he's completely detached.
[SPEAKER_01]: How many times the wheel of samsara has turned for you?
[SPEAKER_01]: In life's countless lives past, you have gained and lost empires.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why is and husbands have come and gone?
[SPEAKER_01]: Children and grandchildren have come and gone.
[SPEAKER_01]: bodies have come and gone, lives have come and gone.
[SPEAKER_01]: How many countless lives you have rotated through this samsara?
[SPEAKER_01]: At least now, stop.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have a chance to come out of this limited existence.
[SPEAKER_01]: You stop the story touching story of the Deskwait Angulimala and the Buddha.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Buddha once was out on his rounds, begging he came to a terrible forest and people in the forest, they told him, don't enter this forest because the ferocious, decoite, angulimala.
[SPEAKER_01]: It really means garland of fingers, his name, angulimala means garland of fingers.
[SPEAKER_01]: He used to catch out of people and rub them, maybe murdered them and cut off their fingers and made the garland of them.
[SPEAKER_01]: So people were terribly scared of that area, when the Buddha had paid no heed, he kept on walking inside.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Angulimal, of course, noted that they loaned monk, and so he began to follow him.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the depths of the forest, he decided to pounce on the Buddha.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Buddha was commonly walking, and Angulimal was behind him.
[SPEAKER_01]: But strangely enough, no matter how much he ran towards the solitary monk, Buddha walking in the forest, he could never catch up to Buddha.
[SPEAKER_01]: Finally, he was running and it somehow, the Buddha was walking slowly and calmly, he couldn't catch up.
[SPEAKER_01]: So from behind, he shouted, oh monk, stop, stop.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the Buddha stopped and he looked back and he said, I have stopped long ago, Angulimala, when will you stop?
[SPEAKER_01]: And that somehow transformed, just the look on the Buddha's face and to those words, it transformed Angulimala, he repented, and he paid for his sins, and then he became a monk later on.
[SPEAKER_01]: So how many empires are starvacrasings?
[SPEAKER_01]: Families, husbands, wives, children, grandchildren have been lost to you.
[SPEAKER_01]: We just don't remember it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he says,
[SPEAKER_01]: Spiritual practice is extremely necessary.
[SPEAKER_01]: Otherwise, one cannot live rightly live in the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: What is rightly living in the world?
[SPEAKER_01]: To do whatever has to be done, but to be centered in God, or to be centered in Atman, Brahman, Buddha, Nature, whatever you call it.
[SPEAKER_01]: To notice the reality and to be centered there.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then act from that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then after the circus, he goes to Palaram Bose's house.
[SPEAKER_01]: it's in not Calcutta.
[SPEAKER_01]: Some of you may have seen it who visited it.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's pretty much like what it was during Sri Ramakrishna's time.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's a crowded area.
[SPEAKER_01]: The house has a certain atmosphere and I can't, but help thinking it's because of Sri Ramakrishna's multiple times he visited.
[SPEAKER_01]: The lamps were lighted.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sri Ramakrishna was using those, what he saw in the circus
[SPEAKER_01]: So Ramakrishna used this, a certain example to emphasize how one should keep one's mind on God.
[SPEAKER_01]: So one is the example of the lady who's jumping to the hoops on the horseback.
[SPEAKER_01]: Another one was the example of what he saw in the villages in North India, groups of women going to the well, village, well, to draw water.
[SPEAKER_01]: drinking water and they would have pots, they would carry the pots, big pots, medium pots, small pots on their heads, one after another, or on their waste.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it will fill with water it is quite quite heavy and if one would be balanced over the other.
[SPEAKER_01]: But they would walk together and they would talk to each other, they would gossip and exchange the news of the village and their families and yet the pots wouldn't come crashing down and it's not just one day you
[SPEAKER_01]: What we are doing is, first and foremost, making sure the pots are steady.
[SPEAKER_01]: When are they making sure moment to moment to moment all the time?
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's become a habit.
[SPEAKER_01]: It can be done.
[SPEAKER_01]: And after that, they're talking about everything else.
[SPEAKER_01]: Similarly, Sri Ramakrishna says, keep your mind on God.
[SPEAKER_01]: It might be, what do you mean on God?
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe the mantra?
[SPEAKER_01]: So keep the mantra going to the mind at the background and you can still do all kinds of work in the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's the kind of example he's giving.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here also the example of the circus lady.
[SPEAKER_01]: Another example, the balance
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, in village shops, if you buy something, suppose you buy some grain, they will put it on one pan of the balance and then put weights on the other pan until the balance is defined at what weight of grain you're purchasing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now if you weights are the more weights on one side that side that pan will go down and the other pan will come up.
