Video 32

The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna with Swami Atmajnanananda (11/13/20)

[Music] 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 hello everyone and welcome to the class on the gospel of srama krishna we're on the chapter the master with the brahma devotees part one and it's still october 28th 1882 it was a saturday and sriram krishna had gone to the home of beni madhav pal he was one of the brahmos and this was the semi-annual brahmo festival so they went to his house in sinti about three miles north of calcutta we've been on this chapter for some time now we're on page 150 those who are following along and srama krishna is talking to the brahmo devotees and of course m is also there and therefore i say that in the light of edantic reasoning brahman has no attributes the real nature of brahman cannot be described but so long as your individuality is real the world also is real and equally real are the different forms of god and the feeling that god is a person yours is the path of bhakti that is very good it is an easy path who can fully know the infinite god and what need is there of knowing the infinite having attained this rare human birth my supreme need is to is to develop love for the lotus feet of god this of course is uh one of the main features of the path of devotion when we read the narrative there's tremendous emphasis on this that the the goal of the path of divine love or devotion is divine love not even not even mukti or the attainment of god of course attaining a divine love and attaining god will come together but the main emphasis is on developing this love of god if a jug of water is enough to remove my thirst why should i measure the quantity of water in the lake i become drunk on even half a bottle of wine what is the use of my calculating the quantity of liquor in the tavern what need is there of knowing the infinite the very states of mind of the brahmanagani are described in the vedas the path of knowledge is extremely difficult one cannot obtain if one has the least trace of worldliness and the slightest attachment to lust and gold this is not the path for the kali yuga this of course we went through this quite a bit that the path of knowledge is for those who have tremendous strength of mind tremendous detachment who from the very birth feel some sense of the they don't belong to this world there are uh many like that uh but compared to the vast number of people in the world the the percentage is is quite low and srama krishna would emphasize that even among the direct disciples other than swamiji and to a certain extent one or two others he really emphasized this path of devotion the vedas speak of seven planes where the mind dwells yet takur used to talk about this this uh she used to say is the same as the chakra is the the six centers or lotuses uh that we have in the kundalini theory i don't know exactly uh what these with the sublimi refers to but we'll see that it's that it's equivalent to all of the ideas that we have about this kundalini and the the different lotuses within different number of petals and different experiences that one has taku was very well versed in these things probably from the brahmany probably during his tantre sadhana the bhaivari brahmani probably he learned most of these things then she was an expert in tantra when the mind is immersed in worldliness it dwells in the three lower planes at the navel the organ of generation and the organ of evacuation in that state the mind loses all its higher visions it broods only on lust and gold the fourth plane of the mind is at the heart when the mind dwells there one has the first glimpse of spiritual consciousness one sees light all around such a man perceiving the divine light becomes speechless with wonder and says ah what is this what is this his mind does not go downward to the object of the world the fifth plane of the mind is at the throat when the mind reaches this the aspirant becomes free from all ignorance and illusion he does not enjoy talking or hearing about anything but god if people talk about worldly things he leaves the place at once the sixth plane is at the forehead when the mind reaches it the aspirin sees the form of god day and night but even then a little trace of ego remains at the site of this incomparable beauty of god's form one becomes intoxicated and rushes forth to touch and embrace it but one doesn't succeed it is like the light inside a lantern one feels as if one could touch the light but one cannot on the count of the plane of glass pane of glass and the top of the head is the seventh plane when the mind rises there one goes into samanthi then the brahmagyani directly perceives brahman but in that state his body does not last many days he remains unconscious of the outer world if milk is poured into his mouth it runs out dwelling on this plane of consciousness he gives up his body in 21 days that is the condition of the brahmanyani but yours is the path of devotion that is a very good and easy path now it is interesting that suramar christian is explaining everything this way when he talks about the different chakras and he talks about the kundalini rising and that power rising he'll use different language it's very interesting all of this is saying that the mind is ascending to a higher level there'll say one that that kundalini is a type of power and it it seems to rise up through the through subtle bodies surrounding krishna says it belongs to the subtle body and when that power reaches a certain area we have a certain type of experience here he's saying when the mind goes there now which is it how does it work what's that i often thought about this what is the cause and effect is it that this this power kundalini power that this rises to a certain level and we have a certain type of experience or we have that certain type of experience it is the mind that's going up and corresponding to that that kundalini is rising we we