Video 23

The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna with Swami Atmajnanananda (09/11/20)

[Music] 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 this of course is the verse that m chose to be chanted before reading of the gospel of srama krishna it is represents the words of the gopis with reference to sri krishna is part of something called the gopigita and m felt that it was equally relevant to the words of sri ramakrishna so he chose this and this he took that phrase from this verse to be used for the bengali title of the gospel srama krishna the quran okay now we are on page 126 in the english translation advice to householders it is sunday october 22nd 1882. it was the day of vega the last day of the celebration of the worship of durga when the clay image is immersed in the water of a lake or river this is a big celebration day and especially in bengal and kolkata and the mutt also uh i had a couple of different occasions to be in bellarmout for the immersion and final day the special feature of this day is that this is the one day of the year when uh all of the monks of the order will embrace each other yeah the prema they call it and of course the junior members will make pranam to the senior members and uh generally i don't know if they still do it but in the earlier days any special day any birthday of a direct disciple they still do huh and today by the way is swami abhinanda's birthday so it's also the birthday of a direct disciple that all the junior monks will go to make pranam to all of the monks at bellarmutt even to go to into arogyam room by room to all of the retired swamis there and everything and this is the one day of the year that after you make pranam then the seniors will embrace the juniors so you'll get a big hug it's very very sweet very wonderful that everyone is kind of on an equal footing as a brother that day so this is that day and then with the with the music and and singing and dancing uh they'll take the image of mother durga and uh right to the bank of the ganga and immerse it in the in the river on that day so it was the day of vijaya the last day of the celebration of the worship of durga when the clay image is immersed in the water of a lake or river about nine o'clock in the morning and was seated on the floor of the master's room at dakshineshwar near suramar krishna who was reclining on the small couch rakal was then living with the master and narendra and visited him frequently baburam had seen him only once or twice now you'll remember that raqual was same age as narendra swamiji they were both members of the brahma-samaj they had become friends they belonged to the same gymnasium i don't think they went to the same school but anyhow he was recently married at that time and it was through his father-in-law mana mohan mithra that he came to meet suramar krishna in those days being married doesn't mean what we think of as being married exactly his his wife uh most of the time was still living with with her family and the rachel would visit from time to time but he also would stay with srama krishna from time to time and funny thing is that rachael's own father seemed to object more than his father-in-law because he was a great devotee to this mitra and gradually rakaal started staying more with srama krishna than at his own home with his wife he would go to visit from some time and so it was kind of understood at some point that rock hog would probably lead the life of a monk and this happened sometimes in society of those days the the wife would be looked after nicely by both sides of the family in some very orthodox families that she would continue to stay with her husband's family and this is why when masrama krishna before he passed away he told holy mother that after he passed away that he wanted her to stay in the kamarpuku so in this case it was kind of amicable rachel brought his father to meet ashram krishna a couple of times and it's recorded here he was a worldly man not that he was a bad man or anything but he was a kind of wealthy man landlord and shirami krishna used to say when he comes here and sees that other people of high position are here that he won't feel so bad that raqqa is there so and you know he he seemed to be resigned to the fact that raqqa would stay with srama krishna from some time from time to time and eventually of course when we get to kashipur and everything that he he stayed there and after that they all renounced the word baburam later swami prema earlier i don't know even then was a student of m's even then but wasn't a good student and didn't care about it and srama christian used to tease him or you're still studying but didn't really care whether he studied or not because he knew that he would renounce the word baburam had the unique honor of being the one that takwe felt was the purest of all of them and he very much even though latu was staying there raqual was staying there there were two problems one is that when srama krishna went into samadhi he said that for some reason baburan was so pure he was the only one that could that he could bear the touch of and it was necessary for somebody to hold him because he could fall down if he stood up and went into samadhi he didn't know where he was what he was doing we know that at least on two occasions when no one was with him he did fall and one time he chipped his tooth and one time he broke his arm so he wanted the baboon to stay with him and eventually he did but at this point this is 1882. had only seen him once or twice it says master this is 2m did you have any holiday during the durga puja normally everybody does this will be like our christmas vacation that the schools will be closed and offices mostly will be closed and yes sir i went to keisha's house every day for the first three days of the worship now i am