[SPEAKER_01]: You put more weight on this side that pan will go down and this pan will come up.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now one side is God the other side is the word.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Sri Ramakrishna says, what happens is the weightage is so much on the side of the world that our minds go down on the side of the world and become away from God.
[SPEAKER_01]: because the weight is so much.
[SPEAKER_01]: So much time is required for the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: So much energy is required for the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: Plus, we already have attachments and emotions like send dislikes, engage with the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the pan on the side of the world is solidly down.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the one on the side of God is floating in the air.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you have to put weight there.
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you put weight there?
[SPEAKER_01]: First of all, take away some weight from this side, little detachment, withdraw a little bit.
[SPEAKER_01]: And on the other side, the weight putting the weight on the side of God is spiritual practice.
[SPEAKER_01]: Repeat the name of God, listen to divine music, spiritual music, read the lights of the saints, read Vedantic texts on self-enquiry, all sorts of things.
[SPEAKER_01]: And do japa meditation,
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember Swami Gita and the Jim Haraj, who was a vice president of our order, it passed several years ago.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, he used the one who did the maximum amount of japa that I had seen in my life.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was always doing japa whenever I saw him.
[SPEAKER_01]: So any work that was given to him, he would do it very quickly and it would go back to doing japa.
[SPEAKER_01]: So go ahead and talk to him, he would speak very sweetly.
[SPEAKER_01]: His behavior was very gentle.
[SPEAKER_01]: But immediately his mind, so his mind was like a compass needle.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's another example that's Ramakrishna uses.
[SPEAKER_01]: A compass needle, he would see these things, new things, and immediately he would connect it to spiritual life.
[SPEAKER_01]: A compass needle, what happens if you spin the needle around, it will spin around and again align with the magnetic pole.
[SPEAKER_01]: it'll come back.
[SPEAKER_01]: Similarly, he says a train mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not a train mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: You spin it around.
[SPEAKER_01]: It'll go wherever it goes.
[SPEAKER_01]: It won't come back to God.
[SPEAKER_01]: But a train mind is spin it around.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's a pressure of the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: The yogi of the spiritual secret also will be involved in the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: The moment the pressure is up, it will spin back to.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's orientation towards God.
[SPEAKER_01]: But that takes practice.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's one example he would use.
[SPEAKER_01]: The compass meeting.
[SPEAKER_01]: the weighing pan and the compass needle, the ladies with the pouch number of examples and they all deal with attention with focus.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was just talking to a scientist, the young scientist, just now before the class.
[SPEAKER_01]: and he was talking about his research but he agreed and all that he's met two Nobel Prize winners and talked with them and then a number of people in his field is himself a brilliant promising young scientist and he agreed.
[SPEAKER_01]: The one thing necessary is focus.
[SPEAKER_01]: In fact, the question he had for me was I couldn't help him so it was related to Patanjali Yoga, science and focus in how to improve concentration for science.
[SPEAKER_01]: I said potentially yoga is the science of concentration and he said concentration is the key in our our own, in our line of work.
[SPEAKER_01]: He quoted a Nobel Prize-winning scientist in his field who got the Nobel Prize just a couple of years ago I think in physics maybe or so.
[SPEAKER_01]: He said he used to tell us
[SPEAKER_01]: all of this, in spiritual life also, one must first settle down on God.
[SPEAKER_01]: It won't do to keep an overheated mind which keeps flickering from one thing to another.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, different topic comes up, the caste system, and Sri Ramakrishna says it can be removed by bhakti.
[SPEAKER_01]: In India, the caste system, of course, in much lighter, much more reform now, but at that time, it was still pretty entrenched in Hinduism and discrimination based on caste.
[SPEAKER_01]: But one thing which is common to all, you know, great reformers, spiritual seekers, masters in Hinduism, they try to reform the caste system based on spirituality.
[SPEAKER_01]: So Caitanya Mahaprabhu said, all can be Vaishnava.
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't matter what your caste is.
[SPEAKER_01]: As long as you're devotion to Krishna, you're a Vaishnava.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're a man, a woman, an old person, young person, Hindu, a higher caste, low caste, Muslim, anybody who's devoted to Krishna, there's no question of caste for that person.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you overcome caste through devotion.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sriramakrishna here also says,
[SPEAKER_01]: the mind, body and soul of a man become purified through divine love, Chaitanya Nithyananda scattered the name of Hari to everyone, including the paraya.
