Video 21

The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna with Swami Atmajnanananda (08/28/20)

foreign your words are like nectar bringing life to squirt souls they are praised by poets and remove all sin they are auspicious to hear wonderful and exalted those who spread these words throughout the world are truly giving souls welcome everyone last week i apologize for not being here what actually happened was we recorded last week's session and there was some glitch and it really didn't get recorded and by the time we found found out it was too late so we asked upon adidas to take over uh for the for the class i'm sure you all enjoyed it with swamiji last week but i will go back and start where we left off from two weeks ago which is on page 121 and this is the chapter advice to householders it is october 16th 1882 and i am of course is there he's always there and the renderer had brought two or three members of the brahma samaj to the temple garden and besides these rakhal ramla al-hazra and m were with the master so it's two most illustrious disciples we can say and ram lal uh and hazra who were both permanent residents there as a priest or temple workers and then m is there we don't know exactly who the young members of the brahma samaj or we get the name priya later i'm not sure if he's one of them narendra and raqqa were both members of the brahma-samaj and presumably they at that time were already good friends they had formed the friendship not simply because of the brahma-samaj they attended the same gymnasium and and did other things together so they knew each other it's possible that m didn't know that they knew each other he doesn't mention too much about it rachael swami ramananda rakal came earlier he was one of the first to come and then norendra came a little bit later and of course m was about a year after the the two of them near the east door of his room narendra and the other devotees were gossiping how do you find the young men nowadays m they are not bad but they don't receive any religious instruction narendra but from my experience i feel they are going to the dogs they smoke cigarettes indulge in frivolous talk enjoy foppishness play truant and do everything of that sort i've even seen them visiting questionable places well i remember when i first read this i found it so interesting that it doesn't matter what period of time we go back to that there will always be this attitude about the new generation the younger generation that uh we were very traditional in the way we grew up in this new generation that they're all going to the dogs so it was the same even in swamiji's time m i didn't notice such things during our student days m is uh uh with nine years we thought older he's 28 i think at this time and narendra is 19 something like that perhaps you didn't mix with the students intimately i've even seen them talking with people of immoral character perhaps they are on terms of intimacy with them and it is strange indeed i know that many of them form bad habits it would be proper if the guardians of the boys and the authorities kept their eyes on these matters it just seems unusual this young boy narendra he seems to have the views of a much older person and very conservative types of views usually young people are more iconoclastic and not so strict about things and especially we know how independent norendra was so a little bit surprising that he has such fixed views about these things they were talking thus when srama krishna came to them and asked with a smile well what are you talking about now tucker is hoping that they're talking about god of course so he'll be a little shocked i've been asking em about the boys in the school the conduct conduct of students nowadays isn't all that it should be the master became grave and said to him rather seriously this kind of conversation is not good it isn't desirable to indulge in any talk but talk of god you are their senior and you are intelligent you should not have encouraged them to talk about such matters now we have to understand the context here and we have to avoid the the mistake of always trying to raise ourselves to the ideal that we find that srirami krishna is presenting to his young disciples who were very very special all of them included but we know that narendra was the one to carry his message throughout the world so there are two things one is that uh this i think especially because they had come to sri ramakrishna they were in that holy atmosphere the kali temple is there and everything at least during this time they should try to fix their mind on god and only speak about you know spiritual things the second thing is for us that we can keep our minds on such a very high level all of the time and i'll tell you very frankly among even some of our great monks and sadhus that i know there's they've seen nothing wrong with talking about politics occasionally or sports or other things like that many of our monks were great followers of uh these different sporting events was a great athlete himself and very interested swami lokeshwa he loved to follow cricket and everything and so they would the light conversation like that among sadhus is even a type of holy company i i know i i felt this very clearly one of our monks in trebuco who might talk about sometimes he was a great artist he was also a big sports fan and sometimes we would we would watch games together we would talk about sports but i always felt like it was holy company when i was with him no matter what we were talking about because that that level of mind was always there in the background and this was was just some light type of break there so no one should think that there's something very terrible about some type of light conversation we we shouldn't take it that far if perchance we were to go to dakshinaswara to visit shirami krsna's room to see the kali temple go to any holy place come to the center at that time at least we should avoid