Video 100

The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna read by Swami Atmajnanananda (7/15/22)

foreign [Music] your words are like nectar and bring life to squirt souls they are praised by poets and removal sin they are auspicious to hear wonderful and exalted those who spread these words throughout the world are truly giving souls welcome everyone i don't think that i've been here for the class in a few weeks i've been traveling a little bit so the last time we had the class we were on the chapter with the devotees of dakshineshwar part 2 and this is page 337 and if i remember correctly this is the long stay that m had over the christmas vacation uh with sriram and krishna duck sinister the longest period that he stayed with him straight through except for for kashipur and even that was going back and forth so is talking to there was a teacher who came this is uh friday december 14th 1883. it's about the third third page master to the teacher what is wrong with image worship you know we don't know who this teacher was but uh possibly he was from the brahma-samaj or of one of the western educated uh devotees who uh had this very negative image about image worship so srama krishna said to the teacher what is wrong with image worship the vedanta says that brahman manifests itself where there is existence light and love therefore nothing exists but brahman how long do small girls play with their dolls as long as they are not married and do not live with their husbands after marriage they put the dolls away in a box what further need is there of worshiping the image after the vision of god now we have two ways of understanding on this worship with the with the image or with the symbol one as a very preliminary type of of religious or spiritual practice that we transcend ultimately but uh when we look at the life of the devotee krishna and other devotees they they never really give it up to a whole lifetime they they go beyond it but don't discard it so we see with srama krishna that after having the highest realization brahmagyana and everything in every corpus amanti that he'll still go with tremendous reverence and bow down before the temple because he's not just that he sees god everywhere but there's something special he mentioned earlier the brahman manifests itself in everywhere well that's okay so we can bow down before anything but there is a special power that comes when any sacred symbol is worshiped by many people we feel that it may be psychological it may be some real vibration it may be some awakening we talk about the awakening of the deity whatever it is that those who have that devotional attitude it's not that they'll start out with the image worship and they'll get to the point where they'll say no i'm going beyond that that's for children even though they may say that's the first step and we have to go beyond it from the point of view of seeing god not simply in the image but seeing god within ourselves so we have these two different different attitudes you know in the temple of rameshwaram if if you've ever been there you'll see on on both sides of the main gate this quote from swamiji's reply to the address that was given to him when he first came back from from the west and he talks about uh worshiping shiva and in the lingam as preliminary worship and the highest worship is seeing shiva dwelling within all beings now this is true but swamiji will go with great reverence into the temple itself and prostrate himself so it's not not that we go beyond it and then just discard it that those who feel some special reference for any aspect of god that the symbol will also be holy for them so it's a complicated issue that we want to go beyond mere image worship but at the same time to not look down upon it as an inferior type of worship swamiji swami vaikananda once said how can i say that worship of the image is a lower form of spiritual practice when srama christian himself had the highest realization to that type of worship so we he's talking to this to this teacher and he's trying to show that okay that it's like playing with dolls and once we have the real experience of god we don't care for the for the image but still uh it it will have some uh some special place in the heart of the devotee that form of god even image of god that is worshipped at the very beginning i mentioned earlier she may still keep her dolls yeah but now she has the real thing i i mentioned last week or last time a statement that swami bhutah sanji made he said okay so suppose we say that image worship is the lowest wrong on the ladder and since it's the lowest rung on the ladder that uh uh it's i i won't bother with it it's and then it will never set foot on the ladder we have to start at some point either we we have some good some scottish and we don't need that uh but to to not take the help of concrete tangible symbols uh is is to make make it that much more difficult for us in spiritual life so we we pay equal reverence to uh to the image as we do to what is signified by the image this is the name of god and god himself somehow the symbol also is something very very sacred we we bow down before the uh we have a marble statue of srama krishna and our shrine we bow down before that with great reverence we know it's not krishna we know that it's that it's uh made of marble that this is uh inanimate uh solid stone we may say that it's also brahman but that's not our ventured vision we