[SPEAKER_01]: And says, a high-class person, a Brahmin, not a Brahmin, if the person does not have spirituality, especially Bhakti, he says, that love.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so-called low-class person has devotion, then is not a low-class person thought.
[SPEAKER_01]: This kind of reform,
[SPEAKER_01]: So his reform, the whole idea of her agents and bringing them up at the core of all his reforms was spirituality.
[SPEAKER_01]: I write one of the early writings of Dr. Ambedkar who fought for rights of lower castes in India, and especially untouchables.
[SPEAKER_01]: In that, it's interesting, those things are not highlighted.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is telling members of a lower caste community how to reform.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says, first of all, you don't look up to the people in the higher class.
[SPEAKER_01]: They were not going to help you.
[SPEAKER_01]: First, clean up your communities, hygiene, establish your own temples and start regular worship in those temples.
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't wait for others from the higher class people to help you, they won't.
[SPEAKER_01]: So notice, Dr. Ambedkar is saying this,
[SPEAKER_01]: Of course, you know that later he turned to Buddhism, then he goes back to the topic of worldiness.
[SPEAKER_01]: Entangled in worldiness.
[SPEAKER_01]: He gives the example of the silkworm.
[SPEAKER_01]: So Kukun is worldly life, which we have spun, so people get entangled in worldiness, they have started it, see relationship, money, all of these things we don't understand as children.
[SPEAKER_01]: then we are introduced to it by the world and then it becomes so important that we can't ourselves break free from it, we can't rise above it, we have felt trapped in it.
[SPEAKER_01]: They can come out of the cocoon of their worldly life if they wish.
[SPEAKER_01]: So come out means in two ways.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can give it all up and become a monk formal formally or internally.
[SPEAKER_01]: A householder, but a monk like householder.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or you may not be a formal monk and you're not not a householder also.
[SPEAKER_01]: A person who's retired from a job, who is maybe a video or a video or not married like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And one can.
[SPEAKER_01]: become a leader monk like life.
[SPEAKER_01]: So main thing is internally not being trapped in that cocoon.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they die there or they are like fish in a trap a second example.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they die there means
[SPEAKER_01]: Everybody dies, even an enlightened person, even a spiritual seeker, a monk, and a spiritual household, all will die.
[SPEAKER_01]: But die there means the die in money, relationship, fear, desire, anxiety, in that mess, the die in that mess.
[SPEAKER_01]: Others also will die.
[SPEAKER_01]: But if you are strongly spiritual over a long period of time, our death will be a much calmer, much more elevated, much more dignified affair.
[SPEAKER_01]: It will be a transition to a higher life.
[SPEAKER_01]: It will not be such a terrible thing that people have not cultivated spiritual life.
[SPEAKER_01]: For them it's a terrible thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: The second example, they are like the fish in a trap.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there are these invillages, they make little traps for catching little fish.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's a channel of narrow channel of water and there's a barrier which comes down in the fish.
[SPEAKER_01]: They can come out of it, but they find something flashing there and they go, they circle around and round there with the other fish and they don't come out and they record by the fisherman.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he says, the sweet sound of the murmuring water and they play with the other fish and then they're caught by the fisherman.
[SPEAKER_01]: What is the sweet sound of murmuring water?
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the sweet talk of little children.
[SPEAKER_01]: So which, so enamors, the fathers, heart, the mothers, heart, and so the next 20 years, usually have a way for them.
[SPEAKER_01]: So what else can I do?
[SPEAKER_01]: You can't, you can't abandon you.
[SPEAKER_01]: You said, do you want me to abandon my kids?
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no, no.
[SPEAKER_01]: You see, you take raising a child also as a spiritual practice.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a powerful spiritual practice.
[SPEAKER_01]: Divinity has come to your house as the little boy, as the little girl.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's not even a duty.
[SPEAKER_01]: Your practice is to raise the child as best as you can, Rendering worship to the Lord in that form.
[SPEAKER_01]: That becomes a powerful practice.
[SPEAKER_01]: How can I keep my mind on God, somebody asked a guru and the guru asked this whole lady asked a guru.
[SPEAKER_01]: How can I keep my mind on God?
[SPEAKER_01]: And the guru said, whom do you love most?
[SPEAKER_01]: This lady said, I love my nephew the most.
[SPEAKER_01]: The guru said, then see God in the next you.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then do whatever you're doing for your little nephew.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's all our shape of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know to tell anybody, internally that is your practice.
[SPEAKER_01]: Only one or two may good by running away, they are liberated souls.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then he sings that very touching song.
