[SPEAKER_01]: Oum Tabakatham, Ritantapthaji, Banam, Kraviviri, Tham, Kalmasa, Paham, Shavanamangalam, Shaymadata, Tham, Bhuvigrinanti, Bhurida, Yana.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, we are on page 156 in my book.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the date is Thursday, November 16th 1882, Thursday, November 16th 1882, page 156.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a short record of Sri Ramakrishna's visit to the Brahma Samad.
[SPEAKER_01]: The master had come to Calcutta.
[SPEAKER_01]: In the evening he went to the house of Raj Mohan, a member of the Brahma Samad, where Narendra and some of his young friends used to meet and worship according to the Brahma ceremonies.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was accompanied by M and a few other devotees.
[SPEAKER_01]: The master was very happy to see Narendra and expressed a desire to watch the young men at their worship.
[SPEAKER_01]: Narendra sang and then the worship began.
[SPEAKER_01]: One of the young men conducted it.
[SPEAKER_01]: He prayed, O Lord, may we give up everything and be absorbed in thee.
[SPEAKER_01]: Possibly, the youth was inspired by the master's presence and talked and so talked of utter renunciation.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sri Ramakrishna remarked in a whisper, much likely who there is of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he was being slightly teasing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Raj Mohan served the master with refreshments.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was the auspicious occasion of the Jagat Dhatri Puja.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's one of the forms in which the Divine Mother is worshiped, especially in Bengal.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the main worship is of Durga, Divine Mother in the form of Durga, but also Kali, and Sri Ramakrishna was a worshiper of Kali.
[SPEAKER_01]: Kali was his Ishtadevata.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Saraswati is very popular.
[SPEAKER_01]: Lakshmi of course.
[SPEAKER_01]: and Jagat Dhatri is one of the forms in which the Divine Mother is worshiped in Bengal.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was the auspicious occasion of the Jagat Dhatri Pujah, the festival of the Divine Mother.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sri Ramakrishna was invited to Surindra's house in Calcutta, but first he went to the house of Manomohan in the neighborhood.
[SPEAKER_01]: The master was seated in Manomohan's parlour.
[SPEAKER_01]: He said,
[SPEAKER_01]: the Bhatti of the poor and the lowly.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just as the cow relishes fodder mixed with oil cake, King Duriyodhana showed Krsna the splendor of His wealth and riches, but Krsna accepted the hospitality of the poor Vidura.
[SPEAKER_01]: God is found of His devotees.
[SPEAKER_01]: He runs after the devotee as the cow
[SPEAKER_01]: And for that love, the mighty yogi's practice yoga from age to age, when love evokes the Lord like a magnet draws to him the soul.
[SPEAKER_01]: When he said, Caitanya used to shed tears of joy at the very mention of Krsna's name.
[SPEAKER_01]: God alone is the real substance.
[SPEAKER_01]: All else is illusory.
[SPEAKER_01]: man can realize God if he wants to, but he madly craves the enjoyment of lust and gold.
[SPEAKER_01]: The snake has a precious stone in its head, but it is perfectly satisfied to eat a mere frog.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's a footnote, a fork belief in Bengal.
[SPEAKER_01]: In many places, in India actually, that a cobra is supposed to have a precious gem in its head.
[SPEAKER_01]: So like a belief.
[SPEAKER_01]: with a point is that it is precious stone in his head, but it's perfectly satisfied to eat a mere frog.
[SPEAKER_01]: But he is the one essential thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Who can ever know God through reasoning?
[SPEAKER_01]: I want love of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: What do I care about knowing his infinite glories?
[SPEAKER_01]: One bottle of wine makes me drunk.
[SPEAKER_01]: What do I care about knowing how many gallons there are in the grog shop?
[SPEAKER_01]: one jar of water is enough to pinch my thirst.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't need to know the amount of water there is on earth.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he makes a few quick points in Manaman's house.
[SPEAKER_01]: God very much releases the bhakti, the devotion, love of the poor and the lowly.
[SPEAKER_01]: especially those who are struggling in life and yet they have deep faith in God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Faith in God in two ways.
[SPEAKER_01]: One is faith in God for their worldly purposes.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there are a lot of people who have belief in God because the desire for the world is so strong, they feel that God will help them and God does help them.
[SPEAKER_01]: God will give them for the
[SPEAKER_01]: health, disease will be cured, things will go well.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nothing wrong in that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Anybody who is in some sorrow will always want that kind of blessings.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why only some sorrow in our monasteries?
[SPEAKER_01]: So, when the worship of the Divine Mother is done, Durkha, this is some kalpayas there.
[SPEAKER_01]: So one is for the welfare of everybody in the world, for peace and welfare of the community of the world, but also blessings of the Divine Mother on the monastery, on the monks and the Brahmacharic for the spiritual life, for the health, which some of it which is actually material, like health and well-being of the Sadhus and Brahmacharic, all of that we pray to the Divine Mother.
[SPEAKER_01]: But the crucial differences is the world, my goal,
[SPEAKER_01]: If the world is my goal, I mean, there are certain things which I want in the world and that's it.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what I'm looking for.
[SPEAKER_01]: If that is my goal, then I'm using God for that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, nothing wrong in that.
[SPEAKER_01]: The only thing is, it will not lead to Moksha, it will not lead to spiritual life.
[SPEAKER_01]: But a spiritual seeker, what Sri Ramakrishna means by Bhakti here is,
[SPEAKER_01]: The love of God which wants God for God, not for things in the world, not for what God can give me in the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: So true level of God wants God only, God realization or God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not even Mukti, the Bhaktar, the devotee wants to love God, not even use God for freedom from some sort.
[SPEAKER_01]: That we come by itself, but the devotee's prime concern is to love God.
[SPEAKER_01]: King Duryodhana showed Krishna the splendor of his wealth and riches.
[SPEAKER_01]: So this is when Krishna goes to visit Duryodhana in the capital.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then, Duryodhana wants to make Krishna the royal guest, you know.
[SPEAKER_01]: But Krishna says, I'd stay in the house of Bidura, who was more humble.
[SPEAKER_01]: Of course, he was of the royal family as connected.
[SPEAKER_01]: But he was humble devotee deeply devoted to Krishna.
[SPEAKER_01]: He runs after the devotee as the cow after the calf.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then he gives an example.
[SPEAKER_01]: Chaitanya used to shed tears of joy at the very mention of Krishna's name.
[SPEAKER_01]: See, here is something when you...
[SPEAKER_01]: talk about an enlightened person, a Junasks Krishna, what is the sign of an enlightened person?