do it because we feel that this kind of oneness holy mother used to say that seeing the image and seeing the actual person are the same this giant kayaks you would say so even the picture of srama krishna she felt was on some level as as sacred as srama christian himself that he dwelled in his image picture somehow holy mother after the death of srama krishna would would sometimes take taka's picture especially i think when she went to puri because he never went there and and she would show him she would take the talk to his picture as if he could see put it in front of the image so he could also see i i i traveled with one young swami one time a little bit a little bit crazy but very nice uh he did the same thing we went to there's a place you you do this uh circumambulation and you walk through the whole thing there are dozens and dozens and dozens of temples each one he would take out his picture yeah and show it to them tucker's picture yeah or maybe holy mother also i don't remember him we'll do that yeah so what further need is there of worship being the image after the vision of god he's telling this to that teacher it's true there's no need but there's a joy in it we we don't have to discard it that's the point okay but you have to come here because they can't hear you no no no tell us come on or i'll relate it you can tell me it'll relate yeah yeah okay there was a swami who visited whenever i asked you after dinner we used to after did a little strong after dinner there was yeah this is they would stroll together after dinner in mayavity just two minutes every time he would ask you what would you ask him you irritated me every day i have to call you and you will say two minutes oh okay okay so they would go for a walk together but every day when he would call to say let's go for a walk he'd say give me two minutes go to his room go to his room and close the door yeah after that after the week's time i started wondering what it was so okay so i saw he was wondering what does he do in these two minutes only one day one day he left the door cracked open a little bit so he could see through he was offering he used to he used to he liked strolling yeah so okay so he was a bd smoker he would offer bd to ceramic yeah now this is this is an idea that uh we should we should offer to the deity uh what we think the deity would like and generally if we like it we think he'll like it but for him the image was real and the image was real of course yeah so this uh yeah i mean this was really holy mother's attitude also yeah so we have that teaching as well so we shouldn't take this too seriously when tucker says what further need is there worshiping the image after the vision of god there's no need there's no need of anything after that we can say what is the need of showing love and compassion to other people there's no need but the heart likes to do it so well uh never never gave it up in the whole lifetime with the few exceptions when he was doing his islamic sadhana or some or advaita sadhana then he wouldn't care so much but otherwise we find in our order that even the greatest gyanis will show tremendous reverence to the image of srama krishna we have our one exception pathet and even not that he didn't have reverence but uh he wasn't one to go in and bow down and do all the ritualistic types of things but otherwise uh we don't find any any big uh yeah but still he did staying there yeah he stayed in bellarmine of course he had his own type of devotion so we don't find any conflict between the highest knowledge and showing reverence to these symbols which becomes sacred for us you remember the the story about swamiji and he was having that conversation about image worship it was we talked about it with the dewan of uh mongol and he was arguing against it against image worship why even him at the very beginning you remember there's just one worship an image made of stone yeah so then talk with noah's chin but anyhow the uh what swamiji did was he say take to see the picture of the maharaja on the wall you take it down from the wall and he took it down he said okay now spit on it he said how could i do that he said but it's not the maranja it's just his picture but still we have to show reference to it so he said it's the same thing with with this image worship nobody is worshiping clay and stone and things like that we worship the the divinity see this is the curious thing uh that's not understood very well outside of the hindu tradition concept of god is so high and the and the symbols are so concrete and tangible there's such a big gap in between that people don't realize that those who are bowing down the temple may have the highest conception god dwells within their hearts it's as pure consciousness and the higher self and still bow down in the temple you know there's no contradiction really if we if we have that understanding okay now surrounding christians talking to the teacher but we have to remember m is here the whole time and this is the most important period uh in the m's training we can say that uh these two or three weeks that he's with him so he'll get a lot of teachings from srirami krishna so the master glanced at him and said one attains god when one feels yearning for him an intense restlessness is needed through what the whole mind goes to god okay this is this is one of the themes that runs through all of the teachings we find in in in the gospel is vyakuluta we find this