had been a member of the brahma-samaj and his wife's husband was related i think to kesha and you know they had a family connection with keshav and also through the brahmos samaj so he could go to kasab's house he was almost like one of the family master is that so m i heard their very interesting interpretation of the durga puja master please tell me all about it and keshav sen held daily morning prayers in his house lasting till 10 or 11. so this would have been a semi-private thing just family and very close members otherwise they had their hall they had their the place where they would have large meetings and things but this was at the house for some reason during these prayers he gave the inner meaning of the durga puja he said that if anyone could realize the divine mother that is to say could install mother durga and the shrine of his heart then lakshmi saraswati karitika and ganesha would come there of themselves there's a footnote according to hindu mythology lakshmi and saraswati are the daughters don't get confused because there are all different relations in different things different different traditions uh this just happens to be the one that we have here when you see the image of mother durga for durga puja you'll see all of them are there and kartik and ganesha are the sons of durga associated with the image of durga they occupy positions on both sides of the divine mother and then you'll generally see that mother has a trident and she's killing this mahishasura which will be some big water buffalo trident and everything so and this is part of this uh navaratri and sometimes there's some traditions that break it into three days three days three days mother in the form of saraswati and former lakshmi in the form of durga so something like that was being taken place here where he talked about each of them also now what does it mean that lakshmi so if you if you realize mother durgan the shrine of your heart then lakshmi saraswati kartik and ganesha would come to themselves lakshmi means wealth lakshmi is the consort of visnu but also goddess of wealth the sometimes and this is another interesting thing when srama krishna spoke of holy mother he would identify a holy mother in different ways at different times sometimes he would say isharudah in bengali plus da giver of wisdom so that means saraswati he would say this and he noticed that she liked jewelry and he had bangles made for her and she had other things she had a nose ring and an anklet and a few other things not that she was attached to it but she liked it and he used to say why does she like it because she's lakshmi herself and then sometimes he would say she sita and how she's locked up in that little nahabad like sita was after she was kidnapped by ravana so [Music] so lakshmi lakshmi means wealth now whenever srama krishna heard that spirituality was tied in with prosperity he would react to that because his idea of spirituality was a very pure ideal and this is why he didn't like that hazrat also azar used to say that if we realize god then we'll also get some prosperity there's a branch or a school of christianity like that also prosperity theology or something like that that uh as a sign of spirituality if you're also prosperous but taku didn't like this type of idea so he said that lakshmi it means wealth this is am explaining what keshav had said saraswati knowledge that's fine kartika's strength and ganesha's success by realizing the divine mother within one's heart one gets all these without any effort whatever so probably what tucker objected to more than anything was this idea of wealth because that means that there's a little hidden uh self-interest and and selfish desire uh worshiping the mother one shouldn't ask for anything except love of god this was a taqwa's idea to pray for pure love uh to pray to durga in the form of lakshmi for wealth uh was a very compromising thing in his mind so srama krishna listened to the description questioning him now and then about the prayers conducted by kesha now he doesn't want to criticize kesha directly but he's very interesting the way he puts it at last he said to him don't go hither and thither don't go here and there come here alone those who belong to the inner circle of my devotees will come only here because there'll be some confusion some confusion in the mind not that taqwa was was had any exclusivity or secretness or anything like that but he knew that some of these other teachers would emphasize things that wouldn't be helpful for him he knew the very first meeting he could read em's mind he knew what his spiritual journey would be like and what would be helpful and what wouldn't be helpful then he says boys like narendra my very intimate disciples so he starts talking about those who belong to the inner circle of my devotees will come only here he is indicating that m is a member of the inner circle because he says first don't go here and there simply come to me those those who belong to my inner circle will only come here now he's saying who else is there so we find in when we talk about the antaranga bhaktas that it doesn't simply mean the householders it will include certainly m it will include certainly balarambus after that we assume that sarendra and gedis and ram and there will be is never very specific he's more specific about naming who the ishwara koti's are and and the nithya citizen and his monastic disciples but it's clear that m at least and other householders belong to the inner circle according to taqwa's understanding boys like narendra my very intimate disciples they are not to be thought lightly of they're young boys this was so shocking to everybody how uh suramar krishna would compare narendra to keshav and say whatever keshav has in ronda has a hundred times the virtues that he had they would be shocked this 18 