Video 10

The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna with Swami Atmajnanananda (06/05/20)

Takahama rhythm depth idea venom Kaveri idiot uncle Misha saravana Mangalam Shri Mata Adam vigilante who hurt you no soviet-american your words are like nectar top Tegea venom they bring life to squirt souls kaveri item they're praised by poets praised by the wise Kalama sharp ahem they put an end to all sin saravana Mangalam simply hearing them is something very auspicious shurima the autumn they're wonderful and exalted pavilion on ta-da-da-da-da-dah those who spread these teachings these words are the most generous people in the world so I can consider myself now a generous person okay last time we stopped on Sunday April 9th 1882 those who were following in the book this is page 96 and I'll read the last paragraph that we read just for the continuity because the devotee asked the question what is the good of holy company it's a good question we take it for granted and sri ramakrishna tells us so many times throughout the gospel this is this is the number one instruction that he gives he gives it says so many things the solitude and prayer and meditation and everything but I think holy company will be the number one on the list the majority vast majority of times so the question is what is the instrumentality of it what exactly is the process what how does it work we know it's a nice-to-have holy company but well what is the actual function of it how does it create this this change in our understanding and attitude so the very very nice question to ask what is the good of holy company master it begets yearning for God now we've seen this Bakula tah there is yearning for God for Sri Ramakrishna is the most important factor so we have two things now we have the most important factor for God realization and the most important factor for acquiring that other factor so a very simple formula that he says if we one God realization we have to have intense yearning for God if you want to have intense yearning for God we need holy company so it's very simple but getting holy company going from holy company to intense journey for God there's a big gap there so this getting holy company we'll see has to inspire us to do spiritual practice and it has to inspire us to change our priorities and the way we live and all sorts of things in order to reach that second but this is the this is the cause and effect here this is the instrumentality of all of this holy company and then intense longing for God and then God realization so it begets yearning for God it begets love for God the oculata and anuraga these are two terms that we see over and over again this anuraga is an intense ecstatic love for God nothing whatsoever is achieved in spiritual life without yearning be constantly living in the company of holy men oh sorry by constantly living in the company of holy men the soul becomes restless for God this Bakula intense longing for God and restlessness for god these are all part of the same package this yearning is like the state of a man who becomes ill sorry who has someone ill in the family his mind is in a state of perpetual restlessness thinking how the sick person may be cured where again one should feel a yearning for God like the yearning of a man who was lost his job and is wandering from one office to another in search of work if he is rejected at a certain place which has no vacancy he goes there again the next day and inquires is there any vacancy today so this is what we've finished with on our last meeting and then he continues so this is Ramakrishna speaking there's another way so whenever he tells us holy company that'll be first of a list there's always a list and as I say solitude very often follows but here he'll say prayer so there's another way earnestly praying to God God is our very own we should say to him Oh God what is thy real what is thy nature reveal thyself to me thou must show thyself to me for why else has thou created me some seek devotees once said to me God is full of compassion joy this is a term that they used to use I don't know if it's a comment to the Sikh Dharma or not but the there was a group of Sikh devotees that a couple of groups that were very very fond of sri ramakrishna III spoken this one time it's a very beautiful story many of them were soldiers who were stationed in in Calcutta and just north of the of the duction s were compound Kali temple compound was what they call the magazine the magazine was a place where they store the ammunition so there were soldiers there and so many of them belong to the Sikh Dharma Sikh religion and they became very very fond of Ramakrishna there was another groupid barrack poor i believe and they also used to come to visit him there was one coercing who talked were mentions many times they had tremendous devotion for sri ramakrishna there was one case instance where a whole platoon whole battalion whatever was was marching down the road and they happened to see sri ramakrishna there and they all stopped in the down and made pranaam to him from a distance and the officer was was furious how could they do that they're supposed to be marching and everything but he was warned don't do anything let them show their devotion they may revolt so they had this tremendous love for Ramakrishna and he loved them also but when they would use this term daya Maya then Sri Ramakrishna he would he would have this reaction he would say I said but why should we call him compassionate now it sounds like a strange statement and to be honest if we read the gospel of sri