this type of gossiping and everything but we shouldn't take it to to mean that at no time should we engage in any light type of conversation so he's scolding m he's not going to scold narendra he's holding m because he's the senior here he says it isn't desirable to indulge in any talk but talk of god you are their senior and you are intelligent you should not have encouraged them to talk about such matters narendra was then about 19 years old and m about 28 so nine years indifference more or less thus admonished m felt embarrassed and the others also fell silent while the devotees were enjoying their meal srirami krsna stood by and watched them with intense delight that night the master's joy was very great you know this was taqwa's dream that for so many years uh he would pray to the divine mother bring my devotees now others had come and many wonderful people came the the kesha and the brahmo devotees had come and before that some of the great pundits had come the vaisnava and others uh but he knew deep down that these weren't the ones he was waiting for and when the ones that he really knew would be those who could appreciate his his words and what he had accomplished in his life uh he knew that they would come eventually and when they did start coming he was filled with joy and he always used to say that for someone who has experienced the highest type of samadhi in order to keep the mind on a lower level that something has to pull it down and for suramar krishna he used to say bhakti and bhakta these were the two things that he wanted the company of the devotees and he wanted to be able to experience the joy of devotion so this was really his his dream come true to see uh all of these these young devotees to start to come those who would eventually renounce the world and those like m who would play a extremely significant role in this this lila in this divine play of srama krishna that night the master's joy was very great after supper the devotees rested on the mat spread on the floor of the master's room this is what they would generally do just spread out some mats or some quilt or some blanket or something like that if there's a pillow they would have that and that would be their bed and they would do do it sometimes after lunch just to take a little rest and many times the devotees would would stay there you would see mats on the floor in the room or on the veranda outside of the room depending on if it was winter time or how many people were there and who were the ones that taqwafeld were the real inner core so sometimes he would say you stay in the room you can sleep here tonight there would be two or three of them like that and the others would be outside on the veranda so after supper the devotees rested on the mat spread on the floor of the master's room they began to talk with him it was indeed a mard of joy the master asked narendra to sing the song beginning with the line in wisdom's firmament the moon of love is rising full now we we read in other places that narendra only knew a handful of songs when he first came to srama krishna mostly songs from the brahma samaj he was not only a member but they had a type of choir or chorus something there so he used to sing along with them they had their own song book and of course he had a brilliant memory so he could very easily memorize all of these songs so srama krishna had heard these before he knew what songs that narendra knew so it's unlikely this this will be a brahma song it's unlikely that srama krishna had ever heard this song other than when either narendra or one of the brahmos came to sing it this uh we'll see this is by premdas which is i believe in pseudonym for tarelkin he was the main writer of songs at that time quickly followed by verbin tagore he was then two years older than swamiji 21 and had already started writing some of his songs are also included in the gospel so narendra sang and the other devotees played the drums and symbols in wisdom's firmament the moon of love is rising full and loves flood tide insurging waves is flowing everywhere o lord how full of bliss thou art victory unto thee on every side shine devotees like stars around the moon their friend the lord all merciful joyously plays with them behold the gates of paradise today are open wide the soft spring wind of the new day raises fresh waves of joy gently it carries to the earth the fragrance of god's love till all the yogis drunk with the bliss are lost in ecstasy upon the sea of the world unfolds the lotus of the new day and there the mother sits enshrined in blissful majesty see how the bees are mad with the joy sipping the nectar there behold the mother's radiant face which so enchants the heart and captivates the universe about her lotus feet bands of ecstatic holy men are dancing in delight what matchless loveliness is hers what infinite content pervades the heart when she appears oh brother says premdas i humbly beg you one and all to sing the mother's praise they used to say that takur gave the gift of the name of the divine mother to the brahmos tara lokianat was one of the handful of brahmos who really was influenced by srama krishna and highly devoted to him had great love and respect for him keshav of course that goes without question they had a very very sweet and intimate relationship how takware loved him and how he prayed for his welfare when he was sick vidai krishna goswami he he was so inspired by swami krishna that he eventually left the brahma-samantha became a sannyasi and had a big following himself and this trilogy not these three in particular before meeting sramakrishna most of the songs and chants and everything everything was directed to to the infinite supreme brahmin but we can say saguna brahman brahman with form or not form brahman with with attributes they believe in formless formless god but they could pray to this brahmana so it wasn't exactly the brahman of the uh of advaita vedanta the brahman of the upanishads in a