Video 19

The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna with Swami Atmajnanananda (08/07/20)

[Music] your words are like nectar bringing life to scorched 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 to our class on the gospel of srama krishna we are on the chapter advice to householders and the date is thursday august 24th 1882 and we're a couple of pages in those who want to follow along in the book it's page 115. and srama krishna is speaking to m and they're in his room in dakshin ishwar we saw last time that them had the opportunity to ask several very interesting questions to srama krishna what is the meaning of the realization of god and now we get the question m when one sees god does one see him with these eyes now it's an interesting question normally we would immediately say of course not but srama krishna had different types of visions say he himself would say that there were times when i would actually see with these very eyes huh what did he say john choku something like that that uh the the first vision he had like that he used to say was the division of sita and prior to that he would go into some type of bhava-samhati some type of ecstatic state where he's not aware of anything outside of himself and the mind goes to a different realm he had a vision of a divine mother or what whatever he's meditating upon or whatever type of experience he has but he said this time uh his eyes were wide open and he was near the panchavati and he saw the trees and the flowers and and the path and everything there and he saw a woman walking a very handsome figure glorious looking he didn't know who she was and then he saw a monkey rolling the ground in front of her and uh and it flashed in his mind this is sita so he said this was the first vision i had of that type where with eyes wide open now does that mean he actually saw her could it be that he's seeing everything else but still his mind is in an ecstatic state would anyone else have seen her no we doubt that very much but anyhow he he so he had different types of visions there's an interesting book that was written many years ago by swami yogesh i remember reading it and and he he made a list of all of the experiences that takur had uh breaking them down into those where he was in a state of ecstasy and those were he was actually seeing something with eyes wide open so we we do have that possibility that's not such an outrageous question that we would immediately say no of course not with these eyes these ordinary eyes and you know that's the question when one sees god does one see him with these eyes the main thing is that we have no idea what it means to see god this is this is as as many times as taqwa tells us about his visions and things it's something we won't really know until we have that experience ourselves there's some things which are almost inexplicable how how takur saw the living baby rama in this the image of ram lala this is a very very small brass the image and he saw it as as living and would feed it and bathe it and do everything uh so he's he's seeing the actual figure but he's not seeing it the way we would see it so what takes place in the mind of these mystics when it sends to a high level uh very hard to say sometimes they're aware of external things sometimes not sometimes they may not even know you know if if they're seeing something the mind may go to some other realm and they feel that they're there and seeing it like we ordinarily see things so very hard to say so anyhow this will be the answer that tucker gives master god cannot be seen with these physical eyes so even if the eyes are wide open and we're seeing because you know swamiji makes the point that this physical eye is not really the organ of vision that is something internal whether we want to go to the uh to the eyeball and and to the optic nerve into the brain and all of that between the brain and the mind we don't know how that works also but uh there's some internal internal seeing that takes place through through of course the instrument of the eye normally but tucker is saying not with these physical eyes in the course of spiritual discipline one gets a love body prema the love body now what does this mean we don't know in endow with love eyes love ears and so on one sees god with those love eyes one hears the voice of god with those love ears one even gets a sexual organ made of love at these words m burst out laughing a little embarrassed lefter the master continued unannoyed with this love body the soul communes with god now what does it mean love body and love eyes and love ears my understanding will be that we're talking about the mind ascending to a different level the mind experiences the world depending upon the level that it's on taco is very clear about this that with kundalini when it rises to a certain chakra see the world with the ordinary eyes we'll see it as something physical it'll go a little bit higher we'll see it as as uh as a light it goes a little higher everything will disappear we go a little higher and there's not even a sense of i so our understanding of the world and our perception of the world is dependent upon two things one the senses if the senses are functioning correctly if we have good eyesight we'll see it in a certain way bad eyesight we'll see it in a different way so the senses have to be operating correctly and then depending upon the nature of the senses we see the world swamiji again says if we had a sense of vision that could perceive electrical waves in the in this in the space then we would see a whole different world everything would look different there's so many different types of microwaves and electrical waves and all sorts of things that are going through we only see the light waves because of the nature of the of the sense organ of the eye so this is one thing the second thing is where is the mind if the mind is someplace else even ordinarily we know that if we're very intently listening to something we may not be aware that the eyes are are seeing something but if the mind is not focused on it it won't register maybe it'll register subconsciously but consciously it won't register so very often it'll happen people some people get so involved in reading a book then you can even call out to them and they won't hear you so the sense is working but the