can think sometimes i think of the kundalini as a as a thermostat or thermometer now when when the mercury rises in that thermometer does it make the room get hotter or is it the heat in the room that makes it rise there of course we'll say the heat in the room it's uh you can there are ways of manipulating a thermometer you put your thumb on it or or something and put it in hot water and you can make it and go up but if you just leave it it will only go up if it's warmer outside or inside now is the kundalini is it like that or is it a little bit half and half let's uh take take the uh instance of of the the brain and the mind where's the cause and effect there the real materialists or even mechanicalists those who take a mechanistic view of things they'll explain that we have a certain thought because a certain area of the brain has been activated or some synapses in the brains one goes to the next i don't know how exactly they'll explain it uh we have people who have observed the the brain of buddhist monks who meditate and they'll see certain part of the brain is highly developed and uh or even with religious people and they'll try to explain the religious sentiment or some spirituality in terms of the brain now which way does it work is it that they spent their whole lives meditating and therefore that part of the brain increased it's just like an athlete that does a lot of exercise the muscles will get get bigger or they were born with that so that they turned out to be spiritual people so with the brain we can we can see that probably it works both ways we know if someone has a brain injury it affects the way they think so the brain does have some causal value to it at the same time we assume that uh the thoughts that we have are based on our experience in the world our desires all sorts of things not on the activity of brain cells and that if we have certain types of thoughts that that will have a causal effect that that will cause a certain type of corresponding change in the in the brain cells and synapses and all of those things i i don't have a science background so i i'm guessing at half of these things but so the kundalini here is he's speaking in terms of the mind it's very interesting other places it'll be when the kundalini rises now we know that there are certain certain gurus at least they claim they can raise your kundalini and people pay a lot of money can you raise my kundalini that way and some of them that they'll touch you with something or they'll do something and tucker had that ability that he could go like this and cornelina would go up and go like that it would come back down he could do that now is he making the mine go up making the kundalini go up and that gives the experience or giving the experience and then the kundalini goes up together who can say but with some we know that it seems to be a little mechanistic because they're not ready for it and they haven't had that experience and it may not even be good for them taco wouldn't do it if it wasn't good for them uh but uh it seems to be a little bit each way that this cause and effect works in in both ways tucker had that ability to to take to raise somebody's mind and at the same time he can explain it in terms of the kundalini so which one is going are they going together is it very hard to say i read a very interesting thing the other day we all know how taqwa sometimes would write something on the tongue that would be his type of initiation and sometimes they would have some spiritual experience and uh there was a man who came i don't think i told the story before did i tell you before there was a man who came devotee sitting quietly in the back no one paid too much attention but taco saw him and saw that he seemed to be a very uh a spiritual man and taqwa said come closer and stick out your tongue and tako wrote something on his tongue and he had went into very deep meditation and he went home and he remained in that state for for some days and his wife came and very angry at taqwa said did i tell the story or maybe i just told you i don't remember and we were very angry and said what did you do to him and talk we said oh tell me what happened he said he can't do its work he can't do anything else and everything he said okay and bring him to me one day and he brought them to him and then tucker wrote something else or did something and he came back to normal and he said the dose may have been too high the dose may have been too high that meant it or maybe it was my mistake that i gave a little bit too much raised the mind too much to a state where he that he wasn't ready for it something like that so it's very interesting we don't read these things too much this was in probably this this book that i'm reading about these old swamis and reminiscences i think swami ambikananda writes about that anyhow uh my point is we don't have to worry too much about this kundalini business i like to think of these things in terms of of of the mind itself now taka is not talking about kundalini because for some reason you know he's talking about in the vedas the subtitumi idea but generally you'll say it's the same as the chakra of the kundalini y 7 and y 6 because the other this is so that will also be the seventh so they're really perfectly equivalent but we can understand that when when the mind rises to a different plane we have different types of experience even even this external universe changes for us other times he'll say we see everything as light and then everything will disappear at a certain level we know that that when they go into samanthi taku or swamiji and others that this the universe seems to swirl around and disappear before their very eyes and then of course they go higher and higher now he's talking about this 21 days of the body will only last when one goes into this he's talking now about the brahmagyani so this will be uh nearly called the samadhi and the very highest form of nirvikalpa samadhi