Video 37

The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna read by Swami Atmajnanananda (12/18/20)

foreign your words are like nectar bringing life to squirt souls they are praised by poets and removal sin they are auspicious to hear wonderful and exalted those who spread these words throughout the world are truly giving souls welcome everyone to our class on the gospel of srama krishna we started last week the chapter the master and vijay krishna goswami and the date is december 14th thursday 1882 i came very close to skipping this portion because there's a lot of what taco used to call comedy conscience in this section probably there are a number of you who jumped into this class after we began the very first session first or second session i spent quite a bit of time discussing this term this phrase that srama krishna used comedy conscience which literally means woman in gold and it's translated that way in the english translation of swami nikhilananda although he has a long footnote the first time trying to explain that it stands for the really lust and greed these were the two terms that tucker used comedy conscience he liked alliterative phrases catchy slogans probably this was something that was used before him i doubt if this was original with him when he spoke to women or when holy mother gave the same teaching to her women disciples she would talk about purush and kanchen the man in gold so we shouldn't look at it as kind of a sexist thing on the other hand there does seem to be a feeling that the attraction that a man has for a woman is is perhaps stronger and this is more or less what taku was talking about the reason i'm going through this is that sometimes i try to picture myself as a woman reading these things and think why is he blaming women for everything he's not blaming women for everything he's he's trying to explain what he sees as a fact of life for most people that this attachment that a man has for his wife to a certain degree and and it may differ in some cases sometimes the woman may be more attached to the husband sometimes the husband were attached to the wife but he sees that uh this for many this this attachment and uh even through this attachment this willingness to to sacrifice oneself with regard to the job that one takes and and the demands of life and everything he sees this uh in some cases as a bondage to those who are trying to lead a spiritual life number one number two uh many of the times when he talks about these things his future monastic disciples are there he's trying to encourage them to lead a life of freedom and un unmarried life is a life of freedom from certain obligations this is obvious the married life their obligations to the wife to the husband to the children uh to the parents now sometimes sadhu life that that may remain but there won't be the husband and wife and and the children and takur knows who is qualified for what now in this chapter he's talking to vijay goswami vijay krishna goswami was only about five years younger than srama krishna so if we if we work our way back i don't know that much about his previous life there's a lot written about him afterwards because he had kind of a cult following at one point in the division of a tradition but perhaps whatever children if he had children that they were grown up and the wife was well situated that there was a joint family something like that but srama krishna spoke to him the same way he spoke to his future monastic disciples because he felt that rejoice was somebody who was in the wrong place at the wrong time number one was the brahmos homage that this vijay had the blood of a lover of god flowing through his veins this is the type of language tako used he came from a gold swami family that means that they traced their lineage back to in this case i believe it dwight goswami but anyhow to the original uh companions of chaitanya devo and number two uh he was had this spirit of renunciation so he he was ill-fit to be in the brahma-samaj because they believed in a kind of a dry type of devotion the the formless personal god to a certain extent but formless and based on some upanishadic idea of brahma so it was uh not in keeping with his highly devotional nature and uh worldly life and service because the brahmos was a paid position all of that was inhibiting this this uh innate desire to renounce everything so this is the backdrop for all of this i'll try to explain things a little more as we go along we had finished last time this whole section about suicide you may remember and after that takori changes the subject he says it is said that there are four classes of human beings the bound those aspiring after liberation the liberated and the ever perfect now this was a very important aspect of of taqwa's teachings and not everyone liked it that very often especially the brahmos and the well-educated people they like to think everyone was equal there's no big difference between people otherwise god is is is not impartial has he given more power to one and less to another we're all god dwells within all of us equally then why these are big distinctions but takwa is talking now about the individual with his or her own samskaras and their karma and the term that taqwa used and the concept was receptacle what could they hold so not only they may be highly evolved people but they're not a large receptacle so that the amount of spiritual power they can have will be limited the amount of spiritual practice will be limited uh he liked to use this imagery with swami vivekananda and the other direct disciples but so he would always classify people according to their spiritual stature according to how far they'd gone along on the spiritual path whether they'd even started or not now one thing that we'll notice because i believe all of us will find some things to identify with among those who are on the lowest rung of the letter those are bound souls so what i've noticed and what i feel is that uh these categories aren't uh so separate and distinct what i mean by that is that uh in in some elements of our life we may be advanced and in others