[SPEAKER_01]: So in this class, we read the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, which is a translation English translation of the Sri Sri Ramakrishna Katham Rita, the original being in Bengali, being the conversations of Sri Ramakrishna.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, recorded and by, uh, he'll disciple Mahendra not Gupta who comes in this book as M. So whenever you find M, it means the author of this book actually.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, we are on page 161 in my book.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is December 1882.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's no particular date, but it's December 1882, 161.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was afternoon.
[SPEAKER_01]: The master was sitting in his room at Dr. Neshwar with M. And one or two other devotees, several Marwadi devotees arrived and saluted the master.
[SPEAKER_01]: They requested Sri Ramakrishna to give them spiritual instruction.
[SPEAKER_01]: master to the Marwari devotees.
[SPEAKER_01]: You see the feeling of eye and mind is the result of ignorance.
[SPEAKER_01]: But to say, oh God, thou art the doer, all these belong to thee is the sign of knowledge.
[SPEAKER_01]: How can you say such a thing as mine?
[SPEAKER_01]: The superintendent of the garden says, this is my garden.
[SPEAKER_01]: But if he's dismissed because of some misconduct, then he does not have the courage to take a wee even such a worthless thing as his mango would box.
[SPEAKER_01]: Anger and lust cannot be destroyed, turn them toward God.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you must feel desire and temptation, then desire to realize God, feel tempted by him.
[SPEAKER_01]: Discriminate and turn the passions away from worldly objects.
[SPEAKER_01]: the mouth strikes it with his iron-tipped gold.
[SPEAKER_01]: You are merchants.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know how to improve your business gradually.
[SPEAKER_01]: Some of you start with a castor oil factory.
[SPEAKER_01]: After making some money at that, you open a cloth shop.
[SPEAKER_01]: In the same way, one makes progress towards God.
[SPEAKER_01]: It may be that you go into solitude, now and then, and devote more time to prayer.
[SPEAKER_01]: But you must remember that nothing can be achieved except in its proper time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Some persons must pass through many experiences and perform many worldly duties before they can turn their attention to God.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they have to wait a long time.
[SPEAKER_01]: If an abscess is lanced before its soft, the result is not good.
[SPEAKER_01]: The surgeon makes the opening when it is soft and has come to a head.
[SPEAKER_01]: Once a child said to its mother, mother, I'm going to sleep now.
[SPEAKER_01]: Please wake me up when I feel the call of nature.
[SPEAKER_01]: My child said the mother, when it is time for that, you will wake up yourself.
[SPEAKER_01]: I shouldn't have to wake you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Imarwari devotees generally brought offerings of fruit, candy and other sweets for the master.
[SPEAKER_01]: Mr. Ramakrishna could hardly eat them.
[SPEAKER_01]: He would say,
[SPEAKER_01]: They earned their money by falsehood.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't eat their offerings.
[SPEAKER_01]: He said to the marvaries, you see, one can't strictly adhere to truth in business.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are ups and downs in business.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nanak once said, I was about to eat the food of unholy people when I found it stained with blood.
[SPEAKER_01]: A man should offer only pure things to holy men.
[SPEAKER_01]: He shouldn't give them food earned by dishonest means.
[SPEAKER_01]: God is realized by following the path of truth.
[SPEAKER_01]: One should always chant his name.
[SPEAKER_01]: Even while one is performing once duties, the mind should be left with God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Suppose I have a carbuncle on my back.
[SPEAKER_01]: I perform my duties, but the mind is drawn to the carbuncle.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is good to repeat the name of Rama.
[SPEAKER_01]: They gain a spirit, he pervades all beings.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's very near us.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's both within and without.
[SPEAKER_01]: A lot to be going on with.
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll unpack this today.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the Master is sitting in his room at Dr. Neshwar.
[SPEAKER_01]: M is there a couple of other devotees.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Marvari devotees arrive and saluted the Master.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now ask for spiritual instruction.
[SPEAKER_01]: So those we don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Marvari are
[SPEAKER_01]: generally a very rich and well-to-do community and very devout devoted so we'll see and there was to come in big groups to Sri Ramakrishna when he was there induction issue there are many of them we're very devoted to him in fact there's the story of Lakshmi Narayan Marvari that's you know he wanted to give a lot of money to Sri Ramakrishna Sri Ramakrishna refused to take that money and then he said if you want you can give it to
[SPEAKER_01]: So Lakshmi Narayan went to Saratath Devi and said, you can take this money and it'll be useful for taking care of Sri Ramakrishna.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like an endowment.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then Sri Tharatath Devi said that, no, if I take money, it'll be used for his purposes.
[SPEAKER_01]: If he doesn't want to take money, I cannot take money, also.
[SPEAKER_01]: But Lakshmi Narayan Maravadi was a very devout person and a deeply spiritual person, also.
[SPEAKER_01]: So.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, some of many of them came to Sri Ramakrishna, they asked for spiritual instruction, and then he starts teaching.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, first of all, he says, the feeling of I and my is that mine is the result of ignorance, but to say, oh God, Dawat, the doer, all these belong to be the sign of knowledge.
[SPEAKER_01]: How can you say such a thing as mine?
[SPEAKER_01]: Superintendent of the Gardens, you have to imagine this is a garden and there's the superintendent who shows people around, that this is our garden or my garden, but if the owner of garden fires him,
[SPEAKER_01]: when he won't even have time to take his personal positions, he'll be thrown out immediately.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not so different nowadays, in a big corporate companies and now it seems that when you get fired, then your security will come and escort you out of the building or something like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, good example then.
[SPEAKER_01]: So even when you say, this is all ours, this is our company, look at the glitz, he corporate headquarters.
[SPEAKER_01]: When the moment the person gets fired, even the personal belongings, when we have to pack into a carton and get out of the building very fast.
[SPEAKER_01]: Similarly, in this word, we may say, these are our own, my achievements, my degrees, my job, my relatives, my husband, my children, grandchildren, and so on.
[SPEAKER_01]: My avords and all of that disappears, all of that just disappears.
[SPEAKER_01]: most of it in our lifetime and all of it when we try.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've seen this fame, nowadays it's even faster.
[SPEAKER_01]: The world of internet, it become famous for five minutes and it's gone again.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I saw in Hollywood, near the Ashram, there were so many pointed out.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, this mention had belonged to this film actor.
[SPEAKER_01]: She was very well known in the 60s.
[SPEAKER_01]: But obviously, no one introduced generation, even recognizes her name.