[SPEAKER_01]: The first thing Krishna says in the Gita, and end of the second chapter of the Gita, where he describes the enlightened one, the one of stabilized wisdom, Stita Pragya.
[SPEAKER_01]: The characteristic he mentions is, Prajhahati Yadak, Aman, Sarvan, Pak, Kamano, Ghatan, Atman, Nyevat, Manatushita, Stita Pragya, Saruchya, Kaya.
[SPEAKER_01]: you are enlightened, you are enlightened, mental, you are stable, you are centered.
[SPEAKER_01]: When, two things, one gives up all the desires that have entered into our heart.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want this, this and that, things in the world, they don't pull me anymore.
[SPEAKER_01]: But this goes hand in hand with a great delight in God.
[SPEAKER_01]: There he says, Atman Nevatman Athushta.
[SPEAKER_01]: One is, one delights in the self, pure consciousness.
[SPEAKER_01]: or for a devotee, one delights in God.
[SPEAKER_01]: If that joy and delight is not there, it will lead to depression.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't like anything in the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: What do you like?
[SPEAKER_01]: Nothing.
[SPEAKER_01]: That will lead to depression.
[SPEAKER_01]: Once Sharath Maharaj, when he was a young boy, he came to Sri Ramakrishna, Sri Ramakrishna, asked him, so whom do you love?
[SPEAKER_01]: So Ram Krsna strategy was to find out if you love somebody or something, and they say you love God like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's what he would teach.
[SPEAKER_01]: But he was, when he said, who do you love?
[SPEAKER_01]: Charlotte said, I don't think I love anybody.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then Ram Krsna was exasperated.
[SPEAKER_01]: He said, oh, what a dry rascal.
[SPEAKER_01]: You must love something somewhere at least make a beginning and that has to be connected to God.
[SPEAKER_01]: CS Lewis in his mere Christianity puts it so well.
[SPEAKER_01]: So love of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like he says it is falling in love.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just like falling in love.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here you don't fall in love with a person or a place or a thing or an activity or a job.
[SPEAKER_01]: But you fall in love with God.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's joy.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not a dry, disciplined, no, I am a spiritual seeker.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why is such a long face?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I'm seeking God.
[SPEAKER_01]: No.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I mean, Marananandaji Maharaj, a president at a present-out president, when he was the general secretary, he's to teach us.
[SPEAKER_01]: And one thing he would often say, the goal is bliss, but the means must be bliss also.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you are miserable in spiritual life, then something is going wrong.
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't have to keep us mildly face all right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Our spiritual peer people are happy continuously.
[SPEAKER_01]: Depends on what do you mean by happy?
[SPEAKER_01]: If you mean by happy feeling, you know, smiley face.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, that's impossible.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why is it impossible?
[SPEAKER_01]: That is an emotion, a routine in the mind, so car car or a routine.
[SPEAKER_01]: The very nature of the mind is to change.
[SPEAKER_01]: So even if you have a generally a happy disposition, they will still come times when you will not feel happy.
[SPEAKER_01]: You might feel irritated, you might feel neutral, you might feel annoyed, unhappy, or they may be gradations of that happiness in pressure.
[SPEAKER_01]: So though that change will be there.
[SPEAKER_01]: But the devotion to God gives a deep, deep satisfaction, a deep, deep fountain of joy.
[SPEAKER_01]: It may increase, come up, go up and down.
[SPEAKER_01]: You may add some go up to bliss and ecstasy or just, you might be gentle smile on your lips.
[SPEAKER_01]: But there will be, this is called Ananda, a well, a fountain of inexhaustible source of peace, satisfaction, joy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Generally spiritual people are happy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Swain trees of Avila used to say up, sad nun is a bad nun, sad nun is a bad nun, so I mean Vivekananda is to say why such a scour, if you come out with, don't come out with that kind of face, you lock yourself in your room, you have no right to spread the disease of, and now I am a misery around the world, somebody asked, why was he so happy?
[SPEAKER_01]: He said, yes, oh, Swami, aren't you ever serious?
[SPEAKER_01]: He said, yes, I am serious when I get a tummy ache.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I become serious.
[SPEAKER_00]: Otherwise, no.
[SPEAKER_01]: When people were asked later on disciples of Sri Ramakrishna, long after Sri Ramakrishna passed, their recollections were mostly what they really pulled them.
[SPEAKER_01]: One was the overriding thing was love.
[SPEAKER_01]: All of them said, it was an extraordinary love, which they said, we have not got it from even our parents.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've been never seen such a love.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's one.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the love of God, the love of God for the sentient be of Paramatma, for Jeevatma.
[SPEAKER_01]: We are the children of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the love of our heavenly parents for us, for Mother or Father, whichever way you call it.
[SPEAKER_01]: They heavenly Father or they have any mother.
[SPEAKER_01]: So love.
[SPEAKER_01]: But another thing that many of them remarked was, He was such fun to be around.
[SPEAKER_01]: So now my Christian was endless.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was fun to be around with.
[SPEAKER_01]: He could make anybody laugh.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are descriptions of people rolling on the floor in his room
[SPEAKER_01]: So Sri Caitanya says, used to shed tears of joy at the very mention of Krsna's name.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it was told to see this, who said that to shed a,
[SPEAKER_01]: tears of, you know, even you miss the presence of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: When you're unhappy at not feeling the presence of God, the tears which of Virah, it's called Virah of the Bill of it, you miss the presence of the Bill of it in your life and you shed tears.
[SPEAKER_01]: Those tears, the supposed to be tears of sorrow of sadness, there are any times infinitely no more pleasant than the greatest pleasures of the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: Tears, shed, not because of, he had, he had, he had, he had, he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had he had
[SPEAKER_01]: Very interesting.
[SPEAKER_01]: This would make sense in an Advaiti discourse.
[SPEAKER_01]: God is real, all else is illusory.
[SPEAKER_01]: Brahma Saktiam Jagatmithya.
[SPEAKER_01]: And yet he comes to it through bhakti.
[SPEAKER_01]: What does it mean?
[SPEAKER_01]: The only essential, only what-to-while-thing is God is this love of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is what fills our hearts immediately.
[SPEAKER_01]: Remember one sadhu said that if you want to be happy, do you want to be happy right now, unfailing prescription for happiness?
[SPEAKER_01]: And continuously happy, you'll be source of continuous happiness, then fall in love with God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, how can I actually fall in love with God or anybody?
[SPEAKER_01]: It is, I can't force myself.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, but you can simulate it.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what Sri Ram Krishna says, whom do you love most?
[SPEAKER_01]: Now think of that love, that attraction, that attachment.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now put God in that place.
