Video 44

The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna read by Swami Atmajnanananda (02/12/21)

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 are on page 81 beginning a new chapter the master's birthday celebration at daksinishwar and it is sunday february 18 1883 so that means that m has now been coming to srama krishna approximately one year we don't know the exact date when he first came and didn't record that but probably it was in february or march at the latest srama krishna arrived at govinda mukherjee's house at belgoria near calcutta besides narendra rama and other devotees some of the windows neighbors were present the master first sang and danced with the devotees after the kirtan they sat down many saluted the master now and then he would say bow before god it is god alone he said who has become all this but in certain places for instance in the holy man there is a greater manifestation than in others you may say there are wicked men also that is true even as they are tigers and lions but one need not hug the tiger god one should keep away from him and salute him from a distance take water for instance some water may be drunk some may be used for worship some for bathing and some only for washing dishes now this statement it is god alone who has become all this this is one of the favorite teachings of srama krishna it's very interesting that in the upanishads we have two angles that we can look at things especially from advaita vedanta we can say that whatever we see is nothing but brahman itself or what we see is nothing but name and form superimposed upon brahman and there'll be some who will object stricted white into brahman can't become anything we say brahman has become all this now for suramar krishna he would also agree that brahman is not becoming all of this in the sense and they use these illustrations in the sense that milk can be turned into curd there's an actual modification taking place of the milk turning it into curd it doesn't happen that way those who like this idea of some type of evolution or transformation of brahmin they'll get around this a little bit by talking about shakti that it's the shakti that evolves there's something called shakti parinamavada that everything we say is a manifestation of the divine power of brahman now srama krishna will like that idea because for him to say that everything is a manifestation of shakti and everything is a manifestation of brahman it means the same thing for him because he says shakti and brahman are non-different the the same ultimate reality so in the upanishads we do have this idea that brahman is the material cause of the universe as well as the instrumental cause of the universe so that means that brahman is not separate from the material the material cause really means the building blocks of the universe it's a kind of a refutation of the sankhya idea that there is something called parakuriti that has an independent existence or a separate existence some dependence on purusha is there but an independent existence so it's not that brahman will will take the building blocks and and add one to the other and combine them and everything and and then we'll get this this universe for uh the or in the upanishads we get this idea that brahman will project this universe out of its own self so that just as the the spider when the spider will create the this the web the spider's web that the material the web itself the thread comes out of the spider itself it belongs to him it's not that the spider goes in search of of some things not like a bird that has to look for straw to put together to make a nest that it comes out of the spider itself and indeed upanishads we do have this idea that brahman will really create create the building blocks that means the five elements that when brahman thinks may i be many that the universe doesn't come into existence all at once this of course is one theory but we find this commentary in the upanishads that that first will be created the different elements akashi and value and all the five elements that we have and the each one will combine with the other and then we'll get this whole universe but for srama krishna this was more as something of his own experience because whenever he whatever he saw he saw it as a manifestation of the divine now srama krishna in this one small paragraph he is using this concept in two different ways one is what every whatever we say is chinmaya whatever we see is nothing but that consciousness taking some type of apparent tangible form visible form or even even touchable form that way the other is that whatever we think of this universe and whatever we think of living beings that divine presence dwells within each and every being so we have two things we look at an individual and we can say that uh this human body well it came from another human body we don't have to think too hard about the the physical aspect of it but we can say that however it was created that it was created in such a way that there's a mind there that can reflect the divine presence or there's a heart that can be a home for that divine presence and god dwells within all beings so suramar christian is saying both of these so it's god alone who's become all this but then he'll talk about a greater manifestation now this greater manifestation now he's talking about god dwelling within all beings and manifestation will have to do with the degree to which that divine power is present so there'll be a degree in power or if we're thinking about just the degree to which the lord himself is present within all beings that's the same in everyone but covered over in different ways by different people so we may all have the light bulb with pure light within us some of us will have a larger light bulb than others so that will be shakti he'll will be a difference in the degree of the divine power then on the other hand we all may have that light