and in that state he says that one does not remain in the body or the body doesn't last the body doesn't last because the body is just on its own one can't nourish it anymore i was thinking the other day also this image came to my mind of a balloon helium balloon and at some point if that string gets gets weak enough and weak enough that string is the ego huh and if it breaks and the balloon goes up there's no bringing it back down again so this has to be a full break then this brahmagyana has to be a full break so there's no connection whatsoever with the body anymore it's a rare thing we don't have to worry about that happening to us huh it's a very rare thing that we can attain that now there'll be other times even in the same section he'll talk about what what someone does after samathi so we're not talking about ordinary samathi here we're talking about the highest type of nirvikalpu samadhi and and the mind get emerged in that to the point where it really gets cut off from that that ego so there's that string there's nothing to pull it back down again as soon as the string is going it goes all the way up it'll disappear in in outer space so he says this is the condition of the brahmagyani and we start to understand that taqwa will not put the same restrictions on other spiritual paths in other words if through path of devotion one has a vision of god god realization that one doesn't give up the body in 21 days that this is just for this one particular type of of the highest uh nirvikalpa samadhi that there's no one to bring the mind back down the ego was gone if the ego is that string holding the helium balloon then there's no way to bring the balloon back it'll go all the way up and that's the end of it now i read another interesting thing which we don't read in the gospel that taqwa says if one attains mahabhava if if an individual will attain the the extreme heights of spiritual attainment along the path of devotion the highest type of the spiritual experience with is a loving attitude of devotion that uh that person will give up the body in 21 days we don't find it a single time here but it seems to be an incredible source i think someone is quoting swami sharon who said that the master used to say that tucker used to say that there are many things that he said to the direct disciples that we don't have in the gospel of srama krishna so the point is that uh if one reaches the ultimate goal of life and while all of one karma is gone then whether the body is there or not there doesn't make any difference that there'll be absolute union with god and then who is there to to feed the body it's just it's just like a i won't say a lifeless thing but devoid of of any consciousness or awareness it has life because their cells there and everything but how long will they live without nourishment so he says it's 21 days and tucker heard this this wasn't his own idea he heard this from taren if i remember correctly swami taka always quoted people that i heard him say or according to this person according to that person but it was his own experience also once a man said to me sir can you teach me quickly the thing you call samadhi or laugh after a man has attained samadhi all his actions drop away okay now what happened to the 21 days so we say that it's not just any type of samathi it has to be this this ultimate there's this absolute nearby copper samadhi uh and it has to be for a certain length of time tucker it doesn't say that but we understand that if somebody has this this experience say when swamiji had his nirvikalpa samadhi in kashipur how long did it last it doesn't seem to be a very long time it doesn't seem to be a very long time that the elder gopal was there swami dwight he ran up to srama christian's room and said nothing seems to be lifeless we don't know what happened and he said let him stay like that for some time then it seems like shortly afterwards we don't know how long but shortly afterwards it seems that then uh he called swamiji narendra and he came up and they had a wonderful conversation what is your ideal in life and this and that and now mother has shown you everything i don't know if it was the same day but anyhow they had that conversation so if someone goes into that state and remains and doesn't come out of it then then there's some fear that they may give up the body we read about this this one satu that they tried to bring life back to him they beat him and bernie did everything ultimately killed him but even in taqwa's case when he was in that state it seems like this wandering sadhu he was in that state for six months that means he's not an ordinary person it seems like this other we even would try to beat his body a little bit to bring somebody consciousness back to bring the mind back down and taka's case what they generally did was they would chant something in his ear maybe a little loudly and that would somehow bring his mind back down and when the six months of samadhi uh we have two different ways of explaining what happened one of course he heard the voice of the divine mother remained in bahama but the other is he said that there was a terrible pain of dysentery in the body that pain was so great that it brought the mind back to some body consciousness and came down now it's quite possible that both are true this was the mechanism by which he was able to come back down again but it was also through the that the command of the divine mother or hearing the voice of the divine mother remained in bhava muka that means bring the mind down to a lower level just in between sixth and seventh and so you can go back and forth you'll be at the threshold of one and and also be able to live in the world and converse with people on the other side after a man has attained samadhi all his actions drop away so that doesn't mean that he remains inert it means when he comes back down again when he lives in the world again that he won't be capable of living and act in the