we may be less advanced we may find some aspects of our personality that we do resemble more the bound soul other aspects we may find ourselves identifying more with those who are on the spiritual path or those who have made some progress and yet we'll get to these things so he starts out that it is said so this isn't original with him sometimes he'll he'll talk about there's a bowel tradition and uh that they have this theory there's the kardash sect and some others four classes of human beings the bound those aspiring after liberation these will be so the the sadhaka the liberated the mukta and the ever perfect so he uses these different expressions this world is like a fishing net men are the fish and god whose maya has created this world is the fisherman when the fish are entangled in the net some of them try to tear through its messy meshes in order to get their liberation now look this is not talking about human birth in any sense other than the striving for liberation he's not talking about the four stages of life or acquiring dharma and leading a good householder life and uh fulfilling obligations he really is very one-pointed with with this that this goal of human life and the purpose of human life is god realization or the self-realization or or the truth casting off this maya however we understand it so when the fish are entangled in the net some of them try to tear through its meshes in order to get their liberation they are like the men striving after liberation but by no means all of them escape only a few jump out of the net with a loud splash so he's starting out with the second category he's not starting out with what he calls a buddhiji with those abound souls he's he's starting out in his explanation with those who have come to the understanding that there's something to be attained in this lifetime that we're not born here just to go through life with our ups and downs and our enjoyments and our suffering and then just ended with that so he's starting out with that and uh of those who strive he says by no means all of them escape only a few jump out of the net with a loud splash and then people say ah there goes a big one we we read about one out of a thousand uh and the story of the kites and all of these things so we know that uh very few if the if if it's a vast majority will start to run out of people these are the ones who won't be wanting it in like manner three or four men attain liberation again some fish are so careful by nature that they are never caught in the net so he's starting out with those who really in this one lifetime uh go from category two to category three they're striving and they attain liberation so they become siddhas huh uh but unlike uh again some fish are so careful by nature that they are never caught in the net some beings some beings of the ever perfect class like narada are never entangled in the measures of worldliness so this will be the nithya siddhas these are more than jeevan muktas these are those who come back again after attending perfection whether they were perfect at birth there are two different ways of looking at it sometimes talk word explains it one way sometimes his direct disciples explain it one way there's no clear cut answers to all of these things i i we were reading the other days for me in charlotte he says that there are those who attain perfection in this lifetime and they're the ones who don't jump over the wall they come back to tell others they can be born again and they can even join the inner circle they can become ishwara koti's this is what swami shivananda mahaprabhu said so these nithya siddhas we don't have to think of them as from time immemorial whatever that means of having always been perfect but they could be like the bodhisattvas who get their enlightenment but want to come back and help others get their own enlightenment most of the fish are trapped if they are not conscious of the net and of their imminent death no sooner are they entangled then they run headlong net and all trying to hide themselves in the mud so this will be the first class now this is a bad hajib now when we say means a bound soul we shouldn't think that they're stamped at birth that they'll never attain liberation everyone will attain liberation takwa says that in a time of the big festival when they'll distribute food some of you remember in the early days at belgium when before the big dining hall came when they would hand out the kitchen prasad and in little leaf baskets and there'd be a long line some will be first in line and they'll get it some will be very last in line it may be getting towards dark by the time they get it but he says no one remains no one will will remain unfed that everyone will get it so when he talks about a bound soul he's talking about their present state of mind maybe it's a whole lifetime maybe they'll be born bound souls and something will happen they'll have some tragedy or they'll meet some great soul something will happen and then they'll switch to the next category so there's something a little bit fluid about this talker talks about it it gives the impression that we're stuck in one category or the other i don't think that this is what he meant but those who don't make any attempt and those who continue the way they are they'll remain like that in gita we read about those who are enmeshed in the in rajas rajyoguna that they won't make spiritual progress those who are in thomas they'll even go lower but everyone eventually will have to come up and it can change in one lifetime so we're not stamped that way we're not stuck we may say oh when i read this i see that i'm a bound soul there's no hope there's hope but he's saying this is why he's telling all of this there's hope if we realize it if the fish realizes that he's burrowing himself in the mud and not getting free that he's still caught in the net then he'll wake up and do something so this is this is the point of all of this not to say that some people will never get liberation and talkward didn't believe that he believed everyone uh sooner or later maybe not in this lifetime maybe not in 100 