certain sense because there's a little bit of that personal god in the upanishads also a little bit and sometimes they would use the kind of generic term ahadi in in their songs but then this he really got inspired by swamiji he's the one who wrote that beautiful song amai dema pagul kore mother make me mad with i love taco loved that song so this this divine madness this calling on god is mother these were gifts that srama krishna gave to the brahma-samaj we can say surami krsna sang and danced and the devotees danced around him when the song was over the master walked up and down the northeast veranda where hazra was seated with m the master sat down there he asked a devotee do you ever have dreams hazrat we met before he he uh he had a family and he lived induction if induction is he had some type of renunciation or spirit of renunciation either that or just some uh lack of interest in in his family and he had a debt he had to raise some money to pay off that debt he had an elderly mother back in the village i believe he lived near shihor somewhere in kamarpaqua area his mother was always asking please send him back to visit one time and he never wanted to srama krishna would try to encourage him but wouldn't force him and he was a little argumentative he considered himself a great gyani he was a big friend with narendra and everybody liked him he wasn't a bad person he didn't turn into a friday who really tormented from a christian at the end but at times would criticize from a christian a little bit and the disciples very much so for not doing all the job but he loved to do japa all of the time so am was seated with hazrat then the master sat down there he asked a devotee do you ever have dreams now i'm going to guess that this devotee is m himself we don't hear that anybody else is there it might sound strange if he says he was seated with m then why doesn't it say that he asked m do you ever have dreams this is m's trick of course that he he liked to keep himself in the background he didn't like to identify himself when he when it was something that he wanted us to easily understand with him he would say m or mastar they would say mashta moshai he was a schoolteacher that was the term that they used or srima they say m if it was anything a little bit personal then he would use a a different type of uh name sometimes monies there were different names that he used usually beginning with m so another hint so sometimes if he didn't want us to know to know it all he would simply say a devotee usually we can guess there are many times when he talks about his family problems and his wife's grief and the death of the child and almost all of those times he'll use one of these other words he won't he won't make it very clear that it's him but we can tell from the context so i'm guessing that this is m himself there weren't too many others there and tucker doesn't seem to have really known narendra's friends very well so this is my guess devotee so i'm going to say that this is probably m speaking yes sir the other day i dreamt a strange dream i saw the whole world enveloped in water there was water on all sides a few boats were visible but suddenly huge waves appeared and sank them i was about to board a ship with a few others when we saw abraham and walking over that expanse of water we can guess perhaps ramakrishna himself i asked him how can you walk over the deep the brahman said with a smile oh there's no difficulty about that there's a bridge under the water i said to him where are you going the city of the divine mother he replied wait a little i cried i shall accompany you now you can come closer there are few things here one is the devotee and perhaps m as i say is not identifying as brahmin we will guess that it's ravi krishna or at least symbolically that we can say that it could easily be srama krishna second thing is that going to bhuvanipur moanipur literally means the city of the divine mother but it's also a section in calcutta i know this section very well i stayed there my very first visit to uh to india i lived in this bahwani poor section of kolkata for for several months a very nice place we have won us from there actually the first ashram that was started in the city of kolkata as far as i know godaddher as from and you know who it's named after who huh no there was a devotee who just by coincidence this is what i was told it was named god and it was named after him of course we can say it's because of krishna also so i in his dream he's streaming he's going to bohani poor and so in dreams things have symbolic significance so probably in m's mind this name moani poor signifies the city of the divine mother it can also mean that they go into that part of it kolkata it's hard to say master oh i'm thrilled to hear the story tako put great stock in dreams he was always very very happy when anyone had a spiritual dream and he used to say that there are some people who are swatness that they actually attain illumination perfection enlightenment and dream this is not a very standard type of doctrine we we we hear that you have to be in this waking state and uh in the dream we don't have any karma and this and that but taco said no even in a dream and i think many of us understand that there are dreams that leave a very deep impression on us if we have a spiritual dream that we wake up and it has a lingering effect it can have a very strong carryover effect on us and so even years and years later i've had very few of these things i always wonder why that here i'm trying to spend the whole day thinking of takur mas wamiji and everything but just a handful of times but the very few dreams like that i've had still i can see very clearly and and they seem different from ordinary types of dreams that they leave a very deep impression as if it really what we dreamt about really took place we really experienced those things so srama krishna put great stock in these things even psychologically we can