mind is not connected to it so we don't have that type of experience so to me when taco says his love body and the with the love ears and eyes and everything he's talking he's really referring to the fact that the mind has to ascend to a higher level to a higher plane in order for us to have these different types of mystical or spiritual experiences so the master continued and annoyed with this love body the soul communes with god and again became serious master but this is not possible without intense love of god so through deep meditation the mind can go higher through deep love the mind can go higher also it's not not simply a meditative technique or kundalini yoga technique or anything taqwa says even things like this retention of breath it doesn't have to be through the practice of pranayama it can be through the ecstatic love of god these things will automatically take place so this is not possible without intense love of god one sees nothing but god everywhere when one loves him with great intensity it is like a person with a jaundice who sees everything yellow then one feels i am verily he this is a very nice idea there was a disciple of of a holy mother by the name of ramoy marat everyone called him ramoi maraj he was known as the rose swami he lived in vrndavana for long he was one of the young boys who went to holy mother when he was very young but he became well known for growing roses and he lived to a ripe old age i met him only one time but the name is that means seeing everything is is rama himself and the gopis said that radha so you would see krishna everywhere because the the mind the sense it's not that the sense of of syed is is any different same eyeballs that she sees ordinarily but somehow the mind is so intensely thinking of the object of love of krishna in that case that she sees everywhere or the the sita she'll see ram everywhere so so ram i'm saying everything is rama himself has become everything so a very beautiful idea this power of love even ordinary love that the lover is thinking of the beloved this is why the worldly love is very often used to help explain this divine love huh the love that radha had for krishna uh on on one level this is this is love between a man and a woman or actually a boy and a girl they were both young at that time but we all understand that this is this is the advantage to these different bhavas that they all use emotions that we understand the mother knows what it means to love a child so she can transfer that type of love to god so the same thing with this this type of love so even ordinary love uh one is thinking of the beloved day and night then they see the beloved everywhere somehow not maybe literally but because the mind is everything tacos have says this many times everything is a question of the mind so he gives the example one sees nothing but god everywhere when one loves him with great intensity it is like a person with a jaundice who sees everything yellow then one feels i am verily he the gopis generally would want to feel that krishna is there is their beloved but there were times when even they would get into that mood and be so identified feel no difference between themselves and krishna the devotees of the divine mother and generally they'll want to feel i'm a child but we even have the saaham not soham i am hetham i am she so this will also be one type of attitude for worshipers of the divine mother a drunkard deeply intoxicated says verily i am kali the gopis intoxicated with love exclaimed verily i am krishna so sometimes they would even go that far one who thinks of god day and night beholds him everywhere it is like a man seeing flames on all sides after he has gazed fixedly at one flame for some time you can do this it's a nice little experiment if you if you look at something very bright and then even close your eyes you'll see that brightness or look someplace else you'll see that brightness just a very normal natural type of thing but tucker is saying that if we're thinking of god day and night then we'll feel that divine presence we'll see that presents everywhere but that isn't the real flame flashed through m's mind so i am a little bit misses the point of this whole thing of course tucker is not trying to to equate the flame with with god but he's trying to to show this phenomenon that if the mind is deeply focused on something that that remains fixed in the mind suramar krishna who could read a man's inmost thought said one doesn't lose consciousness by thinking of him who was all spirit all consciousness then he mentions that she will not he he for some reason he talks about shivanath a lot shivanath was one of the members of the brahmos homage uh he became a i don't know if he was an charlie at that time but later he was one of the speakers uh the one of the leaders perhaps after keisha passed away and everything and taka was very fond of him even though this shivanat he he would go and he would see taquer and he would be respectful and everything and then other times he really prescribed to this idea that takur was a little bit nutty he used this from bay head he lost his head why too much thinking of god so he's ascribed to that view that takur was a little bit mad they used to you know they used to call him takur there's a mad takur many people thought he's a very good person and very deep love for god we respect him very much but a little eccentric a little bit off a little mad so the sheep not used to say that so tako always would talk about how shiva not said that so shivnat once remarked that too much thinking about god confounds the brain one goes off one's head thereupon i said to him how can one become unconscious by thinking of consciousness okay so suppose day and night we're thinking of some a worldly thing then we may start to think that this is something real or we some attachment comes in everything but if we're thinking of consciousness itself if the mind is concentrated on the real nature of ultimate reality then it can only emerge in reality if we're thinking of some false thing or something insubstantial or something that will only lead to attachment that attachment will grow so it depends on the nature of the object that we're meditating of course thereupon i said to him how can one become unconscious by thinking of consciousness em yes sir i realize