lifetimes we don't know anything about these things so he says that some of the fish no sooner they entangled and they run headlong net and all trying to hide themselves in the mud so picture it this ned is is something a little bit fine they're not quite sure what's happening but they can actually burrow into the mud within that still underneath them so they're still trapped they are still inside the net but they think they are quite safe there a bound creature is immersed in worldliness and now we get our comedy conscience in woman in gold now i some of you may have noticed those who follow along that uh except in very very rare cases i will say lust and gold this was the instruction that i got from swami swahihi swami swan and he said that look it may sound hurtful for the women devotees to talk about this woman in gold all the time replace it with lust and gold sometimes it doesn't quite make sense so today i'm going to do both of them and we'll try to figure out why he's saying all of this so the bound creatures immersed in worldliness in woman in gold or lust and gold having gone deep into the mire degradation but still he believes he is quite happy and secure the liberated and the seekers after liberation look on the world as a deep well so now remember that he's talking to vijay krishna goswami at a very critical point in his life he had become a little bit upset with the brahmos homage first of all earlier of with the kesha and and he split and started this other group but he was being forced to uh to try to fit in into a category that didn't work well for him so he was disenchanted with the brahmos homage and takwa knew these two things that the part of the problem was he needed this devotional path and the other was that he was a hundred percent ripe for renunciation now in our modern day context we may feel and i don't blame anybody i also feel a little bit that too bad nobody forced him to get married he still has a wife i don't know what type of family if as i say if he had small children no children if they were grown up if they were earning a lot of money they could look after their mother i don't know anything about that but in those days things were different and this taking of sannyasa this was to be done after the birth of one son this was this was one prerequisite we know this because of swamiji's own grandfather as soon as the sun was born he left this uh some people may have looked down upon it but this was considered legitimate in those days that he at least gave his wife a son who will grow up and look after her and everything this is why swamiji's father was an only child he had no uncles on that side so uh he he's talking to vijay the same way he would be talking to these these young future monks swamiji and the others but still he believes he is quite happy and secure the liberated and the seekers after liberation look in the world as a deep well sometimes he'll jose their relatives as as black cobras and the world is a burning forest fire now these are the things that we read about according to some of the direct disciples that this was a rather mild language and when he got them alone that the burning words of renunciation were even stronger we can't even imagine how it can be stronger than some of this now when taku said all these things he knows m is there he knows m is recording but is that really is he really thinking that one day people in america and men and women will be reading these things i doubt it i doubt it sometimes what was more important to taka was the person he was talking to and some so some things we have to pick and choose what things really apply to us here that this doesn't mean to say that every married man should look upon the world this way and should renounce give up his wife and kids and all of that doesn't mean that so the liberated and the seekers after liberation look when the world is a deep well they do not enjoy it therefore after the attainment of knowledge the realization of god some give up their bodies but such a thing is rare indeed now this ties in a little bit with this still this talk of suicide that we had before so the point is that whether the body is there or not there is is almost irrelevant to a god realized soul talk will give so many examples the when they make a certain type of preparation these covet this kaviraji medication where they'll take something it'll be some type of metallic mercury and other things like that and it'll be in a bottle and they'll put it in a fire and it'll through the heat of the fire it'll do whatever has to do all melt together and become the thing that they need i don't know how they do all of this but he says after it's done the way they get it out they break the bottle and then he says because there's no other way you can't pour it out anymore it was probably some liquid type of thing so he says it's already hardened inside it makes no difference to the to the substance inside whether the bottle is broken or not broken that means whether the physical body is there or not there because the one is united the g vatman is united with the paramatman anyhow but he's saying this is something rare and it's not something that people should even contemplate we're not trying to have god realization so that we can give up the body that we should enjoy the world after uh after that realization we should see god everywhere and see the divine dwelling within all beings now he'll talk a bit about these bound creatures this is a little bit tough the bound creatures entangled in worldliness will not come to their senses at all they suffer so much misery and agony they face so many dangers and yet they will not wake up now this is what i was saying before we will all find things here that we can identify with because there are certain things that we do habits that we have that we do repeatedly knowing that it's not helpful for us it may not be terrible things may be small things but this shouldn't define us we should just recognize that there are a lot of tendencies within the mind even sometimes compartments within the mind we're very brilliant people who do