Video 22

The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna with Swami Atmajnanananda (09/04/20)

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 to our class on the gospel of sriami krishna for those of you following along in the book who are on page 124 this is the chapter advice to householders and it began on page 117 this is october 16th 1882 so this is we're still in the first year of the m's visiting sramakrishna and we're it's just at the time of the durga puja festival so we'll see that generally this was a time for vacation time for almost all of the schools would be closed they'd like our christmas vacation and at work and everything so there'll be more opportunities for devotees to come at this time of course the biggest biggest uh holiday celebration uh in bengal especially this is durga puja before we start i want to go back to one thing that we had last week and you may remember that a certain devotee had a dream and were assuming that it was m and when we went through this dream let me see if i can find it taquer said i'm thrilled to hear the story and then he said please be initiated by a guru as soon as possible okay and i went through a long explanation wondering why he used the word guru and he really doesn't like this this term guru and did he really mean by somebody else this and that and then fortunately our deputy pointed out to me that actually he didn't use that term so this is why sometimes we have to go back to the original bengali and srama krishna simply said tumi shigro montrollo so quickly take mantra uh of course the translators uh swami nikhilananda uh with the with the advice of mostly uh joseph campbell the great expert on on mythology and the daughter of woodrow wilson i don't remember her name right now and there were others that gave him a lot of help in translation so probably they told him if you simply write that people won't understand what it means to take mantra so he expanded a little bit taking mantra means taking initiation from guru but thakur himself didn't use that term and it sounded odd because it gave the impression that maybe he was suggesting from somebody else other than him so if the original bengali doesn't create such a confusion in the mind at least for me because we know that srama krishna considered m to be his very own from the very beginning and of course we're assuming that that this is m because he hides himself we'll see today also that when it gets to some personal things about renouncing the world and family and everything he'll refer to himself as is money money mohan these were many of the different names usually mastar three more different different names but when uh when he's a little bit shy about personal things uh he won't give his name and when he's very very shy he'll say just a devotee so we're assuming that that was him okay so [Music] where did we stop what did i say page 124. okay so now narendra if you remember had come with a couple of brahmo friends and we remember rockall was also there and who else i don't remember but they had spent the night i don't think all of them spent the night at least narendra and his friends were there so we start out that uh at nine o'clock in the morning while the master was still sitting in his room mano mohan arrived from konagar with some members of his family now who is this was the father-in-law of raqqa right i tend to make mistakes with these things in the uh in the original bengali version there's a very nice it's called baked porichoi it tells who everybody is so this manomohan he was from kondagar he was a great devotee householder devotee of srama krishna and he was also a cousin with ramchandra so there was a family relationship with a lot of the devotees here and rakal was his son-in-law so he had married his young daughter to rakaal and he was such a great devotee that he is the one who took rakhal to surami krishna and eventually practically lost him as a son-in-law but didn't seem to raise too much objection rachael's father raised more objection to rachael staying with swami krishna there's a manu mohan mithra he was really a great great devotee so he was responsible for bringing rakal and ram chandra datta who was related to some type of cousin or uncle or something to so this little connection is there also between balarama's family in baburan's family later swami permanente so mano mohan arrived from kunagar with some members of his family in answer to suramar krishna's kind inquiries madumon explained that he was taking them to calcutta the master said today is the first day of the bengali month an inauspicious day for undertaking a journey i hope everything will be well with you with a smile he began to talk of other matters taquer followed some of these things he was very particular about especially starting any journey on a thursday afternoon we're modern people we don't pay too much attention except for the fact that talk were paid attention we had one wonderful swami who was the head of our great center swami urita and i i asked him once about this traveling on the third and he said we don't really believe in these things but we believe in taqwa so much that we follow them to a certain extent swami swananji was very particular about it and but he had a trick the trick was suppose they had arranged a flight for him thursday afternoon he would make sure to leave his room before noon so he could he started his journey before before thursday afternoon that's how he got away with it but he would never carry a banana with them yeah this is another funny thing i don't know why some people we call them superstitions but if if we grow up with these things then they have some meaning for us when narendra and his friends had finished