[SPEAKER_01]: So just disciplines, fame disappears, wealth disappears, and finally,
[SPEAKER_01]: older people, parents, grandparents, they grow old and they die, then children, they grow up and go away.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, and other people, colleagues, relatives, they float in and out of your life, especially in these days.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, earlier they were, people were sort of rooted to a place, a village or a community they stayed in.
[SPEAKER_01]: with the members of the community, relatives, maybe the same village or the same city, but now now we are all over the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's no rootedness in place or with people also.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's good in my view, in one way.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a psychological cost to it, but there's a spiritual gain there.
[SPEAKER_01]: You see the impermanence and the transience of life.
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember reading an essay in Time magazine by Netfamous travel writer, Picoire.
[SPEAKER_01]: So Picoire, he writes, where is home?
[SPEAKER_01]: If you look at me, I'm Indian, but I've never lived a single day in India.
[SPEAKER_01]: I grew up and studied in England, but I was always an outsider.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I now live and work in Japan.
[SPEAKER_01]: I live and work in Japan, where I know, I'll never ever be accepted in that society and because I'm obviously completely an outsider.
[SPEAKER_01]: So where is home for me?
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's a very beautiful essay and large numbers of people in today's world are in the same predicament.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would say it's a predicament, but it's also an advantage.
[SPEAKER_01]: It shows you, starkly, the evanescence, the transience of life.
[SPEAKER_01]: How can you say a thing is mine?
[SPEAKER_01]: Even our bodies, I remember one sadhu in Uttarakhand in Himalayas, which if this body, we say it is our body.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, how vehemently it was, of course the teaching was in Hindi.
[SPEAKER_01]: So body, it's my body, is it really our body?
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you have the papers for the body?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like you have a car, you pull lower by the cops and ask you, show the papers, if they ask you, no, papers for the body.
[SPEAKER_01]: No.
[SPEAKER_01]: Did you make this body?
[SPEAKER_01]: No.
[SPEAKER_01]: Even your parents didn't.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nature did most of the work.
[SPEAKER_01]: Almost 99% of the work was done by the forces of nature.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you another way of owning is if you own the materials out of which the body is made?
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you own the materials out of which the body is made?
[SPEAKER_01]: The chemicals and all elements.
[SPEAKER_01]: Of course not.
[SPEAKER_01]: Those were made by God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Does the body one way of ownership is if it obeys you?
[SPEAKER_01]: Does the body obey you?
[SPEAKER_01]: Not really, large numbers of functions in this body are involuntary and thank God they are.
[SPEAKER_01]: They are so complicated and sophisticated in this body down to the molecular level.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, our organs and tissues, we would have no idea what to do if you were similar.
[SPEAKER_01]: If nature says, okay, it thinks you think you're so great, take the wheel, you will run this body.
[SPEAKER_01]: We wouldn't.
[SPEAKER_01]: We'd end up in hospital within minutes.
[SPEAKER_01]: even the things which we consider voluntary, as simple as raising this hand.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I have control over the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: My body, I can raise this hand.
[SPEAKER_01]: But imagine how much has to work right for you to execute that, just this intention.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to raise my hand.
[SPEAKER_01]: When the nervous system and the tissues and muscles all have to work in perfect unison for me to just raise this hand.
[SPEAKER_01]: And all of that is involuntary.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't have any control over those.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you don't believe me, just have to go to a rehabilitation center and you see patients recovering after a stroke, a paralytic stroke.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you see how much of a struggle it is just to raise a hand.
[SPEAKER_01]: So even the body, we haven't made it.
[SPEAKER_01]: We don't own the materials out of which it is made.
[SPEAKER_01]: We, it doesn't obey us.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are vast processes in this body which keeps it as a living body, which we do not have control over.
[SPEAKER_01]: How is it yours?
[SPEAKER_01]: the world outside.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you don't have any ownership, you know, it's just by convention that the society allocates ownership.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is your house only for the time being.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's very interesting to be a monk, you know, and when you
[SPEAKER_01]: So become a monk and then you're supposed to be able to visit your place of your origin, your family, your home after 12 years.
[SPEAKER_01]: So go away, become a monk, disappear for 12 years, then you can come back once and take a look.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's supposed to be helpful for your detachment from the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's very interesting to see the house where you grew up and played as a kid.
[SPEAKER_01]: Other children are playing there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Other families are living there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Other stories are unfolding there.
[SPEAKER_01]: And what happened there 20, 30, 40 years ago now just seems like a story.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's your own story, but it seems like a story, it just seems like some kind of half-remembered fable.
[SPEAKER_01]: See the just the events in some life.
[SPEAKER_01]: We've floating nature of life.
[SPEAKER_01]: So how is it yards?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's actually much more reasonable to say that it belongs to God or some
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not at all logical to say, this is mine, my body, my people, my family, no, there is a higher power behind all of this and he says, you are the doer and all of these belong to thee.
[SPEAKER_01]: So in Hinduism and Buddhism,
[SPEAKER_01]: religions, karma is very big.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a law of karma is basically law of causation, cause and effect.
[SPEAKER_01]: Actions have their consequences, causes have effects.
[SPEAKER_01]: So what we do produces other results.
[SPEAKER_01]: So when I have all of these things in my life, I must have done good things in my past life and the result of that good karma is I have a nice family, I am prosperous, I am healthy, people are nice to me in general.
[SPEAKER_01]: All of this is supposed to be the product of my past good karma.
[SPEAKER_01]: If it's not so, if it's the other way round, then it's past bad karma.
[SPEAKER_01]: However, this is not spirituality.
[SPEAKER_01]: So Ramakrishna subverts it.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says, that's not true.
[SPEAKER_01]: Ultimately, it's not that you do the karma and it all belongs to you.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can go and back, no.
[SPEAKER_01]: A greater deeper truth is, you are not the viewer.
[SPEAKER_01]: God alone is the viewer.
[SPEAKER_01]: And since you are not the viewer, the results of action also do not belong to you.
[SPEAKER_01]: They belong to God.
[SPEAKER_01]: So this is a way of offering it up to the Divine.
[SPEAKER_01]: not I, not mine, an action will go on.
[SPEAKER_01]: See, the interesting thing is you don't have to step out of life.
[SPEAKER_01]: Most people cannot and need not.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can be in the midst of life in family, in jobs, in wherever you are, and yet be completely spiritual.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the great teaching of the Bhagavad Gita, for example.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Sri Ramakrishna teaches this very specifically.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's very specific to the audience.
[SPEAKER_01]: They are interested in spiritual life, this group of marvaries.