ramakrishna or many people who read it they come away with a little bit of an impression that this idea of compassion was somehow secondary's that it wasn't so important to sri ramakrishna it's a very wrong conception I think would and we'll see what talk we're saying here is that compassion it's not that it's not necessary we need something far greater that this is this is not a high enough standard in fact he used to say this is the minimum standard for being a human being is that jardian AE tarah mano y mano snowy those who have no compassion they may appear to be a human being they may have taken a human body they're not to be considered even as human beings so it's minimal unless one has compassion one is like a subhuman somehow so we'll see why he's objecting to this he said I said that why should we call him compassionate he is our Creator what is there to be wonder that if he is kind to us parents bring up their children do they do you call that an act of kindness yeah the mother changes the diaper of the baby you say oh how can the mother was how compassionate such compassionate - the compassion to do that no it's her own child this who else will do it it's nothing to be thought of as anything great this is the tacos idea parents bring up their children do you call that an act of kindness they must act that way therefore we should force our demands on God he is our father and mother isn't he if the son demands his patrimony and gives up food and drink in order to enforce his demand then the parents hand to share over to him three years before the legal time or when the child demands some pace from his mother and says over and over again mother give me a couple of pies I beg you on my knees then the mother seeing his earnestness and unable to bear it anymore tosses the money to him so taqwa what he's trying to say is if we look upon God is compassionate then we're not feeling that God is our very own father and mother that we should feel such an intimate relationship that we can force our demands on God so I wanted to take this opportunity just to talk a little bit about what taqwa how he uses this term daya and daya compassion because so use it in in different ways the he'll make a distinction on the one hand between Maya and daya we'll see the several times in the gospel that Maya means this love and and and fellow feeling and even compassion but something with an attachment and everything to those who are very near and dear to us and it extends out so we can say this Maya will be mostly for our family members but then it'll also be for our close friends then it'll extend a little further those who belong to our community and then those who belong to our country and then loath those who belong to our religion it'll keep extending out and getting watered down a little bit but it's always based on the idea of us in them there's always based on this idea of those who belong to this circle however big it is and those who are outside of it so taqwa gives different examples we can even we know in our own lives that suppose we we read in the paper that there's an earthquake somewhere or somebody tells us did you hear about the earthquake and we know what happened and so many as tens of thousands of people died we say ah what a horrible thing where was it and then somebody says I am not sure somewhere in Asia with Asia oh really was it in India they say yes it was in India let me now II think oh really it's a horrible thing where in India it was somewhere in West Bengal West Bengal where in West Bengal and he says I think it was actually affected all of Kolkata they said Kolkata my whole family is from there and then the talker gives the example that somebody is sweeping the courtyard and somebody says did you hear that so and so with second deities there are too bad and then who was it he hears the name and it's a close friend or relative and he says immediately the broom falls from his hand and he falls not unconscious so this is a very natural thing that we identify more closely of course with family members but it extends outward and as I say becomes less and less and less but it always requires something different something some of it some someone we consider to be a stranger I remember a story that they used to tell about Russian astronaut and an American astronaut and there are terrible rivals they were trying to get to the moon one before the other and and they really just look upon each other as the enemies and everything they they both get to the moon at the same time and they're there and they're there quarreling over who's going to put the flag down first and who's going to be able to claim this land or that land then all of a sudden they see the Martians coming so what do they do hand in hand they say come brother let's run so it's as soon as there's somebody who's who's more different someone who's more of a stranger to us then we feel close to the other people this is Maya so taqwa says it's not a terribly bad thing but it's restricted and limited and it's based on ignorance ignorance because we should feel this oneness with everyone in the same cells within all beings so he says this Maya has to be extended if that month that same feeling that we have towards our very near and dear ones if that can be extended to all living beings then this is the highest ideal compares real compassion daya okay so this is this is when he uses the term when he uses it in and distinction to the term Maya then he sees using at a very high ideal now there is another incident that took place where we see that your Emma Krishna