[SPEAKER_01]: The emotion is the same.
[SPEAKER_01]: It may sound a artificial, but it will not be artificial for long.
[SPEAKER_01]: So even if you make a beginning, just by simulating it, it will become real very soon.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you want to be happy immediately and strongly and continuously fall in love with God, Bhakti.
[SPEAKER_01]: compare to that, anything else in the world, money, relationships, success, power, they are all like ashes, ashes without substance, very soon you see through them, they give you a little bit of sense of achievement, sense of relief, sense of little bit of fulfillment for a little
[SPEAKER_01]: Every economic knows this.
[SPEAKER_01]: They call it the law of diminishing marginal utility.
[SPEAKER_01]: The first thing you learn in microeconomics, that every succeeding unit of consumption gives you less and less and less satisfaction compared to the earlier units of consumption.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that is true for everything in the world, but not for the love of count.
[SPEAKER_01]: So Bhakti.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then why don't we do it?
[SPEAKER_01]: Why don't we realize God?
[SPEAKER_01]: If God is the only reality for us, it will be like, I don't know if God is the only reality.
[SPEAKER_01]: For me, I see the world is the reality and God doesn't seem to exist at all.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just the reverse for us.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or if you say fall in love with God, well, it's not an attractive proposition.
[SPEAKER_01]: If somehow it doesn't pull me, I get distracted very soon and go on to other things.
[SPEAKER_01]: So why?
[SPEAKER_01]: Why is it so difficult?
[SPEAKER_01]: Why is it rare?
[SPEAKER_01]: He gives the answer next.
[SPEAKER_01]: Man can realize God if he wants to.
[SPEAKER_01]: But he madly craves the enjoyment of lust and gold.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he gives an example snake as a precious stone in his head, which is perfectly satisfied to eat a mirror from.
[SPEAKER_01]: So this, what happens is first, something called Avaran, Avaran has Sanskrit word for veiling.
[SPEAKER_01]: So what Maya does is it veils the existence of the spiritual reality, that there is such a reality.
[SPEAKER_01]: Call it God or our own real self, the absolute reality Brahman, whatever.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, first hour and a second, some shy are doubt, even if you hear about it, even if there are spiritual masters telling you about it, you read books about it, you want it to be true also, but doubt.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not even, it doesn't feel certain, it feels a little doubtful, some shy, some shy is doubt.
[SPEAKER_01]: And third is Viparjaya, Viparjaya is a technical word which means opposite understanding.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not that God exists.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no, world is ill. God is real.
[SPEAKER_01]: All is illusory.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no, world is real.
[SPEAKER_01]: God is illusory.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not that God is certain and the world is uncertain.
[SPEAKER_01]: No world seems to be certain.
[SPEAKER_01]: This God seems to be a vague thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: And not that God is the source of all joy.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, world is the source of joy.
[SPEAKER_01]: people, relatives, family, money, house, possessions, my network of friends, real and virtual.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now more and more, virtual world is also, is real.
[SPEAKER_01]: Professor David Chama's here has written a book, Reality Plus, so where he argues that we should treat the virtual world as real as our disworld for practically it works the same way.
[SPEAKER_01]: So your money is on the virtual world.
[SPEAKER_01]: Some people have property, something called works of art or is a name for that and forget.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can purchase them in the virtual world.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a technical limits, which is very poor, NFT, non-fungible tokens, NFTs.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can spend, but the money is real money, so that makes it even more real for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: So what's your world, we think those are real, and that will give me joy, not God.
[SPEAKER_01]: We don't want to believe that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So lust and gold will give me joy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Last and non-fansible tokens will give me joy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Bitcoin will give me joy.
[SPEAKER_01]: God, I don't know, I'll keep it in reserve for my
[SPEAKER_01]: And the beauty of Bhakti is, you don't have to set aside anything.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can make a beginning wherever you are, whatever you're doing.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you're raising a family, you hold a job, you were teaching, working in a hospital, whatever.
[SPEAKER_01]: Together with that, during the time of work and engagement with the world, one contract is Bhakti.
[SPEAKER_01]: See, the world demands attention from the mind, hands, senses, but heart should belong to God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Somebody gave a nice example.
[SPEAKER_01]: Somebody asked to Swami that, how can I think of God in the midst of work?
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's in an ashram.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're working in an ashram.
[SPEAKER_01]: But then I keep thinking about the work, not about God.
[SPEAKER_01]: And He said, look, the work demands attention from your mind, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: But love of God is not in the mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's in the heart.
[SPEAKER_01]: And He gave a nice example.
[SPEAKER_01]: the mother who loves the baby, may not spend much time with the baby, it is cleaning the house, cleaning the clothes, cooking, going for groceries, holding a daytime job.
[SPEAKER_01]: So many things she's doing, spending less and less time with the baby, but the heart is with the baby.
[SPEAKER_01]: Similarly, a heart is with God.
[SPEAKER_01]: You may and you do all sorts of things.
[SPEAKER_01]: Some of them are directly for God and some of them are for you and your life, your job, your family, but they can all be offered to God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Bhakti is the one essential thing, who can ever know God through reasoning.
[SPEAKER_01]: One essential thing I remember.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know me and many, many people, so don't share for my predilection for Vedanta, for the path of which are an inquiry.
[SPEAKER_01]: I used to do that when I used to teach young monks in the main monastery, I used to teach.
[SPEAKER_01]: The ones I got out, I'm doing the right thing because I may be influencing their minds in a certain way which is to my liking, but I know it might not be good for everybody.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I asked a very senior monk,
[SPEAKER_01]: So this is what I do.
[SPEAKER_01]: I talk about Ghana and I can see the young monks have very influenced by it.
[SPEAKER_01]: They become very inspired.
[SPEAKER_01]: But, But these important, I can see it's important for everybody's life.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, is it wrong in what I'm doing?
[SPEAKER_01]: And Dancery gave us very interesting.
[SPEAKER_01]: He said two things.
[SPEAKER_01]: First of all, they are not listening only to you.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're listening to many others.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are many teachers.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, that's a good thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Please listen to everybody and see where your mind goes.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, what helps you?
[SPEAKER_01]: Second, he said, the truth never, never harms any petition.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, what you are saying is the truth.
[SPEAKER_01]: It never harms anybody.
[SPEAKER_01]: Another time, the same monk, I asked him, I see among the young monks, two kinds of tendencies.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are, there's a group which are very interested in Ghana in the Vedanta texts, in inquiry, in philosophy, in argument, and debate.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there is another group which is, they come to the classes, they listen to everything, but they're real, heart lies within the temple with the shrine of Sri Ramakrishna.