that it isn't like thinking of an unreal object how can a man lose his intelligence if he always fixes his mind on him whose very nature is eternal intelligence master with pleasure it is through god's grace that you have understood that the doubts of the mind will not disappear disappear without his grace doubts do not disappear without self-realization now there are a couple of things here one is that srama krishna of course for m's sake wants him to grasp these very subtle teachings he he sees uh the first first very first time he saw m he saw that m was a highly sensitive and spiritual soul and had great potential for reaching attending the heights of god realization so of course he's thrilled that emma's grace was a very subtle point but the second thing is that he knows that em will write these things down he knows that m is the recorder we get hints throughout the very that's why very often he'll ask him did you understand that can you repeat that or if he in some interesting conversation and m isn't there they'll say go tell them to come so for m's sake but for our sake also it's very important that m understands this so we can write it down correctly and everything now we get some interesting things here also through god's grace that you understand that the doubts of the mind will not disappear without his grace doubts do not disappear without self-realization okay now we have two things here i won't equate these two statements the first what do we mean by god's grace whenever we think of god's grace we have to ask ourselves what is our conception of god that god can bestow grace is it is it god up in heaven is it the divine mother dwelling in her the divine local sphere or something is it uh narayana in veykunta what is our conception of it srirama krishna will always emphasize the fact that god is within within and without not only within but it's that divine presence within that divine presence within is what bestows grace upon us because that's that's the access point he says the lowest uh there are different types of classes of devotees the lowest type uh says god is there he points someplace else or she points someplace else and then after that god dwells within the heart second type and what's the highest type god is manifest everywhere so if we think that this grace he's talking about will be that divine presence within then we start to understand that taqwa's idea of grace of the mind and grace of god they start to become one and so what is the grace of god internally that means it'll it'll blow away all of the dust it'll clear out all of the misconceptions it'll allow the mind to go to a higher realm to see things more clearly so this is why takara talked about the grace of the mind there's a an expression maybe a verse from a song i don't know from the invitation of a tradition that taqwa refers to many times that says one may have the grace of of the devotee one may have the grace of the guru one may have the grace of god but none of these mean anything unless one has the grace of the mind so the grace of the one it says if one has the grace of that one then everything is fine otherwise nothing is of any avail guru may give blessings or right and left that everyone else may be well wishers but if the mind is not allowing us and the mind is constantly giving us trouble we won't have any way to to transcend that so when the mind enters into this higher higher level the mind becomes calm and peaceful and clear and we can understand subtle things this is the grace of the mind but it's also the grace of god i take it that way people have different ways of understanding this of course this idea of grace is a very mysterious thing but this is a way we can understand it it appeals to our logic and our experience also sometimes we'll have moment of clarity and it's not because we don't want it all the time we're always trying to have moments of clarity we sit for meditation day after day after day the mind is cluttered running after this and that one day for some reason it becomes quiet is it not that we wanted it to be quiet to other times it just happens we don't feel that we did anything different to make it become quiet that time so we'd say grace yeah so we feel we experience some grace and it allows that that divine presence to shine through so we feel it as grace also now this this can remove doubts with regard to the ability to clearly understand something but real doubt ultimately can only be removed with god realization we have the verse that we always referred to that these knots of the heart will become untied the doubts will be removed all of our karma will be exhausted when we have that ultimate realization when we realize that that supreme brahmin that manifests as the imminent and transcendent as for everything from the the subtlest to to the most visible thing when we have that realization only then will these doubts completely vanish before that we can develop tremendous conviction that yes now i see that i had a misconception before now i don't doubt what your words your words are telling me i have no doubt about that this is what's known as vishwasa this is a talk we talked about is vishas to have this conviction the deep conviction of the truth of something it doesn't mean we've realized it but it means we we can't question it anymore it's very close to realization or swami swansea used to say that conviction itself is a type of realization and almost the final rung of the letter that takes us to that realization so we have two things one doubts of the mind will not disappear without his grace so i'll i'll take that as the grace of the mind and they do not disappear without self-realization so the very highest that means they're really gone that they'll never come back again so because he's not telling he's not telling him that oh you just now you've got self-realization he's not telling him that he's but he's saying it's by god's grace now you understand that that doubt that doubt is removed but uh when one has there's a final realization then there's no room for doubt because one has had the experience then it's not a question i have the conviction that it's true i know that it's true there is subtle difference between conviction and knowledge one is is still through the mind that we have that conviction because it makes perfect sense