mentioned in the bhakti sutra as well it's an intense yearning and intense longing and intense agony and anguish of heart also these two go together it's uh taco gives so many illustrations pushing the head underwater that intends logging for a breath of air we can't live for if we don't get a breath of air we won't live for another moment that type of longing for god now this is the very final stage in spiritual life but the curious thing is that some of us feel that at the very beginning of spiritual life that tremendous longing especially i think monastic life this is what leads us to renounce everything and uh if it becomes intense enough and we have god realization good otherwise what happens you can't maintain that for a whole lifetime it it it becomes a little subtle it goes a little bit deep beneath the surface so that we're not constantly crying and rolling on the ground and everything is not possible for ordinary person but it remains once we get that tremendous longing for it remains and sustains us and then we hope at the very end it'll come back like that but we find with many people they'll they'll they'll ask that question why is it that uh that tremendous longing for god realization that we felt at the very beginning that we don't feel like we have it anymore after after some years and this is really the test that we have to [Music] go ahead with our spiritual practice with that same intensity and devotion even if there are some dry periods because spiritual life has ups and downs or dry periods you know if you ever read about the life of mother teresa she had really one very strong division where christ told her to start her her own order and everything and after that dryness her whole life spiritual dryness very painful for her and some people take this as a sign that she really wasn't as saintly as she was made out to be but those who really have a higher understanding of this dark knight of the soul and saint john of the cross and all of that uh for them you know it it shows the real saintliness of her how how she lived with that that burning fire within her heart of this avirah bhava a feeling of that separation this is also a sign of the great soul so the vyakulata how do we get it this is the thing either either we have some type of grace that something happens in our life some tragedy happens we meet some great soul something happens something awakens within us we have that tremendous longing or we put in the hard work we do our sadhana there's no there's no other there's no shortcut the talker says in these these board games where you piece has to go through he says there's there's there's no you know go straight to go and collect 200 like in monopoly you have to go through eh space so there are no shortcuts so we have to just uh be very regular in our spiritual life and uh slowly that devotion grows and and that that longing will become even greater we hope a man had a daughter who became a widow when she was very young she had never known her husband she noticed the husbands of other girls and said one day to her father where's my husband the father replied govinda is your husband. a little bit like the story of me he will come to you if you call him at these words the girl went to her room closed the door and cried to go in the saying oh govinda come to me show yourself to me why don't you come god could not resist the girl's piteous cry and appeared before her now what do we do if we have a piteous cry and god doesn't come what do we what do we do you know this is a very uh curious conversation between narendra swamiji and m at the end where swamiji says i'm thinking of going on a fast that i won't take any food till i realize god so am says very good and then swamiji says narendra says what if i get too hungry before i realized what he said take some food and start again so we can't pretend with this we can't we can't be within sriamakrishna did he decide that he won't be able to sleep for all those years and and take food and that he'll be weeping and wailing and he didn't decide that he was swept away this is it's something like shraddha house frantai entered into nachiketa this via i i'm not speaking from personal experience but we see that we see that in the lives of these great souls that will enter within into them and they won't be able to live they won't be able to think of anything but god and when it reaches that point then of course the realization has to come as a result of that there was somebody i don't know who it was he wrote some some articles and things about talk word teaching a new path called yoga that this is uh another path it's not through knowledge it's not through devotion it's not doing anything it's through this this intense longing and yearning for god and taco used to say that all of our spiritual practices are meant to bring about this see the gyani will say all of our spiritual practices are meant to purify the heart and sharpen the mind that we'll get all different ways of understanding it takur says that this is this is the the real the final catalyst this is the one thing that will lead us to god realization this tremendous longing for god but it's got to be sincere we can't we can't pretend we can pretend with this this aropa we can we can try to take on that attitude try to feel how taker felt when he was calling on mother it's not pretending in a hypocritical way it's trying to feel uh to imagine see we meditate on sharomi