there but some of us may have very dark lamp shades covering it so we don't see much light coming out this will be the the thomas and rajis dwelling within the mind that will prevent that divinity from being visible to everyone even the individual so tucker will often say that we have to be practical people that we may say god dwells within the tiger as well so he would say yes but on that account you can't go and embrace the tiger tiger will destroy you and this goes with the people too we have to be very practical people we we don't look down upon anyone we'll see there are certain people that uh we see in the excess of thomas and rudges not that we want to be judgmental but we we know that we know that they have tendencies to be harmful to other people and we won't say that god doesn't dwell within them but will say that uh the that divinity is being covered over by layer after layer of of thomas and rajis and we know for ourselves personally that it's not good for us to keep their company so we can say yes i'll salute from a distance i'll recognize the divinity within them but i'll recognize also that my constitution is not so strong that it won't be affected by somebody else and if i keep the company of certain people that have these very strong tendencies i may be affected by that and it won't be helpful for me or i may be in a state of uh anger and and i have a reaction and i just i won't enjoy their company so he's he's saying that on the one hand everything we see is nothing but brahmin taking this form or with the name and form superimposed on it but the essence of it the source of it is nothing but brahman everything can be traced back to brahman but when it comes to living beings and this will extend to animals to a certain extent even to plants some people will say to a certain extent even minerals and things but that divine presence is there the the way we can understand it of course is this reflection theory that there are different types of uh materials that can reflect light and some will be a very clear reflection we have a mirror then the sun can be reflected in water it will be a little murky and if the sun falls on a very dark surface then there's no reflection at all it gets completely absorbed if we think of a black asphalt or something so it does that mean that the sun the light of the of the sun is not present there it's present but it can't be reflected there so unless there's some nervous system at the very minimum to to accept or be able to reflect that divine light then we won't see the presence of it there but it's present everywhere electricity can be accessed anywhere but unless there's a device for it unless there's a light bulb with filament inside and everything and the plug and all of that the electricity won't manifest itself as light so this is uh and these are statements that tacor makes all of the time and we have to be clear that the there are two different meanings everything is chinmaya that means that it all reduced back to to consciousness in brahmin it doesn't mean that everything is conscious these are two different things we've some people will say well is there consciousness in in this table well consciousness as as brahman will be the ground and underlying everything it doesn't mean that the table can think it doesn't have a brain there's no nervous system there so chinmaya and chid are two different things but the individual the real self is ramen itself it's not a manifestation it didn't rummage itself in in the dream the the dream world that we see it's a projection of the mind of the dreamer of that cosmic mind it's just a projection but we can say in the dream that no chair is really a chair it wasn't made of wood and everything that it's really consciousness itself and yet the actor in the dream is not a projection of the dreamer because when we wake up the dreamer won't say that oh i dreamt this person no it was myself i dreamt that i did it it's the actual eye it's an actual identity this is not manifestation it's identity so there's a very subtle distinction here when takwa talks about seeing everything that brahman has become everything and seeing that god dwells within all beings seeing the self in all beings seeing rama and all men and sita and old women this both of these were experiential things for srama krishna this is the important thing that the mystic can have that direct experience and we can just imagine how wonderful it is to see everything as divine and to see each and every individual as god god himself or god herself dwelling within all living beings at the same time we we may worship the divinity and all but be cautious because as i say this covering can be very thick and can really distort that divinity within a neighbor revered sir what are the doctrines of edanta now i've mentioned several times that they're code words in the in the gospel this means probably for the questioner and definitely for suramar krsna it means the upanishads and specifically advaita vedanta even today it's used very casually in that way if somebody says that vedantin generally we take it to mean that they're non-dualist if they're qualified non-dualist followers of ramanuja they may say i'm a devotee of rama or a devotee of krishna there will be different ways of expressing it they won't necessarily say yes i'm a vedantist because it may be misunderstood even though they have every right to claim it they they trace their teachings back to the upanishads even the the strict dualism of mantwa he'll claim that he finds the authority for that in the upanishads also so they can also claim that we're vedantans but for surami krishna when he'll give the answer to this he'll he'll take that question as meaning that what are the doctrines of advaita vedanta we know that from the answer he gives master de vedanta says i am he so um so the qualified non-dualist won't say that and the dualist definitely won't say that they they