[SPEAKER_01]: Even the gods are caught in the spell of Mahāmaaya.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's all their power and glory and knowledge, they get caught.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's just a way of expressing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then why blame us poor weak human beings?
[SPEAKER_01]: We will be caught.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says, what hope is left for men?
[SPEAKER_01]: Even the original Bengal is even what touching, actually.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, it then he gives the example of the fish and the example of the silkworm.
[SPEAKER_01]: Third example, this is pretty brutal, man may be likened to grain and the grain is being crushed by the millstones.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, the millstone, which goes around crushes the grain, you notice there is the hub where the millstone moves.
[SPEAKER_01]: If some grain by chance comes near the hub, the peg, it will not be crushed, because the millstone, the weight is falling on the outer side.
[SPEAKER_01]: Therefore, the hub of the peg is God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hold on to God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Keep your life centered on God.
[SPEAKER_01]: You will not be crushed.
[SPEAKER_01]: The rest will be crushed.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why will the rest be crushed?
[SPEAKER_01]: This is very unfair.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not unfair.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have chosen impermanent things, transitory things, hoping for happiness from them.
[SPEAKER_01]: There is no happiness or permanent satisfaction from those things.
[SPEAKER_01]: We are not designed to give us permanent satisfaction.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want, so it's a big error.
[SPEAKER_01]: If I make an error, there'll be the consequence.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then one thing is that we're talking about spiritual practice, spiritual practice, it all requires the grace of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's why the very beginning Sri Ramakrishna had said, by one spiritual practice and the grace of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now he emphasizes that.
[SPEAKER_01]: their will come a time, except for yogis, for those who have done spiritual practice all their life, they might have seen at the end of their lives, in many cases have seen they are able to keep their mind on God, very clear and very inspiring to see that.
[SPEAKER_01]: But apart from that,
[SPEAKER_01]: many cases was spiritual practitioner, but at the point of that serious illness and death, body becomes so weak, the mind becomes so weak.
[SPEAKER_01]: Even the little spiritual practice, they were able to do earlier.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have heard people grumbling, I can't do more, but I can't do more at the end of the lives, even that little one is also not possible.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's impossible.
[SPEAKER_01]: day one realizes it's not by one's power.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then is one last is everything gone.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then I cannot do I cannot even chant the mantra.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's everything there is pain and there is weakness and there is helplessness.
[SPEAKER_01]: Even death might be a blessing.
[SPEAKER_01]: But death is also not coming.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know how long I will live in this ever weakening, breaking down body.
[SPEAKER_01]: either nobody is there to take care of me or those who are there to take care of me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm a burden on them.
[SPEAKER_01]: In this kind of situation, am I helpless?
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it gone?
[SPEAKER_01]: There is no other hope for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just disastrous.
[SPEAKER_01]: No.
[SPEAKER_01]: So Sri Ramakrishna sings this, rousing some of dependence on God.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says, My boat is sinking.
[SPEAKER_01]: There is a fear storm.
[SPEAKER_01]: Life is approaching its end.
[SPEAKER_01]: I
[SPEAKER_01]: I do not feel any bhakti.
[SPEAKER_01]: My mind is no question of any meditation.
[SPEAKER_01]: My mind can't be calm.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is all continuously shaky.
[SPEAKER_01]: All that gana philosophy Vedanta had vaguely understood at some time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now that's all gone.
[SPEAKER_01]: And my life has been spent without doing much good to anybody else.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now there is no chance of doing anything to anybody.
[SPEAKER_01]: All the four yogas are not possible anymore.
[SPEAKER_01]: to late, to late, to late, to late.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then is it all gone?
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it hell am I helpless?
[SPEAKER_01]: He says no.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then he is clumsy is my handsman, the mind, the mind is, a a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a,
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like cut open issue.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the answer to the open issue.
[SPEAKER_01]: We've been studying.
[SPEAKER_01]: The body is compared to a chariot.
[SPEAKER_01]: The mind, the horses to the senses, the mind to a bridle.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the chariot here is the driver is like a chariot here.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the intellect.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you are the passenger.
[SPEAKER_01]: The chariot is the body.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this process will take you to God realization.
[SPEAKER_01]: When Kathopanishad says, the heartsess must be trained and controlled.
[SPEAKER_01]: The mind must be focused and the intellect well-informed and centered in the Vedantic truth.
[SPEAKER_01]: The intellect is clear.
[SPEAKER_01]: A hum drum has me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not body, not my Naiti Raiti.