will talk about this idea as a very low ideal it's a very very well known incident and it played a tremendous role in forming and shaping the ideas of Swami Vivekananda one day sri ramakrishna was talking about some of the teachings of chaitanya deva there's a long section in the chaitanya charitamrita where he's talking to ramananda verse for somebody any I don't remember the details but he's giving all of his teachings where he's getting it from sorry any idea remember but they keep saying no this is make it a little a little more subtle freak so he goes he breaks it down into five teeth and then three teachings eventually it'll go to one but the three teachings are that one must have nama to achieve a taste for the name of God then Royston observer then service to devotees of God and then da daaaa so this is the term Diadora so stroma krishna is talking about this and compassion to living beings and he's repeating it to himself da da da da da da and he goes into this was mood of his he goes into some type of ecstatic mood and in in that mood he says what is this who are you living creatures like worms crawling on the earth who do you do claim that you can show compassion to living beings he said no it's not compassion it has to be love and it has to be a feeling of service to others we have to feel that privilege to do it this was such it left such a deep impression on Narendra that day that when he left he said to the his friends he said did you hear what taqwa said and they said no What did he say they all heard it he said you didn't you didn't notice what he said he said this is one of the greatest teachings that I've ever heard this this taking the highest teaching of Advaita Vedanta he was there seeing the self dwelling in all beings and putting this in such practical terms so that we can do this as a type of worship he said if the divine mother ever gives me an opportunity I'll spread this teaching throughout the world and he did so what do we have here that we Maya okay Maya is not so terrible but very restricted and limited that it gets expanded into daya into this compassion now this compassion has to be raised because if we feel compassion toward someone else it means we feel the difference we feel a distinction we probably feel we're better that we were able to show some compassion to them these poor creatures like that so that has to be raised to something which we can call saver so this feeling of no God dwells within all beings so if I help anyone its service to living beings so it goes from Maya to daya to Siva and then he had raised to what puja and then we have to look upon it as a worship so this is with Swamiji's great message to the mankind that service to living beings is the highest type of worship of God so now we see that this compassion it's okay but it's based on this idea of distinction the based on this idea that we're doing something praiseworthy so Swamiji said know that it has to be with tremendous and even gratitude that we have that opportunity to take this service to living beings and make it part of our worship to look upon the human beings as the highest manifestation of God in human form and of course he he made one special distinction that this worship of the little nun I honor that special manifestation of God in the poor and the downtrodden in the exploited in the underprivileged disenfranchised people that for him service to them was the highest type of worship and he said so many times he'd be happy to be born over and over and over again in order to be able to worship God dwelling within is the dress that I know would work within the poor so this was all because of the teachings of sri ramakrishna so if we ever wonder what was his real feeling about this idea of compassion we see his real feeling was that it has to be raised to this feeling of love for all beings this feeling of oneness this feeling of seeing the divine within others seeing it as a type of privilege and serving others as a worship of God okay now so we have so far what is the good of holy company we find that it begets yearning for God and one of the ways that it does that is if this holy company will inspire us to prayer so that it was the second thing earnestly praying to God now we'll get another benefit he says there's another Bennet another benefit from holy company it helps one cultivate discrimination between the real and the unreal okay now this is another big issue we saw at the very first real conversation that M had with Ramakrishna their second visit that Ramakrishna met mention this also of this said acid which are this how do we distinguish between such studies real asset is unreal these are very vague terms they can be understood in so many different ways the very traditional at the white the vedantic way will be for a metaphysical point of view that real means that unchanging infinite absolute reality of brahman unreal means this transitory universe or this universe of appearance which is has no real existence are separate from brahman so this the snake that we see is completely unreal but the rope underlying is the reality so we see it used in different senses cart Upanishad we see this assert vichara not using those terms but as a discrimination between what is important in life and what is not important in life what is Reyes what is ultimate value to us what can raise us higher what can take it to some type of spiritual realization and preyas which is not something terrible but it's the pleasant it's the pleasurable it's it's the quick fix is the thing that gets us the immediate gratification