world as he used to now we have another statement that taqwa makes that seems to contradict this he says if a clerk goes to jail and he's released from jail what will he do will he go about singing and dancing in the streets no he'll go back to being a clerk yeah but there won't be any sense of obligation or duty or something to be attained it'll it'll just be a out of the past habit there won't be a the same mental attitude or anything like that so all his actions drop away he says so there's no need to do anything but he may he may or he may not there's there's nothing to be gained by doing anything nothing nothing to be lost by not doing anything this is what sri krishna says in gita there's nothing for me to be gained if i do any work nothing lost if i do he said but i continue to act so for the welfare of others so some will come back because of a divide of a desire to help others and and work for the welfare of others but there's no sense of duty or obligation there's no binding element to it at all now he's going to say even devotional activities all devotional activities such as worship japan and the like as well as well as all worldly duties cease to exist for such a person now they may do their japa they may do their worship but before they did it as a type of spiritual discipline or they did it to attain something now they may do it just because what else would they do there's no need for it but they form the habit of it we find many of our great sadhus that they'll continue to study the scripture they'll get great joy in it they're not studying the way we study it to try to have some deeper understanding or to clear up some misunderstandings to gain some conviction no this will be what else would they do this is their enjoyment so all devotional activities such as worship and japan and the like as well as all worldly duty cease to exist for such a person at the beginning there is much ado about work and man makes progress toward god the outer dis as a man makes progress toward god the outer display of his work becomes less and less so much so that he cannot even sing the name and glories of god this is going from the vedhi bhakti state to this raga raga bhakti where everything is spontaneous it's also going from thomas and radish to satwa taku talks about the satu activity there's no outer display at all that everything is internal they don't care for people to even know or see them doing any spiritual discipline to shiver not so shivana chastity is here he's one of the the brahmos who actually was one of the one of the leaders when vidya krishna left and took sanyas and everything then it was really shivanatu was in charge of that branch as long as you were not here to shivanat as long as you were not here at the meeting people talked a great deal about you and discussed your virtues but no sooner did you arrive here then all that stopped now the very side of you makes everyone happy people now simply say ah here is shivanat babu all other talk about you has stopped so of course he's talking about those who've had the realization of god that there's no need for them to to reason or argue or or do anything god is present before them after attaining samadhi i once wanted the ganges to perform tarpon when tucker's mother died that generally this is a type of offering that's made and just just offering of of water and he says but as i took water in the palm of my hand it trickled down through my fingers so he wanted to to offer the water but before he could the hands would open and the water would wouldn't go down so it was impossible to make the offering weeping i said to haladhari so he's not saying but this must have been at the time of his mother's passing and the cremation that he had a desire to do that and ultimately i think he has ramallahu to do it for him but in his case it was two things one of course is he's saying after god realization the other is after taking sannyasa one doesn't do these things so this was was another instance where things took a very literal and concrete uh manifestation in taqwa's life weeping i said to cousin what is this replied it is called galita in the holy books so that means that the the hands become incapable and the water will will spill out through them that they're incapable of holding holding the water galida hasten the holy books after the vision of god such duties as the performance of tarpon drop away and also as i said after taking sannyasa that uh this sanyasi is forbidden to do these types of vedic rituals this is why a few days before taking sannyasa we do shraddha for parents and even for herself we do shraddha knowing that after after we take sanyasa we won't be able to do it it's symbolic of course and they may still be living of course living or dead it doesn't matter we do the same type of uh shraddha ceremony for ourselves it's symbolic we're dying to the world and also that we won't have offspring of course in the old days it could have been householders who did it but for us no one else to do it for us not that it matters at that point but it's mostly symbolic that the old self has died and we're saying goodbye to it in the kirtan the devotee first anyhow my point here is that uh he's talking about coming back down from samanthi so it's not the case that everyone who has samantha that they'll be merged in that and the body will fall off in in 21 days there are different types and different levels of of samathi that we don't understand takwer when he was talking to some of these great pundits he starts mentioning all these different types of samathi and they have no idea what he's talking about and takara alone knows and he experienced so many different types so he says after attaining somati that means that we can get to the roof we can look over we can see that experience we may be able to get up there we may be able to sit for a few minutes and come back down we may sing and dance a little bit and come back down if we stay there