may at most say that i am a part of god this will be the qualified nondualist or i come from god i belong to god for the duelist so this is the first part i am he then brahman israel and the world illusory now again this illusory on this term that shows the medatism and we have our schools of vedanta especially shankar italia and golovkada shankarachary is the guru's guru who wrote that famous karika on the mandukyo upanishad and there'll be so many schools like that a lot of the texts that we'll read samita they'll emphasize this idea that this world is some type of illusion and sometimes the analogy goes far as a dream so swapna this term comes up very often in the gospel of srima krishna like a dream now do we take this literally if we take it literally then that means that nothing has any individu separate individual independent reality everything is just a manifestation of of consciousness or we can say really this divine consciousness or mind cosmic mind because when we have a dream we don't we don't assume that there really are tables and chairs in the dream it's all just imagination so there will be some who take it that way then the more logical way and and what really is is the more traditional explanation is that these are not strictly illusion illusory that way parati bhasika but we have a harika that means that on this relative plane we can accept the uh the reality of them and the reality of other individuals uh that it has some this external world has on this level some separateness we can recognize the manifoldness the variety within this this divine play but we've mistaken it we're not seeing things rightly so the uh the the tree stump in the dark when the thief comes out of the house and sees it he thinks that it's the policeman waiting for him when the lover comes out he thinks ah my beloved is waiting for me the same one the same tree trunk that they're saying is interpreted differently and both are wrong it's actually just a tree trunk so there's some superimposition that takes place uh this is if you have ahaduka point of view but there's something there it's not pure illusion it's not just something completely imagined it's not like an oasis that we see in in the desert a mirage when we go there there's nothing there with sand now we may say that well it's it's the the heat waves that are coming out to give the appearance of of all of that but aside from that uh there's nothing necessarily there and the the real vedantic point of view is that when we go up and examine the snake we we don't see that oh there was nothing there at all we see that oh it was a rope that we thought was a snake so it's not that i just imagined something there for no reason whatsoever but that reality is there so i am seeing this this roman but not understanding that i'm seeing it that way this is the other hardike point of view paramatica point of view the highest point of view is when we don't see the manifold at all and that's not really a point of view that's the ultimate truth and that we experience in somalia itself when there's only oneness or in the mystical vision see for suramar krishna he could see variety and oneness at the same time there are philosophers of mysticism that question can we see both god in the world at the same time logically we would say it's one or the other either we're seeing the snake or we're seeing the rope but for suryami krishna it was so clear to him that it was a rope even though he could see the form of the snake that we could say both when he's when he said i see everything as consciousness he was was seeing individual thing and he gave the illustration of artificial fruit fruit made of wax in those days that was the common way to make artificial fruit that he was seeing that it was wax that it was all one substance and yet he could see the individual fruits he could see that one is a banana one is an orange one is an apple so in some sense uh this dual vision astronomy christian was always there he was always aware of the divinity and at the same time of the divinity manifesting as variety so this is the mystical view mystical vision of srama krishna so this is his answer what are the doctrines of vedanta that i am he brahman is real and the world is illusory now for suramar krishna if he's giving his own point of view now he's he wasn't asked what is your point of view he says what is the point of view of the really of the advice in his own point of view he'll substitute anitya we've seen that over and over again that rather than think that this world is some type of illusion that it doesn't exist that it's an imagination that think of it it's constantly changing anithia there's nothing to hold on to or when he says of us to that he doesn't mean that there is no substance to it in the materialistic sense but there's nothing substantial about this world nothing that can fulfill the the desire needs of of the heart of all of us in that sense of us too so this is the first thing i am he brahman is is real and the world is illusory number two and then he says even the i is illusory only the supreme brahman exists now understanding of this i he he takes it from two points of view from the philosophical or metaphysical point of view he will agree with this it's not real anything that's real has to be permanent and there has to be some permanent substance to it so he'll say from the highest point of view that his eye is not real and if we examine ourselves and he tells us to do that try to find this i we see that some vague idea comes before our mind some picture of who we think we are there's nothing substantial there but on the other hand he'll say that even though it's just an idea that it's a very deep rooted idea and that it doesn't leave us and we can't live in this world without the scent of i even that dwighten has a sense of i scent of who he or she is self identity so he'll give this idea even the i is illusory only the