very stupid things yeah we we see i i shouldn't mention this but i always think of president clinton who i liked very much he was a brilliant man brilliant iq and yet uh the fooling around in the white house with with a young aide how stupid it was but the same mind so we see that in some aspects were very brilliant and some were like small children so as i said don't don't feel bad if some of these things you say oh that's me i also feel like that when i read some of these things the camel loves to eat thorny bushes the more it eats the thorns the more the blood gushes from its mouth still it must eat thorny plants and will never give them up they taste good this is what taco says there's something called the hog plum i'm not sure what uh what exactly it is but taco says that really uh it's got a big pit and there's the skin on the outside so that they're not too much of the flesh just a little bit and if you eat it you you can get sick and get colic he says but it tastes good and people don't mind getting a little bit sick we have so many people intelligent people that they like spicy food or fried food or something like that and they know that they'll suffer a little bit with heartburn that diet and still they do it because they'll get over it yeah i'll suffer a little bit but it tastes good now does that mean that these are bound souls it just means in that one little aspect of life that their sense of discrimination isn't too sharp or they're simply willing they're simply willing to do it that isn't not much enjoyment in life you know the one of the great statements that as far as his father made to swamiji when narendra was a young boy he saw that uh many of his relatives they were lazy people they didn't like to work they would take alcohol or drugs some of them even and uh as a little boy uh swamijis father he said because his father supported them all he said why do you support them when they do all of these things and he said a very beautiful thing he said you won't understand it now you're too young when you get older you'll see that this life is full of misery if they can get a few minutes respite from that misery even by doing this then should we deny that to them it just showed his compassion and everything so there there'll be plenty of people who think that yes uh what's the harm i'll get a little bit of enjoyment this life is a tedious life it's not so so simple we we may say that oh we shouldn't go to the movies we shouldn't do this we shouldn't do that what's the harm really to do get a little bit of of enjoyment if we have discrimination and we don't get too attached to all of these things a little diversion is good i always remember i believe it was swami shankaran anandiji and he had one of the presidents of the order he told the young monks it's good to have a hobby we don't have a hobby what kind of a silly thing is that to say whole life should be devoted to spiritual practice even for very highly qualified monks it's very hard 24 hours a day his point was if there's something that refreshes the mind and of course it has to be a good thing some working in the garden working in the wood chop whatever it is something like that that during that time one can one can keep the mind on god also and use one's creativity these are nice things we shouldn't be too puritanical and we shouldn't be overly strict this is also a mistake in spiritual life we as i say we don't want to make the string of the vena so taut that when we go to plate it snaps so there should be a little bit of of leeway here but talk we're talking about people that this is their main philosophy of life to get everything possible out of life the man of worldly nature suffers so much sorrow and affliction but he forgets it all in a few days and begins his old life ever again suppose a man has lost his wife or she has turned unfaithful lo he marries again or take the instance of a mother her son dies and she suffers a bitter grief but after a few days she forgets all about it the mother so overwhelmed with sorrow a few days before now attends to her toilet and puts on her jewelry now again we have to bring in the eye of compassion with all of this that no mother loses a child and gets over that easily but perhaps there are times when they have to put it out of their mind or they do these things to try to help get over it these are very difficult things his point is that we make the same mistakes over and over again we're not learning from things this is the point that he's making the father becomes bankrupt through the marriage of his daughters yet he goes on having children year after year people are ruined by litigation yet they go to court all the time there are men who cannot feed the children they have who cannot clothe them or provide decent shelter for them yet they have more children every year so not learning from our mistakes or at least from our experiences again the worldly man is like a snake trying to swallow a mole the snake can neither swallow the mold nor give it up tucker uses this example with regard to a qualified disciple and a qualified guru he says when the disciple is is not so qualified and when the guru is not a really legitimate guru he says it's like an ordinary water snake who tries to eat a frog catches hold of the frog and the frog is too big for it so it gets stuck in its mouth it it's incapable of either spitting out or swallowing it so he says it's uh misery and suffering both for the snake the mouth is wide open it would like to swallow it but it can't would like to get rid of it but it can't and of course for the frog who's who's caught in the grip of it but he's saying in general now that this is what we do we bite off more than we can chew and we think that we'll get joy out of these things many of the things that we try to possess end up possessing us we become slaves to these things we get something that we think will enjoy and we have to work overtime just to pay for it and there's no time to enjoy it i remember in the 50s that all of these time-saving devices came out time-saving devices dishwashers and and washing machines before