[SPEAKER_01]: And yet they are business people, and often what they do might not be above board ethically.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I remember once I met this professor of ethics at a business school here in America, and he said, you know, Swamiji, one thing I'll tell you, to be strictly ethically,
[SPEAKER_01]: then most of the businesses that we have today will fail.
[SPEAKER_01]: They won't work.
[SPEAKER_01]: However, to be unethical, that also means the businesses will fail.
[SPEAKER_01]: So to be something like NRON, for example, a classic case in corporate, lack of corporate ethics.
[SPEAKER_01]: Does that kind of unfettered greed, not constrained by ethics?
[SPEAKER_01]: Does that lead to success?
[SPEAKER_01]: No, it doesn't.
[SPEAKER_01]: It leads to disaster.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it leads to disaster for the company, for a lot of people get hurt.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I said, then what do you teach?
[SPEAKER_01]: If you can't be completely ethical, the business won't run.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you can't be unethical, of course, then the business will just lead to disaster and chaos and collapse, then what do you teach?
[SPEAKER_01]: So this is, I teach this optimal level.
[SPEAKER_01]: To do the best that you can, keep the ideals in view, the integrity, transparency, and the good of everybody as far as you can, hold on to those.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because those sustain an organization, they sustain a family, they sustain a person, the values of integrity.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that was his view.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's the same problem with these businessmen also.
[SPEAKER_01]: They are devout people.
[SPEAKER_01]: Luxembourg and Marmar was in fact a very spiritual person.
[SPEAKER_01]: However, because of the circumstances, they find themselves in.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe they have to cheat or lie or tell, you know, do something that's not entirely ethical in business.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's what Sri Ramakrishna noted.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now he's teaching to them are in that way.
[SPEAKER_01]: So first of all, he gives the essential teaching.
[SPEAKER_01]: be detached in this world.
[SPEAKER_01]: You are the Ottoman.
[SPEAKER_01]: You are the ever pure witness.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's fine.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this world, this body, even this mind, they all belong to a higher power and you keep continuously keep on surrendering this to that higher power to God.
[SPEAKER_01]: This way when you live, you will have a peaceful life and you progress spiritually.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says that to them.
[SPEAKER_01]: And
[SPEAKER_01]: then next he says anger and lust cannot be destroyed, turn them toward God.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you must feel desire and temptation, then desire to realize God, feel tempted by Him.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, the next question would be fine.
[SPEAKER_01]: I will try to offer everything to God and live
[SPEAKER_01]: because my mind is swept away from time to time, either by anger or irritation or jealousy or desire, temptation, greed.
[SPEAKER_01]: So karma, growth, hell over, desire, then anger and greed, these are powerful forces which sweep me away from God.
[SPEAKER_01]: I cannot think of offering it to God because I really want it for myself.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or I cannot think of offering to God because I'm really angry at it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, what do I do then?
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, let me give you three broad ways of dealing with anger, less than greed.
[SPEAKER_01]: One way is,
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll use the paradigm of Buddhism, Buddhist monastic traditions.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's pretty interesting.
[SPEAKER_01]: Three broad traditions.
[SPEAKER_01]: One is the Therawada tradition, which is very common popular in Burma, Myanmar, and Thailand, and Southeast Asia, and Sri Lanka.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have now.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the other one is the Mahayana traditions, which is householder and there are monks too, but mostly householders, prevalent throughout China and Korea and Japan and so on.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the third one would be the Vajrayana, the so-called Thunderbolt Pass of the Dantric Buddhism of Tibet, again, Moralism and Astric Part.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, now each of them have three ways.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have a way, each of them have a broad mainstream way of dealing with anger, lust, greed.
[SPEAKER_01]: A strictly monastic way, prevalent in the Theravada traditions would have very strict rules of conduct.
[SPEAKER_01]: you stay away from anything that might excite last or inflame you into anger or generate temptation and greed and you lead an austere monastic lifestyle.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's more usually possible for monks than for householders.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's strict codes of conduct.
[SPEAKER_01]: which basically insulate the monk from stimuli which might inflame anger or lust or greed in the mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, stay away.
[SPEAKER_01]: cut yourself off from the world from people then that's one way and thousands and thousands of people have followed, it will benefit and they are following it, but as you can see it's not a way that is conducive for most people, especially people in the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you have a job, if you have to hold property, most of you do.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you have families to raise in the midst of the world, it won't work.
[SPEAKER_01]: It certainly won't work for those Marvari devotees.
[SPEAKER_01]: They have families, they have businesses to run.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it won't work, this is a stay away from money, stay away from every object of temptation.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, they can't, they have to live in the midst of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the second way is the Mahayana way.
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, broadly speaking, these are not strictly divided in this way, but broadly speaking.
[SPEAKER_01]: The second way is if you cannot avoid all of that,
[SPEAKER_01]: Then, you remain in the midst of it, remain in a family, with your husband, wife, children, remain in the business, handling money and clients and, you know, goods and stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: In the midst of all of that, what you do is you replace.
[SPEAKER_01]: The variety, the arising of anger in the mind is to be replaced by a counterbitty of peace.
[SPEAKER_01]: The arising of greed in the mind is to be replaced by a counterbitty of contentment.
[SPEAKER_01]: The arising of touch and in the mind is to be replaced with a counterbitty of self-control.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, every witty as it is a counterbitty.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is actually based on the yoga sutras of Parvandjali also, that Pratipakshabhavana, the mind is brought under control.
[SPEAKER_01]: The secret here is this.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, the deeper secret here is the mind has a certain inner secret to it, that it can hold on to only one thing at a time.
[SPEAKER_01]: It can hold on to one thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe many things, one after another very quickly, but at a time, one thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: and that gives us a way of controlling the mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you can control that one thing for that one second, and then the next second that other thing also.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so then you get the mind under control.
[SPEAKER_01]: So right now there's a variety of depression in my mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: I bring in another witty of a joy or fulfilment in the mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you do that?
[SPEAKER_01]: There may be so many ways.
[SPEAKER_01]: You think of occasions when you are joyous or you listen to some good music or you spend time listening to a budget, sitting in meditation, something which will create a counterwitty, which will overcome the depression with fulfilment, which will overcome the anger with peace, which will overcome the desire with control and so on.
[SPEAKER_01]: So this is the second way.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can remain in the middle of the world and yet keep your mind untouched by the word.
[SPEAKER_01]: The boat can be in the water, but the water need not be in the boat.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or the lotus leaf example is given.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the lotus leaf, water falls on the lotus leaf, but it slides up.