say it's a good sign to have these type of dreams but from a spiritual point of view it's definitely helpful for us so so the master says oh i'm thrilled to hear the story the brahmin said i am in a hurry i will it will take you some time to get out of the boat goodbye remember this path and come after me master oh my hair is standing on end then he says a very curious thing please be initiated by a guru as soon as possible now if it's really m is he actually telling him to go someplace else of course he won't do that but sram christian had a great aversion to this feeling of being a guru many times if people would say oh he is your disciple taku would say i have no disciple noah is my disciple that i i am he would say i am the dust of the dust of everyone's feet i am the servant of the servant of the servant that type of humility and we know that he couldn't bear these three different terms guru baba and kolta guru baban korta baba is a term that was used very frequently for these invasion of a holy man meaning father but in in a very very very respectful way that would only be used for a holy person and carter would be could be a master even somebody an employer or somebody with a great power or something so he he he said i feel like i'm being stung by a uh poisonous fish horned fish there's some blowfish type of thing when i hear these different words they pricked my skin like that so he didn't like that idea uh of being considering himself a guru see i said all of these things last week so i'm repeating myself but nobody knows that i'm repeating myself except kumar and tongadi he used to say guru giri beshagiri that is a type of prostitution that being in guru and accepting money and doing it yes for name and fame and possessions and things we know that there are gurus that collected how many over 100 rolls royces huh remember in portland was it or something like that now the other thing is that uh there is a whole tradition of householder gurus in this uh these gurus and especially the division of the tradition the gold swamis that tiger had tremendous respect for it he's not referring to that that that was their their family line that's what what they did and when taka would see these go swamis who were generally gurus he would treat him with tremendous respect and this is how they had to earn their living they wouldn't take other types of jobs so they had to rely on on gifts from uh those whom they initiated those families they would do pujian things for them so it doesn't refer to them he's really talking about those who take advantage of it they make a profession out of it but if we want to interpret these things please be initiated by a guru as soon as possible i would say that he's telling him now you're ready and that he's the one who will have to be as he's a guru there's no other choice that way shortly after midnight narendra and the other devotees lay down on a bed made on the floor of the master's room so after after their meal they took a little rest and now they're going to sleep for the night sleeping for the night for srama krishna made one or two hours and very often he would awaken the others or if he let them sleep by the time they woke up usually when the sun came up they would see that he was already up and and in in ecstatic mood and clapping his hands and going around the room doing all of these things sometimes he would wake them up in the middle of the night they would go to sleep for an hour so he would wake them up and he would say what are you doing you're wasting the whole night sit up for meditation and he would give them some instruction sometimes he would go and fix their seed if they were slumped over little he would straighten them up and that way he would he would teach them how to meditate properly so he was very kind to them this night he let them sleep a little bit it says at dawn some of the devotees were up that means at least m was up he has to be up in order to write this they saw the master naked as a child now uh those not familiar with with the culture of the day in india at that time find these things kind of unusual why should he be naked for srama krishna keeping his wearing cloth on was a big nuisance it's not easy the the way they they would tie the cloth where you had to take it around and then through your leg and do all of the folds and everything and taco could never figure out figure out the last portion of it so we threw it over shoulder that and it can easily come off they didn't use belts or anything like that and it was just a nuisance for him and so while he's sleeping at night he's rolling around at night and not concerned about it not even aware if it's on or off and a holy men in india with a very common sight to see them going naked means the naked one totopuri so there's a long tradition of that nobody thought that it was anything very unusual they thought it was sweet because it showed how the child like little kids in india you see them all over playing in the streets and everything but not a stitch of clothing on maybe a string around the waist a little bead something like that and nobody thinks anything of it a hot country so for little kids of course is natural so for srama krishna it was always understood that this was a child-like nature and absolute indifference to what other people thought of him there was something called that will it be considered a civilized person cultured person he didn't care in the least for that you know he got in trouble with de benduran that they had invited the tukor family he had invited him to a brahma festival but they said please see that you at least wear a shirt when you come so tako said i'm not even aware of the time of day or this or that or if my clothes are on or off i can't promise anything like that so the the gore said the bender not reminder not the father he said it will pain us very much if other people criticize you for that a very uh calculating type of statement to make what