[SPEAKER_01]: I see them going, making a garland for Sri Ramakrishna.
[SPEAKER_01]: Things like that, they're pulled towards the worship, the divine presence, which is better, for spiritual life.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that senior monk told me the second one is better.
[SPEAKER_01]: at least for us for a long time, until the mind is very purified.
[SPEAKER_01]: The mind is very purified, the intellect takes over.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is what you will think and understand that we will realize also.
[SPEAKER_01]: But until that time, intellect is like a servant at the hands of the heart.
[SPEAKER_01]: What we want, what we want is what the heart wants.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if the heart is pulled to Sri Ramakrishna, that monk told me, that is a very good sign, a very good security.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because intellect at the beginning,
[SPEAKER_01]: you may like an idea right now and you may delight in it for some time, but neither gives you strength to face the ups and downs of the world and it can disappear anytime.
[SPEAKER_01]: The intellectual delight may vanish anytime.
[SPEAKER_01]: The desire of the heart does not vanish, neither worldly desire nor love of God, that doesn't vanish easily, that's a some scar.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it is better, both are spiritual,
[SPEAKER_01]: the inquiry of the path of knowledge, very good, but also the pull towards God, the hearts, pull towards the divine, and that is those who experience even a little of it, know that you are blessed.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's why he says, Bhakti is the one essential thing, who can ever know God through reasoning.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, isn't it possible to know God through reasoning, isn't it that Vedanta says, but what Sri Ramakrishna says, he means by reasoning, he is here is that he gives to examples about drinking wine and drinking water.
[SPEAKER_01]: I, what do I get to know about his infinite glories?
[SPEAKER_01]: So one glass of wine makes me drunk.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't want to know how much wine is there in the wine shop.
[SPEAKER_01]: One glass of water, when just my thirst, I don't need how much water is there in the earth.
[SPEAKER_01]: I do not care to know all the glories of God who can know the glories of God through reasoning.
[SPEAKER_01]: So what he means here is, God is infinite and the objective knowledge of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: How much can you know of Seguna Brahman?
[SPEAKER_01]: A is endless, the glories of God are endless.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's one way.
[SPEAKER_01]: The second is even more precise.
[SPEAKER_01]: In the Vedantic sense, a new enquiry and try to realize Aham Brahman has me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Notice carefully, they are also, you don't know God in that sense.
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't even know the ultimate reality in that sense.
[SPEAKER_01]: Your enquiry leads you to see that you are that ultimate reality.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not that ever you will objectify it and know it objectively.
[SPEAKER_01]: But here is existence consciousness place.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I am this existence consciousness space.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, at one time, by your enquiries, you will suddenly see like the mind and personality will be very tiny and very distant from you.
[SPEAKER_01]: You are much faster than all of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the intellect, it's not that the intellect will know the reality.
[SPEAKER_01]: Rather, at one point suddenly, you will see that reality that pure consciousness is irradiating,
[SPEAKER_01]: you know, lighting up the intellect, but the intellect is not lighting up that or re-luminating that absolute reality or the witness consciousness.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, in both ways, reasoning does not know, lead you to know God, one in the devotional sense because God is infinite, no amount of reasoning will reveal all the glories of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nobody ever can, like the mountain of sugar in the end or the this wine shop and how much wine is there, like that it cannot reveal.
[SPEAKER_01]: Second is, in the Dwightic sense, because that reality is not an object of knowledge.
[SPEAKER_01]: Kain Openisha says, Yann Manusana Manute Yena hur Manomata.
[SPEAKER_01]: Tareva Brahma Tumbiddhi, Nayedam, Yelidamupasa.
[SPEAKER_01]: Openisha says, that which cannot be known by the mind, but because of which the mind knows the recipe.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you just say it cannot be known by the mind, well, there are many things which cannot be known by the mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are theorems in mathematics, there are unknowable areas of this Cosmos may not be known by the mind, but it doesn't matter.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not in that sense.
[SPEAKER_01]: If Brahman is unknowable in that sense, what's the point?
[SPEAKER_01]: It'll just be some kind of empty speculation, philosophical speculation.
[SPEAKER_01]: But no.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I'm going to Vivekan this language, it is more than known, because it's only because of that Witness consciousness that the mind is illumined and the mind is able to know anything at all.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that light falls on the mind as the reflected consciousness and that reflected consciousness is exactly the consciousness you are feeling.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now I'm feeling you are feeling right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's see the above.
[SPEAKER_01]: And because of that,
[SPEAKER_01]: our mind, we know our thoughts, our intellect, our memories, and through the sensory system, we are able to see here smell taste touch, you see seeing hearing smelling tasting touch, the eyes are doing brain is doing what is consciousness, consciousness gives you the first person experience of seeing hearing smelling tasting touch.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, it's the light which gives us the experience
[SPEAKER_00]: the next.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sri Ramakrishna arrived at Surayendra's house.
[SPEAKER_01]: Many devotees that assembled there, including Surayendra's elder brother, who was a judge, master, to Surayendra's brother.
[SPEAKER_01]: You are a judge.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is very good.
[SPEAKER_01]: But remember, everything happens through God's power.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is He who has given you your high position.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is how you became a judge.
[SPEAKER_01]: People think it is they who are great.
[SPEAKER_01]: The water from the roof flows through a spout that is shaped like a lion's head.
[SPEAKER_01]: It looks as if the lion were bringing the water out through its mouth.
[SPEAKER_01]: But look at the sorts of the water.
[SPEAKER_01]: A cloud gathers in the sky and rain falls on the roof.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then the water flows through the pipe and at last comes out through the spout.
[SPEAKER_01]: So these are, you know, in old building, especially in New York, so you can see an old British era buildings in Calcutta in Mumbai, these gargiles, which are there like rainwater spouts.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's like water is coming out of the lion's mouth or the dragon's mouth, but it's all water collected from the roof.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's flowing out there.
[SPEAKER_01]: The source is subundabram Manishwaragar and all the glories.
[SPEAKER_01]: Whether you're a great orator, you've got inspiration and as a great writer, painter, you're a scientist making research breakthroughs, every form of inspiration, extraordinary performance, any kind of extraordinary power, ceramic relationships.
[SPEAKER_01]: It may seem to be secular, not at all related to religion, maybe, but all of those are the
[SPEAKER_01]: in the presence of any kind of extraordinary power bow down because behind, even if the person through which it is coming may not know and the person may think, I am a great, you know, writer or painter or something, no, behind it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Geet also says, wherever you see, extraordinary effulgence of talent, power, know that it's the power of Shakti of God, it's the divine
[SPEAKER_00]: Surrender as a brother.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Brahma Samarj preaches the freedom of woman and the evolution of the caste system.