bathing in the ganges the master said to them earnestly go to the pantavati and meditate there under the banyan tree shall i give you something to sit on suramar krishna was always anxious for the devotees to go and spend time in the panchavati because he himself performed so much of his austerity his spiritual practices and disciplines in the panchavati and he himself planted the five trees there and so he loved that place and it's interesting because they used it for picnics as well he didn't seem to mind it wasn't like a temple that you couldn't eat food there and this and that they would have little picnics in play and the creepers grew so big you could swing on them and taco would sit on it with his legs dangling out and laugh and have fun with the boys but he also would send them there for meditation about half past 10 so when did they start 9 in the morning about half past 10 narendra and his brahmo friends were meditating in the panthabati after a while srama krishna came to them m2 was present of course m is always present otherwise we won't have any of this except in the appendix the master said to the brahmana devotees in meditation one must be absorbed in god by merely floating on the surface of the water can you reach the gems lying at the bottom of the sea now this is true and good advice general advice for everyone but the brahmos tuck were felt the brahmos were so involved in social reform that very often they didn't seriously think about diving deep diving deep means that we forget the world at least for the time being takara didn't want us to be indifferent to other things but at a time of spiritual practice to really forget the world and the brahmos were so uh engaged in social reform widow remarriage and and abolishing child marriage and cast so many different things that he felt that they had lost that desire a tendency or understanding that one must dive deep in order to have some spiritual experience in meditation one must be absorbed in god by merely floating on the surface of the water can you reach the gems lying at the bottom of the sea now we shouldn't get confused here tucker uses illustrations in different ways if we say that how can we get the gems at the bottom of the sea if we're like a salt doll huh because he gives that illustration that the salt dog by the time he gets to the bottom of the ocean to measure its depth it's already become one with the ocean it can't come back this is this is a different in a different context we shouldn't think of it that way what taku are saying that within the heart the very depths of the heart we can have contact with the divine the divine dwells within the heart but we have to go deep within in the upanishads we have this idea this nihita that is kind of hidden like buried treasure within the heart we're in the cave of the heart so this this idea that god is present there but we have to go beneath the surface of the mind i mean deep in heart means the surface of the mind which is full of thoughts and emotions and feelings and desires and anxieties and everything so he's always encouraging us to go deep down and the gems at the bottom this will be more from the devotional point of view there will be love and devotion and dispassion and everything generally when srirami krishna says something like this it's meant to be an introduction to a song it's a very interesting teaching technique he has a song in his mind and a teaching in his mind and he'll he'll introduce the song with a few words and then he'll he'll sing the song and then he'll explain it the very common feature we find in the in the gospel so uh he starts out with this idea floating on the surface and then he sings the song about mother kali taking the name of kali dive deep down o mind into the heart's fathomless depths where many a precious jam lies hid but never believe the bed of the ocean bearer of gems if in the first few dives you fail with firm resolve and self-control dive deep and make your way to mother kali's realm this is this is very important this idea that uh or access point to the divine is is in the heart and it means turning within and uh god may be present everywhere god may be present within the heavens god may be the ground of the whole universe but we have our own access point direct direct access point is within the heart so god dwelling within the heart is is the way we can have the direct experience if if god is is outside of us and separate from us then how do we have that direct experience where is that access point so when we talk about realization of god it's not god dwelling someplace else looking up in the heavens it's about dwelling within the heart the very important distinction that we have between many dualistic types of teachings down in the ocean depths of the heavenly wisdom lie the wondrous pearls of peace o mind and you yourself can gather them if you would have pure love and follow the scripture's rule within those ocean depths as well six alligators lurk these will be the six passions sometimes called the six enemies lost anger in the rest and then the footnote the six passions are lust anger avarice delusion pride and envy there are different lists but more that's more listed swimming about in search of prey smear yourself with the tumeric of discrimination the very smell of it will shield you from their jaws upon the ocean bed lie strewn unnumbered pearls and precious gems plunge in says ram prasad and gather up handfuls there we've seen that of all the songs that tucker sings he seems to be most fond of the song of ram prasad and he he looked upon ram prasad as his uh kind of uh model his model in life in the sense that ram prasad's whole life was given to mother kali and he had many spiritual experiences