year old boy compared to this world-renowned orator who had been to london to england who admit queen victoria who had such a huge following was so highly honored and narendra was nobody he came from a good family and he was very brilliant but other than that he was just a schoolboy at the time so he's saying all of them they are not to be thought lightly lightly of feed them one day now takoro always felt that it was very auspicious for the householders to feed them because feeding them he felt would be the same marriages as feeding sadhus feeding holy men and seeing god in them that they were they're very pure this would be very helpful and auspicious uh for em himself and uh helpful for those boys also he wanted to see this relationship between all of the disciples he wanted to see this friendship this this loving relationship there then he says what do you think of narendra now takur had two ways of judging people more than two but at least in this context one he would ask them what do you think of me huh and just to see how how deep their understanding was uh because taqwa many people thought who was he just some mad mad cap madman who's singing and dancing and falling unconscious and everything so he wanted to see the the depth of their understanding and sometimes he would ask what do you think of narendra and partly because he would be happy if they said oh how wonderful he is then he would say oh since you're praising him you must be a good person so he's asking what do you think of narendra now remember that they had only met a few months earlier they must have known each other they must have seen each other at least they promised so much but apparently they didn't know each other and not that every they would get big crowds there not that everyone was on a you know first name basis with everyone at the at the brahma so much and i think very highly of him sir you remember at uh one of the early meetings that narendra was there when em was there and surrounded christianity specifically asked them to talk to each other have a conversation together and uh just the last time i think they were they were just the two of them talking together with a couple of other friends and got into big trouble they were gossiping about school boys nowadays so they've already formed uh a friendship narendra swamiji had this this special capacity to form a friendship with people older than him on almost a one-to-one basis very very interesting very nice and it shows also the uh adaptability and uh flexibility i think of of the older devotees this is true in the case of gedich who was so much older that he and narendra narendra would visit they would just chat like like two friends he would go to his house and so em and narendra also became friends like that and i think very highly of him master haven't you observed his many virtues he is not only well-versed in music vocal and instrumental he played his uh tabla of course in the pacuaj in tanpura i don't know what else but he came from a family that was quite well to do at least before his father died and he had tutors so he learned all sorts of different arts and and even horseback riding and other things like that so he had lots of music teachers so he worked and vocal of course but he is also very learned and he was a voracious reader most of the time he would just very barely go through his school books and just enough so that he could pass all the exams without any problem but read all sorts of other things he had a very inquisitive mind his and his father uh his father was very very fond of persian poetry is hafez the swamisi likes so much he was also very fond of that and apparently he could read persian persian is not so different i guess from urdu and learned people in those days studied these things so his father also was a little bit of an intellectual although he was a more of an attorney and a business person besides he has controlled his passions and declared he will lead a celibate life he has been devoted to god since his very boyhood then he changes the topic how are you getting along with your meditation nowadays what aspect of god appeals to your mind with form or without form now suramar krishna he had a habit of letting people follow their own inclination for some time uh and and guiding them gently in one way one direction or another he had this this idea of this that we find over and over again that we all have a certain taste for a spiritual attitude or path but sometimes we're not suited for it so he he he he would balance these two things this uh uh hajjam shakti this power of digestion and this there's a taste you say in food the mother knows what food the child likes but also knows what food the child can digest he would balance these so he wants to know what appeals to m and then he'll try to explain to him what's good for him so at this point it seems that he hasn't given um any direct spiritual instruction with regard to meditation anything like that he's letting him kind of feel this way and he wants to see where m is at because in the beginning we find that he was very much against any type of worship of god with form i'll get to that in a minute but so he says how are you getting along with your meditation nowaday what aspect of god appeals to your mind with form or without form this is was a big issue at that time i'll get to it in a minute m sir now i can't fix my mind on god with form on the other hand i can concentrate steadily on god without form okay so he's like the rest of us that trying to fix the mind on god would form the image floats away maybe for a few seconds it seems to be there then it's gone god without form we don't know what to do what do we even think of what do we picture so explaining that really the difficult uh nature of meditation in itself master now you see that the mind cannot