krishna yeah what we have so many ways of doing it one way is to try to feel uh how taqwa felt during his period of sadhana if we imagine that tremendous yearning agony of soul for god then we're experiencing it we're imagining how he had it we're experiencing it not the way he did of course but to a certain extent this is one way of practicing that type of meditation one must have child-like faith and the intent yearning that a child feels to see its mother the yearning is like the red sky in the east at dawn after such a sky the sun must rise immediately after that yearning one sees god this is a very nice example that we're doing spiritual practice and we're in that period of darkness it's the middle of the night for us and we have no idea we have no idea if uh if it's ten o'clock at night or if it's four o'clock in the morning we have no idea how long it'll be but we know we have no choice we go ahead with our spiritual practice now this it could be years it could be lifetimes we don't know we don't give it up but if we see that little pink glow in the horizon and then we know that there's no question that the sun is rising there's no question that nighttime is over and how long does it take 15 minutes 20 minutes half hour it doesn't take long after this is a taco's point then when we have that experience that tremendous sincere longing for god then god realization is is right around the corner we can say that it won't it won't be a long wait after that he says immediately after that yearning one sees god let me tell you the story of a boy named gertilla he used to walk to school through the woods and the journeys frightened him one day he told his mother of his fear she replied why should you be afraid the name of krishna mother asked the boy who is madhusudana the mother said he is your elder brother one day after this when the boy again felt afraid in the woods he cried out oh brother madusudana but there is no response he began to weep aloud where are you brother madhusudana come to me i am afraid then god could no longer stay away he appeared before the boy and said here i am why are you frightened and so saying he took the boy out of the woods and showed him the way to school when he took leave of the boy god said i will come whenever you call me do not be afraid one must have this faith of a child this yearning now how does it work this is a very dualistic devotional way of understanding it god sees that yearning of her heart and appears before us the gyani will explain it that it's that yearning itself which brings about god realization we don't have to explain it in terms of god looking down and seeing that and and revealing himself incoming that that itself is enough it's the same thing with prayer that prayer when we pray for devotion intense prayer for devotion is that not enough to bring devotion does it have to be that uh that god hears it and grants us devotion that prayer itself brings it about so there'll be a lot of another way of looking at it of course so from a more of a non non-dualistic point of view that that tremendous longing itself will will cleanse the heart it will bring the mind to a higher level that itself will take us to god realization so this is different ways of understanding it a brahman used to worship his family deity daily with food offerings one day he had to go away on business as he was about to leave the house he said to his young son give the offering to the deity today see that god is fed the boy offered food in the shrine but the image remained silent on the altar it would neither talk nor eat the boy waited a long time but still the image did not move but the boy firmly believed that god would come down from his throne sit on the floor and partake of the food again and again he prayed to the deity saying o lord come down and eat the food it is already very late i cannot sit here any longer but the image did not utter a word the boy burst into tears and cried o lord my father asked me to feed you why won't you come down why won't you eat from my hands the boy wept for some time with a longing soul at last the deity smiling came down from the altar and sat be before the meal and ate it after feeding the deity the boy came out of the shrine room his relative said the worship is over now bring away the offering yes said the boy the worship is over but god has eaten everything how was that asked the relatives the boy replied innocently why and god has eaten the food they entered the shrine and were speechless with wonder to see that the deity had really eaten every bit of the offering yeah now do we believe this raise your hand if you believe it we can't imagine this this is the problem how do we how do we picture it did we picture the image itself coming down god coming out of the image do we these are all we can we can take these in any way that we want to take them uh if we're too intellectual and too modern modern people that we we can't imagine these things happening and we appreciate the fact that what tucker is trying to show that god will reveal himself when we have that tremendous longing that's enough you remember that other story that uh when he he takes the form of the horseman and comes out and defeats an entire army yeah and then tucker asked them do you believe all of this and them says oh i believe possible that they saw him that way this and that and then tucker laughs and says these stories a little one-sided it's the the little