[SPEAKER_01]: Mind is focused.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not thinking of this and that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Focus concentrated.
[SPEAKER_01]: Senses are trained.
[SPEAKER_01]: They will only take whatever is necessary for the world and not run here and they're left and right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then only you attain the end of life, otherwise not.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now he's challenging that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here, instead of chariot it's a boat, but the thing is the same that no, none of the conditions have been fulfilled, none of the conditions are fulfilled.
[SPEAKER_01]: The horses have not been trained.
[SPEAKER_01]: The mind is weak and flickering, the chariot here.
[SPEAKER_01]: The driver is drunk, intellect is drunk,
[SPEAKER_01]: then will be, will the person be able to realize God, then only God can help, but God does help.
[SPEAKER_01]: If that's one last thing is remaining, surrender to God and see that God helps.
[SPEAKER_01]: Into a pittiless wind, I have sailed my boat and now it is sinking.
[SPEAKER_01]: Split is the rudder of devotion.
[SPEAKER_01]: Tattered is the sail of faith.
[SPEAKER_01]: All my spiritual practices have failed.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nothing is working.
[SPEAKER_01]: and into the boat, the waters are pouring.
[SPEAKER_01]: That means death is coming now.
[SPEAKER_01]: What shall I do?
[SPEAKER_01]: I see nothing but darkness.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here in the waves, now I'm beginning to swim in the waves and drown.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm clinging.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't even cling to you mother because I don't see you.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm clinging only one thing is remaining.
[SPEAKER_01]: Your name, the name of Durga.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm holding on to that.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's my last hope.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just Durga save and that's safe.
[SPEAKER_01]: it does say.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you, you will see, you will not be destroyed and you will begin taking to dry land the other side of Samsara.
[SPEAKER_01]: So God is always there.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is Tukaram, I think, who challenges the Lord that you have tested all
[SPEAKER_01]: or whether they have done the spiritual practices or not meditation and have led pure lives, then only you reveal yourself, but I will test you.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have to test all, but I will test you.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have done nothing.
[SPEAKER_01]: I do not deserve God realization.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know, I know what I am who I am.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now it is your test.
[SPEAKER_01]: Someone like me, can I attain God?
[SPEAKER_01]: Can I get a get realization spirituality?
[SPEAKER_01]: Can I see you?
[SPEAKER_01]: I know I don't deserve it.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's no way.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is your test.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let me see how powerful you are.
[SPEAKER_01]: So this is a challenge to God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yamuna Ajarya, the guru of Ramana Ajarya, he sings in one of his beautiful hymns to Narayana.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says, I'm a awareness of my sins is such.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was the saint, he didn't have sins.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think he's speaking for everybody else.
[SPEAKER_01]: And being a saint, even a little slightest thing seems to him to be a terrible thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he says, awareness of my sins makes me I understand now.
[SPEAKER_01]: that I honestly can't ask for forgiveness, so here I stand before you, do with me what you will, I can't honest the ask for forgiveness, I know this is too much to ask for, so that kind of
[SPEAKER_01]: our one monk told me, that means to wash after food in the in the main monastery in Belor, on the bank of the Ganga, you would go and wash our dishes after food and the tap water.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the water was very like me, a trickle of water and it washed carefully.
[SPEAKER_01]: The monk said to me, an old monk, I still remember he says,
[SPEAKER_01]: There is another way.
[SPEAKER_01]: There is a torrent of water flowing by just there, sink your dishes into that and in a defeat it will all be clean.
[SPEAKER_01]: So here is on your own effort with the tiny bit of water you are trying to clean your mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: There, if you throw yourself at the mercy of God, it will be it will be done.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that is the power of God, a much greater power than ours.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it requires faith and surrender.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then surrender comes when we have made a terrible mess of our lives.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Sri Ramakrishna is not for that.
[SPEAKER_01]: See, it gives the example of Mr. Viswas.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he made a mess of his life and now he's not taking care of his wife and children.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's interested in spiritual life now.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he's at there, listen to all this.
[SPEAKER_01]: He got up and left.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sri Ramakrishna said that this man is a rich.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have debt to pay.
[SPEAKER_01]: No matter how often your life is, you must struggle a little bit to fulfill some duties in life.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then he gives the example that a spouse has been wife parents to children, debt to the gods to your culture, God's your religion, the debt to your ancestors.
[SPEAKER_01]: debt to the rishis that means study of the scriptures of Vedanta.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is what we are doing is actually we are paying back out there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Even if a person is not interested in spiritual life, should still cultivate spirituality.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's part of your duty as part of the community to do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So Balaram says, Mr Vishwas wants to cultivate.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is coming here for the company of holy people.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then Sri Ramakrishna says, he says something very sharp.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not all or help by holy people.