we assumed that these songs came out of the depth of his experience he had many visions of mother kali also coming to him in the form of his daughter and several times and so we have a couple things here that are very nice and they'll be developed of course that when we when we go deep into meditation in the beginning especially we find that uh sometimes we're churning up things things that we didn't even realize were deep down within us that were kind of hidden some slatters that were obstacles and we wonder why and now i started thinking of god i've started meditating why should i sit for meditation some old thing will come up and i'll feel some anger and then some little thing will come up i'll feel some desire why do these things just seem to attack me when i most want to forget them or not think about them this is because we're getting closer to the bottom and as as ron prasad says that these alligators are lurking there they're not always floating on the surface sometimes they're underground so what do we do about that so the song says this this turmeric of discrimination i brought the bengali just for fun see what it says so smear your body with this turmeric this turmeric has a very strong accurate smell and now of course turmeric is considered to be a remedy for everything it's turmeric tea and everyone is taking turmeric because it has wonderful medicinal qualities but he's saying that the smell of this turmeric will drive it away and what is it this viveka discrimination discernment this ability to distinguish one thing from another real and unreal important unimportant so he's emphasizing here this discrimination in other places sram a christian will emphasize devotion he'll give another example that living in this world is like walking across a forest full of thorns and how do we keep the thorns from uh pricking our feet and and bloodying them he said we're the shoes of devotion so sometimes it'll be devotion uh sometimes this discrimination dispassion here this is this is being emphasized here that uh this discrimination means that uh we recognize all of these things belong to the mind not to me all of these passions that are coming out we don't give it too much thought we kind of dismiss them as far as possible and remember the real the real goal so it's not so simple dive deep and and you realize that there will be obstacles that will come we have to expect these and we have to know how to deal with them narendra and his friends came down from their seats on the raised platform of the panchavati and stood near the master so imagine the scene this point panchavati it there was a you have these big trees abandoned of course is the biggest tree and then there's a raised concrete platform and it's large enough for several people to sit there at once so they're all sitting there they just finished meditation and suramar krishna gives them this highest teaching and in in his exquisite voice is singing there's a beautiful song of ram prasad so it must have been so thrilling for them i don't know how much narendra's friends cared for but narendra of of course by this time he was was already caught by srama krishna taku recognized him and he also knew that so they already had this this unbreakable bond so narendra and his friends came down from their seats on the raised platform of the panchavati and stood near the master he returned to his room with them the master continued when you plunge in the water of the ocean you may be attacked by alligators so now he'll expand on on the theme of the song but they won't touch you if your body is smeared with turmeric there are no doubt six alligators lust anger avarice and so on within you in and then quotes in the heart's fathomless depths because we go deeper and deeper within the heart we don't find just some small little area we we find that we've entered into this ocean of sachadanda and and that is the infinite so we find that infinite even that little space the size of a thumb once we reach it is infinite space so talking about this ocean and fathomless depths but protect yourself with the turmeric and now he'll add something of discrimination and renunciation so not just he'll say vivek this uh has a couple of different meanings of course this is a very vast subject but uh for some it gives this feeling of renouncing the world taking to monastic life giving up family giving up job position in society and everything else otherwise this can mean extreme dispassion for the world we live in the world we perform all of our duties but the whole mind is given to god this passion for the world and passion for god thakura always added that this is is incomplete without anuraga if we think of it just in the negative sense i don't care for this world there are many people who don't care for the world they're not necessarily spiritual people they may be very thomasic people so not caring for this world but longing for something deeper longing for some type of experience so he's added that so now we have viveka and vadagya what can you achieve by mere lecturing and scholarship without discrimination and dispassion now again we have to remember the brahmos homage that they were they were uh very fond of lecturing the kesha was a great lecturer lecturing was not really something that was was a very classical type of teaching in in india uh normally guru and disciple there would be some private conversation or maybe some small group but this public platform lecturing was something that the brahmos did it's something that the british of course introduced and was very popular in in calcutta there were others also who did it at that time and of course we do we also do it but at that time it was something that tucker thought was kind of