[SPEAKER_01]: Similarly, the world will fall on you, but it's slider.
[SPEAKER_01]: The third way, even this one, he doesn't care.
[SPEAKER_01]: Selam Krishna doesn't care, because this requires practice.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this requires, based on the yoga sutras, it requires the mind of a sadhaka, like a person who has been continuously practicing spiritual discipline for a long time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Otherwise, it requires a sensitivity to the subtle movements of the mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: In most of our cases, anger, greed, lust, dea, rise, and they have gone before we understand also.
[SPEAKER_01]: but this requires a lot of alertness and already a lot of control over the mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: This particular path I mentioned now.
[SPEAKER_01]: Even this one he does not recommend to the devotees.
[SPEAKER_01]: Saddam Krishna.
[SPEAKER_01]: He recommends that third one.
[SPEAKER_01]: The third one.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, using again the paradigm of, uh, the Buddhism, you find it in Tibetan Buddhism.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a tantric Buddhism or it's called Vajrayana, the Thunderbolt path.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why Thunderbolt path?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a very powerful path.
[SPEAKER_01]: What it does is, it says anger, greed, lust.
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, these are powerful forces.
[SPEAKER_01]: and they cannot be controlled so easily.
[SPEAKER_01]: So what you can do is you can actually you encourage them, let them be there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Use the same forces, just change the target, just change the object to which they're directed.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you must be desirous, be desirous of God, channelize your desires towards the Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you want greedy, then be desirous of divine wealth, the wealth of devotion and faith in God, and peace in God.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you want to be angry, if you're going to be angry, then be angry with God, not with the word.
[SPEAKER_01]: Desire God, not the word, be greedy about God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Somebody said about Sri Ramakrishna, that he was a glutton for God.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was a glutton for glutton who is a glutton.
[SPEAKER_01]: The one who eats a lot who loves food, keeps on eating and loves food.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sri Ramakrishna was a glutton, but not for food for God.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was a glutton for God.
[SPEAKER_01]: God in any form, in any way he, wherever he heard that is a devotee, there is somebody who loves God, who worships God, he wanted to meet and he wanted to go to them.
[SPEAKER_01]: He would go himself go to them and it does not matter what tradition that person was in, what religion that person was in, absolutely not.
[SPEAKER_01]: somewhere by Shnavas, somewhere, Vedantans, somewhere Sikhs, somewhere Christians, Muslims.
[SPEAKER_01]: He would be, he would just be delighted to see somebody who loves God.
[SPEAKER_01]: So this is turning your, um, tensions, the same passions, we float to the world, you turn it towards God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now look at what Sri Ramakrishna said to, those devotees.
[SPEAKER_01]: Anger and lust cannot be destroyed, turn them toward God.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you must feel desire and temptation, then desire to realize God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Feel tempted by Him.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then a second method here adds here.
[SPEAKER_01]: Discriminate and turn the passions away from worldly objects.
[SPEAKER_01]: When the elephant is about to devolve or plant in tree, in someone's garden, the Mahoud strikes it with his iron-tipped gold.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if God is called an anguish, the mouth who writes on top of the elephant is to control the elephant.
[SPEAKER_01]: The elephant may put its trunk into somebody's garden to grab some vegetables.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the mouth controls it.
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you control the mind?
[SPEAKER_01]: The mind is like that, trying to grab things in the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: Grab things means think about it, dwell on it, go away from God, or the earth when whatever.
[SPEAKER_01]: Vedanta, bhakti, whatever your path is.
[SPEAKER_01]: The main problem is the mind doesn't stick to the back, the mind flows back to the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then what do you do?
[SPEAKER_01]: He says practice, Viveka, the word discrimination, but it means Viveka.
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you practice Viveka?
[SPEAKER_01]: You reflect on what you want in the world, you know, more money, a better gadget, more relationships, whatever it is.
[SPEAKER_01]: You will notice one thing that all of these things which we want are impermanent,
[SPEAKER_01]: They will come and go, there's no doubt about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: We spend our time, our whole life in gathering things, which will be gone by the time they're gathering the next thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Everything passes away and every one passes away.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the impermanence is a very big problem.
[SPEAKER_01]: Someone might object here if you're a philosopher by topject.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hey, why should impermanence be a problem?
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a very nature of the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we want a cookie, for example, if you want a permanent cookie and eternal cookie or a cookie which lasts only for a few seconds, you want a cookie which lasts for a few seconds.
[SPEAKER_01]: So why is impermanence a problem?
[SPEAKER_01]: Impermanence not in the sense that you want the pleasures to be eternal.
[SPEAKER_01]: It won't be terrible.
[SPEAKER_01]: Everything is impermanent.
[SPEAKER_01]: However, the very impermanence of those pleasures is a problem because in the end,
[SPEAKER_01]: as time is limited for us, as time passes by our time and energy, age, all of it moves and disappears, then if you are not left with anything solid satisfactory, full filling, then it's a miserable situation.
[SPEAKER_01]: So in that sense, impermanence is a problem, on it too.
[SPEAKER_01]: Also, if it were impermanent, but also satisfactory,
[SPEAKER_01]: then it would be something, but everything that we consume, every, you know, like from a cookie to music to, you know, awards and recognition and Facebook likes, what not, all of it is this satisfaction.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not bad, but it's not as much as it's made out to be.
[SPEAKER_01]: They call it the hedonistic trap.
[SPEAKER_01]: The world promises more pleasure, more joy, more fulfillment, then it will actually deliver.
[SPEAKER_01]: So when you actually get the thing you want, there's always a shopper's disappointment.
[SPEAKER_01]: When you go and buy, finally get the thing you want, it's not as satisfactory as it seemed when you were chasing it, trying to get it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was reading Robert Wright, who is an evolutionist.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says this is by design, nature wants it to be so.
[SPEAKER_01]: See, there's a, you know, in the forests, early human beings, there's a fruit on a tree, which is sweet, and we are designed in such a way to want sweet things, because that'll provide us sugar.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sugar is necessary for living.
[SPEAKER_01]: But the sweet thing will give us pleasure.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's why the man goes and eats the sweet fruit.
[SPEAKER_01]: But if it gives enormous amount of pleasure and unending pleasure and complete fulfillment, well, he won't eat it anymore.
[SPEAKER_01]: He'll be completely in the state of bliss.
[SPEAKER_01]: That shouldn't happen.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nature wants you to repeat these things.
[SPEAKER_01]: whether it is food or reproduction or, you know, acquisition, nature wants you to repeat.