too long we may end up jumping over in the other side and there's no way to get back that's then that's the 21 days otherwise there's no jivan mukti so we know that takwo didn't say that everybody who goes into samati will will give up the body in 21 days here is very clear after attaining samadhi is a man all of his actions drop away all these the descriptions or for for the stita pragnia or the the jivan mukta in the kirtan the devotee first sayings means nithyananda this is from the caitanya tradition so this means he's like a mad elephant he dances like a mad elephant as the devotional mood deepens he simply sings hati hati next all he can sing is hati and last of all he simply sings and goes into samati the man who has been singing all the while then becomes speechless again at a feast given to the brahmins one at first hears much noise of talking when the guest sits on the floor with leaf plates in front of them much of the noise ceases then one hears only the cry bring some lootie as they partake of the luthi in other dishes three quarters of the noise subsides when the curd the last course appears one hears only the sound of as the guests eat the curd with their fingers then there is practically no noise afterwards i'll retire to sleep and absolute silence reigns so the the more we deeper we go into that spiritual mood the more we become perfectly content and there's no need to say anything or do anything we become filled as it were therefore i say at the beginning of religious life a man makes much ado about work but as his mind dives deeper into god he becomes less active last of all comes the renunciation of work followed by somali the other example that tucker gives of course is the daughter-in-law who becomes pregnant and the mother-in-law lessens her work now this is another case of of his work not naturally falling off from us as we go higher and higher or as the divine mother removing our obstacles and making our worst work less and less we can see it from either side but the point is that at the very end we just before giving birth to the child that means having god realization that we were incapable of doing anything else whole mind is absorbed there and afterwards we only play with the child now some may play with the child and and also do their household work go back get child care for the child and go back to their job and all of that that's pos if they can do that but there's no need for it no compelling need on their part and maybe for the welfare of the family they'll do it but they're perfectly content to just be with the child to enjoy the god realization now he's going to go back to this 21 day business generally the body does not remain alive after the attainment of samadhi so now again we have to understand this as that nirvikalpa samadhi what's the difference between sabi kulpa and nirvikalpa sabikalpa samadhi that string is still attached nirvikalpa for those who can come back again uh the string will remain uh for others if it if it if it breaks like the kite and the song then there's no coming back from that i read another interesting thing this was a holy mother that she was in deep meditation and someone had come and one of the attendants went to her and disturbed her in her meditation to tell her that someone has come to see you and she was in such a deep meditation she said my child understand that that thread which is holding this mind to the world is so thin that at any time it may break and i'll be gone so be very careful that if you see me in that state to gently bring the mind back down somehow so even for a holy mother whether it would have happened or not we don't know but she used that that same imagery that is this thread that holding the mind down is so thin that meant her attachment to the world was practically nothing it was practically nothing and at any time if she'd wanted to she could have done it or some circumstance came at any time she could have just been released from this this connection with the body and merged in that samadhi generally the body does not remain alive after the attainment of samadhi the only exceptions now these exceptions will be those who could experience this nirvikalpa samadhi the only exceptions are such sages as narada who keep their bodies alive in order to bring spiritual light to others so he used to talk about desire for those who had some some karma left and that's a little some scott and little desire they could experience samadhi for a short period of time and come back down like the mongoose with the brick on its tail other great souls could purposely maintain a desire to work for the welfare of others which itself would bring the mind back down again so that will be our swamiji and others direct disciples like that so we we have those who uh are very special souls and those who still have a little karma left both can come back down the other ones like swamiji they can have the highest nirvikalpa samadhi for those with little desire perhaps it'll it'll be this sabi koppa samadhi i don't i don't think there's there's such a sharp distinction between these two as as we generally think i think that this sabikov samadhi will also have different levels within it and it will be very very subtle change between subakula and every culprit somali but enough so that uh there's there's no i whatsoever to bring the mind back down and whether it happens on his own i i don't know how any of that works of course but uh and even with this nirvikalpa somati there seemed to be and i i mentioned once a few weeks ago i think that again i read the swami shadow that he said even levels of nirvikalpa so that one can go very deeply into it and it'll be harder for the mind to come back down in tucker's case and others liked him so generally the body does not remain alive after the attainment of samadhi the only exceptions are such ages as narada who keep their bodies alive in order to bring spiritual light to others it is also true