be fixed all of a sudden on the formless aspect of god so he's saying that this formless aspect is a more advanced stage it is wise to think of god with form during the primary stages m do you mean to suggest that one should meditate on clay images okay now this is something that i find very interesting that uh suramar krishna has one thing in mind i think when he talks about sakhara god with form and the devotees especially the brahmos have something else in mind to a certain extent almost always as soon as they hear this sakura puja they think of image worship and for the brahmos this was a great no-no they this was a taboo they weren't allowed even they signed a pledge they wouldn't go inside the temple and and bow down before the image anything like that so there's image worship with something that they look down upon why did they look down upon it mostly the influence of the of the british now when we look at other religious traditions we find in the west judaism christianity and islam judaism and islam especially and islam even more they have no concept of of any form of god that god is near as is nirakar but saguna that means that god has qualities of love and and compassion and and justice and mercy all of these different things but there's no there's no form and certainly no human form and in islam it goes so far as to lead to a kind of a ban on any human representation and certainly of god but even just in in general this is one of the reasons why islam has such a highly developed form of calligraphy and mosaic work and other types of art because they didn't go for this painting and drawings of your human form anyhow christianity will have the same thing with regard to the father but not the sun with regard to the sun this uh iconography is very very important especially in the orthodox traditions catholicism to a certain extent orthodox traditions all these beautiful paintings of christ but with regard to to the god the father in heaven also there's no image there's there's nothing to think of so uh in sram krsna's mind uh he's not necessarily thinking of of this image in the shrine he's not necessarily thinking of the clay image which is the first thing that comes to m's mind for him uh what he sees in the state of bhava in ecstasy he'll he'll see the form of the divine mother or the form of shiva or the form of krishna different deities like that he'll see that at the time of ecstasy when the mind is soaring high on its way to to the infinite absolute reality and these are the different forms that may maybe take some concrete shape with regard to a clay image or with regard to photographs something like that but in tsunami christian's mind that the image is just a symbol of the of the real thing and uh when he has it we hear about these visions of the divine mother and everything probably some of them at least is very distinctively with forearms and with the swords and all of these different things like that so the first thing that comes to m's mind is that we're talking about the clay image so m says do you mean to suggest that one should meditate on clay images master why clay so he's expressing a little bit this idea that why does that come to your mind the first thing you think of when we say god with form and even if that comes to your mind facing it you should see it as a symbol or you should see it as a manifestation of divinity and don't fix your mind on the fact that it's made of of the five elements clay why clay these images are the embodiment of consciousness chinmaya so he uses this expression chinmaya so even if even if uh worship of god with form uh indicates to us that we're going into a temple at that time we should feel that we're face to face with the divine mother not that we're just sitting in front of a stone image so i am is going to say okay i'll grant you that much but if by meditation it means that the mind is thinking of that image whether whether it's uh chinmaya or whether it's minmei he would say not not made of clay made of consciousness either way they're still hands and feet and arms and all of these different things so m says even so one one must think of a hands feed and the other parts of the body so to m he says i'm supposed to be thinking of god and i'm thinking of physical form so how is that going to help me this is the doubt that he has but he's starting to understand that his conception is is is incomplete or wrong but again i realized that the mind cannot be concentrated unless one meditates in the beginning on god with form so this is a big step forward for em because he wouldn't have said this in the very beginning this is after srama krishna has explained many things to him you have told me so so he not just that he told him but the m was a thoughtful person he's starting to understand that the mind needs to focus on something concrete something tangible well god can easily assume different forms may one meditate on the form of one's own mother now the little background is necessary here this is 1982 em's mother passed away in would i say 1882 in 1880 so that means that m was uh 25 or 26 years old something like that he was very attached to his mother this is something very common uh in in the household of that day there's a swamiji himself very attached to the mother because uh father was busy with all sorts of things of course it's common throughout the world and the mother is the one who really raises the child gives spiritual instruction to the child holds the family together makes household decisions all of that so when em's mother died this was the beginning of of all of the problems in m's house and ym was so unhappy living at home he was already married he got married in 1873. so he was probably not even 20. and there were some difficulties in the household and he had actually stopped some of his studies