[SPEAKER_01]: How will nature get you to repeat these activities?
[SPEAKER_01]: By promising you a lot of pleasure and giving you a little less than what you expected.
[SPEAKER_01]: And possibly next time more.
[SPEAKER_01]: So this is exactly the psychology of, you know, last Vegas, the gambling machines in last Vegas.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the psychology
[SPEAKER_01]: But randomly, once in a while, and so that's enough to hook you to keep you gambling.
[SPEAKER_01]: And some people, it's like a compulsive disease.
[SPEAKER_01]: We think that you're compulsively gamblers, but we are all compulsively gamblers.
[SPEAKER_01]: We are hooked to this gambling machine called Nature.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's how Nature gets its work done through us.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, this is the second big problem with trying to satisfy our desires in the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not satisfactorily.
[SPEAKER_01]: By design, this is how it should be actually.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the third big problem with trying to satisfy a results in the world is that it's habit form, it's addictive.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just like any drug, if you take it, it gives you a high, and then you want more of it, and then other varieties of it, and so on, then one becomes addicted.
[SPEAKER_01]: Similarly, with things in the world, one wants to enjoy it, and then one cannot do without it.
[SPEAKER_01]: One becomes trapped in it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So these are the big problems.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you think in this way that what I'm going to do now, this object that I'm going to purchase, this particular relationship that I'm going to embark upon, it has all these serious defects.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, my mind, do you really want to get into this all over again?
[SPEAKER_01]: If you've seen it once twice, twice, twice, twice, why repeat the same thing again and again?
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, the definition of insanity, it is to repeat the same action and expect a different result.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the definition of insanity.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he slump Krishna says here, discriminate and turn the passions away from worldly objects.
[SPEAKER_01]: So this is how you discriminate.
[SPEAKER_01]: In Vedanta, this is called Viveka, Viveka.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then,
[SPEAKER_01]: he wants to ground them.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sridamakrishna was an exceptionally practical spiritual teacher.
[SPEAKER_01]: He seemed to be unworldly, but he was much more practical.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I would say even then, Swami Vivekananda.
[SPEAKER_01]: Swami Vivekananda was impatient.
[SPEAKER_01]: He wanted everybody to be enlightened.
[SPEAKER_01]: He would grab people of the street and he was very compassionate also.
[SPEAKER_01]: And bring them to Sridamakrishna.
[SPEAKER_01]: He knew that Sridamakrishna could arouse their inherent spirituality.
[SPEAKER_01]: When he would pray to talk to Sridamakrishna, do something for them, make them in love.
[SPEAKER_01]: and Sri Ramakrishna would sarcastically call them narens, parents, friends, so that's how he would pronounce friend, Sri Ramakrishna, parents.
[SPEAKER_01]: So these are Vivekanas, friends, Sri Ramakrishna had a slightly amused, you know, take on this, he knew it will not work.
[SPEAKER_01]: He understood, we were kind of this big heart, but it's not that easy.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so Sri Ramakrishna would always say it takes time.
[SPEAKER_01]: It seems immediate and fast for some people, because it's their time.
[SPEAKER_01]: It might take a long time for others, or maybe life times.
[SPEAKER_01]: One Swami joked, thank God for Nareen for Vivekananda.
[SPEAKER_01]: We are all Nareens parents.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have been dragged by Vivekananda to Sri Ram Krishna is saying, to talk about, do something for that this lot.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Sri Ramakrishna, we can imagine him rolling his eyes.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's where we are.
[SPEAKER_01]: So now Sri Ramakrishna, you see, after all this, he has given the core teaching,
[SPEAKER_01]: God alone is the reality.
[SPEAKER_01]: Surrender everything to God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Leave your life like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you handle the temptations and angers and passion in the mind?
[SPEAKER_01]: And how do you use Vivek?
[SPEAKER_01]: Done!
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a very high order of teaching.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is literally Gyanayoga, basically.
[SPEAKER_01]: But now is grounding them.
[SPEAKER_01]: You are merchants.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know how to improve your business gradually.
[SPEAKER_01]: You start with a castor or a factory and you make some money, you open a cloth shop.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's literally what the Marwari is.
[SPEAKER_01]: And even now, many of them do in India in those days, especially.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what they used to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a very good observant, a very observant, so Ramakrishna.
[SPEAKER_01]: You would see how people talked, behaved,
[SPEAKER_01]: Then he says, in the same way, make progress about progress towards God, you set aside sometimes, you know, like, going to solitude, maybe go to a retreat, take a break from family life, from your job, from your surroundings, and go into a, and stay there.
[SPEAKER_01]: We even, we do that, monks, in India, we go away, even from the Ashram.
[SPEAKER_01]: and go and stay in the mountains or cave somewhere.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not cave these days, but mountains in the hut and meditate.
[SPEAKER_01]: Stay away from even people who are known to us, even the Ashram.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that could be good.
[SPEAKER_01]: But you know, some scars, the inner tendencies do not change so easily.
[SPEAKER_01]: I am reminded of this Swami.
[SPEAKER_01]: The story I heard, this was a long time back in the 1960s.
[SPEAKER_01]: This was in an ashram called Shargachi in India, in a place called Bahram Puran in Bengal.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm a Primation and there was the head of that ashram.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not 60s, even before that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's a Swami who was under him in that ashram.
[SPEAKER_01]: Very busy running a school and teaching kids and organizing the school.
[SPEAKER_01]: and probably it's not doing enough meditation.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the Swami was the head, and he told him, look, do something.
[SPEAKER_01]: Once a month, just go beyond the weekends, when there's no school, go beyond the weekends, go away from the ashram, go to the village, or to the forest, stay in a Shiva temple there, beg for your food, and spend the whole day in solitude and meditation.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Even from the ashram, take a break.
[SPEAKER_01]: Even from this good work of running a school for poor kids, take a break.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he did that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And after some time it was found not just once a month, he was going every week, every weekend.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the head Swami asked out of curiosity, what is it that you're doing?
[SPEAKER_01]: Where are you going?
[SPEAKER_01]: And why are you going every week, every weekend?
[SPEAKER_01]: And she, initially, that Swami admitted that the place where he had gone for meditation and solitude, that place was very poor, the children did not have a school, so he started a school there.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, now there is a school in the Ashram, and there is a school in that village which he runs on weekends.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, that's, you might say, what's wrong with that?