he really meant was don't dare come if you're not dressed properly it's not that we care that you'll be criticized that we may be criticized letting this person come in like that it wasn't wasn't a a very straightforward type of answer and then tucker went back and a couple days later he got a letter saying don't come he was disinvited to that particular festival so they saw the master naked as a child pacing up and down the room repeating the names of the various gods and goddesses this was his daily habit his voice was sweet as nectar am used to say that he never heard a voice as sweet as ramakrishna's voice second he used to say the holy mother's disciple who wrote all of those beautiful songs and then after that swamiji swamiji's voice we hear was was a deeper baritone type of voice and he also was an expert and and trained so he could do classical also and everything uh but ramakrishna and said he never heard a voice as sweet as his of course a lot of it is is that that mood that tucker was in when he sang now he would look at the ganges yeah taqwa always had great devotion for the genjis now stop in front of the pictures hanging on the wall and bow down before them chanting all the while the holy names in his sweet voice he chanted veda purana tantra gita gayatri bhagavatam referring to the gita he repeated many times tagi tagi tagi this was of course the teaching that he got from totopuri taku used to say that when we study the scripture we have to just get the essence of it and the essence can be something very simple that can be expressed in in one or two words so we said what is the real meaning of gita totopuri used to say what you get by repeating the word gita gita gita becomes tagi which is close enough to tiagi or tagi in bengali that it means thiagi is a person of renunciation tiaga so he said the real meaning of gita is is renounce everything for the sake of the lord his renunciation so taqwa would repeat this word also tagi tagitagi now and then he would say o mother thou art verily brahman and thou art verily shakti thou are purusa and thou art prakriti thou art virat and they are the absolute and thou dost manifest thyself as the relative thou art verily the 24 cosmic principles now there's a little bit of a philosophical truth here and something that separates ramakrishna's understanding of shakti from the normal understanding of shakti we normally when we refer to shakti we're talking about that divine power which is inseparable from brahman when srama krishna speaks of shakti as the divine mother or speaks of kali as the divine mother he's not talking about that one aspect of brahma he's talking about brahman together with that aspect so this is why he's he said to narendra what you call brahman i call kali but then he would add but this is brahmin uh not simply this near gona brahman this is the brahmin both sagun and near guna both with attributes and beyond everything and this he said the distinction is when uh when i speak of it as as mother then we're thinking in terms of this power of creation the divine mother will be ishwara uh and this is what is not something separate from brahman or different from brahman they're one and the same this i i always like this idea that i heard many many many times from swami swahi nandiji that the the woman giving birth to the child becomes a mother and when before she has the child she's a woman after she has a child and becomes a mother she's still a woman the woman aspect is always there that they're going to brumen the motherhood aspect of it will be the shakti aspect of it this will this will be manifest when the creation is there so the creator is only a creator when there's a creation if there's no creation the creator doesn't disappear it remains as it was before which is brahman they're going to brahman so takur he's saying that mother you were you were brahman and shakti both he's not saying mother you were the shakti that belongs to brahman he said you're both so when he's talking about the divine mother he means this this complete read highest conception we have of reality which is with form without form which is with attributes without attributes which is personal which is impersonal which manifests as the whole universe so he also says uh you are the absolute this will be the sword art that which is beyond everything transcendent and you manifest as the relative the vidart so both prakri and purusha that means this absolute and in nature or all men and all women and the 24 cosmic principles what are the 24 cosmic principles kumar okay the five senses of knowledge and the five senses of action the five elements and the five subtle elements tanmatres that's 20 and then buddhi manas that'll be 24. there's slide variations in different lists that we have but basically this is part of this sankia philosophy in sankia these don't belong to purusha or brahman they belong only to prakriti this is the ultimate distinction between vedanta and the sankhya system that vedanta will accept sankey up to that point where it says that these are two separate categories purusha and parakleti that but suramar krishna is saying that no the divine mother herself is manifested as the 24 cosmic principles that means all the building blocks of nature in the meantime the morning service had begun in the temples of kali and rata these are the two temples and then other than that there are the 12 shiva temples with all different each one is a different a different name to the shiva lingam but they all look more or less the same sounds of kung shells and symbols were carried on the air the devotees came outside the room and saw the priests and servants gathering flowers in the garden for the divine service in the temples from the nahubat floated the sweet melody of musical instruments befitting the morning hours the nahabhad is the building just north of sramy krishna's room when takwa's mother came she lived there when a holy mother came and she lived on