curious to put a sign board out and announce there'll be a lecture at a certain time and everything he he he kind of laughed at that a little bit so he's saying what can you achieve by your lecturing and scholarship without discrimination and dispassion he really failed taco felt that unless one had this this badge of authority that unless one had achieved something it said some level of realization that even even a beautiful lecture won't have the force of personality in the force of realization behind it and won't be of much use now taqwa says god alone is real and all else is unreal god alone is substance and all else is non-entity that is discrimination now this is this is one of my not pet peeves exactly but one of the things that i find most interesting this idea of the unreality of the world this idea of the unreality of the world and i always like to look at the translation because uh now we have got alone is real and all else is unreal now what does tucker actually say this is this is generally so this translation is is a little bit misleading i don't want to criticize the translation because it's a beautiful translation and i think swami nikhilandi did a wonderful job but i i like to make this little distinction that takur very very rarely said which is the classic the classic statement of advaita vedanta brahma satyam very very rarely did he use this word mithya which has this connotation of unreality or like a dream or imaginary even and this wasn't tako's attitude i won't say that he didn't believe that he taco didn't didn't have the same understanding of truth and falsity that we have for him everything was was a type of reaching out and trying to grasp the truth of something with his limited mind so uh this is this is why he could see that uh the the dualist they had there was truth behind what they said qualified nondualist also and the duelists uh all of them were trying to describe something that is indescribable all of them caught a bit of it there was some truth something helpful in all of them none of them could do it so for taqwa what is the truth of brahman what can we say about brahman nothing truth of brahman is brahman and how do we know that we experience it that's all but he had this idea of ruchi bhed that we pick up a particular philosophical position or or we adopt a philosophical position based on what appeals to us so he very rarely would say that this world is unreal is a bad idea he would simply say i don't like to call this world unreal very very often we'll find that i don't like to uh he'll say for the gyani this world is unreal like a dream he said i don't like to call this that which is his personal mood and personal attitude most of the time when the we expect to see this mithya he he substitutes it with anitya that's why and and in the translation very often you'll find it most of the time it's translated that way god alone is real and the world is transitory anitya transitory now this transitory idea doesn't say one or the other it doesn't say that whether this world is just a projection of of brahmin and it has no physical reality uh it says that this world is constantly changing now this fact that the world is constantly changing to me doesn't convey what tucker means by anitya to me and it means that this life is is flowing down this river of time and second by second it's disappearing in that river of time we this sense of time the taqwa says sometimes the time itself is maya that uh we're the ones who are temporary this this eye is just uh is a constant flow there's no stability to it there's uh yesterday where is yesterday it's gone it exists only in our memory each second is is just flowing down this river of time this gives us a very good sense of what thakura means by anitya there's a transitory nature of our experience of the world of us even if this external world suggests suppose for example that these chairs tables everything in this room don't change say they're permanent thousand years from now they'll be exactly the same it doesn't change this transitory nature of experience this life is is just floating by uh he says this life it has a two days existence and when we look back on the past and we think how long did it take for these past 70 years to go by it is just like that what took longer there 70 years or actually 72 years 72 years or yesterday what took longer we can't answer these questions because they're all floating by and the time is swallowing up everything the great devourer the chapter 11 of gita when arjuna asked krishna who who are you who is this great being devouring everything he said i am time this is all devouring time nothing will exist nothing will escape the jaws of time it is devouring everything second by second so takur generally he'll say anithia now there's a three we can say actually four different groupings that he has one is satyam and and uh mithya he'll if he's talking about the gyanis he'll say according to the gyani that ramen alone is real the world is unreal he'll use him sometimes because he's referring to their doctrine other times he'll say sat and assat real and unreal but is assad doesn't have that exactly that same connotation it can mean manifest and unmanifest also and at other times he'll he'll say this uh and avastu bosto so we're going to get that here and this also vastu means something that i fits into some category of existence that was too it's a real thing that it's composed of elements it's it's is something that has some uh independent existence to it will be the opposite of that but it has a secondary meaning that i think was more important for takur and for us that substantial and hollow the world is a hollow this world is like the hog plum taco says the hog plum that