that nobody used any of these things and they thought people will have so much leisure that forget about this 40-hour day week it'll go down to 30 hours a day everything with even today these robots this and that we have to work longer to earn enough money to buy all of these things so things don't always work out the way we plan them once i met a relative of keshav sin 50 years old he was playing cards as if the time had not yet come for him to think of god okay is it bad to play cards we have to understand what takur is saying and not just make a blanket statement oh if anybody plays cards they can't be spiritual people look at swami ramahanda he loved to play cards he loved to play cards and he would get his attendance he would make them play cards and if one of his attendants was there and he always lost he would say oh this fellow he's bad luck for me he even kicked out one of his attendants we have to understand that there's a difference we can't make these blanket statements he was a god realized soul the perfect soul who had to try to keep his mind down just like he liked fishing he liked to play cards to keep his mind down every situation is different there may be some people who who get some relaxation some enjoyment out of these simple things but those who in old age have nothing to do have no interest in spiritual life just find something in the past that's what he's talking about so don't take these things too literally if any of you enjoy you have a bridge game that you play with with your close friends who are also devotees something like that perfectly fine not what he means uh he he talks one time about the priests and in this siddeshwari kali temple that he goes and he sees them play cards and back that's a different they're priests they're supposed to their mind is supposed to be fixed on on the puja and worship and everything there is another characteristic of the bound soul if you remove him from his worldly surroundings to spiritual environment to a spiritual environment he will pine away the worm that grows in filth feels very happy there it thrives in filth it will die if you put it in a pot of rice filth this means that the worms that enter into the body and get into the digestive system these uh people can get the worms and dogs we see will get the worms like that uh this is where they live they like to live there now these things sound very terrible takuru is is trying to awaken something in this vijay krishna goswami perhaps he knows that he'll renounce the world and that he's a catalyst for this uh very hard to say but we're getting some of the the very very harsh realities of life here that we don't like to look at all of the time and as i say sometimes a little bit too harsh too harsh in the sense that if we take them all together that we may have one little area of life where where we resemble the bound salt that's right that's okay that with the three gooness no one is 100 satwik we we may be the most energetic people and always ready to do things but there will be one or two things that we postpone that that we simply don't really enjoy doing that we procrastinate on one or two things with something else that we like uh with boundless energy so the mind is a complicated thing all remain silent so sometimes the talker talks to one person there are other people there and they're thinking oh my god what is he saying there's one case where he's talking to narendra and fiery words of renunciation and one of the householder devotees says but sir what what about us what will happen to us and he says more or less oh you'll be quiet i'm not talking to you this is for him so sometimes it's that way also i don't remember who else is here m of course is here balarama is there balarama is the ideal householder that tremendous devotion and the whole life is giving to spiritual practice no bondage didn't care for money wealth or anything like that but a householder she's not saying these things for balarama's sake in order to inspire him to renounce everything a few other devotees there we don't know who else exactly all remain silent vijay what must the bound souls consid condition of mine be in order to achieve liberation okay now this is important because uh bound soul and achieving liberation we can say well if one is bound then forget about liberation that means we're bound now or uh to a certain extent we're bound most of us will find that we can identify with the seeker after liberation the sadhaka and with the bound soul if we weren't bound souls we wouldn't be in this world we're here because because we haven't attained liberation uh except for the feud you even booked us among us perhaps but but there aren't too many of them so he asked that very nice question what must the bound souls condition of mind be in order to achieve liberation now we're going to get this comedy conscient again because he's talking to the men and this is very important that we don't come away with with the idea that takur looked down upon women of all the great saints that we know of i think takara was the one who could identify with women better than anybody else and when he was with them and uh he would all whenever he visited the the householder devotees the homes uh he would take time to go to the inner apartment or take his meal there and all the the neighboring women and would be there and they would just have so much fun with him he would tell jokes and they would laugh and uh and when he went to his period of uh looking upon himself as a handmaid of god then he could mix with the women freely just as if he was one of them and laugh and sing and they they would uh treat him the way they would never treat another man they felt so comfortable with him when he was a little boy he loved to go to the lahaz with the daughters of the family spend all of his time with them so he was very very comfortable with uh with a company of women but he knew that that was him he had no attachment and he knew that for most of the male devotees that the mind gets affected we know this those some studies have been done about a co-ed education as opposed to all