it doesn't last long and it doesn't really satisfy us it's not a horrible thing there's nothing so terrible about it a little enjoyment here in our bite we have to understand that it doesn't replace this Reyes this Reyes is there is the real thing so we have different ways of looking at it what's ramakrishna liked the best was this discrimination between the real and the transitory he didn't go in to this idea of is this world a losery or not a loser he didn't care for that too much he would mention it only as well this is the attitude of the Gianni's they'll take it this way but he really he wanted us to look at this transitory nature not just of the world but of life itself that his life is fleeting that the next thing we know it's gone we look back where did the years ago that it goes just he says in two days dude in this figuratively of course but so he says God alone is the real that is to say the eternal substance and the world is unreal so we'll see almost always when he says unreal he'll add that is to say transitory an idea this is the term that he likes he uses mostly sometimes he'll say of us to this verse to boast oh really it means that there's no substance to it it's Hollow this world is hollow the pleasures and joys of the world really worldly types of things they leave us feeling empty sometimes so this is that type of discrimination that he really wanted as soon as a man finds his mind wandering away to the unreal so that doesn't mean to this idea that this what I'm taking to be real is really an illusion it means the mind is wandering a way to digest petty types of enjoyment he should apply discrimination the moment an elephant stretches out its trunk to eat a plantain tree in the neighbor's garden it gets a blow from the iron gold of the driver so this is one of the ways that we understand what's called abhyasa obviously yoga that the elephant gets trained that way and we have to take this gold and use it on the mind itself we sit for meditation the mind goes to worldly things or starts to fall asleep and we take this gold and we hit it we hit ourselves on the head so that we don't fall asleep and the mind doesn't wander to worthy things so this is a type of a biasa of practice and unless we do it we we don't overcome these tendencies of the mind mind has two tendencies we when we when we sit for meditation either it's it's overactive it runs all over the place or it goes to sleep and these are the two and main obstacles in meditation and really we just have to take this gold you know what a gold is it has this very sharpen and to it they they're they'll make the elephant will bleed even when they hit it with that yeah just so that the mind will will start to obey us so the moment an elephant stretches out its trunk to eat a plantain tree and in the neighbor's garden it gets a blow from the iron gold of the driver a neighbor now these these neighbors we don't know who these people are right now this was he's at the the home of Colonel Vishwanath captain he used to call him captain and the number of his friends came and pran Krishna also so a neighbor why it is a man have sinful tendencies okay now this is a question that Arjuna asked Shri Krishna in Gita also is a very good question we wonder why the mind wants to do things that we may even know we shouldn't do we may not even want to do it one of the verses that I find most interesting in the Gita the entire Gita it's such a curious but yet insightful question when Arjuna asked Shri Krishna why do we do things that we don't want to do why do we why did we commit sinful acts when we really don't want to do it as if we're being pushed to do it he says uneaten we have no desire to do it and they said baladeva as if by force as if this outside person is saying no you have to do this but I don't want to do it no you have to do it but I know that it's wrong to do it you have to this is sometimes we talk about the devil within the devil made me do it huh I didn't really want to do it but yeah some inner voice said it's okay you can you can steal the cookies from the cookie jar we won't tell your mother you can get away with it it's okay so he's asking why does a man have sinful tendencies so we can easily understand this with somebody who just likes to do all sorts of things and doesn't think twice about it but it's a really insightful question for somebody who doesn't want to do these things who wants to lead a very pure good holy type of life and yet finds the mind still has these old tendencies there now we'll see that when Shri Krishna gives answers we'll finally gets different answers at different times for different people and I very often don't take these answers to be or don't take them in a very literal sense because Shri Ramakrishna always inspired his devotees and disciples to adopt a particular attitude this was this was more important to him he didn't deal with this idea that this is the only explanation this is the ultimate truth for him truth was nothing but experience everything else was an attitude which was more or less helpful and which more or less it would drive with the ultimate truth not that he gave equal importance to every possible attitude there are some that are not helpful but we'll see sometimes he'll give these answers and we can take them literally if we want or we can take them as oh this is a very beautiful attitude to have and to me this is very important that very often we can have a spiritual attitude and at the same time if somebody says you really believe that we can say ah don't ask me that question so I say that