you have to take the skin off it has some hard skin and it has a big pit you have to eliminate that there's not too much to it there's a little bit of fleshy inside that it tastes good but it gives colic you want to get sick from it so he says the world is like that there's not much substance to it a little bit hollow it won't satisfy so almost it won't really satisfy what we want so this is uh uh takur you say so god alone is real and all else is and i'm going to substitute transitory because the real word that he uses is anitya god alone is substance and all else is non-entity this is boston so we can say god alone is substance everything else is insubstantial will be a better translation i think non-entity he's not really saying that it doesn't exist but insubstantial there's no stuff to it everything else is just floating by it can't really satisfy us that is discrimination so this is what he means by viveka then he says first of all set up god in the shrine of your heart and then deliver lectures as much as you like so this is to the boys that he's talking to but also uh with regard to the lectures of the brahma-samaj because they aside from kesha and vijaya of course some of them they were just good scholars they didn't necessarily have any any great depth to them they were sincere people they weren't bad people or anything but tucker said that people they'll listen to your words and say very very nice and beautiful then they'll forget them the next moment it won't leave a deep impression what leaves a deep impression is personality the when when we come into contact uh with these great souls that they talk about spiritual practice and behind it is a lifetime of spiritual practice and a lifetime of devotion and a lifetime of doing everything is an offering to god their words carry a different type of meaning we all know that we've seen people like that so first of all set up god in the shrine of your heart and then deliver lectures as much as you like how will the mere repetition of brahma profit you if you were not imbued with discrimination and dispassion again there's a vague weight argue so just just talking about something anybody can can talk about brahma satyam jagad mithya we have many people who can can give good lectures about how this world is really unreal that uh it's imaginary like a dream and they go about day and night doing everything and they'll talk about this the poverty of other people that uh and and hunger of other people that why bothers this world is not real and yet then it's the first second that they're hungry they'll eat something and the first second that they're uncomfortable they'll turn on the air conditioning and at the same these are the people saying this world is unreal and then don't get involved in the world withdraw from the world all of that taqwa didn't like those types of things now he's going to do the same trick he's going to make a little phrase and we're going to wonder why he says it and it's going to turn out because he has a song in mind he says it is the empty sound of a conch shell okay now there's a song that taku was very fond of about this podo this is this song so he'll introduce it now there lived in a village a young man named padma lochin people used to call them podo for short in this village there was a temple in a very dilapidated condition in india we've seen of these temples the old ones sometimes i was i was so fascinated i saw some of these old temples and the actual tree grows up right in and through it yeah these are banyan trees and other things because they're made of a type of unbaked brick which is really just clay which is really soiled and and things can grow in it and it'll half destroy it and half the bricks will still be there and you'll see it's like a tree and a little shrine altogether it's very common in india i was fascinated when i saw it the first time this isn't so bad but this will be an abandoned temple and very often it'll be filthy bats will limit i remember seeing one temple like that i went inside and i looked up and it was black the whole thing was black and i had no idea what it was and then i saw one or two bats fly out and i realized because they sleep during the day that they're hanging from the the the ceiling there must be something that they can grab hold of and it's sleeping in the and it must have been hundreds of them so the whole thing was covered with with bats so that means there'll be bat droppings on the floor and everything so this is that type of temple so in this village there was a temple in a very dilapidated condition it contained no image of god yet thankfully they removed it ashwata and other plants sprang up on the ruins of its walls bats lived inside and the floor was covered with dust and droppings of the bats the people of the village had stopped visiting the temple of course one day after dusk the villagers heard the sound of a conch shell from the direction of the temple podo was a little bit of an eccentric he wasn't a i don't know what what anyhow they thought perhaps someone had installed an image in the shrine and was performing the evening worship one of them softly opened the door and saw padma lochen standing in the corner blowing the conch no image had been set up the temple hadn't been swept or washed and filth and dirt lay everywhere then he shouted to podo now we get the song so talker is just introducing the song the song says english of course you have set up no image here within the shrine or fool blowing the conch you simply make confusion worse confounded day and night 11 bats scream there incessantly it's a long song they they only give the first few lines so takur is saying that uh we have a tendency of course we don't like to think