fanatical devotion so even tucker sometimes wouldn't wouldn't uh emphasize too much the taking these things in a very literal way my realizations are true then take this stone oh so many so many of course miraculous things happen in tucker's life yeah this is one time he said he wanted a sign from the divine mother if my realizations are true let this rock jump off the ground so it jumped off the ground or he saw it jump off the ground or she made it happen god knows god knows but it was an indication from him even if even if the divine mother makes him think that it jumps off the ground that's the divine mother giving an indication to him that it's true we can drive ourselves crazy if we really try to rationally uh explain on the experiences that these mystics have they're they're really beyond our ability to understand these things late in the afternoon and the other thing is the holy mother saw srama krishna partake of the of the offering every day but he left it for us to eat he didn't actually come and come down and eat the whole thing uh he would somehow take the essence and put put back and so it would turn it into prasad that way the light would come out of the eyes from the picture she would see no one else would see it she would see late in the afternoon srama krishna was talking to em they were standing on the south side of the nahbat since it was winter the master was wrapped in his woolen shawl master where will you sleep in the hut in the panchabati em won't they let me have the room on the upper floor of the nahabhad m selected the nahbat because he had a poetic temperament from there he could see the sky the ganges the moonlight and the flowers in the garden master holy mother must have been injured in bhati at this time and taka's own mother used to live up there this is after she passed away oh they'll let you have it but i suggested the panchavati because so much contemplation and meditation have been practiced have been practiced there and the name of god has been chanted there so often there's a footnote during the period of a satana shirama krishna practice spiritual discipline in the hut in the panchavati and this is where he had his nirvikalpa and stayed for those six months now notice that srama christian is not forcing him he's saying he's suggesting it he's going to let them come to his own conclusion in the evening incense was burning in the master's room he was sitting on the small couch absorbed in meditation am was sitting on the floor with rakal latu and ramlal the master said to him the sum and substance of the whole thing is to cultivate devotion for god and love him now and was a highly rational person highly intelligent and we know that he studied western philosophy and history and literature and logic even and perhaps it was a little too cerebral you know suramar krishna he had two two different techniques one was if somebody had a particular ben of mine spiritual attitude he would encourage him that way and the other was if it was a little bit too strong he would have some counter teaching to to to balance him out a little bit so we find within vaishnavas that uh very often that he would be very encouraging with regard to their devotion and everything but he would scold them a little bit about being too one-sided so he some things are correctives that he does this is one of those things with the m not that he wanted m to discard any type of of higher understanding or anything but he wanted to develop this devotional attitude in him so the master said to him the sum and substance of the whole thing is to cultivate devotion for god and love him at ramakrishna's request ramallah sang a few songs the master himself singing the first line of each ramallah had a nice voice and talked her off and asked him to sing but the one who really liked to have him around was was swami brahmananda and swami brahman always liked to have people around him who could sing so some of the saveoks were very good singers and everything so they had a very close friendship and this ramallah is a bit of a character sometimes he would dress in asari maybe punti maybe anyhow i don't know but there's a story i don't remember the whole thing but uh i just to show this close relationship there was a brahmatari who was told it was a taco is a birthday celebration and he was given the duty he said uh don't let any anybody take food up to the shrine area and eat up there so he abated everything then there's a one young girl and then some other member of the family came and he told them that there's no eating upstairs that you can keep the food down here and later swami ramananda called him into his room and said you have to leave you have to leave the order and he had no idea what what it was or anything it was ramadan's family members she saved him yeah it was it was no it wasn't her it was ramallah's family members and everything so he didn't know what to do and he went to dakshineshwar and uh sramy christian's niece laxmidi daughter she uh explained you know the whole thing and so anyhow it turned out that he had to really apologize to them and i think cook some food something like that and finally he got back in the good graces of swami brahmana that was how close that relationship was and tuck was on relative so somehow when sultan tak was relative insulting him and it sounded too strong but anyhow that was uh so the ramallah he did good things he did bad things he stopped holding