[SPEAKER_01]: That's nothing wrong with that.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's good work, but that shows our inner, rajasic tendency, you know, and we kind of inner dynamism, energy, which is, cannot be controlled.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, Saddam Kishnan knows that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he says, if you do it slowly,
[SPEAKER_01]: And then he says devote more time to prayer.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, when then, and devote more time to prayer.
[SPEAKER_01]: So go away for three days, go away for for a week, but not much more, then come back.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's important to go away and come back.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, if what happens if you go away completely, you will find that after some time, the mind becomes thermosick.
[SPEAKER_01]: One goes of initially with a great eagerness and enthusiasm and spends long periods in meditation and study and the mind also comes down after sometimes a laziness sets in.
[SPEAKER_01]: A kind of dullness sets in.
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel our spiritual hunger is exactly like our hunger for food.
[SPEAKER_01]: If I haven't eaten and I have got hunger, if I can eat a lot, but once I eat a lot, I kind of say T.T.
[SPEAKER_01]: sets it.
[SPEAKER_00]: and then there isn't that much hunger anymore.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's much better to do this over a long period of time and slowly develop it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember once I met your, as I was a young monk, I, with Bravado, I told the Swami in charge of our Ashram.
[SPEAKER_01]: I am after the mountains and I am never going to see me again.
[SPEAKER_01]: I am gone for good.
[SPEAKER_01]: I am going to say it on top of a mountain and meditate till I realized God.
[SPEAKER_01]: And of course, the Swami was very affectionate, very wise, he had seen many, many like me.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he said, don't do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: You go.
[SPEAKER_01]: You go for two months at a time.
[SPEAKER_01]: You go for two months, spend your time in meditation, japa as you'd like.
[SPEAKER_01]: After two months, if you feel you're making spiritual progress, write to me and I'll give you two months more.
[SPEAKER_01]: But if you feel you're not making spiritual progress, you have become static sort of stagnating, then come back and do the
[SPEAKER_01]: After two months, I really felt that if I stay like here, it'll become a kind of a lazy life.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's much better to be in the company of holy people, in the midst of discipline, in the midst of a group of other people who will watch me and take care of me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I am a device spiritual community.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that is much more conducive to spiritual life.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then Sri Ramakrishna, sounds a note of caution, his time time.
[SPEAKER_01]: But you must understand that nothing can be achieved except in proper time, in its proper time.
[SPEAKER_01]: This we might find it boring.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, we mean that I can't achieve God realization now, the next one year or two years.
[SPEAKER_01]: when there is time is a big factory.
[SPEAKER_01]: What do you mean, proper time?
[SPEAKER_01]: He puts it beautifully.
[SPEAKER_01]: Some persons must pass through many experiences and perform many worldly duties before they can turn their attention to God.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they have to wait a long time.
[SPEAKER_01]: We go through a lot of experiences.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then it gets to examples.
[SPEAKER_01]: The example of a surgery, if it's performed on an abscess, before it's time, before it is ready to be lanced, then it damages, it creates a wound, which will not heal too well.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you take a person away from worldly life and then put that person into a monastery and then try to make that person an enlightened person, you might think it's a great thing, but it doesn't work.
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember the story of a Buddhist monk.
[SPEAKER_01]: So as children, they're taken to the monastery, a Tibetan Buddhist monk.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he says, he left the monastery later on.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he says, with Pethas, when I was leaving, the senior monk stole me.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no, this is a great chance.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Buddha has recommended this path.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was renounced worldly life.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then he told the senior monk, I don't even know what I have renounced.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I, what have I renounced?
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't even know that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So time, you cannot force enlightenment.
[SPEAKER_01]: Doesn't matter.
[SPEAKER_01]: Advaita Vedant is great that way.
[SPEAKER_01]: You are Brahman anyway.
[SPEAKER_01]: Being enlightened is a small thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: You are Brahman.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the greatest thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: you are that absolute reality anyway.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so the moment of enlightenment will come, one doesn't know when, but it's perfectly all right.
[SPEAKER_01]: The second example he just says is funny one, child said to his mother that when I feel the call of nature, when I have to poop for something we will wake me up.
[SPEAKER_01]: The mother said, well, I don't have to wake you up.
[SPEAKER_01]: You will feel the call of nature and that will wake you up.
[SPEAKER_01]: Similarly, when the time comes, nobody has to tell you
[SPEAKER_01]: rather we must struggle all the more.
[SPEAKER_01]: We must keep at it as much as possible.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the most worthwhile thing in life.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the whole goal of life.
[SPEAKER_01]: By this, I mean spirituality.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's broadest sense.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't just mean a threat of Vedanta.
[SPEAKER_01]: It could be a devotee of Krishna or Christ.
[SPEAKER_01]: You could be a meditated or Buddhist or a Vedanta.
[SPEAKER_01]: But spirituality.
[SPEAKER_01]: In its broadest sense is the most valuable thing in life.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is the whole purpose of life.
[SPEAKER_01]: So as much as possible, we should hold on to it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the more we hold on to it, the faster progress will be.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then, the mentions that they have bought offerings of fruit, candy, and other sweets, but Sri Ram Krishna could hardly touch them.
[SPEAKER_01]: This you see in Sri Ram Krishna's life again and again, he was a hypersensitive to any kind of evil doing, dishonest, greed, lust.
[SPEAKER_01]: He instinctively shrank from that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then he mentions this.
[SPEAKER_01]: They earned their money by false, so I can't eat their offering.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then he said to their, he said to the Marwari, you see, one can't strictly adhere to truth in business.
[SPEAKER_01]: My god, I was just thinking in 25th century here in America, the ethics professor is saying exactly the same thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: What Sri Ram Krishna said, the most unworldly person Sri Ram Krishna, you're saying you can't stick yet adhere to truth.
[SPEAKER_01]: But then the ethics professor said something useful, that you must do the best you can.
[SPEAKER_01]: Otherwise, it leads to disastrous consequences.
[SPEAKER_01]: Up and downs in business, then he quotes Guru Nanak,
[SPEAKER_01]: And then he gives a caution that man should offer on the pure things to holy men.
[SPEAKER_01]: He shouldn't give them food earned by dishonest means.
[SPEAKER_01]: God is realized by following the path of truth.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, God is realized by following the path of truth.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is something to be bracketed and kept in mind very important.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then how can spiritual practice help you to stick to the path of truth?
[SPEAKER_01]: Saddam Krishna says, one should always chant his name.
[SPEAKER_01]: So this is a practice that anybody can do, including the businessmen in the midst of their families and business and so on.