that uh or our character is so filthy and everything is this but what is the point is that we want to install the image of god within the heart we have to learn how to purify the heart then takra continues there is no use in merely making a noise if you want to establish the deity and the shrine of your heart if you want to realize god now someone may object that well they say that god dwells within the heart god is present within the heart always this of course is true what we're talking about now is installing the deity within the heart means really creating an atmosphere where where the divine presence which is already there can be worshiped and can be felt and can be seen clearly and everything so it's not that uh those who don't have a pure heart don't have god dwelling within it god dwells within all beings the the saint and the sinner the the thief and the murderer within everybody but if we want to had feel that divine presence in in some tangible sense then we have to create a a space a sacred space within the heart so taku says first of all purify the mind in the pure heart god takes his seat now the first time he says this this chitta should he and this other uh the this we have two we have different terms there's manus for mine sometimes for heart that they use and we make a big distinction between pure mind and pure heart there's no real distinction in taqwa's mind it's all because it's everything is this divine space within where the sun of brahman is reflected so the son of brahman is reflected in that space and some of it will be what we call mind some of it will be what we call heart the distinction is is that heart we think more of in terms of emotion and devotional attitude and mind we think more in terms of uh the ability to think clearly and discrimination and all of that otherwise it there's no big distinction so tako is saying this chitta and manas he's using these different terms even in sanskrit manas it can mean mind it can mean heart and the place for it is in the heart this is generally understood and this is where brahman is because mind in brahmin consciousness and mind occupy the same space coextensive just as air and space they're co-extensive they can't be in two different places in the pure heart god takes a seat one cannot bring the holy image into the temple if the droppings of bats are all around now the song talks about uh 11 bats we don't get that oh yeah day and night 11 bats scream what are these 11 bats are 11 organs five of action the carmendirias and the mind okay so this will be the 11. first of all invoke the deity and then give lectures to your heart content first of all dive deep so now he's connecting the two songs together the first one you remember taking the name of kali dive deeper mind plunge to the bottom and gather up the gems then you may do other things what are these other things then if you want to give lectures you can do that if you want to set up some society if you want to have some followers you can do it if you want before that you can also do it but it won't have any great lasting effect and it won't be good for for those who want to start having some spiritual group and having followers and this and that before they've reached this state it's not good for them either it's not good for either side tucker gives a nice illustration sometimes there are these these snakes water snakes and other types of snakes that are not poisonous snakes and sometimes they'll catch hold of a frog a big frog and the frog gets into the mouth and they're incapable of swallowing it which is too big and also spitting it out so they're stuck and the frog is is croaking and it's the terrible pain and discomfort for the frog the snake is also unhappy so he said it's pain painful for both that type of guru and that type of disciple he said if it's a real kaloshap if it's a real black cobra then within three croaks the frog is dead that means the ego dies so first of all invoke the deity then give lectures to your heart's content first of all dive deep plunge to the bottom and gather up the gems then you may do other things but nobody wants to plunge yeah says sometimes everybody wants to be the guru no one wants to be the disciple there's a nice story that a young man came to in guru and he said i'd like to be your disciple what does the disciple have to do and he said i you'll have to of course keep the sacred fire going you'll have to graze the cows you'll have to cook the food you'll have to clean the vessels you'll have to put on and on and on and on and then he says what does the guru do and he says guru do is practice some meditation and then give some spiritual advice that's all so then the the young boy starts walking away and the guru says i thought you wanted to be my disciple he said no i decided i'd rather be a guru so this is this is our situation nobody wants to to put in the work nobody wants to plunge people are without spiritual discipline and prayer without renunciation and dispassion they learn a few words and immediately start to deliver lectures so a little bit of uh of a rant against the brahma-samaj here even though he liked them in kesha be loved and vidya he loved and some of the others also was very fond of them but he said it to their face also he totally told them that you won't achieve much through this that people may praise you how wonderful these words are but it won't go deep into their hearts they learn a few words and immediately start to deliver lectures it is difficult to teach others only if a man gets a command from god after realizing him is he entitled to teach now i want to talk with favorite illustrations which we'll get to later but anyhow there said uh big uh tank big pond haldar pukur uh not far