[SPEAKER_01]: What do you think about these matters?
[SPEAKER_01]: So these were some of the issues and they're relevant even now.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they want to test Sri Ramakrishna because Sri Ramakrishna is sort of orthodox.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's a priest in a curly temple.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he's a simple man from the village.
[SPEAKER_01]: So what does he want to say about the big new reforms, which the Brahmas amazement is thinking of, abolishing the discrimination of the caste system, the equality of women and all of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's a big issue at the end of the 19th century.
[SPEAKER_01]: Master, men feel that way when they're just beginning to develop spiritual yearning.
[SPEAKER_01]: A storm raises clouds of dust and one cannot distinguish between the different trees, the mango, the hog plum and the tamarind.
[SPEAKER_01]: But after the storm blows over, one sees clearly.
[SPEAKER_01]: After the first storm of divine passion is killed, one gradually understands that God alone is the highest good, eternal substance, and that all else is transitory.
[SPEAKER_01]: One cannot grasp this without the Pacia and the company of Holy Men.
[SPEAKER_01]: What is the use of merely reciting the written parts for the drum?
[SPEAKER_01]: It is very difficult to put them into practice on the instrument.
[SPEAKER_01]: What can be accomplished by a mere lecture?
[SPEAKER_01]: It is austerity that is necessary by that alone one can comprehend.
[SPEAKER_01]: That drum example, he means the tabla, the Indian tabla, which is played.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they learned the notation first.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can recite it.
[SPEAKER_01]: But of course, it's meant to be played with your hands.
[SPEAKER_01]: The reciting is very easy, but actually playing it with your,
[SPEAKER_01]: and a hatetola.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, reciting the notation and actually playing it or the kia fingers on the drum, that's difficult.
[SPEAKER_01]: Similarly, it's pretty easy to learn the scriptures, but actually to follow them in life is difficult.
[SPEAKER_01]: It takes, this is what does it take?
[SPEAKER_01]: It takes the procedure.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is a very deep point here.
[SPEAKER_01]: Many people ask,
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, we have heard you have read on the talks on YouTube, but now how to actually in a live it in life.
[SPEAKER_01]: Saddam Krishna's answer is it takes up a spiritual practice.
[SPEAKER_01]: What does this spiritual practice give you?
[SPEAKER_01]: It gives you power over your own body mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: What is powerlessness and what is power?
[SPEAKER_01]: You make up a resolution, I have understood this and this is how I'm going to live my life.
[SPEAKER_01]: These are the thoughts I'm going to speak.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the words I'm going to utter and these are the actions I'm going to perform.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I'm not able to do any of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Other thoughts crowd by mind, I react with sharply with whatever comes to my tongue.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I can't follow through on what I have decided to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's because after all it's your mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's your body.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's your tongue.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why is it not what you have decided, but the intellect has decided is not being executed lack of power, the unable to control.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you through the mind, through the speech, through the body, energy is flowing continuously.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you are not able to yoke it, it's because we have lost the power to do so.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, tap as your spiritual practice.
[SPEAKER_01]: fasting, early morning meditation, a simple life, all of these give us the power to bring the body mind back under control.
[SPEAKER_01]: Cut to open the shop, those have been attending the class, you remember the horses and the chariot and the chariot.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the chariot is going to the destination.
[SPEAKER_01]: The passenger is the sentient being.
[SPEAKER_01]: The body mind complex is going to take you to God-realization.
[SPEAKER_01]: The body mind complex is like a chariot.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're the five horses are there, they're the five senses.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the road they run on are the sense objects.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the bridal, with which the horses are controlled, is the mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the chariot here, the driver, is the intellect.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, the cuto open issue, the Yamato old Nachikata, the horses have to be trained.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have to be disciplined, obedient.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because which means, senses are like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like the horses have some intelligence and will of their own being living creatures and powerful living creatures.
[SPEAKER_01]: Similarly, our senses are not mechanical.
[SPEAKER_01]: They have certain tendencies and certain autonomous intelligence.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they have to be bought under controlled discipline.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is the Paseyam.
[SPEAKER_01]: In the bridal has to be, the mind has to be attentive.
[SPEAKER_01]: The bridal has to be tight and can control the horses.
[SPEAKER_01]: What does it mean bridal has to be tight?
[SPEAKER_01]: The mind has to be samanaskar, mindful.
[SPEAKER_01]: Important thing about the mind is to be very attentive, very focused moment to moment on what we are doing.
[SPEAKER_01]: last one is the intellect, the deepest one.
[SPEAKER_01]: The intellect has to be big yarn a one, has to be well informed about spiritual life.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now the intellect may be well informed, but the mind is not attentive.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we do something, say something and later regret it, or the intellect is well informed, but the senses are disobedient.
[SPEAKER_01]: Every time I want to do something, end up the day I realize what I ate, I should have followed this diet, I've got diabetes, and I'm not shooting the sweets, and end up the day I realized I've eaten more than my coat of sweets.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why?
[SPEAKER_01]: I have made up my mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why can't I do it?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's because the tongue has its own autonomous intelligence.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's dragging me out that way.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that has to be bought under control.
[SPEAKER_00]: austerity that is necessary by that alone one can comprehend.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then he asked and this was not direct answer to the question.
[SPEAKER_01]: Question was caste distinctions and social reforms, the condition of women and so on.
[SPEAKER_01]: You asked about caste distinctions.
[SPEAKER_01]: There is only one way to remove them and that is by the love of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Lovers of God have no caste.
[SPEAKER_01]: Through this divine love, the untouchable becomes pure, the pariah no longer remains a pariah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Chaitanya embraced all, including the pariahs.
[SPEAKER_01]: The members of the Brahma Sammaj Singh, the name of Hari, that is very good.
[SPEAKER_01]: Through earnest prayer one receives the grace of God and realizes him.
[SPEAKER_01]: God can be realized by means of all paths.
[SPEAKER_01]: The same God is invoked by different names.
[SPEAKER_01]: Surindra's brother, sir, what do you think of Theosafi, master, so all these things in new, Theosafi is something that was very fashionable among the educated middle class and Bengal and in pre-independence India at that time, but one would not expect a simple village priest like Sri Ram Krishna to know about that, orthodox Hinduism sure, but Theosafi, Sri Ram Krishna knew that,
[SPEAKER_01]: Master.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have heard that man can acquire superhuman powers through it and perform miracles.
[SPEAKER_01]: I saw a man who had bought a ghost under control.