of divine incarnations like caitanya after the whale is dug one generally throws away the spade and the basket but some keep them in order to help their neighbors this is a very interesting way of putting in huh so that means the ones who keep them in order to help their neighbor they're the ones who will come down from somalia they're the ones who will have some concern for the welfare of others others they they only care about their own liberation they can get their liberation but there will be no reason for them to think that uh let me help others so these would be the four friends that there'll only be one of them who will jump back on the same side and say let me tell others about it the others will all jump over they're the ones who don't worry about uh saving the spade in the shovel they'll throw it over with them they don't care about that they're not bad people when one gets in that state to fully merged in god who will think of anything else only very rare great souls but some keep them in order to help their neighbors the great souls who retain their bodies after samathi feel compassion for the suffering of others they are not so selfish as to be satisfied with their own illumination you are well aware of the nature of selfish people if you ask them to spit at a particular place they won't lest it should do you good if you ask them to bring a sweet meat worth a cent from the store they were perhaps licked on the way back all left but the manifestation of divine power manifestations of divine power are different in different beings now there's another way of understanding it that who can come back down now this is again takwa has this theory of what he calls of the size of the receptacle so maybe those would if the receptacle is huge enough that they can come back down go up and down whatever they want a little smaller then the chances are less very small receptacle it goes to the top it'll it'll fly away so he even among his direct disciples he used to talk about the different size of the receptacle none of them were the size of swamiji's he was a huge water jug where they kept the water for the tacos indoor bath and everything and others will be a smaller pitcher all holding the same water all having the same god realization but not the same spiritual power but the manifestation of divine power manifestation sorry of divine power are different in different beings ordinary souls are afraid to teach others a piece of worthless timber may itself somehow float across the water but it sinks even under the weight of a bird stages like narada are like a heavy log of wood which not only floats on the water but also can carry men cows and even elephants to shivanat and the other brahmo devotees can you tell me why you dwell so much on the powers and glories of god they they used to give these lectures that was a part of of their worship service they said something they called it upasana and it would consist of like a church service almost there would be group singing there would be a choir they would all chant some things together about brahmin this is all these different things and and there would be a lecture the acharya would give a lecture so taco heard this on several occasions and he was interested many times they would say oh you've come what's the native they said no no no you do it i want to hear you do it so we heard kesha many times he heard vijay at least once that we know of and perhaps she if not i don't know and he would get reports from other people huh who was his name [Music] and they were the one who said how much how much wine i used to drink how much of this and who said the brahman is nirosh that roman is is uh lacking in sweetness with that we have to add it to to brahman so he he knew about the type of lectures that they used to give or sermons you could say so when he says you here he's talking about the not just shivanath but this will be you and the plural can you tell me to shivna the first one is singular the second explorer can you tell me why you dwell so much on the powers and glories of god i asked the same thing to keshav sin one day keshav and his party came to the temple garden at dakshineshwar i told them i wanted to hear how they lectured a meeting was arranged in the paved courtyard above the bathing gut on the ganges where keshav gave a talk he spoke very well i went into a trance keisha was a fantastic speaker this is why he attracted so many the young people of calcutta that he was mesmerizing he had some type of charisma and he had some some genuine spirituality tako used to say taku was very very fond of him when he passed away taku was really beside himself with grief that he they had a very beautiful relationship keisha we have a talk he spoke very well i went into a trance after the lecture i said to keshav why do you so often say such things as o god what beautiful flowers thou hast made oh god thou hast created the heavens the stars and the ocean and so on those who love splendor themselves are fond of dwelling on god's splendor once a thief stole the jewels from the images in the temple of rata kanta this is dakshin ishwar you know that between taqwa's room and the kali temple there's another small temple and radhakanta this is uh krishna and radha together go in the enron together and that kind of juggle murti this uh combined image that is worshiped there so once a thief stole the jewels from the images and the temple of rata khanta mathur babu entered the temple and said to the deity what a shame o god you couldn't save your own ornaments the idea i said to mathur does he who has lakshmi for his handmaid so radha will also be vishnu and lakshmi this is there will be divine incarnations of the two of them he who has lakshmi for his handmaid and attended does he ever lack any splendor those jewels may be precious to you but to god they are no better than lumps of clay shame on you you shouldn't have spoken so meanly what riches can you give to