from tucker's house in komarpakur and i you know those days people didn't have bathrooms and everything especially little kids they would go and they would do their business right on the bank of the pond because the water was they could clean themselves i remember the first time i went to madras now chennai it was madras back then and i thought let me walk along the the seashore where the ocean is and i went and saw this oh it's like a toilet there well and i saw all the little kids were there it's very nice because the water comes up and you wash yourself and then it goes out and you leave so they would do this on the bank so there's a halal pakur and the older people would come and they would come to get water and cleaning and do their have bath there and and wash their clothes there and they'd be furious and they did whatever they could do to get people to stop doing it finally they went to the municipality they went to the official people and somebody came down and put up a sign commit no nuisance and and you know probably underneath it said the authorities and maybe with the fine something like that next day everything stopped so unless there's a badge of authority he said no one will listen to your words so only if a man gets a command from god after after realizing him now of course what about us of course we haven't realized god and we're giving these lectures but we don't of course this is very common all of us the first time we're asked to to start giving lectures the first thing we say is but we haven't realized anything and of course the swamis who asked us to lecture they know fully well they said you simply explain the words of taquer and holy mother and swamiji and everything don't feel that you're giving any any type of lecture or teaching people or anything this was em's attitude of course that takwa would send these young boys to him and and sometimes they would say what can i learn from him he's a mere householder and tucker said no you won't hear anything but my words if you go there and m used to say i'm like someone who lives by the side of the river and has a pitcher and anybody comes i can dip it into the the pitcher into the water and and i can flake their thirst with the waters so that's what he did everything was uh he didn't feel he he himself was giving lectures he was trying to explain tucker's teachings thus conversing the master came to the west end of the veranda so there on the northern veranda the west end of the northern veranda away from the ganges m stood by assad srama krishna had repeated again and again that god cannot be realized without discrimination and renunciation now you remember in the beginning i mentioned the two different connotations to this word varagya the one is becoming among sannyasin renouncing the world so m took it in that way a little bit and m always felt that deep in his heart if only he had come to srama krishna earlier like these young boys and could have been a sannyasin that that was a great desire of his heart even after being married with children he would have loved to renounce the world and in those days you could do it and now of course was frowned upon you get married and have children you have to look after them and and fulfill your obligations but in those days we had we had a handful of course swami brahmananda was one swami jagadanandi the great swami who translated the leelah prasanga into the great master with the family men who there were others like that so am is thinking srama krishna had repeated again and again that god cannot be realized without discrimination and renunciation this made him extremely worried he had married and was then a young man of 28 educated in college in the western way having a sense of duty he asked himself do discrimination and dispassion mean giving up comedy conscience now my practice and i was told to translate this as lust and gold but here it really means giving up family life he's asking does this mean that i have to give up family life and all possessions it means do i have to really renounce everything and become a sin is it only the sanyasians who can have god realization and of course this is a prevailing idea among many orthodox people followers of shankaracharya and and others that there are different levels of adhikara de kareta who is capable of having god realization you have to be male you have to be brahmin and you have to renounce the world the sannyas and these will be the three main things so uh of course the gita absolutely refutes that idea that male female shudra brahman doesn't make any difference everyone can have god realization tucker also refuted that idea but still it's in the back of the mind and takur says of course those who renounce everything they get a little bit of a head start they get a foot up there isn't of course an advantage to that so having a sense of duty he asked himself do discrimination and dispassion mean giving up comedy conscience here woman gold family life and all of our possessions he was really at a loss to know what to do am to the master what should one do if one's wife says you are neglecting me i shall commit suicide. now neglecting means spending all of his time in spiritual practice it doesn't mean hanging out with his friends or going out drinking or going to the movies and theater anything like that now this i believe i should know this i believe it's before the sun died i'm pretty sure m's son died i think probably in 1884 and if anybody out there happens to remember or knows you can let me know and this idea of suicide was a real thing with his wife i'll get to that in a second but he says em is asking what should one do if one's wife says you were neglecting me i shall commit suicide master in a serious