look I've my attitude is that whatever happens is for my benefit because the divine mother won't do anything that's not for the best whatever happens and somebody says or even when terrible things happen and murders and this and that and everything I say we don't ask me too many questions this is added that I like it works for me I'm not going to say it's good for everybody for anybody else I'm not going to say the verifiable but it's very very helpful from the in my spiritual life and I know I shouldn't follow that with a certain type of firm conviction that I know it's beneficial and helpful and on some level it's true if you ask me about all the details of it I won't be able to give any good answer so don't bother me with that so I will we'll see sometimes we had answers like that so Sri Ramakrishna will say in God's creation there are all sorts of things okay we can all accept that he has created bad men as well as good men now what does that mean that he in the beginning he decides will have 50% good 50% bad I take this as meaning that this is the nature of things the universe that is projected out of that infinite Brahman as it has certain rules that it follows it works in a certain way that there will be good and bad that'll be ups and down to Andalus there will be hot and cold this is just the nature of things and not that God decided exactly to do it this way but this is this is the nature of things I take it that way even in the Upanishads we have to be very careful not to take things too literally did Brahman really sit down one day and say both yeah may I be many did he really look around and get bored and say I'd like a little company may I be many these are a little bit of allegorical so anyhow there will be people who will say no whatever Tucker says literally true and God blessed them I have no quarrel with them to have that type of faith is a wonderful thing I think too much so I analyzed things this way so he says he has created bad men as well as good men it is he who gives us good tendencies and it is he again who gives us evil tendencies now what does it mean we blame God okay so I have this tendency every once in a while I I don't tell the truth so I said well I don't you tell it to it well God gave me that tendency can I say that I can say it but what exactly does it mean when I know that this is I should take responsibility for these things so the neighbor is gonna follow up he says in that case we aren't responsible for our sinful actions are we and now I'm very good so we're free that everything is mother's will I do as she makes me do that means I can do whatever I want so what we'll talk we'll say now we'll see he's going to he's going to clarify things a little bit okay everything is God's will that means God's will was that we have the law of karma huh the law of karma means cause and effect it means that is you have to take responsibility so we'll see it's he's gonna get me is going to refine this a little bit master sin begets his own result that is God's law so now from God's will to God's law huh slightly we were we're seeing that the first answer was a very nice answer and if we're very simple and trusting people we can just take that in and leave it but now the neighbors pushing him so he's going to refine it a little bit won't you burn your tongue if you chew a chili so that means if you commit sinful acts won't you develop that sinful tendency well that result comment won't you suffer for it in his youth motto is a motto about Lumet this was of course Ronnie Ronnie Ramone his son in the son-in-law who ran everything and who was the the main supporter of sh ramakrishna and love drama krishna but he led a very fast type of life he wasn't it such a saintly person all the time regardless of his tremendous faith in sri krishna in his youth mater led a rather fast life so we suffered from various diseases before his death so now he's not blaming God for any of this he'll blame Amato himself that he did many things probably had some people killed even yeah we know that taco actually had to save him one time these people who were landlords and everything yeah they could be a little ruthless maybe not on purpose but they would always haven't gone does these ruffians to take care of things so now we see that the law of karma is also there how do we how do we put together these two everything is God's will and everything is the result of our own Karma two slightly different ways of looking at things that's all if we want to say we want to really try to harmonize them we say well God's will is that this law of karma sin is in effect one may not realize this in youth I've looked into the hearth in the kitchen of the Kali temple when logs are being burnt at fir taco was very very observant this is the simplest little things he would see and he would come up with these these brilliant examples at first the wet wood burns rather well it doesn't seem then that it contains much moisture but when the wood is sufficiently burned all the moisture runs back to one end at last water squirts from the fuel and puts out the fire so what does this mean it means if we have some karma there it may not come out right away we may look like oh we were saved we were spared from it that somehow we don't have to experience the fruits of these bad actions in the past but eventually it'll come out eventually we'll come out and there's there's no way of getting around that unless we really do some very intense spiritual practice and get some type of grace TOC words or always as much as he talks about this we have to bear the