we've seen people who've realized it uh it meets all of the pramanas all the tests that we can give for it except that one that i haven't haven't had the direct experience when we have the direct experience then there's no room for any doubt so the master continues ramakrishna continues but one need not fear anything if one has received the grace of god it is rather easy for a child to stumble if he holds his father's hand but there can be no such fear if the father holds the child's hand now this is also a nice way of understanding sharon agathi and takur also gives the very similar illustration comparing and contrasting the baby monkey and the mother monkey and the baby kitten and the mother cat if you've ever been to the zoo and you you see go to see the monkeys and the apes and gorillas and everything you'll see that mother will be jumping around from place to place and the babies will be underneath holding on there may be five or six of them they hold on for dear life if they let go their fall mother's not even holding them the baby kitten doesn't even have the power to do that the baby kitten can only go mew mew mew can only call mother mother mother and the mother comes and the mother herself takes it she'll open her mouth and she'll grab it by the scruff of the neck and she'll do it gently so it doesn't hurt the kitten and she'll take it and she'll put it someplace and the kitten is is content so this is that sharanagati that that is also a type of grace we can understand grace in so many ways it doesn't have to be a very traditional idea that god is going to stick his finger on and light will come down and it will strike us and we'll fall and we'll have some god realization it doesn't have to be like that we can understand it that it we're in a state of grace when uh we have perfect reliance and surrender to god this is also a type of grace we're living in a state of grace it doesn't mean that we've had the highest realization yet so this grace has two levels two aspects to it that grace which allows us to uh find a spiritual path find a guru that grace which allows us to do spiritual practice which allows us to have a holy company this is all grace that shankaracharya he mentions three different types that is human birth this is also grace that the longing for god realization this is grace uh finding a highly realized soul who will take our responsibility this is also grace this is all the preliminary grace final grace is that god realization taco gives another nice story very beautiful story that there was a king in a certain area it is a small kingdom and most of the people there were relatively poor and one day he said to his minister i'd like to visit one of the homes of of one of the citizens in in my kingdom uh can you arrange for it so the the minister he said okay but give me a little time so he goes and he finds a family and and he says to them your house is a little bit shabby that he could use a little furniture a little cleaning up let us do all of this and you're going to get a nice visitor to come we have a nice tea set for you and we can get you a good quality tea and get everything ready some nice snacks and all of that so the minister does arrange this for all of these things so he cleans out the house and gets all of the things necessary and then he says now let me bring the guest and the king comes so the first grace the beginning part is also grace the grace is that we hear that something wonderful can happen we hear that god can enter into the heart this is number one number two that the grace will come with this uh purification of the heart then all of the things that are added to us the love and devotion and discrimination and dispassion all of these things desire for liberty all of these things come this will be like the tea set and the furniture and the table in the chair and all of those things so this is the first type of grace but the ultimate great final graces is when the king himself comes when god enters into the heart we have that that final type of realization so taco is talking about uh these are two different levels one when we're when we're holding on and clinging and we have to do that in the beginning there's no question about that but then we reach this higher level where we say even that i can do you have to come in and help me this is sharon nagati and we we simply say i take refuge that now everything is in your hands mother this is the attitude of the kitten so they're both good and they're both important attitude of the kitten is higher this is what takur is saying a man does not have to suffer anymore if god in his grace removes his doubts and reveals himself to him but this grace descends upon him only after he has prayed to god with intense yearning of heart and practice spiritual discipline okay these are the two things one we have to do something taco said it over and over and over again that is not enough to simply sit there and and uh and say oh do something for me god help me help me this and that we ourselves have to do something what is that we have to do our spiritual practice so this is one thing we have to be regular in our spiritual practice do our meditation our japa our prayer our puja whatever it is that we do or bhajans whatever it is that we do it doesn't matter we have to do it very regularly with great devotion but at the same time we have to have this tremendous longing tremendous longing for god realization if we if we do it without that then it becomes a little bit mechanical it becomes a little mechanical it's not bad it's better than not doing it at all we don't always feel that tremendous yearning for god that those days when we don't feel it we do our practice anyhow we we can't give up but he says that grace descends upon him only after he's prayed to god with intense yearning of heart of all the spiritual disciplines meditation japa puja all of that taqwa emphasizes prayer to a great extent because in prayer we don't have to follow any rules or guidelines or worry about or we recite him unto this properly are we doing a ritual problem we don't have to worry about any of that come straight from the heart straight from the depths of the heart and we can express ourselves in any way we want to and it has a tremendous power and we can do it with full concentration we try to sit for meditation