supreme brahman exists now there's another way to get around this that in vedanta there are very strict rules for what can be considered to be existing for something to be real it has to be permanent it has to exist in the past present and future and with with the brahman it really means it transcends time there is no past present or future but there's there's no conceivable time in which brahman doesn't exist so it's real anything else if it exists for a certain period of time that means it at one time it didn't exist but it came into existence and if it can come in into existence it can go out of existence and if it ever can go to a point where it doesn't exist then we say that the reality of it is questionable even when we said it did exist so they have a very strict pramana standard by which to judge whether something exists or not it has to be always existent permanently existing so from that point of view this i doesn't exist that way only brahman will exist so this means we can accept the temporary existence of other things and accept the fact that when we depart from this world we can even question what is the status of things that we took to be the world for us we're living in a different world with other visible things in a different loca we don't know what takes place there did we feel then like that was all a dream that we woke up from it maybe but we can also think that well it's real to the extent that other people are still there and experiencing it and it has some objective reality different different ways of looking at these things different schools of thought i remember in the introduction to the upanishad the vice family nikhilanda he makes a very interesting distinction he talks about subjective idealism and objective idealism subjective idealism will say that everything exists as a projection of my mind that means that it doesn't matter even the other person is a projection of my mind objective idealism he says that if if it's a projection out of the mind of god then it has some commonality to it everyone can uh see the same universe that there's some objectivity to it and he takes this is as the real meaning of this the brahman alone is real and that everything bromine alone has become all this or is is manifested as all of this it's a nice way of looking i like that idea objective idealism still can be traced back to consciousness itself but it's a common world that we live in we can accept the existence of other people that we're viewing the same thing we're actually talking to each other in a dream or we're really talking to other people it seems like it then we wake up and we think no that was the illusion of the dream that there really was a second person i was talking to we can go and call that person and say i apologize for what i said to you in the dream last night they'll think we're crazy they say it was just a dream i wasn't there so this objective idealism will allow us to believe yes the other person is there i am talking to a person now this will be the the critical point for srama krishna he says but the i cannot be got rid of so this but what does that mean that means that he's not refuting the other idea he's saying yes it's true that his eye is illusory it has no absolute existence at the same time but at the same time we can't get rid of it it's not absolutely real but we can't get rid of it because it's maya this is this is what uh allows us to live in the world everybody has an ego some are very thomasic rajasik some are very satwik some are pure sattva some are fully ripened there's a whole huge gradation when tucker talks about this ripe and unripe ego we know when the fruit ripens that it goes through many many stages the banana will be green and hard one day next day a little bit less and then more and more then it'll get freckles on it the next thing you know it's a banana bread fully ripened so this ego is like that also it's not that it just will automatically jump overnight from uh from unripe to ripe but this ego cannot be got rid of so what do we do are we stuck that we'll never realize our oneness with roman he said no but the ego the eye cannot be got rid of therefore it is good to have the feeling i am the servant of god his son his devotee this is the uniqueness of srama krsna's bhakti yoga of his dualistic approach to things he's not a dualist will say this is the truth it's not true that this is is can is is illusory this i is real that i am a jiva you're a jiva we're separate even the state of liberation will be separate taco never says that what he says is that we all have this feeling and since we have that feeling that we are separate and we are individuals and we were born and will die and we dwell within the body all of that then we can utilize that this is the practical attitude that srama krishna had this is that idea that yes it falls within maya but we we cannot get rid of maya without the help of maya this is we we can't get rid of the bad tendencies of the mind without the exertion of the mind itself the mind belongs to maya but we utilize that higher side of the mind we utilize the uh intelligence the power of of analysis and discernment and everything in order to rid ourselves of the lower elements of the mind which are a mixture of all of the passions and desires and old samskatas and everything so but the eye cannot be got rid of therefore it is good to have the feeling i am the servant of god his son his devotee any one of the different attitudes it doesn't matter tako is saying that if we have any one of these attitudes it frees us from the other type of of i which is only concerned with the body and with enjoyment and with power and lust and greed and success and all of the other things that represent bondage for us so this type of eye frees us from bondage that's why he calls it vidyamaya it frees us from that and just as desires the desires keep us in bondage and desire for god frees us