[SPEAKER_01]: The ghost used to procure various things for his master.
[SPEAKER_01]: What shall I do with superhuman powers?
[SPEAKER_01]: Can one realize God through them?
[SPEAKER_01]: If God is
[SPEAKER_01]: temptations or attractions, a spiritual life, all throughout from history till today, is superhuman powers, a power to read other people's thoughts, power to control people, power to make your wishes come true, things like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Make predictions, cure diseases.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it possible to some extent definitely it's possible?
[SPEAKER_01]: There are, there is so much evidence of this.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's not super natural, not even miracles actually.
[SPEAKER_01]: It seems supernatural miracles because we don't know enough.
[SPEAKER_01]: But according to yoga, according to these practices, they are latent capacities in our mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they can be manifested.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, what happens is when you undertake spiritual practice, lead a pure life by devotion to God, by meditation, especially yogic meditation, or even an inquiry.
[SPEAKER_01]: At certain levels of development of the Indian spiritual life, these powers manifest.
[SPEAKER_01]: Those who are yogis, especially Patanjali yogis, they deliberately, these powers can almost inevitably, they will come.
[SPEAKER_01]: In other parts, they may come or may not come.
[SPEAKER_01]: But often, they do come.
[SPEAKER_01]: You will see your desires are being fulfilled certainly in all
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, these are not spiritual spiritual masters throughout the ages have warned against these.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why is it so attractive?
[SPEAKER_01]: See, anyway, we can fulfill our worldly desires is attractive.
[SPEAKER_01]: And these supernatural ways are much more powerful, so they are much more attractive.
[SPEAKER_01]: They exert a great attraction on spiritualcy, because in India, this has always been so.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have met such people who are doing a lot of spiritual practice, but then you realize they are not doing it for God.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it works sometimes in the end, it doesn't lead to any good, in the end doesn't lead to any good.
[SPEAKER_01]: Certainly, first of all, the great harm is one gets distracted from spiritual life.
[SPEAKER_01]: These powers, even if they come, God is not going to be impressed by your powers.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, only people who will be impressed by your powers are people of the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, then it makes us worldly, even more worldly, more than ordinary things in the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, occult powers, they are called cities in yoga, these cities make us even more worldly.
[SPEAKER_01]: And to recover from them may not be possible in this lifetime.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, it is better to avoid or to not be curious too much about them.
[SPEAKER_01]: They will come, but don't follow it up.
[SPEAKER_01]: And great yogis take us sometimes use it, use these powers, but they use it for the spiritual welfare of others, and not for their own personal gain, ever.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're not like cheap magicians.
[SPEAKER_01]: I knew this monk who was very learned in Vedanta and very austere and with a great renunciation.
[SPEAKER_01]: He used to live on top of a mountain in the Himalayas, where I met him.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, he told me his story that he was young boy in a village in the North of Indian Uttar Pradesh, and from his youth, he had heard of these stories of great yogis with extraordinary supernatural powers, so he wanted to get those.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just like today, kids in America will be fascinated with stories of Superman, Spider-Man, just like that, so that's equivalent in India, yogis with superpowers.
[SPEAKER_01]: So when he grew up a little bit, he was a teenager.
[SPEAKER_01]: He ran off from home to find a master in Banaras, the Holy City.
[SPEAKER_01]: He had heard of a great Tantric, most well known Tantric, who was living there at that time.
[SPEAKER_01]: And
[SPEAKER_01]: He went to that person's house, so he told me, narrated the story.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, Benares does narrow lanes are there.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's narrow lane, only one early winter morning.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's pretty cold in Benares in winter.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he saw long queue entering somebody's courtyard.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he stood in the queue and slowly the line inched forward as they entered the courtyard, this up, and he also saw an armchair,
[SPEAKER_01]: And like a bundle of clothes on it, there's some old man looked very sick and lying quietly with his eyes closed and bundled up against the cold.
[SPEAKER_01]: So as they came closer and closer, this boy, he noticed that everybody's bound barring down to that old man and who appeared to be oblivious with eyes closed as if he was snoozing and they were giving some money.
[SPEAKER_01]: a few rupees and then making a prayer and and walking.
[SPEAKER_01]: So their belief was, it's such a great time to leave.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a great power that if you offer him a gift and you voice your desire, mumble your desire out to him, it'll be fulfilled.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that was their belief.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they're doing that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the man was paying no attention at all.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just, it seemed to be sleeping.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean the monk told me that as I came in front of him, just as I came in front of him, suddenly his eyes flared open and he looked straight at me and he said, you can do this if you want, but this will be the result, do you want it?
[SPEAKER_01]: In Hindi he said, to Chaito Karpaya, but this is Halkatira, Chaita.
[SPEAKER_01]: Look at me as if to say, look at me, this is my condition.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I asked him, what did you do?
[SPEAKER_01]: He said, he said, I was too shy.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was so taken up back and too shy to say anything.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was tongue-tied.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just stared at him.
[SPEAKER_01]: And of course, everybody else was mystified.
[SPEAKER_01]: What was going on?
[SPEAKER_01]: They didn't know why he had come.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the tantric said, to Ja Vedantpur, go and study Vedanta.
[SPEAKER_01]: and then appear to lose all interest and close it, his eyes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Either that country can still, or somebody else made arrangements for this boy to study Vedanta in a school there in Manaras.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that was the story.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's how he became a Vedantic monk.
[SPEAKER_01]: So asked him, did you ever learn Tantra?
[SPEAKER_01]: He said, I never learned it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I read about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, it's my curiosity by reading books about it later on.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's that.
[SPEAKER_01]: can one realize God through them.
[SPEAKER_01]: So at one time Sri Ramakrishna told Narayan Ranath, his chief disciple, look, by my practice of spiritual practices for so many years, I have got the Siddhaith, I've got all those powers.
[SPEAKER_01]: He told me, clearly told Narayan Ranath.
[SPEAKER_01]: But what good is it for me?
[SPEAKER_01]: I say, I can't even keep my cloth about my waist.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I'm so unworldly.
[SPEAKER_01]: What will I do with these powers?
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll give them to you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you want them?
[SPEAKER_01]: Imagine the temptation.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's something, if you say, yes, you'll get it.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is your Guru who loves you very much, and he means every word of it, or the powers of seeing into people's minds of levitating and so on and so forth.
[SPEAKER_01]: So many powers.
[SPEAKER_01]: So do you want them?
[SPEAKER_01]: I can give them to you now.
[SPEAKER_01]: Narendra and I have to straightforward.
[SPEAKER_01]: You see, will they help me to realize God?