fruits of our past action he also talks about mitigating factor those who have some type of God realization a higher experience they'll have to experience their parodic the Karma but it'll be true honestly reduced holy mother also believed this very much if because of what we did in the past we are destined in this lifetime to have a sword go through our chest he said we have some higher realization or something that Prada de karma won't be erased erased completely but we'll get a pinprick instead so this was their way of honoring the doctrine we can say so one should be careful about anger passion and greed so in the beginning yes why do we have sinful tendencies the beginning he said that God's creation there are all sorts of things now he's telling us you take a little responsibility for that because you'll suffer from it so he says one should be careful about anger passion and greed take for instance the case of Hanuman in a fit of anger he burned Ceylon at last he remembered that Sita was living in the Ashoka Grove then he began to tremble lest the fire should injure her neighbor why has God created wicked people so now he's back to that first idea now that God is responsible for everything first thing was why do we have sinful tendencies and now why has he created wicked people master that is his will his play now this is the Lila doctrine and again I want to stress this idea that there are so many different ways that we have of our attitudes that we have I don't even want to say explanations for things different attitudes that we can take this is one of them that this is all the play of the divine and if it's a play it doesn't have the same sting to us because we're all actors in it and this play will be over we'll take off this costume and and whatever happen before it doesn't affect us anymore so it takes the sting out of it it's a and a nice way of looking at it that eliminates the need for any real explanation why are things this way let's play of the Lord Mahamaya we can also say that it's a way of saying that don't ask for any deeper explanation why did the author composer play with all of these different things happening in it it was the sweet will of the author he could have done it differently don't ask for anything more than that so taqwa he liked this again this is an attitude this term bob the ramakrishna uses are all of the time that he says it doesn't matter which attitude we have but we have to stick with it there has to be something consistent about it it doesn't mean we can't have different attitudes at different times but they shouldn't conflict with each other different times we may have different moods and see things in a different way so it was never that this is true and this is false it was always that this is certain the attitude to take so this is one way and perhaps he knows he can see that for this neighbor this will be most helpful that is his will his play in his Maya there exist Vidya as well as Vidya now there's a little bit of logic here that there won't be darkness without light that won't be heat without cold we won't even have these concepts unless we have these others so this dwande or these pairs of opposites seem to have some essential role in the nature of this relative reality that we live in darkness is needed to it reveals all the more the glory of light there is no doubt that angered lust and greed are evils why then has God created them another question do we want to blame God for these things in order to create saints now again we can take it literally or we can say that okay I really don't know why God created people like this but I do know that these people are saint makers i know that for certain that there will be people that try our patience to such a degree that if we can manage to be patient with them then we'll turn ourselves into real Saints this is there's no doubt about that we don't have to come up with any divine plan behind any of this in order to realize that that we can look at everything that happened and every individual every obstacle we face is an opportunity for us to learn patience and forbearance and compassion and love and to turn ourselves into Saints 100% true a man becomes a saint by conquering the senses so this is part of it conquering the senses and learning to deal with all types of people also is there anything impossible for a man who has subdued his passions he can even realize God through His grace again see how his whole play of creation is perpetuated through lust okay who is a lusted talk warrior is always talking about this.can conquering lust and greed this world won't go on without lust it won't go on without greed I often call these things Darwinian samskaras that if if even the animal kingdom if these things aren't there species won't continue so this is part of what it means to be a human being to have all of these these so-called passions or very natural to the human being that doesn't mean that we don't try to transcend them so Hamid II says in one place that all of life is is this fight againt to conquer nature not the external nature so much internal nature to conquer these these tend to these lower tendencies that we all have which are part of the fact that we belong to the animal kingdom it's a part of life for that so he says the whole play of creation is perpetuated through lust wicked people are needed to we may wonder that would be nice if there were no wicked people but in order for this play to go on there's otherwise the play will end everyone will have God realization it'll be gone taqwa gives you another example