god to magnify his glory therefore i say a man seeks the person in whom he finds joy what need has he to ask where that person lives the number of houses gardens relatives and servants or the amount of his wealth i forget everything when i say narendra never even unwittin unwittingly have i asked him where he lived what his father's possessions was or the number of his brothers when narendra first came to sryama krishna he was from a very well-to-do family within a couple of years he was from a very poor family they lost everything when his father died so later he would say narendra he doesn't even have salt to put in his food but i love him you think i love him because he comes from a wealthy family now taqwar he used to say that there were rare cases someone would come and he would say i don't know why i feel like asking you about who your father was and family was and everything it happened with uh with a tadak and it turned out he said oh i knew your father he was a great tantric he came and he gave me this amulet and everything so sometimes he would do it in some special cases dive deep in the sweetness of god's bliss what need have we of is infinite creation and unlimited glory now does this mean that we can't try to see god in nature it doesn't mean that but talk we're saying for the very sincere devotee they should go deep within the heart forget about anything outside to go deep within the heart feel that divine presence within not worry too much about the glory and splendor and and all of that with eyes open of course we can see that but the brahmos were too outward although in in the in their mind they didn't realize that divine presence within and that wasn't the emphasis takur the emphasis was always a good dive deep within that means within the heart it means forget about this external world for the time being at least at the time of of meditation and worship the master sang dive deep o mind dive deep in the ocean of god's beauty if you descend to the uttermost depths there you will find the gem of love go seek o mind go seek brendaban in your heart where with his loving devotees shri krishna supports eternally light up a mind light up true wisdom shining lamp and let it burn with steady flame unceasingly within your heart who is it that steers your boat across the solid earth it is your guru says kubir meditate on his holy feet this is a very beautiful song it's sung very very often uh by all of our monks and in deputies everyone gets very excited and the dances and everything tako love this song this is kuber it's not kabir it's kubir i don't know who he was but this uh uh obviously i would say is a bowel song it has that feeling of the bowels and they would always sing and dance to their songs and they like this idea see grenabin in your heart where krishna sports that everything is is within they didn't care too much for the actual worship of external deities and things everything was mystical mystical interpretation for them suramar krishna continued it is also true that after the vision of god the devotee desires to witness his lila okay then we can see the splendor of everything after realizing god after the destruction of varavana at rama's hands nikosha ravana's mother began to run away for fear of her life lakshmana said to rama revealed brother please explain this strange thing to me this nikosha is an old woman who has suffered a great deal from the loss of her many sons and yet she is so afraid of losing her own life that she is taking to her heels rama made her come near gave her assurance of safety and asked her why she was running away nikosha answered o rama i am able to witness all this leela of yours because i am still alive i want to live longer so that i may see the many more things you will do on this earth or left to shivanath i like to see you takura was so kind to him and and praised him so much and this even i he was a lukewarm he would look warm and even a little uh maybe jealous maybe the hostile that he felt that takur had turned the head a little bit of keshav and others and was still he'd had stolen all these good young boys they were all brahmos and all of them and not all but many of the direct disciples that if it hadn't been for taco or they would have remained brahma samaj would have been so much stronger so he had a little negativity taco had none loved him always always referred to him that way only said one little fault he doesn't keep his word he said he would come and he didn't come and probably purposely it sounds like he stopped coming at some point to shiver not i like to see you how can i live unless i see pure soul devotees i feel as if they had been my friends in a former incarnation we also feel that way we feel that this is our real family there's a connection maybe birth after birth that we've been in taqwa holy mother's family for a long time it may just be a feeling it may be actual truth we don't know abramo devotee sir do you believe in the reincarnation of the soul now what type of question is that we we always assume that that he does that everybody did i have always assumed it but uh it seems that the brahmos who were so influenced by the west didn't have that burning conviction and we know this because of m that m who was also western educated and also i don't know how strong a member of the brahma-samaj was but he went there and had found family connections with keshav that he didn't have much faith in this idea of reincarnation and some scottish or or avatar divine incarnation they they didn't they didn't emphasize that i i don't know if they actually didn't believe in it it would be strange to say if they didn't believe in it but they didn't emphasize that so talkward is going to give an answer that is going to be appropriate for them he says yes they say there is something like that we read things like that in gita sometimes he'll give that type of answer now does that mean that takara didn't have much of a conviction about