and concentration it just goes all over the place but we turn to prayer where we're actually uttering not out loud but uttering to ourselves a word putting into words there's tremendous longing of the heart the mind is fully engaged in that so this is what taku is saying that grace descends only after one has prayed to god with intense yearning of heart and practice spiritual discipline both are necessary the mother feels compassion for her child when she sees him running about breathlessly she has been hiding herself now she appears before the child this was another uh point that tawkward made and and again we don't have to take these things that uh literally we have to look at the deeper meaning behind all of these things and that is that this grace won't come as long as we're perfectly happy with with worldly pleasures and enjoyments we're perfectly happy uh having good things and bad things going through this whole cycle of smiles and tears going back and forth that way we're perfectly happy then not that divine mother is looking down somewhere and saying my child is happy this is the imagery that we have there may be some truth to it i don't know all of these things but we can understand it the other way that the mind itself is is content mind itself is content to let this lower mind have these enjoyments when the mind itself it gets bored with these things and and wants something higher and and calls for the divine mother then that awakens something within the heart so uh these are two ways of understanding all of these things one is a little bit uh for for the for the philosopher who is something that appeals to our understanding the other is is for those who don't need philosophy they're better off i i have the conviction they're better off and none of this is meant to to make anybody question anybody has this belief no the divine mother is there she answers my prayer i know it then they're fortunate people so those people don't listen to all of my rationalizing and philosophy okay but why should god make us run about thought m now am is having a conversation with sramakrishna where he's asking all of these questions to himself [Laughter] as if he's saying them out loud and as if talker is hearing them but somehow tako knows what m is thinking so immediately suramar krishna said and m had that deep conviction that taku could read his mind could hear his thoughts and whether taqwa actually heard the thought or intuitively knew what he was thinking it's true the taco had that ability we don't know how or why but he was very specific about it you know we have these display cabinets you can keep plates and dishes and nice crystals and things inside and it'll be glass and you can look inside he used to say i can see inside a person's heart and mind and know exactly what's inside their their past and their future and their some scholars and all of these things the same way that people can see what's inside one of these display cabinets these crystal cabinets and things so m thought but why should god make us run about immediately srama krishna said it is his will now this is a problem with with english the english translation because you know in bengali they use the same word for he and she then ortini if you want to use the very formal so when we translate uh it's up to the translator and in the west people are so used to to using he for god in tucker's mind i would say she is better and because he's talking about the divine mother so this is you can say he slash she this is this is just uh inherent difficulty in translating bengali into english uh it would be nice if if we had these uh these neutral types of words that didn't make us always say he or she and come try to come up with new pronouns and things that are not considered sexist and everything so let me change this a little bit it is her will the mother's will that we should run about a little then it is great fun god has created the world in play as it were so as it were so we don't have to take this again literally it seems like a play to us that we're running around we're all playing a role uh eve even even the mother's playing the role of the mother father the father the the monk is playing the role of a monk yeah and we can even say that in the god himself playing all of these roles that was a tacot's vision i see it rama himself who was disguised and dressed as all men sita disguised and dressed as all women so we can say it is his will her will mother's will that we should run about a little then it is great fun god has created the world in play as it were this is called mahamaya the great illusion of muhammad one one of the reasons why we have this this conception of the divine mother is to take this concept of maya and i personalize it personalize it and let it become part and parcel of this ultimate reality otherwise the philosophical conception of maya we don't know where to place it and we don't know what status to give it it can't be outside of brahman because brahman alone exists it can't be within brahman because brahman has no room for any darkness or illusion or anything it can't be ultimately real then it's a second thing it can't be ultimately unreal because then we won't see the effects of maya so it's neither real nor unreal neither within brahman or without we don't really know what to do with it so the devotee will say why are you making such a fuss out of all of this this is a divine power and this divine power involves this veiling this is one of the powers of maya that once we're within this this this dream brahman itself playing all of these roles and brahman itself falls under the veil brahman itself forgets we we have that expression tucker like this uh ponto bhuterfande brahma parikande that brahman himself gets caught in the snare of the five elements and weeps tucker uses this to explain on the one hand the avatar why the avatar behaves like an ordinary human being but the same roman is playing the role of each and every one of us and forgets so this forgetting is not realizing our divine nature this is part of this this play why why we call it a play that uh we all have a role to play in our parts to play and we forget that we're actors we identify with with the role so much so this is part of the scheme of things this is why we can say this is a divine plan we don't know