and and started working he would have had even more degrees that hadn't been for that and there was always pressure from his father and his brothers because the brothers lived at home also for him to make more money and i think if i'm not mistaken that m's father had remarried at that point you remember not sure but anyhow he was not at all happy at home and must have missed his mother very much 25 26 years old to lose the mother who was the most important member of the family would have been a tremendous loss for him so he's he's thinking that if i sit in meditation and i want to picture a form and a human form and i want that form to represent something that takes my mind higher and that form that i can see the divine presence within then mother is the best so he says can i can i meditate on my own he's saying can one but can can one meditate it means can i do it can i meditate on my own mother now srama krishna was was so liberal and he knew m's mind he knew a little bit uh we don't find recorded in the gospel am telling anything very definite about his family situation but it's not impossible that he simply didn't record that possibly the trauma christian knew that his mother had passed away at that time and knew i think i think his father remarried which was also part of the problem didn't get along with his mother-in-law that was the case with raquel huh rocco's the mother had passed away and there was a stepmother and anyhow so what does srama krishna say master yes the mother should be adored she is indeed an embodiment of brahman we have another case where was it nistarani devi i'm not good with names but she raised a nephew they had no children at that time and was very attached to this nephew and she asked could she meditate on this nephew as baby gopal and ceramicry said yes serve this nephew as the baby gopala and she had various experiences in bhava samathi and other things that taku was very very impressed through that type of of spiritual practice so master yes the mother should be adored she is indeed an embodiment of brahman m sat in silence after a few minutes he asked the master what does one feel while thinking of god without form this is a very good question how do we do it we may have this conviction that yes and brahman how can there be any form in brahman and brahman is infinite absolute consciousness is perfectly transcendent pure they're not the touch of parakura there's nothing changeful in it if this is if this is the goal of spiritual life to realize this infinite absolute reality then that should be what my meditation is on but how do i do it and it gets even trickier when we realize that this infinite absolute reality is myself that it's never it can never be objectified that it's the meditator it's not the object of meditation so how how does the self how does the subject become the object of my meditation if it's the pure subject it gets very tricky so m is asking that how do you do it and what does one feel while thinking of god without form isn't it possible to describe it after some reflection the master said do you know what it is like now this is a very sad thing that we don't find out he remained silent a moment and then said a few words to em about one's experiences at the time of the vision of god with and without form so this is this is unrecorded there is a another regrettable time when uh suramar christian is talking about uh the formation of blocks of ice in the ocean due to the cooling power of the love of the devotee and how when the sun of knowledge arises that these blocks of ice will melt back for going from form to formlessness and then he says but in some places it's so cold that they they never melt back in and they can turn to crystal and then one of the devotees says damn did you get that and them said no i didn't get that and neither of them asked ramakrishna so we don't we we never get a better explanation of that so suramar krsna said he says a few words to him we don't know how long it was or how much it was or what it was and then master you see one must practice spiritual discipline to understand this correctly and this this is something that tucker always talked about we can understand something intellectually and we can understand it through spiritual practice and we can understand it through direct experience these are three different things the understanding something intellectually is is very important and very helpful in the beginning so that we develop some conviction regarding the truth of it but uh we should never think that an intellectual understanding has brought about anything very marvelous it's a very first step it's it allows us to proceed further it's not some place where we can stop you see one must practice spiritual discipline to understand this correctly suppose there are treasures in a room if you want to see them and lay hold of them you must take the trouble to get the key and unlock the door after that you must take the treasure out but suppose the room is locked and standing outside the door you say to yourself here i have opened the door now i have broken the lock of the chest now i have taken up the treasure such brooding near the door will not enable you to achieve anything you must practice discipline so as as much as krishna talks about the grace of god as much as he talks about uh the need for uh surrender the need for uh just giving up self-effort all of these things as he he gives equal if not more emphasis on doing spiritual practice because we don't reach that other stage without doing spiritual practice we can't reach the stage of nagate of surrender we may say at the very beginning yes whatever god does for me it will be fine i'll be like the kitten and everything but we have to have a very pure mind and we have to really transcend this lower ego uh through a lot of spiritual