mother's money and so all of the family members of srama krishna and holy mother they were there as to to uh thicken the plot to to bring some interest to this leela they were all great souls the holy mother's brothers especially they they were just troublemakers and everything but we couldn't appreciate the holy mother's uh forbearance and then calmness and everything if it hadn't been for what she had to put up with in her family so everything helps with this leelah ramallah sang over the vision i've beheld in case of bharati's hut god in all this matchless grace shedding tears and a thousand streams like a mad elephant he dances in ecstasy and sings drunk with an overwhelming love these songs are are so highly beloved to the devotees in bengal especially this uh all this nimai sanyasa there's a whole play that it's put on with all the different songs about how uh caitanya deva a young man of 24 how he left in the middle of the night and went to kesha bharati sad and took sannyas and how his mother wept so much very sad mother lost all of her children the only only other child who was still living had renounced the world he was the only one left and uh how to go to his mother and say that he was also leaving the world renouncing the world so people hear these stories they do you see them shedding tears and everything it was really very touching we had it performed here once anybody remember a long time ago she did it in the in the community center the very very beginning she did it one time the very beautiful songs then he sang though i am never loathed the grand salvation these are the words of sri krishna i hesitate indeed to grant pure love see taku is in this mood now these are all these are all the vice number songs and with with the highest type of ecstatic love uh these are these are not uh any any high vedantic ideals and not even divine mother these will all be this this ecstatic love of chaitanya deva and radha and christian everything yeah taku the relationship between takur and caitanya deva is is really interesting because in the beginning he didn't know much about him and didn't have much reverence for him he came from a family the divisional family but not from this uh that school of uh in gauri vaisnava's the caitanya school it wasn't until he went in and had those experiences and then when the brahmany came also and then when he started to feel that this chaitanya deva was was so similar to him in so many ways that they were almost the same person and then even then that conviction came not just he was ramen he was krishna but caitanya david he joined it he joined the club at that point tucker really felt that he was every every every bit as much of an avatar though i'm never loath to grand salvation this free christian saying i hesitate indeed to grant pure love whoever wins pure love surpasses all he is adored by men he triumphs over the three worlds srama krishna said to ramallah sing that one gor and nitai this is ye blessed brothers ramallah began the song and the master joined him ye blessed brothers i have heard how kind you are and therefore i have come to you when i visited benares shiva lord of kashi told me of the parabrahman's birth as man in mother shachi's home that was the name to tanya dave's mother o brahmin i recognize many asadu have i seen but never one so kind is you once in raja you were born as kanai and balay so this caitanya deva nithyananda are held to be this incarnations of kanai means krishna and means balarama now once more in no diya now we do it as go and the tide do you appear hiding the shapes that then you wore in bridges pastures running freely once you frolicked now for play you roll on the ground in nodia chanting aloud lord hadi's name laughing shouting once you played at rajya is near brindavan with your cowherd friends and now you chant lord hari's name ogor how cleverly you hide the dark blue form you wore at raja this is a constant theme that christian had a dark complexion goranga that means he had a golden complexion and uh how is it that krishna himself with a dark complexion was born as godango with the golden complex there are so many songs about that and they have this idea that uh sri krishna had longing to experience the devotion that radha had for him a very interesting idea that radha had for him because when we look at the this devotional play between christian and radha radha is greater she is the ideal not krishna he's great because of his guitar and his conversation with ultra and other things but in terms of devotion rod has the idea of this with this madhur bhava and this is why srama krishna had to feel himself as radha had to feel himself as a handmaid of god in order to experience that so the idea is that he was born as outside that he was well he had goda that outside he was the golden complexion of radha anta krishna but inside in reality he was krishna himself experiencing that same devotion so this is why really we say chaitanya dave is an incarnation of christian but really in some sense he's an incarnation of radha because he experienced all of the devotional moods and attitudes the rasas and powers they'd rather had and the true surah christian experience also the the three of them it's not krishna caitanya deva and ramakrishna it's radha caitanya deva and sram krishna when it comes to this this is a highly emotional uh it's the all the physical transformations and everything these are all the things that