boys and all girls and it's very very clear that when the boys and the girls are sitting together this is even before there's any any thought of any sexual things or anything but still boys like to show off in front of girls huh the just the ability to concentrate you separate them and all of a sudden yeah they can concentrate a little bit better there there is some truth to that of sorry not that i'm in favor of of uh separate boys and girls education advantages to co-ed education also but yes this is the nature of the human mind and perhaps more the male mind perhaps more the male mind and why why do i say that we just look at the animal kingdom is in into all different species is the male who has to uh i try the the female species seems quite fine without them huh they can do something uh in the mating season to attract the male but they're the aggressors and and so the same thing so anyhow his first thing he says is he can free himself from attachment to comedy conscience woman in gold or lust in greed if by the grace of god he cultivates a spirit of strong renunciation now takur speaks of renunciation in a very similar way that he speaks of determination so renunciation for him it doesn't simply mean that some distaste for the world it also means some strong determination to accomplish something to not not be dissuaded from it to of course accomplish god realization and there has to be the positive element for him this anuraga always goes hand in hand with the great argument so he says strong spirit of renunciation what is the strong renunciation one who has only a mild spirit of renunciation says well all will happen in the course of time let me now simply repeat the name of god but a man possessed of strong of a strong spirit of renunciation feels restless for god so this via as the mother feels for her own child see renunciation without this positive thing is a little bit uh kind of escapism yeah i don't care for the world uh there's too much work that i always seem to suffer from these things let me try to get out of it taku didn't like this attitude there should be some strong pull for something higher that has to be there so a man of strongman renunciation seeks nothing but god he regards the world as a deep well and feels as if he were going to be drowned in it here it is he looks on his relatives as venomous snakes he wants to fly away from them now the stage comes in spiritual life when one has that attitude what we find very often uh look at the case of buddha that yes he he felt like he had to leave he couldn't bear another second there had been a huge feast in the in the palace and his young wife beautiful young wife had just given birth to a son and he saw everyone there everyone had they'd eaten too much and they drank too much some were hadn't gotten sick or felt fell asleep drunk on the floor he looked at it in living hell he had to leave but after his realization he went back he went back and he looked after uh his wife and uh son became a monk wife became a leader of the order many times we say in monastic life that this uh initial feeling of renunciation is like that that uh even to see parents and everything we want to just escape but then after some time that lessens not that i would say matures it matures so that many of the monks of our order which is not the same as as orthodox amongst in india uh will keep some relationship with family usually quietly usually quietly but they and this was taco's idea they don't want to see parents especially mother they don't want to see them suffer in any way so it's not out of attachment to them if it's attachment then it's a dangerous thing but it's just out of out of love for them he never thinks this is the person of strong renunciation let me first make some arrangement from my family and then i shall think of god he has great inward resolution now there'll be a lot of stories about those who renounce the world after being married we don't allow that in in our order now the early days of course some of the direct disciples were married some of the second generation some of the most illustrious illustrious swamis are swami jagadanandaji with great scholar and everything he was was married and family uh but it was never encouraged in our order and now it's it's completely uh not allowed those uh even who had been married or not allowed to join but this was this was part of the culture of the day that uh on the very day that one feels this burning renunciation on that day a one should leave she would walk away she would renounce the world this this was this was a feeling that people had at that time anyhow talk with talks like this but there were very few married disciples that he wanted to see renounce the world his own direct disciples that was a different story what tiny little karma was there that caused rakal to to marry we don't know and somehow takur understood it and didn't think it was anything bad when yogan swami yogananda married he said don't worry i'll see that your wife also wants to lead a spiritual life it won't be a problem so these are curious things we don't know why exactly this had to happen that way let me tell you a story about strong renunciation at one time there was a drought in a certain part of the country the farmers began to cut long channels to bring water to their fields one farmer was stubbornly determined he took a vow that he would not stop digging until the channel connected his field with the river now remember this is all symbolic we're taking a vow that we won't stop calling on god until we have realization he set to work the time came for his bath and his wife sent their daughter to him with oil father said the girl it is already laid rub your body with oil and take your bath go away thundered the farmer i have too much to do now it was past midday and the farmer was still at work in his field he didn't even think of his bath then his wife came and said why haven't you taken your bath the food is getting cold you overdo everything you can finish the rest tomorrow or even today after dinner the farmer scolded her furiously and ran at her spade in