[SPEAKER_01]: See, the utter focus.
[SPEAKER_01]: and Sri Ramakrishna said, no, they won't, but you know, after you become enlightened, they'll help you in your work, you know, to spread religion, you know.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Sri, not in the United States, in that case, I don't want them now.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I don't want them.
[SPEAKER_01]: They won't help me to realize God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let me realize God and they'll be received.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you see, that was the test actually.
[SPEAKER_01]: Did he get those powers?
[SPEAKER_01]: He did.
[SPEAKER_01]: Even there are a number of such instances here in America.
[SPEAKER_01]: This American lady who came to him in Thousand Island Park.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says that at one point we we can't look at her and said almost shyly that if you permit me, I shall read your mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to see something.
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't want to intrude.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he could see so deep with things about ourselves, which we ourselves don't know, maybe our deepest tendencies, maybe our experiences in the past and so on.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or what's going to happen to us in this life?
[SPEAKER_01]: That's also the good thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a story of Swami Brahman under the monk who experienced this wrote it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Swami Brahman under was the president of the order at that time, and this type of Sri Ramakrishna.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm very kind of said, here is a dynamo of spirituality.
[SPEAKER_01]: Rajah has more spirituality than I have, Rajah was the name for Swami Brahmaran.
[SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, so once Swami Brahmaran, the president of the order, he was lying down and he had told his monk who was an attended to massage his feet and he was doing that.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was a service that disciples do for their gurus in India.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he was doing that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And at one point,
[SPEAKER_01]: He felt that kind of sleep had overcome him.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he had lost, connect, connect with the present.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he was speaking.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was speaking, strangely, as if to a friend.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he was saying, many, many strange things.
[SPEAKER_01]: He himself.
[SPEAKER_01]: But what he was saying, he didn't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was speaking about his past, his future.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he noticed that Swami Brahman and the was sitting up straight and he was you're not no longer lying down.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was very very attentive and closely listening to what he was saying that was this monk was saying.
[SPEAKER_01]: The moment he noticed this and he came to some awareness of his surroundings.
[SPEAKER_01]: Swami Brahman and the scene to lose interest and laid down again.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he was convinced this monk that so I'm Ramananda had actually done that to him and to find out more about his time on earth.
[SPEAKER_01]: His possible spiritual progress, what he would do in this life and so on.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they had these powers and we have met a number of monks, I myself have seen who had these extraordinary powers.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have seen met monks who had visions of various kinds of visions.
[SPEAKER_01]: who literally predicted things, decades in the future, which I have seen come through in my own life.
[SPEAKER_01]: And literally, you know, in front of me, read of things from my own mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: There is no other way, it could have done that.
[SPEAKER_01]: How would they know such things?
[SPEAKER_01]: So there are, it is undoubted such things are there.
[SPEAKER_01]: they happen.
[SPEAKER_01]: You cannot explain it except as occult powers and sit-dies.
[SPEAKER_01]: So those things exist.
[SPEAKER_01]: But chasing them, not good for god realization.
[SPEAKER_01]: Deeply harmful.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a beautiful story of the Buddha.
[SPEAKER_01]: In the monks went out for begging and they came back, they found a group of monks formed and they were excitedly discussing something.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he asked what's going on here.
[SPEAKER_01]: They said
[SPEAKER_01]: Look, he, this monk, the other monk, told him that, show the Buddha, show what you did.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so he threw his begging bowl in the air and it floated in the air, levitate it, floated there.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Buddha said, bring the bowl to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: God, the bowl and the Buddha smashed it, smashing the begging bowl means being expelled from the monastic order and he expelled him from the monastic order.
[SPEAKER_00]: As a lesson that never to indulge in these things,
[SPEAKER_01]: There was a medieval monastery in Europe, I think, in Germany or something, a Catholic monk, very touching story of this fire in a monastery.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was the simplest of them all, very devout.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he was prone to ecstases, thinking about Jesus or the mother Mary, and they would never allow him to serve food in their communal kitchen, so all the monks would come and eat, but you wouldn't want him to serve anything, because many were the time when with the soup bowl he floated up to the ceiling and all the brothers had to sit and wait for his ecstasy to end, so that the monk with the bowl of soup would come down again from the ceiling.
[SPEAKER_01]: He would float around in the high, you know, that's sealing of the Mahadhi Manastri.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a description of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sridamakrishna himself, that the well-known picture of Sridamakrishna sitting in meditation.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know how that was taken.
[SPEAKER_01]: There was a proposal to take a photograph of Sridamakrishna.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was unwilling.
[SPEAKER_01]: But, Narendra Nath, where they can and the heat, it's important to take a photograph of.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so the photographer came in those days, it's not so easy like sticking a selfie, you know?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a lot of paraphernalia.
[SPEAKER_01]: There would be camera would be set up on a tripod, and the photographer would go behind it and cover the whole thing with cloth, with black cloth, and focus on the subject, subject head to, it almost like posing for a portrait.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now Sri Ramakrishna, Narayana told the photographer that I will talk about spiritual matters with Thakur with Sri Ramakrishna.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we will go into next issue and that time we can take the photographer, otherwise he is not willing.
[SPEAKER_01]: So sitting on the stales of the temple.
[SPEAKER_01]: we can't decide something to him and Sri Ramakrishna went into ecstasy and in deep meditation it's a quick take the photo now and the photographal was going to take the photo he saw Sri Ramakrishna's face was tilted to one side.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he came out from behind the camera when forward and put his hand under Sri Ramakrishna's chin to lift his face a little bit.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was of course Ramakrishna completely oblivious of the world and to his stunned
[SPEAKER_01]: whole of strong Krishna's body, entirety floated up in the air, just many touched like this, the whole body went up into the air.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's so stunned.
[SPEAKER_01]: He stepped back and ran there and answered, what are you doing?
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't touch him.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just take the photograph.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that was the story.
[SPEAKER_01]: Can one realize God through them?
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, you cannot.
[SPEAKER_01]: If God is not realized, then everything becomes false, including spiritual.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the tragedy is with this siddha, with this occult powers, one gets them after spiritual practice.
[SPEAKER_01]: And all of that practice now becomes used in useless things, these tricks, magic tricks.
[SPEAKER_01]: I knew a person who had these powers and asked him, he's a spiritual secret.
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, what does your guru say about it?
[SPEAKER_01]: And he said, my guru said it's all nonsense.
[SPEAKER_01]: Stop doing these things.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, let me just see the comments here.
[SPEAKER_01]: Priya says, what does this chant mean?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, this is from the Bhagavatam.