why it is this way could it have been some other way very difficult to say but this seems to be the way that it is and why not accept this if this is the way the world is why not accept this as as the divine plan either that or we're just uh there's there's no plan everything is is uh is just random cause and effect uh we can we can believe that i mean there are plenty of people who believe that we can even believe that and lead a spiritual type of life but what this is saying is that uh this this brahman that we conceive of uh we have to conceive of it as having some type of power otherwise we can't explain anything or we have to say that okay brahman is here and the universe is here so purusha prakri we can be like that if we want with this sankey ideal but then we won't be a dwightens exactly and we won't be able to explain uh the existence of of so-called matter so any other this is this is a very beautiful way of taking this philosophical idea of false identification and ignorance and everything and saying that the spell of the divine mother that is making us play these these games and participate in this without really understanding who we are and getting too identified with that role itself so suramar krsna's speaking it is mother's will that we should run about a little then it is great fun god has created the world in play as it were this is called muhammad the great illusion therefore one must take refuge in the divine mother the cosmic power itself so the divine when taqwa says the divine mother he's talking about shakti as in hearing in brahman he doesn't have this concept the brahmana and shakti has two separate things he says that they're they're indistinguishable they belong to each other two sides of the same coin just as we can't imagine burning power without fire and fire without burning power or milk and its whiteness he gives many different types of of examples that it's inconceivable that we have one without the other there can't be the power of brahmin if we worship shakti just as power the power has to end here in something there has to be something powerful if there's power so automatically we're combining them so this is why taku used to say he used to say to narendra that which you call brahmin i call kali so it's not shiva and shakti it's not uh this is brahman and and the power uh that uh brahmanan shakti or brahman khali anything like that uh it's brahman alone but when this power is manifest thakur says then i think of it in terms of of kali so we can say saguna brahm and near go to brahman belong to the same reality one in the same taqwa used to use that language also therefore one must take refuge in the divine mother the cosmic power itself it is she who is bound us with the shackles of illusion the realization of god is possible only when those shackles are severed so praying to the divine mother means uh praying that this this false understanding of things will disappear that the divine presence will shine forth will manifest now it's being hidden that that son of knowledge is is always there and always present a little cloud comes to the sky very small wispy cloud is enough to hide the sun completely so we do our best to get rid of it but as long as we're trying that sense of i is there so when we can get rid of that and say mother you have to do it yourself i take refuge in you then the ego vanishes the vanishing of the ego and the disappearance of the cloud are the same thing so automatically that grace comes the master continued one must propitiate the divine mother the primal energy in order to obtain god's grace so this really the concept in brahman doesn't really allow us to to develop a devotional relationship and to pray the brahman is impersonal absolute reality uh when we when we talk about the divine mother then we're talking about this brahman we're putting a face we're we're putting emotions there we're adding this this element of love there that love which we have within our hearts we're projecting on this divine mother but the love that we have in our hearts comes from the divine mother is the presence of the divine mother is the the the on the on the aspect of reality within the heart so we're superimposing something which was given to us already this this is that interesting idea we get from the issue of punishment that everything is to be covered by god we're superimposing this idea of god and everything and in order to realize that everything is already infused with god everything is already the manifestation of god but psychologically we have to do that so this is this is what we're doing uh we may feel that yes i'm imagining all of these divine qualities on the divine mother but i do that in order to realize that she's the source of all of these things whatever love i feel in my heart whatever compassion i have this this can't be there without presence of the divine the the divine consciousness within so one must propitiate the divine mother the primal energy in order to obtain god's grace god himself is mahamaya who deludes the world with her illusion and conjures up the magic of creation preservation and destruction she has spread this veil of ignorance before our eyes we can go into the inner chamber only when she lets us pass through the door this this uh the one conception of maya takwo gives many different definitions sometimes he says maya is the ego itself is maya so when he says maya that she's standing before the door she has to step aside that means we can't enter into anything higher as long as this ego was there tucker says it's like the stump of a tree that grows up in front of the door of a small house you can't open the door as long as the tree trunk is there it has to be cut down to the very ground level and then you can open the door so this ego is like that and by praying to the divine mother this is how we get rid of it the whole mind gets fixed on mother we forget about ourselves i'm simply a child i'm helpless i can't do anything so we're saying there's a i we're converting it into this ripe eye and tucker's language so we can go into the inner chamber only when she lets us pass through the door that means she steps aside this we have to uh reach this this state of of of grace grace for the mind when this ego is not standing in the way and clouding everything and covering everything living