the brahmany saw in sramakrishna and she recognized him his divinity because he compared it to what we see in radha in the scriptures written about her and chaitanya so al-gore how cleverly you hide the dark blue form you were at raja but your slanting eyes betray you through the blessing of your name the sinner is set free they say and so my soul is filled with hope now with eager heart i hasten to your feet lord i implore you keep me safe within their shadow you redeemed jagai and madhai these were two ruffians in the town of nodea that would terrorize people they would go and beat them and everything and they even uh it was either nithyanandor they would throw some broke broken jar and cut them and everything and still they blessed them and embraced them and everything and they became great saintly people the followers of them you redeemed me wretched sinners though they were i pray you do the same for me i've heard that you embrace all men as brothers even the outcasts whispering in the ears of all lord hari's life renewing name one thing about this caitanya movement it created a tremendous literature and and before that time there was no uh tradition of there was always attrition of biography and we we can say the bhagavad gita this created a new type of bengali literature and all of the songs that were created there's hundreds and hundreds of songs came out of that period so that in itself was a a tremendous contribution to the culture of bengal and india but most of these things were being in bengali and tremendous amount of philosophical sanskrit literature and philosophical devotional literature in sanskrit also by the goswamis see chaitanya devi hisen there were six ago swamis actually five and then diva was the nephew of urup and he sent them to brindavan to build up the city again and to make the temples to find uh recreate the ancient prince and to write all of that literature tremendous amount of of highly philosophical literature also late at night m sat alone in the nahbat the sky the river the garden the steeples of the temples the trees and the pantavati were flooded with moonlight deep silence reigned everywhere broken only by the melodious murmuring of the ganges am was meditating on srirama krishna at three o'clock in the morning em left his seat now think how many hours he's sitting there in meditation it's three o'clock in the morning he proceeded toward the panchavati as srirami krishna had suggested he did not care for the nahabhad anymore and resolved to stay in the hut in the pantavati this was takwa's wish for him suddenly he heard a distant sound as if someone were wailing piteously oh where art thou brother madhusudana now we know this is lattu it's not it's not written here but at least this is this is the assumption that's made the light of the full moon stream through the thick foliage of the panchavati and as he proceeded he saw at a distance one of the masters disciples sitting alone in the grove crying helplessly oh where are thou brother madhusudana silently m watched him now we remember who was president when takara told that story huh it was rock and latu and ram lao anyhow lot too was staying with him at that time so okay that's the end of that day now it is saturday december 15 1883 em had been staying at dakshineshwar with srama krishna so it's december 15th i should know this how many days he stayed with him and you know this is the very next day the last one was december 14th but i think he'll stay through christmas at least this is the christmas holidays at that time the master was sitting in his room listening to the life of prahlada which ramallah was reading from the mala and was sitting on the floor rakal latu and harish were also in the room barakal was probably staying with srama krishna this time a lot too and rocco he stayed off and on during different periods with him uh who will stayed at that time baburam came a little later maybe anyhow different devotees would stay there at different times and was sitting on the floor rocco latu and haris were also in the room and hazra was on the veranda while listening to the story of prathlada's love for god srama krishna went into an ecstatic mood hiranyakashipu the king of the demons and father of patada had put us unto endless torture to divert the boy's mind from the love of god but through divine grace all the king's attempts to kill prahlada were ineffective at last god appeared assuming the form of the man lion and killed hiranyakashipu there's some story that that no one could kill him who was either a man no man or no animal so it had to be half man half animal and he couldn't he would had to be hidden in a pillar there's some three things that happened anybody know you remember a detailed story okay not necessary this the gods were frightened at the rage and roaring of the man lying the man line and thought that the destruction of the world was imminent they sent prasada to pacify the deity the voice saying a hymn to him in words of love and the man lion moved by affection licked praslada's body still in an ecstatic mood the master said you know this is in water till we get a little bit karma's water and out of water and then we get to the through the animal kingdom and we have to get to humans but we have to have the half man half animal in between it mirrors the whole evolutionary process it's very interesting still in an ecstatic mood the master said ah ah what love for the devotee