hand crying what have you no sense there's no rain the crops are dying what will the children eat you will all starve to death i have taken a vow not to think of bath and food today before i bring water to my field the wife saw his state of mind and ran away in fear through a whole day's back-breaking labor the farmer managed by evening to connect his field with the river then he sat down and watched the water flowing into this into his field with a murmuring sound his mind was filled with peace and joy he went home called his wife and said to her now give me some oil and prepare me a smoke with serene mind he finishes bath and meal and retired to bed where he snored to his heart's content the determination he showed is another example of strong renunciation so this is what i say that really we're talking about veda but it's really more this idea that i won't quit until i reach the goal stop not until the goal is reached how many times farmingji said that arise awake and stop not to the golden reef the strong determination taco used to say this we need great i think usage translated as grit or determination that i'm not going to give up and there'll be obstacles there will be people who will tell me that this is a waste of time that why do you do this every day you get up early you're tired why not enjoy things life is short we say get out of here i won't listen to that that i made a vow i'm going to do it and i'll try my very best and i won't stop until i've accomplished it or the life goes that's all now there was another farmer who was also digging a channel to bring water to his field his wife too came to the field and said to him it's very late come home it isn't necessary to overdo things the farmer didn't protest much but put aside his spade and said to his wife well i'll go home since you asked me to or laugh that man never succeeded in irrigating his field this is a case of mild renunciation as with strong determination the farmer cannot bring water to his field so also without intense yearning a man cannot realize god than to vijay so really he's addressing vijay the whole time this is really for his sake why don't you come here now as frequently as before reject sir i wish to very much but i am not free i have accepted work in the brahmos homage he had no other means of earning a livelihood i don't know if he ever had a career or anything i as i say i don't know too much about his early life and that type of work brings in very very little money it's not like working in an office even even a civil servant or a clerk they'll make more money and even these other priests of course the brahmin priests were supposed to be poor this was this was part of the tradition every every story you read from the piranhas or anything was in a certain village there was a poor brahmin that all started out like that because their glory wasn't in their in their renunciation their glory was in their learning glory was in service and this being the spiritual leaders they were supposed to set that example and that ideal of not desiring too much worldly enjoyment or a pleasure but having some higher type of ideal so there was never much scope for this brand he came from a high brandman family of course and and to to be a priest not much scope to earn much money there's a nice conversation between one brahman who comes to sriami krishna and they're discussing very high spiritual things and then takur finally says to him very sweetly he says have you been able to earn much today and he said no sir not much today because he knew that it was difficult for them to get by so vijay sir i wish to very much but i am not free i have accepted work in the brahma samaj that work means he's an acharya he'll do some type of priestly work and and give some type of sermon master it is comedy conscience woman in gold or lust in greed that binds man and robs him of his freedom now in what sense does it rob some only in the sense that now there's a duty and obligation even the very word duty it means something we have to do it means we're not free and in those days there were very few people who could make a very easy living and have a lot of leisure time that they had to work very hard and take a lot of abuse in those days because those who had at least office jobs and things they were working under the british system they were highly bureaucratic always somebody above you and making life miserable and why were they doing it they were doing it in order to support the family and get a little bit of enjoyment however much they could taco looked upon this as a type of bondage he didn't like this idea of people taking service from others he didn't mind certain types of occupations but if it meant kind of licking the boots of the master and demeaning oneself humiliating oneself or even telling lies in an office just in order to make money to survive then he felt this was a type of bondage then it is a woman that creates the need for gold okay this simply means married life and he's talking about a man because the women didn't work in those days there was no scope for them to get a job and and be money earners they looked after the family after the household so it was the men who had to work and not simply because of women the men had to work because they had taken to family life or because they wanted it and it was for the sake of the children of course as much as the wife and for the sake of society but takwor this is the phrase that he used to use comedy conscience for a woman one man becomes the slave of another so that means for the fam sake of the family for for worldly enjoyment one becomes a slave of another and so loses his freedom then he cannot act as he likes the priest and the temple of govindagi and jaipur were celibates at first and at that time they had fiery natures i went to this temple a wonderful place in jaipur huh a wonderful place there's a i forget the other temples there are a couple of temples there that are very very famous this uh the the image the story is that this was one of the big temples in brindavan this is temple and there was fear that it would be the temple