outside we see only other objects but not that eternal being existence knowledge bliss absolute that means the outgoing senses that we see everything external to us and we identify and we see everything as real therefore it is stated in the purana that deities like brahma praised muhammad for the destruction of the demons madhu and kaidaba shakti alone is the root of the universe so we have we have this doctrine called shakti parinamavada that brahman it's not exactly brahmin that has become this universe because brahman can't become anything and brahman is perfectly transcendent and everything it's the shakti aspect of brahman they shut the aspect of brahmin that can become this universe and in different ways we understand that so this chit shakti through this projection of of this cosmic mind in the upanishads we're reading now kumar and i are reading from chandooga chandogya punishment same section we find in in taituri panichad that ramen is sitting and brahman looks around etc roman looks around and it doesn't say anything but we get the impression that ramen looks around and doesn't see anything and maybe feels lonely so brahman says bahusyam may i become many and through that thought may i become many may i uh may i take birth may i be born then uh does this whole universe come to existence at once like in a dream this is one theory a very nice theory but in the upanishad maybe it's strictly allegorical but we get the building blocks we get the elements that come we get fire and the earth and water that these come one after one and each one comes and it looks around and says may i be many and then that also manifests and so it's more or less a material or real in some sense the universe but it's all coming out of the thought of brahman or brahma we can say because brahman itself it won't even be able to think or look or anything like that that means the shakti aspect this is this chit shakti there's a power of thought to think something satya sankalpa do you think something turns it into something real this this type of idea so shakti alone is the root of the universe shakti not as separate from brahman as as part and parcel of brahman that primal energy has two aspects vidya and avidya okay knowledge and ignorance and this this will manifest more for us in our own personal lives we can take it as a metaphysical doctrine also but it has very great application to us in our daily lives that we'll see that some things uh avidyamaya and vidyamaya both mean maya maya will mean something that belongs to this relative universe something that's not absolutely real it's not brahmin it's relatively real it belongs to the relative universe some things keep us bound to the world and some things take us higher so we have to distinguish which is this avidyamayan which is vidyama sometimes it can be the same thing talker talks about someone is married and husband or the wife one of them either will be a great help in the spiritual life or the partner or will drag down the partner whether their husband or wife doesn't matter so one he'll call this a vidyamaya and the other ability so now he's saying that this avidya deludes avidya conjures up lust and gold which casts the spell vidya begets devotion kindness wisdom and love which lead one to god they look the same very often because they may come in as a desire so people used to ask takur he would he would say that desire binds the soul that we have to be free from desire and everything and they would say what about the desire for god that's also a desire so he would say it's it's technically it's also a desire but there's a big distinction and the distinction is that uh all of the other other desires bind us to the world and they uh inhibit our spiritual development the desire for god helps us so it may be a desire but we shouldn't even call it a desire this belongs to vidyamaya this is something would uh will be helpfulness and will eliminate all of the other desires he gives so many illustrations he talks about uh uh ordinary sugar that has so many negative things to it and there's mitchell it's a very refined type of sugar and he talks about these grains some of them they create bio the hinchesaki says but this other type not only doesn't it create bile it eliminates bile that's very important so the thought of desire for god is not that we can say well it doesn't harm us in any way it eliminates all the other desires so he said it shouldn't be classified as a desire so the viddyah maya and abidhamaya they may look externally similar in different ways i'll call her back in about 15 minutes 10 minutes so he says that vidya so vidyamaya begets devotion kindness wisdom and love which lead one to god so there are also emotions we we have different types even passions this is why they look so similar takra says the same passion which can be a vidyamaya can be twisted and turned in a new direction so that it becomes vidyamayas so that it becomes helpful so the same longing for sense enjoyment if we turn that around and have that longing for god enjoyment then then we've changed it from something harmful to something helpful and this longing for god will eliminate longing for the world so this is the the second quality that he has this must be propitiated and that is the purpose of the rights of shakti worship so we have to pray don't bind me with these things that i have this sense of the ego i have this pride i have a tendency to anger lust greed all of these different things i don't tempt me with these things i step aside this is this ego that i have i know that this belongs to maya step aside let this ego let it let it be transformed into the child ego let it be transformed into this vidyamaya ego so we pray to the divine mother i don't tempt me with this uh vidya aspect of yours open the gate step aside she has to step aside you know tucker's example are we going to get it here we'll get it someplace later that rama sita and lakshman are all walking together in a row and lakshman wants to he loves to see rama all of the time but sita is in between so he says my dear my dear sister-in-law sita please can you step aside so i can see rama so she said gladly i'll step aside. so we pray to maya please step aside in this maya in the aspect of ignorance and the aspect of ego and the aspect of bondage and obstacles please step aside