it on the top huh the top floor and holy mother lives in the downstairs uh with a very small of course you can barely lie down and very often she had a companion staying with her and she did all of the cooking there and they had to hang all of the vegetables and even live fish and things there and this is where she lived and had to bend over very far to just get inside she used to bang her head every once in a while she would forget and see it so anyhow that's not the no but but when nobody was living there it really wasn't meant for people to live there it was meant for the musicians to be able to climb up the steps to go to the top which is kind of like a tower and from there they would play their instruments usually chennai and along with that uh whatever else tabla and other things go with it but usually chennai it's very very haunting and beautiful because i love this shenanigan music when you hear that especially at these festival times i remember the very first durga puja that i went to in india in the kolkata this was in 1972 in bhovanipur in the kolkata and other parts of course is of individual almost every not every street corner but every little small neighborhood outside they'll set up there's a pando and with the images of of the durga and shiva and the the whole retinue the family and very often they'll be performances and things and that was the first time i ever attended a shanghai concert and it was just beautiful we we've never had it here or anything generally there's more emphasis on and maybe takes more skill i don't know on sitar and and other instruments like that nowadays violin but the chennai is really beautiful narendra and the other devotees finished their morning duties and came to the master what are morning duties you brush your teeth you wash your face you enter a cult of nature whatever you have to do it's not really duties just taking care of the morning stuff and came to the master with a sweet smile on his lips srama krishna was standing on the northeast veranda close to his own room narendra we noticed several sannyasis belonging to the sect of nanak in the panchavati now i should research these things because uh we've we come across this very often in the gospel of the suramar krishna even though we rarely think and rarely see sannyasi's belonging to sect of nanak will be sikhs but uh if i remember correctly there was one branch and maybe it was one of the nanik's sons one branch and if anybody knows has this information please send me an email or let me know somehow i think they were called udacis that they've took to monastic life and that and there are some very important teachings that takur says i don't remember which one it was not a dear bhakti or something that one he used to call him nanakpanti sadhus that he learned from one of them so it wasn't that uncommon and trump krishna he had a lot of association with with the sikh community because uh many of them went into the military this was natural they were really the the military of india they were from the chatriers they were the protectors of india so many of them joined the the army and since kolkata was the capital of the british raj many of them were stationed there and there was cantonment there was a a place in barakura where many of them lived and just north of the dakshineshwar compound there was a wall and on the other side was where they kept arms their ammunition and everything saying so many of the sikhs would come and sit by tucker's side and they they loved him and he was very very fond of them and and dakshinishwar any sadhu or any holy person or even any beggar anybody who needed a place to stay they could go and they could stay there and they could get food there so it was a great meeting place for all different spiritual seekers and and different monks from all different traditions there takwa had a great desire one time to feed all of them and to make provisions so that all of them could have sometimes they would take foodstuffs and and make it themselves otherwise they could go they were there was a kitchen attached to the uh kali temple and one attached to the radhakantha temple one first vegetarian one for non-vegetarian so they had that option also so narendra said we noticed several sannyasis belonged into the sect of nanak in the panchavati master panchavati we know is where taqwa performed so much of his uh spiritual practice he himself planted the trees there there are five different trees that are there un unfortunately uh most of them died and then one rotted out and there was a bit of a fire i think they've replanted the banyan tree so that there'll be at least one there but otherwise everything from the original panchavati is gone master yes they arrived here yesterday tu narendra i'd like to see you all sitting together on the mat so he doesn't especially want to bring up these sannyasis or invite them there and anything else he he really wants to concentrate on on his uh his disciple narendra raquel must i don't know if rakul is still there or not possibly not possibly just narendra and the two brahmo friends which doesn't seem to include rakhal because he'll speak mostly to narendra so i'd like to see you all sitting together on the mat as they sat there the master looked at them with evident delight he then began to talk with them narendra asked about spiritual discipline master bhakti love of god is the essence of all spiritual discipline through love one acquires renunciation and discrimination naturally now [Music] we generally think of narendra as a he was the one with a gigantic intellect and we also see that srama krishna felt that he was perhaps the only one of his disciples or one of the very few who was really fit for this advaita vedanta and at that time since narendra was a member of the brahma samaj his view of the brahman was not this is the way the vedantic view and they didn't stress this idea that this world is like a dream or even this idea that everything