the master went into div samati he sat there motionless a teardrop could be seen at the corner of each of his eyes the master came down to the plane of the sense world and spoke to em the master was in an ecstasy of love i skipped a portion there don't mind it was in an ecstasy of love he began to dance around the room and sing who was singing had his name upon the sacred ganges bank is it nitai that is come the giver of heavenly love it was ten o'clock in the morning ram lal had finished the daily worship in the kali temple the master went to the temple accompanied by him entering the shrine the master sat before the image he offered a flower or two at the feet of the divine mother then he put a flower on his own head and began to meditate he sang a song to the divine mother now surrounding christianity he could just slide from one to the other all everything about sri krishna and caitanya deva everything and then he goes to the temple of the divine mother everything diving didn't make any difference we find sometimes it's it's kali puja night they're singing about caitanya or vice versa that he could just go he he he was really the chameleon and he could just be this udipana could happen or at any moment at any time any aspect of god could could become fully awakened within him he sang a song to the divine mother by name i have heard o concert of shiva is the destroyer of our fear and so in thee i cast my burden save me save me o kindly mother surya krishna returned from the kali temple and sat on the southeast veranda of his room he ate some refreshments which had been offered at the temple and the devotees also received a share broccoli sat by the master and read about lord erskine from self-help by smiles i don't know who this is some english english writer who is it samuel samuel smiles who is he dishonest only by this this only okay master to him what does the book say m it says that lord erskine performed his duty without desiring any result for himself this interested duty what's he in india lord erskine first kindness i probably have seen that book it contains many uh his inspirational stories master that is very good but the characteristic characteristic of a man of perfect knowledge is that he doesn't keep a single book with him okay that takes care of us he carries all his knowledge on the tip of his tongue there's the instance of sugar devil books i mean the scriptures contain a mixture of sand and sugar now this this is why i say that takur was the the sanest person he had a type of sanity that we don't find anywhere else there's there's this a belief that the scriptures and when we say scriptures we mean shruti mostly that there can't be a single word in shruti that is is not essential and it can be false the and there's so many rules and things there can't be a single statement that is a tautology that is just a repetition of another state everything has to be something different everything has to have a beginning in the middle the conclusion there are all these different rules and the commentators all the acharyas they have to show that there's a consistency they can't have two different views and if shruti says it it's it's got to be right and now takuri says no it's a mixture of sugar inside now where do we find that that's that that sanity so that we have to understand that some things do have a little bit of a during a certain cultural period that they made sense some things are not appropriate for us some things are or may be based on the understanding at that time everybody else will will bend over backwards to try to show that everything makes perfect sense doesn't always make perfect sense and talk we're so intelligent it'll say then leave it alone this is one of the grains of sand that's not sugar you don't have to bother about that this is i so impressed when i read that i was so impressed that because normally we'll find that the word of god there can't be anything in it it's not 100 right but taco he was practical very practical person huh books i mean the scriptures contain a mixture of sand and sugar the sadhu takes the sugar leaving aside the sand he takes only the essence now there'll be things that are little stories and everything that we don't have to say are false or anything but they may not be of of that great value for us we have to pick and choose what things are not to say they're full of mistakes but there'll be things that won't be so relevant for us the voice of each other and the musician there were two version of currents that one was very close almost companion of takur and and considered to be uh some some type of leader of his community the ghostbuster groups and everything and the division of was it he was one of the singers who sang very often and he was also a very good person tucker liked him very much the voice of chad and the musician arrived and sang a few devotional songs m spent the night in the nahbat so he's back in the nah but what happened he was supposed to he went to the hut he went back again we'll see okay that's the end of that day now we're up to sunday december 16th so this we're getting day after day after day here so we'll stop here on page 342. i thought he spent the whole time in the hud i forgot he went back to the north [Music] [Music] krishna who was stainless of infinite nature whose heart melts in sympathy for his devotees who is an embodiment of the divine and the supreme lord and ever worthy of our worship peace