discipline before we can really do that otherwise it's just talk it doesn't have much meaning so you must practice discipline the gyanis think of god without form now we'll get a little bit of of how this is done they don't accept the divine incarnation now this is a second clue about what we mean by worshiping god with form that we can think of these gods and goddesses this is one possible thing that are durga and shiva different different aspects of the divine mother or we have the divine incarnation which will be god taking human form of course the early avatars or we have earned all of that but uh present-day understanding or later understanding will be the human form now when it comes to our actual meditation and it comes to our actual spiritual practices there's not much difference whether the chosen ideal is is kali or krishna there is not much difference even though we will say that one will be a deity somehow and the other will be on god taking human form and avatar for practical purposes is not much not much difference but with regard to this idea of god with form we can say that yes here is an instance where the divine is manifest in human form now the gyanis will say uh each and every individuals is an instance of god taking human form that each and every one of us can say that now asrama krishna says you're right you're of course you're right but there's a special sense a special manifestation of divinity in these great souls this uh modern day on buddha and caitanya and others and the semi-legendary ramakrishnan and others that they they are similar to human beings in many different in many respects but in many ways that they represent a very special type of manifestation so uh worshipping god with form now we have three things one this idea that we're talking about some image in the temple one some divine deity or something and then this avatar now there's a another way of thinking of god with form this whole universe is virat this is a upanishadic idea it's a very beautiful idea the whole universe is the body of god this is also god with form and we can and if that's true then we can worship anything if we have that that feeling behind it everything is a manifestation of the divine upanishadic idea but also the shakta idea this was takwor loved this this idea everything is a manifestation why say false projection or misreading of brahmin that taken into positive sense so now what do the gyanis think of this idea of the avatar as some unique type of thing the yani's think of god without form in general they don't accept the divine incarnation now this is traditional this is traditional and if we go to the upanishadic period they don't accept personal god really in any form whether it's avatar or or this idea of of uh praying to a deity and god possessing love and kindness and all of that it was more impersonal absolute that was the idea we had we find in the in the upanishads but in the present context i will say that those who are gyanis in the ramakrishna tradition that for them is easier for them to accept the divine incarnation so when taqwa says the yani doesn't accept the divine incarnation he's talking about traditionally traditionally they don't we look at swamiji who was a greater ghani than swamiji and yet he called taqwa not only the avatar so the greatest of all avatars so uh with srirama krishna has given us a new understanding of this avatar i like a human being in many respects but the repository of so many divine qualities and attributes and and spiritual strength and realizations the power to bestow spiritual experiences on others uh that we don't find it to such an extent so for the gyani every every wave every individual is a wave on the ocean but this avatar is a huge wave it's very easy from the point of of knowledge to accept this idea of the avatar but he's talking about very traditionally in the upanishadic period or very strict followers even shankaracharya he had to accept it the idea of avatar because he's doing the comment sorry commentaries on gita and other things where it's such a prominent thing is it true no no but he doesn't emphasize it too much and he uses it dr eva as if born of course he can say that all of us as if born but in any case uh we shouldn't think that if we're yanis we can't accept the avatar this is my point and we'll find that many in our order who are really great ghani's that means they have the highest conception of brahmin and uh with form without foreign everything they'll have the the same type of reverence for krishna as others one or two exceptions we have our bharat maharaja he was very very famous in our order very wonderful soul very loving soul and everything uh and weirdly what he thought about srama krishna we have no way of knowing we know that he wouldn't have joined the order if he didn't have a special reverence but he wouldn't go to the to the temple he wouldn't bow down he would sometimes peep in just to see the the decorations and things like that he was really that way but it doesn't mean that he didn't look upon a christian is the highest possible ideal so we we have that type of combination of the gyani and those who have devotion for the avatar so surrounding christians talking about the very traditional idea that the gyanis think of god without form they don't accept the divine incarnation praising sri krishna arjuna said thou art from an absolute sri krishna replied follow me and you will know whether or not i am brahmana absolute so saying shri krishna led arjuna to a certain place and asked him what he saw there i see a huge tree said arjuna and on it i noticed fruits hanging like clusters of blackberries then krishna said to arjuna come nearer and you will find that these are not clusters of blackberries but clusters of innumerable krsna's like me hanging from the tree in other