we see is brahman and when sram a christian would say those things he would think what an odd thing they call this this table this brahman this chair is brahman this pod is brahman this picture is brahman we we know the very famous incident when he's talking with hadra and takur asks what they're talking about and and he says all of these things and they're laughing and taco says oh is that it and he touches him swamiji has all of these experiences and then it lasts for several days and afterwards he said that uh now i understand the experience that these rishis had when they said that everything is brahman itself because he had that experience but srama krishna also felt that narendra had this quality of a devotee and he used to say look he doesn't have the dry look of the ghani that he has the eyes of the of the bhakta and swamiji himself used to say others also that taqwa was all devotion on the outside and all knowledge on the inside but swamiji was the opposite he was all knowledge on the outside but he had the tender heart of identity very very tender heart swamiji so srama krishna was trying to develop to develop swamiji into a very all-around type of of person where there's equal development of the head and heart of of bhakti and also of gyana so here he's stressing this idea of bhakti now the the brahmos i don't know how they looked upon themselves they probably thought that they were all intellectuals but tucker always said that your bhaktas he would when he would talk about this sometimes he would talk about the path of knowledge as a little dry and especially to the brahmos he said but you were not like that your bhaktas they did have a devotional attitude this is a curious thing the brahman of the upanishads is not usually thought of as the object of devotion we try to realize brahman but these brahmos tried to combine these two things where they would pray to this this brahman as father almost almost like the western traditions of judaism christianity islam formless but with with qualities of love and mercy and justice and things like that so talk we're saying to narendra bhakthi love of god is the essence of all spiritual discipline through love one acquires renunciation and discrimination naturally so sri ramakrishna is saying that these are the two important things that one has to have renunciation that means detachment the spirit of surrender giving up this idea of of the ego that everything is up to me and discrimination that means being able to tell what's important in life what's real and what's transitory what's substantial what's with the hollow in life what is ultimately the one unchanging reality and and everything else that's passing show so uh he's saying through the path of devotion that one gets these things naturally now how does it happen this renunciation if we have a devotional relationship with god then we want to give up everything for god do everything for god everything is to be done as an offering and this discrimination then we realized that that's the only thing that's of value in this world so that type of discrimination will take place naturally isn't it true that the tantra prescribes spiritual discipline in the company of woman now he's raising a topic that srama krishna won't be very happy with why he raises it in in those days there was a little curiosity about these things not that narendra had an any real interest in it uh he likes to see what what type of answers he tested toronto krishna a lot to see what type of answers he would get master that is not desirable it is a very difficult path and often causes an aspirant's downfall there are three such kinds of discipline one may regard woman there's a footnote woman is the symbol of the divine mother these of course are all things that have relevance to male devotees that everything can be switched for women they they also will do this type of practice where they'll find a man but generally these were things uh unfortunately there was always there's a bias towards men in the scriptures which is is not limited to the vedantic hindu tradition it's in every tradition so one may regard woman as one's mistress so this is something similar to the madhur bhava that we wrote in krishna but from the shakhtar point of view or look upon oneself as our handmaid this will be like the bhava as the the friend or attendant or as her child this will be the reverse of the watsalia bhava that in that one looks upon god as the child this is to look upon oneself as the child and god is the mother i look on woman as my mother so that means both he looks upon the divine mother he feels that he's a child he has the child relationship with the divine mother and he looks upon all women as his own mother to look on oneself as her handmaid is also good he did this for i think he said two years he did for a long time he lived in the house of mature babu and his wife i think in john bazar and there he would he would really look upon himself as a female companion of the divine mother he would dress as a woman uh he would dress the image put ornaments on and uh he and all the women devotees they felt as if he was one of them and he would wave the the fan and do all of that and he used to say that this is one way for men to get rid of this idea of get rid of lust for one thing but also this idea of this identification with one's manliness that it helps one understand that the the real self there's nothing male or female about it that this is just some type of identification we can identify with the female side as well as the male side but it's also a way to develop this tremendous feeling of devotion and service to the divine mother so to look on oneself as her handmaid is also good but it is extremely difficult to practice spiritual discipline looking on woman as one's mistress this is something that was done as i say both in the direction of a tradition and in the shocked tradition and it was very very easy and very often happened