which I also don't take too literally but in this this game of touch of the granny everyone is blindfolded and if they and they grope around and then there's a one person who plays the worldly granny if they happen to touch her they can take their blindfold off and they're out of the game he says the the granny will move a little bit she doesn't want everybody to touch her right away otherwise the whole game is over you know we played this what is it called musical chairs yeah that each time around somebody loses but that person who's out of the game okay there's nothing for them to do now if we get out of this game actually we're the winner you know they came with the loser a little bit different but anyhow this is one way of looking at it the play in order for the play to continue there has to be people who are good people who are bad everything at one time the tenant of an estate became unruly the landlord had to send Golic chaudhuri who was a ruffian the Gunda I like this term gunda huh these these are goons we have these the gangsters they also have their goons there to be these huge guys who go around anybody gets out of line they'll get a good beating so these gündüz he was such a harsh administrator that the tenants trembles the very mention of his name which isn't talking about the variety of people now in the world there's native everything once Sita said to her husband Rama it would be grand if every house in a yogya were a mansion I find many houses old and dilapidated but my dear said Rama if all the houses were beautiful ones what would the Masons do or left so left ER yeah we we can look at it that way that there's a role for everyone in this universe every animal has a role to play in creation people from with all different skill sets or all different things even even the thieves and the policeman yeah these somehow who work together God has created all created all kinds of things he has created good trees and poisonous plants and weeds as well among the animals they're good bad and all kinds of creatures tigers lions snakes and so on now how do we understand all of this we can say one thing is that don't question these things so much this is the world we live in we have to accept it we have to learn to deal with it we have to learn to navigate through it and we have to learn how to go beyond it now the neighbor will s another good question sir is it ever possible to realize God while leading the life of a householder this was always a very big issue that that generally it was felt that unless one renounced the world one could not have any type of higher realization or sumati this was not something that didn't have any basis and in in Scripture and teaching the Orthodox teaching Shankara chardee and others even even Swamiji at some point you know talking to the disciple he says yes son else is necessary so fortunately we have teachings of Gita which say sannyas is necessary but it doesn't have to be formal it can be within the the parameters of the householders life and travel Krishna always said the same thing that its internal renunciation the Gita goes very very far internal renunciation makes one a real sannyasi external renunciation if there's attachment is the phony sannyasi so he's asking so many people ask that question is where householders is there any hope for us so what does firma Krishna say he says certainly so is is it ever possible to realize God while leading the life of a householder certainly but as I said just now one must live in the holy company and pray unceasingly leading a householder life and only having company of worldly people there's no hope then one just sinks further and further there is no reason why the house can have holy company now how does one constantly have holy company nowadays it's oh it's it's almost a simple thing you turn on your computer you can you can see these YouTube talks you can do all day long you can open up your gospel list Ramakrishna gospel holy mother teachings of Swamiji all of these things this is also holy company it doesn't replace actual the presence being an actual presence of a holy person but on some level the holy company we get from reading the gospel is is the highest type of holy company because no matter how great I saw - is nowadays it won't be the same as those who had the actual company of Shri Ramakrishna and holy mother that was a completely different thing so don't think that this isn't holy company don't think it is an holy company to be in the company of devotees it doesn't have to be these amongst and nuns or anything like that there's those those who are also on a spiritual path they form their own family this is a very nice idea taqwa talks about that they become one's own family one's own family sometimes become strangers there we feel closer to the devotees we feel closer to our guru wise guru bond to those who we've we fit brother and sister disciples we have the same in guru we follow the same spiritual path we have a bond with them that's incredibly close and we feel with these these are our very own people and sometimes relatives we think ah okay we have that relationship and everything but the different level of attachment sometimes so but as I said just now one must live in holy company and pray unceasingly these were the two things we got today we gather also this idea of compassion but these were the two teachings that he said holy company and pray unceasingly so that means be prayerful not every second we're saying O Lord have revealed yourself revealed not every second like that even jabba should be done prayerfully