so that because that's all we have to do well all we have to do is get the cloud to move the sun is always shining rama is there so we pray this is why he says why did you say avidya has to be propitiated why not just say maya in both aspects but particularly in this aspect deluding aspect please don't delude me anymore that is the purpose of the rights of shakti worship the devotee assumed various attitudes toward shakti in order to propitiate her see generally when we talk about these different attitudes bhavas we have these five bhavas they belong to the vaisnava tradition we find a similar thing with those who worship the divine mother and they shock the tradition there are three different attitudes so tucker says the attitude of a handmaid so so uh a hero veerabhava or a child so these are the three different attitudes that taqwa like this he used to call shontan hub there's an attitude of a child he looked upon the divine mother as his very own mother and he was a small helpless child knows nothing but the mother we think about the small child if the child gets separated from the mother how the child screams and weeps and everything the tremendous longing to be with the mother so that attitude tucker says you have to assume that attitude you have to adopt that attitude so we had and then the handmaid and this will be thinking of oneself jesus as radha had her had the other gopis so the divine mother also has her attendance that will will come and dress her and and and fan her and do all of those things and this weird this this heroic mood this will be something similar to madhuri kind of a husband-wife relationship a hero's attitude is to please her even as a man pleases a woman through intercourse this is something that taku didn't didn't encourage anybody to do and himself couldn't do when when we hear that he practiced all of the tantric rituals the it says 64 different things nobody's very clear what these 64 different tantras are a little bit little bit mysterious but anyhow there are many things that taqwa didn't do couldn't do and didn't have to do to give one example one of the rituals involved or maybe several involves drinking wine consecrated wine which is called cotton and this word karun karuna sanskrit also means cause so tako used to say that because the brahmani by the way brahmani was the one who who tried to get him to do all of these different tantric practices that she wanted him to bring the wine she brought it but as soon as she said here's the quran then he said my mind thought of the divine cause of the universe and went up and merged in samadhi so and then no need to do it so he didn't have to do it so that way he got out of all of these things especially involving women and sexual things and everything he didn't do any of that and didn't encourage anyone to do that so he said the worship of shakti is extremely difficult it is no joke i passed two years as the handmaiden companion of the divine mother this was when takur lived in the in the home of matur babuna's wife john bazaar i think and he would dress like a woman he became so intimate with all of the women of the family they considered him one of their very own uh he would put ornaments on on the deity he would fan the deity and everything so he he stayed in that attitude just as he he would adopt different attitude when he worshipped rama he felt that he was hanuman after all of them he went back to the to the child of the divine mother so this isn't something that was necessarily natural for him but he made it natural so he could do these things so he said my i passed two years as a handmaid and companion of the divine mother but my natural attitude has always been that of a child towards its mother i regard the breasts of any woman as those of my own mother if the taco used to say the different ways of course these are all directed to men this is when women read it they have to just in their mind flip a switch and understand if he's speaking to women he'll say similar things in in other ways but if if if a monk looks upon every woman and tries to feel that this is my very own mother or even sometimes i think this i think that oh in my past lifetime this was my mother then how can one have any lustful attitude that way any of this was this was one of his his ideas then he says women are all of them the veritable image of shakti in northwest india the bride holds a knife in her hand at the time of marriage in bengal and nutcutter the meaning is that the bridegroom with the help of the bride who is the embodiment of the divine power now he shows that his real attitude is that we should look upon all women a special manifestation of the divine mother who is the embodiment of divine power will sever the bondage of illusion this is the heroic attitude i never worshiped the divine mother that way my attitude toward her is that of a child towards his mother he used to say it's a very pure attitude because the child has perfect innocence also then he says the bride is the very embodiment of shakti haven't you noticed at the marriage ceremony how the groom sits behind like an idiot but the bride she is so bold after attending god one forgets his external splendor the glories of his creation one doesn't think of god's glories after one has seen him tucker always says the higher we go in in the spiritual life the more intimate the relationship and the less the aishwarya this the power aspect is there and the more the loving aspect comes the devotee once immersed in god's bliss doesn't calculate any more about outer things when i see narendra i don't need to ask him what's your name where do you live where is the time for such questions once a man asked hanuman which day of the fortnight it was brother said hanuman i don't know anything of the day of the week or the fortnight or the position of the stars i think of rama alone okay this is the end of that of that day and we'll begin next time on page 1 17 october 16 1882 and we will close with our chance [Music] we bow our heads before srama krishna who was stainless of infinite nature whose heart melts in sympathy for his devotees and who is an embodiment of the divine and the supreme lord and ever worthy of our worship peace peace peace be on to all i thank all of you for attending hope you all have a good week and everyone please stay well