tone now don't get scared here because he's going to say something very very strong and then he's going to back off taco does that sometimes he'll say something to impress something very strongly on the mind and then say but this if this is done then you don't have to worry about that he'll do that here master in a serious tone give up such a wife if she proves an obstacle in the way of spiritual life taco said that about parents also he said that if parents do anything to prevent the children from following a spiritual life don't listen to them he said in other things listen to them obey them in every other way and then he would give the example of prahlada and other instances where father was dead against it and and the son didn't listen something like that uh so he's saying it now uh with the wife let her commit suicide or anything else she likes it's very harsh it doesn't sound like takur and we'll find out of course that uh he he wasn't like that the wife that hampers her husband's spiritual life is an ungodly wife takur had this distinction between vidya shakti and of iddya shakti those who would be helpful and not just with a wife and everything though that which is helpful in spiritual life and that which is not helpful both belong to maya vidyamaya and vidyamaya but one is this this satwik type which helps us and the other is thomas sigan rajasik so now ann will be shocked who because he wasn't expecting that he maybe he was expecting to say that no try to explain to her this and that that i still love you and everything but he didn't get that answer so immersed in deep thought m stood leaning against the wall narendra and the other devotees remained silent a few minutes they were probably also shocked and thought how can he say these things and what must the end be thinking the master exchanged several words with them he's letting it sink into m's mind how important it is not to give up spiritual practice and spiritual life because of what other people say and think then suddenly going to him he whispered in his ear but if a man has a sincere love for god then all come under his control the king wicked person and his wife since your love of god on the husband's part may eventually help the wives to lead a spiritual life so not only is he saying that you don't have to give her up or let her commit suicide but you'll be you'll be helping her she'll become a partner for you if the husband is good then through the grace of god the wife may also follow his example now whether takwer knew it whether and i don't think it happened yet but she actually became suicidal later when the son died and taco was so kind to her that and would say can i bring my wife and he said yes you bring her come together whenever you want let her stay let her live with the holy mother he was so kind to her and she became a great devotee and we find her going on pilgrimage many of these pilgrimages that holy mother took to brindavan to south india that nikunja devi huh is that her name nikunjidevi i think so no what was his wife's name i don't remember anyhow she accompanied and through taco's grace to holy mother's company she of course didn't commit suicide she recovered but it was a tremendous shock the the death of it of a of a child very very sadly later in life they had they had a daughter die also those days children died the girish coach also many of them had to suffer through very was was not the least bit uncommon for children not to make it through childhood childhood diseases and things so many of them died childbirth also this had a most soothing effect on em's worried mind all the while he had been thinking let her commit suicide what can i do am to the master this world is a terrible place indeed master to the devotees that is the reason caitanya said to his companion nithyananda listen brother there is no hope of salvation for the worldly-minded knew all of these these cute little phrases and things they're very nice nice things yeah so that means the worldly minded it doesn't mean uh householders there's the taco had so many pious householders on another occasion the master had said to him privately yes there is no hope for a worldly man so it doesn't mean a householder worldly shanghailuk if he is not sincerely devoted to god but he has nothing to fear if he remains in the world after realizing god taqwa had this he had two things in mind for m one was that and would be the recorder of his words that of course is very clear second thing is that m would be the example of the gurihi sanyasi someone who was a sannyasi and a householder at the same time who had the same spirit of the sannyasi while living the householder life nor need a man have any fear whatever of the world if he attains sincere devotion by practicing spiritual discipline now and then in solitude and of course m did this he would go and he would live at a school just by himself or he would even stay outside he spent a lot of time living alone caitanya had several householders among his devotees but they were householders in name only for they lived unattached to the world it was noon the worship was over and food offerings had been made in the temple the doors of the temple were shut srama krishna sat down for his meal and the rendra and the other devotees partook of the food offerings from the temple and this is the end of that day and we'll start next week with this is page 126 sunday october 22nd 1882 which is the last day the day of the immersion the vijaya the shimmy day of durga puja so thank you all for joining us in the class i should i'm saying this morning but it's tonight huh class will be tonight okay we'll have our closing prayer um [Music] foreign 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 unto