[SPEAKER_01]: Even while one is performing once duties, the mind should be left with God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Suppose I have a very good example, the carbon clung on the back, it hurts.
[SPEAKER_01]: Even when I'm going about doing work, it still hurts and when mind goes to that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he says, good to the repeat the name of Rama.
[SPEAKER_01]: I am, I told you this earlier, but I'll repeat it now.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a story of a greedy man.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a little play that was enacted on a stage in our main monastery.
[SPEAKER_01]: So once in a year, there is a big festival after the Bodhisattva Ramakrishna.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are cultural events like religious plays and religious songs and so many things.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's a big draw.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's a big wooden stage on which the performance come.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's this one play which I saw which was very touching.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a man who was a business man and very, very greedy.
[SPEAKER_01]: And once he had the vision of a little blue boy who told him, what do you want?
[SPEAKER_01]: And he said money in Bengali Takah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Takah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want money.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the little blue boy, of course, which was Krishna, no other than Krishna, Krishna says to him, all right, I'll tell you what, here's a deal.
[SPEAKER_01]: You write my name.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, you write the name of Krishna, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: The name of Krishna, and as many times as you write, so many rupees I will give you so much Taka, I will give you each time you write one, you get one Taka.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you walk up in the morning and he's giving him an address.
[SPEAKER_01]: Once you've done with it, bring your notebooks to me and such and such address.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I will, you know, reimburse you for your troubles.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he got up and with great enthusiasm started writing the name of Krishna in a notebook and he was writing Krishna and then he thought One person writing it is a business man.
[SPEAKER_01]: He has got this The factory assembly line system in his mind So one person writing in a notebook in so many minutes.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can write the name of Krishna only a few times But suppose I hire other people to write the name of Krishna and that that would be much more
[SPEAKER_01]: And I can pay them so much money and I can get so much money back.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can be a neat profit.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he has all the educated people of the village.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he sets up like a assembly line of writing, Krishna names on the notebook.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he, like a four-man, he rushes up and down the line and telling them to hurry up right more.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, Krishna Krishna Krishna, and the man with the actor was very funny.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was his short, tubby man, and you know, like very humorous character.
[SPEAKER_01]: He rushes up and down the line and everybody's writing Krishna.
[SPEAKER_01]: He rushes up and down the line and saying, Krishna Krishna Krishna Taka Taka Taka Taka Krishna Krishna Krishna Taka Taka Taka Taka Krishna Taka Taka Taka Taka Taka Taka Krishna Taka Taka Taka Taka Taka Taka Taka Krishna Taka Taka Taka Taka Taka Taka Taka Taka Taka Taka Taka Taka Taka Taka Taka Taka Taka Taka Taka Taka Taka Taka Taka Taka Taka Taka Taka Taka Taka Taka Taka Taka Taka Taka Taka Taka Taka Taka Taka Taka Taka Taka Taka Taka Taka Taka Taka Taka Taka Taka Taka Taka Taka Taka Taka Taka Taka Taka Taka Taka Taka Taka Taka Taka Taka Taka Taka T
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, the address he has given, he is in Bengal, the address he has given is in Orisha, in Jagannath Kuri.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, this is a place he has to go, that you take all the names of Krishna and you submit it there and that little blue boy had said in his dream, I will give you money depending on how much you submit.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he goes in this big bullock cart, bullock cart full of notebooks filled with the name of Krishna.
[SPEAKER_01]: He arrives at the holy city of Jagannath Kuri.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then he finds out that dress, I guess in those days they didn't have GPS, we had to ask people, where is this place?
[SPEAKER_01]: And they said it's there, and he goes there, but he sees the temple of Jagannath.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says, no, it can't be that, this is the temple.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's the address you mentioned.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is what the little blue boy in my dream told me that you have to come here, but who is I don't see anybody here?
[SPEAKER_01]: And he's worried.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he's sitting there for a long in the temple.
[SPEAKER_01]: And suddenly, that little blue boy appeared before him.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he's this merchant, he says, ah, thank God you are here.
[SPEAKER_01]: I thought the whole thing was a scam or something.
[SPEAKER_01]: Good.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've got all the notebooks full of the name of Krishna.
[SPEAKER_01]: The little blue boy said, good.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can give them to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll give you money in return.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll give you Taka.
[SPEAKER_01]: Give me Krishna now.
[SPEAKER_01]: I will give you Taka.
[SPEAKER_01]: Give me the name of Krishna.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll give you Taka.
[SPEAKER_01]: Money.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then, there's so touching this man, it's very good actor.
[SPEAKER_01]: He births into tears and he says, don't take away the name of Krishna from me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't part with the name of Krishna.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't want your money and he weeps and says leave the name of Krishna with me and the little group of boy-up boy, of course, with none other than Jagannath, best is him and disappears.
[SPEAKER_01]: So see how repeating the name of Krishna, just for the sake of money also, but then he falls in love with the name of God and he doesn't want the money anymore.
[SPEAKER_01]: So Sri Ramakrishna,
[SPEAKER_01]: Rama to the businessman.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says it is good to repeat the name of Rama.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then he says the same Rama who was Choram Dasharath Khabeta, Choram Jagat Pashera, Choram, Khategaat Melaita, that this is the Hindi saying.
[SPEAKER_01]: What does it mean?
[SPEAKER_01]: The same Rama who was the son of King Dasharatha has created
[SPEAKER_01]: All of Vedanta is packed into this.
[SPEAKER_01]: The same Rama who is the son of Dasha Ratha is the avatar.
[SPEAKER_01]: In the human form, God in the human form is incarnation.
[SPEAKER_01]: Rama, Krishna, Jesus, Buddha, Rama, Ramakrishna, Chaitanya, and these are the incarnations of God in human form.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the same Rama who is the son of Dasha Ratha, in the human form.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then has created this world.
[SPEAKER_01]: which God, Saguna Brahm and Brahman, which creates preserves and destroys the world, Srishti, Srishti, Laya, which is Ishwar or Bhagavan or God, the creator God of theistic religions.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the incarnation of who's incarnation, incarnation of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: So now from Avatar, we have gone to Saguna Brahm.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then he goes further.
[SPEAKER_01]: As Spirity pervades all being in pure consciousness, the only reality of all things.
[SPEAKER_01]: Pervades all beings, you remember in the Gita we were studying, Krishna says to Aljuna, I pervade all beings, Myatatamidam Sarva, stage one, then stage two, and stage two is, Mastani Sarva Bhutani, Nathya Teshwahama Vastita.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not that I pervade all of the man in them.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is general ideas that God is somewhere in us in our heart.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm somewhere in all beings, not like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: When third, just like ocean or water is in the water, there are waves.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not that there are waves and in the waves, somehow water has been injected into those waves, not like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Wave is the water is the reality.