words talk we're speaking divine incarnations without number appear and disappear on the tree of the absolute brahmin that means wave after wave will appear in this ocean of consciousness and some will be huge ways we'll call them avatars some will be smaller waves we'll call them ishwara koti some tiny waves ripples they'll be jivacotis kabirdas was strongly inclined to the formless god at the mention of christian's name he would say this was a i don't know much about him but devotee who would visit ramakrishna from time to time at the mention of of christian's name he would say why should i worship him the gopis would clap their hands while he performed a monkey dance with a smile but i accept god with form when i am the company of people who believe in that ideal and i also agree with those who believe in the formless god now this goes back to what i think is is one of the most important teachings of swami krishna we we hear this this is this is a very common thing they even made a movie with that title it came out when i was in india actually i saw that in 1978 i think jotomo toto uh as many faiths so many pets now this moth was taken as faith because it refers to srama krishna's practice of the different religions and things like that but it also refers to worshiping god with form or without form it refers to the advaita vedanta all of these different philosophies philosophical systems which the acharyas who developed them took them to be truth they understood this to represent uh the the final conclusion siddhanta this is true it's true that uh that there's no distinction between ottman and and jiva g vadman and ottman are one of the no distinction whatsoever and then the qualified non-duals will say no there are many jivas but they all dwell within god that this is the truth now srimad christian used to say moth pot mod pot very easy it sounds like such a simple thing but it's very very deep that all these things mod all these philosophical systems these are paths they're not the gold they're not a final truth so swami krishna is saying that even you know uh is it true that god has formed the truth these these are different means by which if we adopt this this this understanding that this can take us to the highest type of realization don't go beyond that because he knew the truth meant experience truth meant realization and he alone could say that these many philosophers i'm not saying that these great acharyas they didn't have god realization they were we understand them to be realized souls but those who simply study the philosophy and take it from the point of view of logic they'll think that they've come up with some logical truth the same way that we have a mathematical truth or a scientific truth that it's irrefutable that there's something inherently true about it for srama krishna these were different attitudes these were different ways perspectives on things just as we describe a person in many different ways use different names and everything the real truth of it is the person that's all so he's saying that when i'm in the company of people who believe in that ideal i also agree with those who believe in the formless god so i accept god with form when i am the company of people who believe in that ideal and i also agree with those who believe in the formless god so for him both were true and i used it true in this relative sense because he would say with brahmanism beyond all of this beyond any description we can't we can't limit what brahman is to any type of easy philosophical formula am smiling you are as infinite as he of whom we are talking truly no one can fathom your depth master smiling ah i see you have found it out he had a wonderful sense of humor that's really krishna let me tell you one thing now this is very interesting and i don't think we find it uh anywhere else maybe maybe one other place but this is this is very interesting he says one should follow various paths usually we hear take up one path and follow that path one should follow very one should practice each creed for a time now this is what srama krishna did but he generally he wouldn't tell this say this to others in a game of satranja this is some type of board game with the tiles that go around squares a piece can't reach the center square until it completes the circle but once in the circle it can't be overtaken by by any other piece now i have to guess at what sramakrishnan means because it's not very very clear but in order to remove any sectarianism uh it's very helpful if we see a different spiritual path from within and not from without and i think this is this is very very important that uh when we look at other religions we we see it very superficially and if we if we really want to have this understanding that everyone is sincerely trying to follow their spiritual path and have some deep protective experience we can't do it unless we go within so astronomy christianity was very very particular when he followed his spiritual path that he did it the way they did it he didn't do it as an outsider but as an insider and he used to say that uh i i even wore the clothes that they would wear when he practiced some of the vaisnava traditions he would wear this this long gown and he would put in the tulsi amale do all of those things that uh will bring association to his mind and allow him to experience the way they experienced it and this is how he could he could see things from the inside so he tried all of these different things and saw the the truth and efficacy in them now when taka says all religions are true he doesn't mean that each and everything that they say is final and absolutely true otherwise they can contradict each other the essence of it and if one practices any of these time-honored traditions with great sincerity that one can have the highest realization through