would be desecrated at the time of one of the invasions foreign invasions and the image was moved temporarily to jaipur but remained there after that uh he may mention that but it's in the chaitanya literature also so i remember going there a very simple place but tremendous devotion there you can feel it in the air very beautiful place if anybody goes to jaipur make sure to go there so the priests in the temple of the gomindiji at jaipur were celibates at first and at that time they had fiery natures yeah this is this is a monk you've uh i don't have to do anything you tell me what can you take from me huh do i have to go begging for you for for money so that i can pay for uh school tuition for my kids or anything i'm free so you can say whatever you want but you know i'm not going to do anything unless i want to do it this is my goal in life i know what i want to do you're not going to dissuade me from that fiery natures once the king of jaipur sent for them so but they're priests so that they're in between they're they're not married but still they have to do the bidding of the king or at least they're supposed to once the king of jaipur sent for them but they didn't obey him they said to the messenger ask the king to come to see us who were we did to go and and on hands and knees go before the king there's nothing that he can do for us with nothing that we need from him after consultation the king and his ministers arranged marriages for them from then on the king didn't have to send for them they would come to him of themselves and say your majesty we have come with our blessings hear the sacred flowers of the temple deign to accept them they came to the palace for now they always wanted money for one thing or another the building of a house the rice taking ceremony of their babies were the rituals connected with the beginning of their children's education then he tells another story there is a story of the 1200 neras and 1300 nerdies these are those who shave their heads so that means that they'll be they'll be monks and nuns huh ladies will be there will it be the women and that is will be the men veerabhadra the son of nithyananda goswami had 1300 shaven-headed disciples they attained great spiritual powers that alarmed their teacher my disciples have acquired great spiritual powers whatever they say to people will come to pass wherever they go they may create alarming situations for people offending them unwittingly will come to grief thinking thus day called them to him and said see me after performing your daily devotions on the bank of the ganges these disciples had such a high spiritual nature that while meditating they would go into samadhi and be unaware of the river water flowing over their heads during the flood tide then the eb-tide would come and still they would remain absorbed in meditation now 100 of these disciples had anticipated what their teacher would ask of them this this uh this is a good because you only you have to pay off one by one so there were thirteen hundred now there'll be twelve hundred to go with the other twelve hundred less they should have to disobey his injunctions they had quickly disappeared from the place before he summoned them so they did not go to veerabhadra with the others the remaining twelve hundred disciples went to the teacher after finishing their meditation video said to them these thirteen hundred nuns will serve you i ask you to marry them as you please revered sir they said but one hundred of us have gone away thenceforth each of these twelve hundred disciples had a wife consequently of course each of the other 1200 had a husband consequently they all lost their spiritual power their austerities did not have their original fire the company of woman robbed them of their spirituality because it destroyed their freedom now it's not the company of women it's their attachment to them this is the point that i'm trying to make blame doesn't go to the women tucker says that a woman may be the most devoted and pure-hearted but still it'll be the attachment of the man for her this is not denigrating women or saying that this is some evil quality they have to uh to attract men and to destroy men no this is this is that uh attachment that comes into the mind of of men who have that worldly tendency okay enough of woman in gold so let us stop here and yeah so two things that i request everyone to try to remember one is that we're not bound souls in the sense that we're forever bound we're in a state of bondage because we're not god relay souls we all know that we all accept that but we're not stamped as bound souls that we're also we're both bound souls and we're also seekers so this is something very important the other thing is that uh we shouldn't have this feeling that takur is always putting down women we'll see later next week we should read where taka says that we should look upon men should look upon women as embodiments of the divine mother and this is a tradition that we follow that all the monks follow you'll see that elderly monks will stand with folded hands before young girls and they call them mataji called a mother look upon everyone as their own mother or as an embodiment of the divine mother they have this this very respectful reverential attitude and really the attitude of our order mostly i would say because of the example of a holy mother is that there's something special about the devotional attitude and qualities of women swami brahmananda used to say that women are by nature more spiritual than men so we have to keep things in their proper context know that takura is talking to the men throughout this book we don't have a single instance where m is not there to record what he's saying to the women devotees but we know from what they say how free he was how loving he was with them and how he would warn them also don't be too attached to uh to your husbands and family life and everything so we will stop here and close with our chant 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 so i thank all of you for joining and everyone please stay well and i hope to see you next friday