the afterlife and and previous incarnations we have to say no because takur had this burning conviction that the many who came to him came because they had good some scottish from their previous life and his vision was so different that not only who and what they were in their previous life but where where they came from originally what spiritual home that they had all sorts of things so he understood all of these things he doesn't want to go into it much here he'll change the topic a little bit doesn't think it's too important for them but he wants to let them know that yes there is something like that let's go back to the other things i'm trying to tell you so he says uh yes they say there is something like that it sounds very wishy-washy but when we go through everything that he says we know that it was it was just part of his world view that this this individual soul if there is such a thing as an individual soul is is this the life in his body is a very short thing that it can go beyond it it can it can transcend it they can go there will be different locus all sorts of things that this was part of this world view how can we understand the ways of god through our small intellects so saying don't bother too much about it it not essential m used to ask ramy krishna he'd say i don't have much faith in some scholars will it be harmful for me in my spiritual life and tacro used to say no but accept this idea that everything is possible in this creation god's creation everything is possible it may be but it won't harm you if you don't have any uh strong conviction about that of course we have so many great uh sayings from the christian and jewish and islamic traditions they don't have this uh strong belief some of them have it and even in those traditions of of reincarnation but it's not not necessary for them many people have spoken about reincarnation therefore i cannot disbelieve it so as i say he's he's he's not going to push it on them and he's not going to make it but then he'll start giving examples as bhishma lay dying on his bed of arrows the pandava brothers and krsna stood around him they saw tears flowing from the eyes of the great hero arjuna said to krishna friend how surprising it is even such a man as our grandsire bhisma truthful self-restrained supremely wise and one of the eight asus weeps through maya at the hour of death sri krishna asked bhisma about it bismuth replied o krishna you know very well that this is not the cause of my grief i'm thinking that there is no end to the pond of his suffering though god himself is their charioteer a thought like this makes me feel that i've understood nothing of the ways of god and so i weep so he's telling them that look they're going to be they're going to be certain things that will just be part of your belief system that you won't be able to explain or understand fully so don't bother too much about that it was about half past eight when the evening worship began in the prayer hall soon the moon rose in the autumn sky and see the way m wrote this and if if if you read it in the original bengali you can see that bengali has uh two two different completely different styles the colloquial style which uh m keeps to that he's recording the way actually should remember chris said the others actually spoke when he gets to these descriptive portions it's very beautiful highly poetic and highly sans critic and in the formal style of bengali writing and it's such a beautiful inner weaving of these two styles and and the way it breaks it's not jarring at all it's very sweet the way he does it so and he was very poetic it was about a half past and he loved nature it was about half past eight when the evening worship began in the prayer hall soon the moon rose in the autumn sky and flooded the trees and creepers of the garden with its light after prayer the devotees began to sing srama krishna was dancing intoxicated with love of god yeah they didn't just have this this dry ceremony they also did this singing in kirtan mostly after kamids ramakrishna before perhaps somewhat but afterwards and when they were with taqwa of course they had to do it and then he would go into ecstasy and they would dance around him so that was that was something that they couldn't do without when he was there after prayer the devotees began to sing srama krishna was dancing intoxicated with love of god the brahmo devotees danced around him to the accompaniment of drums and symbols all appeared to be in a very joyous mood the place echoed and re-echoed with god's holy name when the music had stopped srama krishna prostrated himself on the ground and making salutations to the divine mother again and again said bhagavata bhakta bhagavan my salutations at the feet of the gyanes my salutations at the feet of the bhaktas i salute the bhaktas who believe in god with form and i salute the bhaktis who believe in god without form i salute the knowers of brahman of olden times and my salutations at the feet of the modern knowers of brahman of the brahmo samaj then the master and the devotees enjoyed the supper of delicious dishes which benimadhav their host had provided this is the end of that day and we will stop here and begin next time on page 154 that will be wednesday november 15th 1882 and i'll close with the chant foreign [Music] we bow our heads before srama krishna who was stainless of infinite nature whose heart melts in sympathy for his devotees who is an embodiment of the divine and the supreme lord and ever worthy of our worship om shanti shanti peace peace peace are you with everyone a very happy diwali kali puja we will have our kalipuja here tomorrow night at 7 30 you'll be able to watch via youtube if you go to our website you'll see the link for that if anybody would like to leave something to be offered we'll have a table set up outside in the afternoon and you'll be able to do that and i thank you all for joining us with the class and we will see you next time