[SPEAKER_01]: The chant at the beginning of the class.
[SPEAKER_01]: Tabakata amitam taptaji vita, see we are nectar like words and we are like nectar for those who are suffering in life, all kinds of suffering in life, which has been sung by poets and saints through the ages.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is from the Bhagavatam, Shavanam Angalam, it's auspicious to hear it.
[SPEAKER_01]: If it's philosophy, Vedant, you have to, if you sit and understand thing, but the doings, the leela and the teachings of the Lord in Krishna and the Bhagavan, or Sri Ram Krishna here, just sit quietly and listen, that's auspicious.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a powerful spiritual practice.
[SPEAKER_01]: Shravanamangala, Trey Madata, Kamvigrananti, Burylaajana.
[SPEAKER_01]: This, your widespread glories, it's auspicious to listen to it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Buri Rajana, those, Buri Rajana, it really means those who give a lot, those charitable folk who are full of compassion for people and who, you know, give of their money, time, energy for the welfare of everybody to get a lot of good karma, because of this good karma they are able to get a chance to listen to this.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a matter of great, great merit, it truly is.
[SPEAKER_01]: two days that we are getting to this book and a chance to sit quietly and listen.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then Shilpa says, you said at once, whatever you do, offer it to God and the universe is self-mancipation.
[SPEAKER_01]: So why is everything is God not as not the same as God only is?
[SPEAKER_01]: It is the same, but notice it's a question of spiritual practice when we say God, the universe and people.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, our emphasis is on the every thing, so it's important to know that everything is God.
[SPEAKER_01]: God only is a higher state, where everything has faded away.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, Ram Krishna says everything is illusory, God is the only reality.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is, God only is, God is the only reality, everything has appears.
[SPEAKER_01]: But when we are not yet at the stage of everything is a illusion God only is when people are real to us, relationships are real to us, money and health problems and property and all it's there, problems and family problems in the community, it's there.
[SPEAKER_01]: In that case, everything
[SPEAKER_01]: Whatever is in the microcosm, that is in the microcosm.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, Patrick said.
[SPEAKER_01]: So Amigya said that Brahman is not a very blissful state, but bliss itself, same for existence.
[SPEAKER_01]: Would you apply to awareness?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, you would apply to awareness.
[SPEAKER_01]: Brahman is not something which exists, it's existence itself.
[SPEAKER_01]: Brahman is not something which knows things.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is knowledge itself or awareness itself.
[SPEAKER_01]: Brahman is not something which is very happy.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is joy itself or bliss itself.
[SPEAKER_01]: Shree says, the gurus which it dies are able to attract followers in robes, but isn't the faith of the devotee still pure?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, but you know, if it depends on the Guru performing miracles, at least at that level it's not a very pure kind of devotion.
[SPEAKER_01]: If one moves ahead of that, miracle is not important.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love the Guru for the divine presence in the Guru.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love the Guru for the sake of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: then it's all right.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's being attracted to somebody for superhuman powers.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a sort of childish, but then one goes beyond that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have accepted objects.
[SPEAKER_01]: Ashes, it's said from friends because I know their faith is pure despite the mistrust of the guru.
[SPEAKER_01]: So is their path then still not true?
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, that's what you mean.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, that's true.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's true.
[SPEAKER_01]: I myself met a monk in the Himalayas.
[SPEAKER_01]: Still remember old men.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was married, children, traditional kind of monk, in where he, after retiring from his job, handing over his farmer, handing over his farm to his son, and then he renounced everything and set off.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he's a disciple of a well-known monk there in the Himalayas of a guru.
[SPEAKER_01]: But the guru is a bit of a glamorous seeker.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I mean, there are question marks about him.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I asked another monk,
[SPEAKER_01]: Look, the disciple is so simple and pure and he has great devotion to Guru, the Guru I have left you, some doubts about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: The monk replied beautifully.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Guru will go to his destiny and the disciple will go to his destiny.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, the human Guru also has spiritual secret and
[SPEAKER_01]: So the pure devotion of the disciple to the Guru is fine.
[SPEAKER_01]: If a Guru makes a mess, it doesn't matter.
[SPEAKER_01]: The disciple is protected by God, because your devotion to the Guru is actually you are seeing the ideal in the Guru and your devoted to the Guru because of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: There is a very
[SPEAKER_01]: once Mahapurushmar Swami Shivananda was the president of the Ramakrishna Math in Beludmat, and there was a Brahmacharya young monk attending to him, devotees were coming and meeting him bowing down.
[SPEAKER_01]: One gentleman came and started talking to Swami Shivananda, seemed like a very ordinary person elderly.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Swami Shivananda told the Brahmacharya, the young monk, go and do pronouns to him.
[SPEAKER_01]: That was very strange because he needed a monk even a young monk never does a pronoun to a solution to a householder.
[SPEAKER_01]: But anyway, he obeyed immediately and after that gentleman who became very embarrassed at this and he left.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I mean, she won and they said, do you know why I asked you to do this strange thing?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because in the past life, that man was your guru.
[SPEAKER_01]: So in this life is a very ordinary person has got some interest in spiritual life and has come but still bending his wave.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the disciple has become a monk and he is a disciple of Swamishivaananga.
[SPEAKER_01]: So who knows?
[SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, took that as good advice.
[SPEAKER_01]: When I asked this question, the other monk told me, look, doesn't matter.
[SPEAKER_01]: The disciples' main asset is that the pure devotion he has for the group.
[SPEAKER_01]: What the guru does is it's guru will get his results of his karma.
[SPEAKER_01]: Taitrik says, there's a great story in the Gospel about a man trying to impress another, we're walking across water.
[SPEAKER_01]: Otherwise, I can pay the board when tense since for that.
[SPEAKER_01]: As this helped you to realize God, that's true.
[SPEAKER_01]: The two brothers, one was a householder, one became a harmit and a city, I'm in talk to two hostilities in the forest.
[SPEAKER_01]: After many years, that brother who went up to the forest came back as a monk and told this other brother, you brother, you stayed back in the world and you've got this poetry house, you have a family, you are struggling in the world, a little bit of money, but look at me, I'm so beautiful.
[SPEAKER_01]: other brother very impressed and in all of this monk brother who had returned.
[SPEAKER_01]: What have you achieved then?
[SPEAKER_01]: Look, and he walked across the water.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then the younger brother would stayed back in the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: He said, that note out is impressive, but you know, I can give 10 cents or like one rupee to the
[SPEAKER_01]: Is that what you did for 20 years of your life?
[SPEAKER_01]: You develop the power to walk across water.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right then, let us conclude.