everything we do should be done this is the main idea of karma yoga everything we do should be like a prayer we do it as an as an offering prayer doesn't mean seeking something always it means we do it with it that loving attitude when the impurities of the mind so oh so this is what happens one should weep for God when the impurities of the mind or the swash the way so this prayer or all of the spiritual practices this is to wash away these impurities of the mind one realizes God the mind is like a needle covered with mud and God is like a magnet the needle cannot be united with the magnet unless it is free from mud tears wash away the mud which is nothing but lust anger greed and other evil tendencies and the inclination to worldly enjoyments as well these are this shadowy poo these six passions are the six enemies and this this tremendous longing for God is weeping for God this taco used to say that this this will do the job he would say we continuously for God for three straight days sometimes you would say 24 hours and you'll realize God of course who can do that you tell somebody weep for God they say oh that's very nice how do I do it it involves the tremendous spiritual practice and and yeah this is this is the funny thing the sadhana seems to be very boring routine type of thing but that's how we reach the state of on who Durga as soon as the mud is washed away the magnet attracts the needle that is to say man realizes God only the pure in the heart see got a fever patient has an excess of the watery element in his system what can quinine do for him unless that is removed why shouldn't one realize God while living in the world but as I said one must live in holy company pray to God weeping for His grace and now and then go into solitude now the third one now we get this idea of solitude unless the plants on the footpath or protected at first by fences they are destroyed by cattle there's a positive thing and a negative thing positive thing is we get to intensify our spiritual practice we get to feel ourselves just as pure being the no one is around to observe us to look at us to talk to us anything like that and from the negative point of view we've removed ourselves from all worldly circumstances all things that trigger worldly desires and everything so double reason for this hold it for the solitude neighbor then the household holders too will have division of God won't they master everyone will surely be liberated but one should follow the instructions of the Guru if one follows the devious path one will suffer in trying to retrace his steps it takes a long time to achieve liberation now taqwa he says it takes a long time but it happens in a flash another paradoxical statement but but a beautiful statement takes a long time but once we have that experience then just it takes place in a flash this idea of having a guide in spiritual life two very important elements many things of course we can talk about but one is that we have faith in it that will follow it we won't give it up if it's not immediately successful and the second thing is that we often don't know what's the best for us we think that we're choosing the best path for us but we may not know and it may lead us in the wrong direction that's why he says we may have to retrace our steps even a man may fail to obtain it that means realization in this life perhaps he will realize God only after many births sages like Jenica performed worldly duties they performed them bearing God in their minds so not just that they did everything in the world but they reveal real seekers as a dancing girl dances keeping jars or trays on her head haven't you seen how the women in Northwest India walk talking and laughing while carrying water pitchers on their heads they even can dance huh the type of dance yeah with the water pitcher on the head and laid on the head will remain still everything else is moving they won't spill a drop this is that tremendous concentration that means we can be concentrated on but on God taqwa says that we really just need the small percentage of the mind on our work we can leave the rest on God neighbor you just refer to the instructions of the Guru how shall we find him master anyone and everyone cannot be a guru a huge timber floats on the water and can carry animals as well but a piece of worthless wood sinks if a man sits on it and drowns him therefore in every age God incarnates himself as a guru to teach humanity such hidden under alone is the Guru in our order especially you'll find it guru's of our order do not consider themselves gurus they feel strongly Krishna's the Guru and that is the power is only working through them because they've been given some special privilege of giving initiation but they won't have that that feeling and to say certain as Ramakrishna is the real guru and they say such children under the God Himself is a guru these are not two different things what is knowledge and what is the nature of this ego god alone is the doer and none else this is knowledge okay now I'm going to stop here you think is very funny because there's just a few lines left before the end of the chapter but it really raises a whole new new topic and we'll stop with this next time this idea of who was the real doer who was the real agent of action so that's the very bottom of page 98 we will do that next time and I will close with it with the chat neurons in only German under roopam McDonough become totally Currahee you saw avatar Umbra may see a medium don't wanna Chris no I'm serious okay thank you everyone and we'll see you next time