that he never meant to even he said even our own traditions he said you think that hindu tradition or mother worship you think there are no erroneous things in this he said we also we have to uh adjust our clock to the to the sun every once in a while that every tradition will have certain things that are disposable even even scripture that even even what we call a shruti it will be a little bit of a combination of sugar and sand so we just discard the sand we don't worry about it that doesn't take away from the uh the value of the sugar or he says with cooking a fish you cut off the head and the tail you don't have to take all of the extraneous things take the essential things of course the head and the tail are the two best parts okay so he says but once in the square it can't be overtaken by by any other piece m that is true sir master there are two classes of yogis the bahu dhakas and the kuti chakas now bahu dhaka this uh these two terms we find in the panchadashi huh huh oh did you even move good yeah kumar and i started reading that and quickly we realized it was too hard for us so we we put it down but we find that there bahu and udaka many and means water uh tirtha and udaka is the same thing so somebody who goes to most tirta's holy places were on the banks of a river or lake or something so this is bahudai somebody a sadhu who will go from one holy place to another holy place and the other is the kuti chakas gutia that means they'll stay in a hut someplace they don't wander around anywhere these are two different types and thakura would refer to it very often and uh as the second being more mature stage he said the vahudiq has roamed about visiting various holy places and have not yet found peace of mind but the kutijakas having visited all the sacred places have quieted their minds feeling serene and peaceful they settle down in one place and no longer move about in that one place they are happy they don't feel the need of going to any sacred place if one of them ever visits a place of pilgrimage it is only for the purpose of new inspiration now the mostly sadhus go from place to place the direct disciples what did they do they did both they would go to places of pilgrimage but we'll see let's say swami brahmananda swami turiyananda they would go and spend long months in brindaban or norway one place like that it's just in a hut day after day doing their meditation but there is some inspiration that comes from going to a holy place so from time to time they would do that also i had to practice each religion for a time why i had to why does he say that because the divine mother led him not that it was necessary for him but it was necessary for the world to get that teaching and for the world to know that there was someone who had is not speaking theoretically when he says all the paths lead to god that someone has actually done it so the divine mother had him do this i had to practice each religion for a time hinduism islam christianity hinduism was of course with many different schools of of the hinduism the vaisnavas islam was the sufi school and just for a few days christianity he didn't really do christian discipline it was more that he listened to recitations from the from the from the bible the christian bible and had some direct experience some vision looking at the painting of the of the madonna and baby christ furthermore i followed the paths of the shaktis now this will be within hinduism the shaktis that means worship is a divine mother the vaisnavas this will be mostly worshippers of rama and krishna these two forms the division of a tradition and vedantists that when he says vedanta he means he's a dwight abidant experience with a total puri i realized that there is only one god to whom all are traveling but the paths are different so this was his realization because he reached the roof when he talked about you can climb up to a ladder and a rope and all this he went up to all of the different the means of getting up there while visiting the holy places i would sometimes suffer great agony once i went with mathur he was of course the patron of suramar krishna took him a long pilgrimage to raja babu's drawing room in benares i found that they talked there only if worldly matters these are all the rich men getting together in one room talking about their properties and and they were all landlords and all the difficulties they had running this and running that so of course would have been miserable having to sit to listen to all of these things i found that they talked they're only of worldly matters money real estate and the like at this i burst into tears i said to the divine mother weeping mother where hast thou brought me i was much better off at dakshinishwar in allahabad i noticed the same things that i saw elsewhere the same ponds the same grass the same trees the same tamarind leaves but one undoubtedly finds inspiration in the holy place i accompanied mathurbabu to brindavan and the ladies of mathu's family were in our party no sooner did i say the kali doman god these are all incidents in the life of sri krishna killing this demon then a divine emotion surged up within me i was completely overwhelmed friday used to bathe me there as if i were a small child so it'll go on with this taco is talking about how not necessary to go to these places of pilgrimage and yet he had so many intense spiritual experiences one after another because this spiritual consciousness would be awakened in these places and he would feel the presence of the of the divine whatever aspect it was in these different places so we'll stop here we have just another page or two and this advice to householders is 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 um peace peace peace be unto all thank you all for joining us and have a good week and we'll see you next time