[SPEAKER_01]: He talks about the commander-in-law of the monk.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's made of wood which is bitter if you try to bite it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it goes with the monk everywhere across the pilgrim centers of India.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he says, Kedarnath and Dwaraka and Rameshwar and Puri.
[SPEAKER_01]: And after going around to the all the pilgrims' centers, if you again taste the commonly put your hand to where it still tastes bitter, it will not change.
[SPEAKER_01]: Similarly, the might somebody might be hanging on to a sadhu, but or coming to an ashram regularly, but is the mind is entirely focused on worldliness.
[SPEAKER_01]: It may not benefit.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's no surefire that if you just come and sit there, it will benefit you.
[SPEAKER_01]: May not.
[SPEAKER_01]: then what is the purpose?
[SPEAKER_01]: It gives another example of the Malaya breezy.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a proverb.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a breeze, a beautiful breeze that blows and all the trees become sandal but sandalwood, the best kind of tree, most fragrant, except there are some exceptions.
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember this beautiful saying by Swami Nirmukkar and the G. He was a disciple of Swami
[SPEAKER_01]: So, he had been blessed by Swami Ranganathan and Juita.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is your last life.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is you will not be born again.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I was pushing him along on his wheelchair.
[SPEAKER_01]: When he was sitting over, so I'm sitting in the wheelchair.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was pushing him along in front of the main temple in Beludmat.
[SPEAKER_01]: I still remember.
[SPEAKER_01]: I leaned forward half jokingly I asked.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, Swami, you have been blessed.
[SPEAKER_01]: You are going to get liberation.
[SPEAKER_01]: Moksha, after the end of this life.
[SPEAKER_01]: What about the rest of us?
[SPEAKER_01]: I have a sort of joking.
[SPEAKER_01]: We took it seriously.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he said, well, the Malaya breeze is blowing.
[SPEAKER_01]: It says, this time by the grace of the mother, many will cross over the ocean of Sumsar.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is what is exact words.
[SPEAKER_01]: Many, but not everybody.
[SPEAKER_01]: See, this is many.
[SPEAKER_01]: Many who are would otherwise not.
[SPEAKER_01]: who had no hope at all, but this time the time is for in this period, maybe for the next few decades or centuries, in this one or two lifetimes.
[SPEAKER_01]: One can, in this life itself, we can cross over and attain enlightenment and attain freedom, but by the grace of the mother.
[SPEAKER_01]: and it works, people are getting, even ordinary people.
[SPEAKER_01]: So one should just want it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And especially if you can, want it, ask, ask the mother.
[SPEAKER_01]: And just thinking, in the back of my mind, mother is saying, don't tell that to everybody.
[SPEAKER_01]: They'll all, all other, bother me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then another example he gives, what is the purpose
[SPEAKER_01]: So, marijuana.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, here it is very common.
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't have to go to a monk to find marijuana here.
[SPEAKER_01]: In New York, in the street outside, it's all the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Especially in the evening, if you step outside, everybody is poking hip or marijuana, the weed.
[SPEAKER_01]: So trying to get high as monks smoke it in the Himalayas they still do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember once I was walking past a cave Three or four monks were sitting there and they were able to become come come like this, you know come and they showed me the the chillams with their which they were full again I did I did you know like from a distance like this never stayed from there Not me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not going there But the interesting stories one monk told me
[SPEAKER_01]: But you know, you don't know the words, I said, why do you take this marijuana then?
[SPEAKER_01]: Say, you don't know the words, Samadhi, Nihilagvi, Yamatmaji, a Kaskatanya, Samadhi, like Jaiji.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he says, you are not getting that last bit of, you know, inspiration to go into Samadhi, then you take one drop full of marijuana that thing and then you will go into Samadhi.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know, you're going to Samadhi or fall asleep or what.
[SPEAKER_01]: But one monk I knew, I heard this story, I never met him.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was a Punjabi monk and not in the Himalayas.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was in Riyana, in an ashram, in Punjab or Hariyana.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the story goes, which this monk from that ashram told me, that the head of the rashm.
[SPEAKER_01]: When the senior monk was the head of the ashram died, instead of nominating another senior monk to take over, he selected a much younger monk to take over to be in charge of the ashram.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this young monk seemed to be a simple term.