[SPEAKER_01]: Wave is an appearance of that water.
[SPEAKER_01]: And third, Krishna says,
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I alone exist, or Dramman alone exists, there's all these beings are appearances in Maya.
[SPEAKER_01]: So this is what Sri Ramakrishna is indicating here.
[SPEAKER_01]: Three stages, Abhataara, Sarguna Brahmman, Nirguna Brahmman.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then he adds, he's very near us.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not something far away.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's right here, within and without.
[SPEAKER_01]: He looks inside, you will find him.
[SPEAKER_01]: Look outside, you'll find him.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have to look at the eyes of knowledge.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right here, right now, he's you yourself.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're not separated from you by time or by space or by object.
[SPEAKER_01]: God is not some other thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: God is not somewhere else.
[SPEAKER_01]: God is not some time else.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here, now you, just you don't know it.
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't see it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, one might think that maybe Sri Ram Krishna is
[SPEAKER_01]: Doesn't have high hopes of their spiritual life?
[SPEAKER_01]: No, he knows all will become enlightened.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he has given Just because they are businessmen, they may they may be doing falsehood, which he points out.
[SPEAKER_01]: He does not spare them.
[SPEAKER_01]: He points that out also, but he gives them the highest teaching also.
[SPEAKER_01]: That also he does.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay Quickly, let us look at the comments
[SPEAKER_01]: Patrick says, is that different from the Hindu tantric path?
[SPEAKER_01]: No.
[SPEAKER_01]: In principle, it's the same thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Buddhist tantric path and the Hindu tantric path, they share, or it is in the Buddhist, Tibetan Buddhist tradition, atheistic.
[SPEAKER_01]: If he has how did the term the world, the world to God?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, they will not use the term God.
[SPEAKER_01]: They will use the term Buddha nature, for example.
[SPEAKER_01]: Michael Bird, if a spiritual secret is currently single, what motivation they have to become a household with a family, if a romantic partner family one should have a desire for those things in the first place, can you understand relationship, acceptance, even worth pursuing such a thing in the first place.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now if you do not want to do not.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's only those who want to, or those who are deeply invested in it, then have to go through that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Otherwise, if one hankers for it, or one feels one is missing out something deep and important, then it becomes a huge burden, an obstacle to spiritual life.
[SPEAKER_01]: So indirectly, it can be useful having a relationship married children.
[SPEAKER_01]: Indirectly, it can be useful in leading to maturity.
[SPEAKER_01]: Otherwise, if you're quite clear, there's no particular desire to set up a family and have children and not, then don't.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have got the highest goal of life, which is spiritual realization.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you'll do something in life anyway.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have to maintain yourself, you have to hold a job and take care of yourself.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's great.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is good enough.
[SPEAKER_01]: Priya has given a talk by pro-Gragica Krishna Prananda on this topic.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, a monastic life, work is worshiped pro-Gragica Krishna Prananda.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you look at how much energy is in our Vedanta society, in Santa Barbara Temple, in Santa Barbara Convent.
[SPEAKER_01]: So how much if everything is spiritual gains, we come only when it's supposed to, when the time is right, is it because of the results of past karma, which one has to really live through before being transformed?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, it's a result of past karma, it's a result of our present sadhana also.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not worth thinking about those things too much.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just know that one has to be patient.
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't be so goal oriented.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have to get enlightened and be done with it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then go on to other things in life.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, this is the highest and best life, a spiritual life.
[SPEAKER_01]: So when enlightenment will come or not, we'll see, but I'm going to lead a spiritual life anyway.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm getting the benefits from spiritual life day to day, a moment to moment.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's not that there is a big payoff at the end.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's why I have to struggle and sacrifice for years and decades of my life with no,
[SPEAKER_01]: benefit now.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, it is a great deal of benefit now.
[SPEAKER_01]: Karen says, God is the doer.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is that an intermediate step?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, it's an intermediate step.
[SPEAKER_01]: God is, I'm the doer.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the beginning.
[SPEAKER_01]: God is the doer.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not the doer.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a huge huge step forward.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the witness consciousness, there's no doing any
[SPEAKER_00]: If you have greed or anger turning your mind towards God, how do you practically do that?
[SPEAKER_00]: I have found that very difficult.
[SPEAKER_00]: I actually do sometimes I just do my job or something.
[SPEAKER_00]: But what is the practical way of doing that?
[SPEAKER_01]: It is the same energy, so if I have channelized that energy towards God, it will not be expressed as anger towards people or the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: However, what you are doing is the other one, the one before that, replacing one with T with another.
[SPEAKER_01]: If that works for you very good.
[SPEAKER_01]: See, the problem with the Tantric way, which is in Hindu Tantra also in the Buddhist Tantra, is that it is a very powerful way.
[SPEAKER_01]: However, it is also a dangerous way.
[SPEAKER_01]: Any powerful machinery, if you set in motion, anger, greed, desire, they can, one might say that I am generating these for spiritual purposes, but they are like demons, they might take over your mind and then just just be anger, greed or desire, no spiritual purpose, and many country practitioners have fallen that way.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Amid says, offering up everything, I do not own anything, in this contrast to a Dwator that I am everything, everything is in me, only I am real.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yet, it means the same thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Giddish quote, I think, said about Swami Vivekananda and Nad Mahasya, the household of the disciple of Sri Ramakrishna.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that these two Maya could not catch in her net.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I mean, we began the Maya could not catch in her net because he became so big.
[SPEAKER_01]: He grew bigger than the net of Maya.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Nagmasha, Maya could not catch in her net because he made himself so small that he slipped out through the net.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was not fine enough to catch him.
[SPEAKER_01]: He slipped out through the net of Maya.
[SPEAKER_01]: So these are two ways.
[SPEAKER_01]: But they basically mean the same thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: that none of it is me, all of it belongs to God.
[SPEAKER_01]: I am free of everything.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then I just become the the ground reality which is the witness consciousness or all of it is me and all of it is not I, the consciousness alone am.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is exactly the same thing also.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hari Maharaj.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I am I Turian and the G, it was a great Vedant in himself and one point he says,
[SPEAKER_01]: Only Vivekananda could say that.
[SPEAKER_01]: It came easily to him.
[SPEAKER_01]: For us, it is better to say, Dahu, Dung, Dau My Lord, not I.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right then.