that it led to very unhealthy results to regard oneself as her child is a very pure attitude this was takwa's attitude he used to say shantan bob he would say this very pure attitude because the and and the selfless attitude also and an attitude of perfect surrender and perfect reliance on god just as the small child relies on the mother the sannyasis belonged to the sect of nanak so the ones that narendra was talking about entered the room and greeted the master saying namo not ayanaya srama krishna asked them to sit down this is a very common way that all sadhus can greet each other this is non-sectarian we may say narayana it's a division of a way of doing it but no it's just just like hari hadi we identify with vishnu but it's it's generally taken just just uh as a generic type of term or non-sectarian type of term so any sadhu meaning another sadhu can say salutations to the lord suramar krishna asked them to sit down master nothing is impossible for god so now he's speaking to all of them he'll be speaking to these sadhus as well nothing is impossible for god nobody can describe his nature in words everything is possible for him this is a a very important theme and something that i find especially helpful for those who worship god as mother and this was one very important distinction between the vedantans and the shaktas the vedantins shankaracharya and others will try to find an explanation for everything even though sometimes the explanation is maya which which makes it a little cloudy is it really an explanation or not uh but they'll try to explain things they'll do this yukty they'll try to use reasoning very much the shaktas on the other hand are very very happy with it just saying that no it's it's mysterious who can understand who mother really is okay johnny cali camon there's so many beautiful songs like that that the kamala kante song with swamiji's last song that he sang so i i love this line at the end though i have pondered all of my life i hardly know who mother is now she appears as prakriti now as purusha now is man and now is woman now she is white red yellow all the different colors i've been trying to figure out this mystery my whole life and even now at the end of my life i throw up my hands and say who can understand who mother really is that and and then the ron prasad song is like uh we're just simple children trying to grab we see the moon it looks so close we can reach up and grab hold of it but of course this is so far beyond our grasp so to comprehend the divine mother with his little mind that we have is very far beyond our ability so taco like this this idea and he very very often would just tell people look you're you're trying to pour five gallons of milk into a one gallon container it can't be done the mind is finite and it deals with everything within the realm of time space and causation we're talking about is infinite absolute it can't be done don't spend your whole life trying to answer these questions that how does the one become the many how is the creation come from pure consciousness all of these things these are mysterious things master nothing is impossible for god nobody can describe his nature in words everything is possible for him and i would say in the english translation to me it sounds better everything is possible for her because in his mind he's really thinking of the divine mother most of the time when he's when he's talking about god in general most of the time his conception of god is in terms of the divine mother even though it is not restricted to that he can be thinking of god is shiva and everything but that's generally in the back of his mind there lived at a certain place two yogis who were practicing spiritual discipline the sage narada was passing that way one day realizing who he was one of the yogi said you have just come from god himself what is he doing now not of the replied not as they used to he had this ability to go back and forth between the earth and the conte he was big friends with narayana there's vishnu what is he doing now nada de replied why i saw him making camels and elephants pass and re-pass through the eye of a needle at this the yogi said is that anything to wonder at everything is possible for god but the other yogi said what making elephants pass through the eye of a needle is that ever possible you have never been to the lord's dwelling place at nine o'clock in the morning while the master was still sitting in his room monomohan arrived from konnagar with some members of his family in answer to srama krishna's kind inquiries mano mohan explained that he was taking them to calcutta the master said today is the first day of the bengali month an auspicious day for undertaking a journey i hope everything will be well with you with a smile he began to talk of other matters we'll stop here and we'll begin with this with this paragraph because i want to say a few words about this he plays a very very significant role for two things that he did one is that he married his daughter to rakhal and became very close with raqqa and is the one who brought rock called to srama krishna rakul didn't come through the brahmos or anything else it was through his father-in-law and his father-in-law was such a devotee that he didn't seem to really mind too much that rocco stayed with him and eventually took sannyasa even though raqqa had been married to his his young daughter second thing is that he was a cousin of ramchandra the other great householder devotee of srama krishna and he's the one who brought rama to him and ram was also in a very disconsolate mood i i think a daughter had died or something i don't remember something like that so we'll start with that next time and we will close now with our final [Music] chance [Music] we bow our heads before srama 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 om shanti shanti shanti peace peace peace be on tour okay thank you everyone and i look forward to seeing you next week