[SPEAKER_01]: Everybody thought he was a nice enough person, but he seemed to quite a child like, and to run a big ashram.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the monk, while passing away the old monk, he said that this person is an enlightened person.
[SPEAKER_01]: This monk, young monk, and he told the other senior monks to take care of him, his child like.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I heard some stories of this young monk who became the head of the Ashram.
[SPEAKER_01]: For example, somebody would come to him and say we have got a car here, come with us, they want to take him to their house.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he will just go anywhere, suddenly if you go for a road trip with the devotees will take him.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they always had to be surrounded by people who will protect him and stop him from being taken away by others.
[SPEAKER_01]: So about hemp, but there's no marijuana.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they were the monks would sit.
[SPEAKER_01]: They had this habit of, they would pull on that chillam of marijuana.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this monk told me that we saw this young, the head monk.
[SPEAKER_01]: He would not take, but we once asked him, take a pull of this.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he pulled and pulled so much that the flame blazed
[SPEAKER_01]: and we were taken aback.
[SPEAKER_01]: We thought maybe he'll become sick.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nothing happened to him.
[SPEAKER_01]: He said the rest of us, we took a pool and we were reeling and he just finished enough to knock a horse out and he was just laughing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then we asked him, how is this possible?
[SPEAKER_01]: In Hindi he said, he is a Tumlovo Kopizata or we are scoping.
[SPEAKER_01]: what that means.
[SPEAKER_01]: He told me many interesting stories of this month and it is a trouble for the Ashram.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is sitting there and on a Guru Purnima the day everybody comes to offer their programs to the Guru and one day of the year.
[SPEAKER_01]: That was the day all devotees would come and give offerings to the Ashram.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, the Ashram is the big day for revenue for the Ashram.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so the all the people were coming, bowing down, and this head, young head monk had been dressed up with the nicest butter buns and all he was sitting on the throne.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so much money had been accumulated in front.
[SPEAKER_01]: They would people would come and just get money.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it became a pile of cash and coins.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now,
[SPEAKER_01]: One of the monks who explained this later, he bowed down and stinking, oh, the head monk, Rishyang monk, he has got so much money now from all the people, and we don't have money.
[SPEAKER_01]: The moment he said that, this young monk, he jumped up from, he boom it, he thought that, the young monk jumped up from his throne and he pulled the rug on which all the money had been thrown, you know, he pulled it like this and said,
[SPEAKER_01]: And he tossed all the money aside into the crowd of other, the, you know, the wandering begging monks and they all gathered up the money and then they walked away.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, which was financially very bad for the Ashram, but that's what that's the kind of mark he was.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, detachment.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, this all this came from hemp, smoking of hemp.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, we will not read the next one.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's remember 16, we'll read that next time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let me just see what has been said here.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sangita says, as you just mentioned, the failure rate is pretty high in both cohorts, beat, monk, or householders, and the gospel gives lots of reasons by failure rate amidst the householders.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why exactly should it be so high among the monks?
[SPEAKER_01]: I am among the monks also, because ultimately, you know, it is human nature, it's not so easy.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the monks have an advantage in many ways, already they have renounced, already many things are, the Lord is much lighter around them.
[SPEAKER_01]: But still, the Maya, this is Hindi song which says, Kahi Koi Sanjir, Nahi Virvi, Badehvi and Hesap.
[SPEAKER_01]: There is no, there are no chains inside, but everybody is nicely and securely tied down.
[SPEAKER_01]: a rigid say the city and a modern analog of the women balancing water pots in the heads can be seen a cement mix a truck which keeps turning the cement so it remains wet no matter whether it's truck stuck in traffic or zooming on the highway now i never thought of that Michael bird
[SPEAKER_01]: greeting Swami Ji in regards to the scale of God versus the scale of the world example if I am able to connect worldly things to spirituality like Sri Ramakrishna, the circus can be the trained spiritual mind with the scale of God and scale of the world be one in the same.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, it would tip over towards God.
[SPEAKER_01]: What will happen is you are using your activities in the world to put more weight on the side of God instead of the worldly activities pulling the down on the side of the world That's what we must do Otherwise if you are meditating and praying and worshiping and reading for one hour a day and the rest of the days for the world Then it's worldiness and spirituality is a losing proposition
[SPEAKER_01]: You do something for your children, your husband, wife, your community members.
[SPEAKER_01]: Even your job, all of that mentally can be offered to God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jennifer says, another example I've heard made cares for the employer's child, but her heart is with her own child.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, that's an example through Ramakrishna's given that our heart is in her little village at in her own home.
[SPEAKER_01]: So she does everything what's done here in her employer, but the heart is elsewhere.
[SPEAKER_01]: Similarly, your heart is with God.
[SPEAKER_01]: And whatever it's to be done here, God has put us here, we will do it.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's easier to do it if you have this detachment.
[SPEAKER_01]: Priya says, Sri Ramakrishna ultimately saying that household or monk are not actual life designation attitude of living.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, there are actual life designations.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are formally one is a household or formally one is a monk, but the monastic attitude has to be an internal attitude.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, and something to be cultivated by everybody to the extent that householder also cultivate some detachments, some dispersion householder gets, uh, the benefit.
[SPEAKER_01]: Vishwanath says Shwetash Fathrokunish will use an example of Fisharman, casting his net, fish that are far away, fisharman falling to net, but fish that are the feet of the, uh, fisharman, they get saved very good example.
[SPEAKER_01]: What does it mean to live in balance for householders?
[SPEAKER_01]: Does it mean not too much of the world and not too much of the world?
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it extended in the set?
[SPEAKER_01]: No, it means as much of God, or as much of being centered in the Atman as possible.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because you need not balance on the side of the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: The world will balance itself.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll tell you this one thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember,
[SPEAKER_01]: in our one of our Ashtams, one senior monk, cautioning a brahmachary, who was not getting up early in the morning.
[SPEAKER_01]: He used to look after the book sales department, the showroom, the showk.
[SPEAKER_01]: He said, look, we will be a society, the Ashtam, we will extract that work from you.
[SPEAKER_01]: But your morning meditation,
[SPEAKER_01]: Japan meditation.
[SPEAKER_01]: God is not going to come and extract it from you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Unless you do it with your own sincerity on your own, nobody is going to force you to do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And when you are in training, the senior monks will force you to do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Otherwise, who will force you?
[SPEAKER_01]: And the rest of your life.
[SPEAKER_01]: So society will extract what it wants from you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Parents, powers, children, job, community, they will extract what they want to.
[SPEAKER_01]: I arrest and they will extract what they want from you.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we must on our own side, put weight on the pan, which is on the side of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: The pan should go down.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have to make a special effort there.
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't have to make a special effort to balance the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: In the example of King Genek, it was alert and calm, which enabled him to take the necessary action without worrying about the result.
[SPEAKER_01]: Correct.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because of his Ram Krishna's, it's only because of his regular spiritual practice.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's why he was able to deal with the things in the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: But at another place in the Gospel of Sri Ram Krishna, somebody takes, somebody else uses the example of Janaka.
[SPEAKER_01]: that Jannaker had both, you know, he was involved in the world, and also he had God Realization, so both are possible together.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why are you giving so much emphasis on renunciation of plus 10 gold and all of that?
[SPEAKER_01]: And Sri Ramakrishna immediately dismisses that example.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says, oh, Jannaker had good ministers.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he was busy with Vedanta talks and Vedanta classes, his ministers did the job and ran the kingdom for him.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, that's what Sri Ram Krishna said.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think somebody was trying to use it as an excuse for not renouncing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then Sri Ram Krishna cut that down.
[SPEAKER_01]: Kunita, he says, Ramdas, a similar story about drugs and name Karoli Baba, yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, consume the handful and nothing happened.
[SPEAKER_01]: Michael Bar, regards to marijuana, it would seem that it does not matter whether it is being smoked or not, because awareness itself is not getting high.
[SPEAKER_01]: Mind undergoing a chemical change.
[SPEAKER_01]: Awareness is the unchanging witness of the high.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, that's also correct.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's also correct.
[SPEAKER_01]: better not try it, especially addictives are substances, that's like the cocoon which is difficult to get out of.
[SPEAKER_01]: Alpanaji says, got back from India which is visited Varsithya Guva.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Purushottamananji.
[SPEAKER_01]: Purushottamananjiji was a disciple of Swami Brahmananda.
[SPEAKER_01]: His name was Rajain Maharaj.
[SPEAKER_01]: He left.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was no longer formally part of our order.
[SPEAKER_01]: The most of his life, he spent in the mountains in meditation.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Swami Brahman and I had said, this young monk, he will meditate and meditate and meditate.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, what he was capable of doing that.
[SPEAKER_01]: He spent a long time in this Vashish to go on.
[SPEAKER_01]: And when many extraordinary spiritual experiences and had many wonderful disciples of that lineage still continues, all right, we'll stop here.
[SPEAKER_01]: Om shanti shanti shanti hari hiyom tatsat shri Ramakrishna Rupana Mastu.