from that belongs to a different category so this type of of i belongs to a different category because there's no a hunkada in the sense of pride with this type of eye if there's a pride it's a good pride yes i too have a mother there's a good type of pride it's not the pride that says i'm so wealthy i am so intelligent that's that's the pride that gets us in trouble the pride that says yes i'm proud to be a servant of rama that what would be a greater a source of pride than to to be able to say that yes i am protecting rama i am serving him so the hanuman idea but it frees us from this this other type of pride i'm nobody if i'm not the servant so it's this is that wonderful part somebody said to swami permanent once that takwor made all of you so great and he said no he made us all nobodies he freed us from that ego from the pride of that ego that was the greatness of all the the direct disciples we were reading the other day about swamiji and there were a couple of different things that he made a statement i don't remember what it was it's from yogananda that he he kind of corrected him a little bit you remember what it was about the first durga puja or holy mother something like that and swamiji immediately said yes brother you're right yes about popularizing uh holy modern making her swami yogananda said but brother remember when taka said when many people come to know of my divinity it'll be a sign that it's time for me to leave won't it be the same with holy mother and swamiji said yes brother you're right i hadn't thought about it that way look at the humility of swamiji the swamiji who people are lauding as as a god on earth and his brother disciple corrects him with this small thing and so immediately yes you're right brother yeah we should be very protective of holy mother that way so they they all no matter how much pride and strength and everything they had in their ability atma shraddha faith in themselves they had this this tremendous humility another thing with swamiji i always remember this incident he was somewhere maybe in gujarat or rajasthan one of those places and uh he was in a meeting with all of the great sanskrit pandits so he had no choice but to speak sanskrit with them now these pandits they're learning sanskrit and speaking century from their childhood swamiji he had a western education he he learned sanskrit of course and then knew it quite well wrote beautiful poetry and everything but he wasn't a pundit like the others he wasn't uh used to having these these philosophical discussions and arguments in sanskrit itself so very often he'll make some grammatical mistakes and some the pundits laughed at him and swamiji himself left he could have taken it so far we would have been so uh embarrassed and taken it so personally and his pharmacy didn't care so he was free from that type of of ego and yet at the same time yes we can do anything so we have to see the subtle distinction here that this ripe ego can have a tremendous type of pride to it in a very good sense but it will be free from that the worldly type of pride completely so taqwa gives us the the few of these different attitudes i am the servant of god he liked the zadasia bhava and i am the son of god this he used to call shantal this isn't one of the five typical vaishnava attitudes this is the attitude of the shakta looking upon god as it says his son it really should be her son bengali there's no his or her so in english we have to just try to guess which one sounds better but whenever he's thinking of the son he's thinking of looking upon god his mother or simply his devotee that means any other attitude we have for the kali yuga the path of bhakti is especially good so not the only path especially good why one can realize god through bhakti too okay so we don't have to go through all of the other difficult things it's not that we say well through bhakti i can have some vision of god this and that but i'll never realize the ultimate truth of vedanta that brahman alone is real and this world is uh insubstantial this i it's just some idea that i'll never realize that at most i'll become a great devotee of god i'll always be have this dualistic relationship taco says no through bhakti also we can have the same highest realization we can get to the roof all the way to the top of the ladder there's no uh false roof that we get to that the dwighton will have a be able to go to a higher roof we'll get to the ultimate goal there one can realize god through bhakti too as long as one is conscious of the body one is also conscious of object okay so some people will will say that yes this world is just a projection of the mind then we have to go back and say well then your body is a projection of the mind and if the body is then what about the brain it also has to be a projection of them we get stuck then so if we accept that that consciousness of the body then we have to be conscious of of external objects also and the false identification with the body we also falsely identify with objects we identify with the car that we drive the house that we live in the clothes that we wear these are part of our identity from this psychological point of view form taste smell sound and touch these are the objects it is extremely difficult to get rid of the consciousness of objects and one cannot realize i am he as long as one is aware of objects this i am he is an internal thing i am he we're not talking about my oneness with uh with this external universe that may come afterwards but when we're talking about getting to the roof and and the highest guyana we're not talking about vigna now yana that will be when we're not even aware of anything when we realize that state of samadhi and this i completely disappears and we merge 100 with that reality which is the real self when we come down a little bit from that then we may say ah now i see everything as divine i'm seeing objects but i know that it's all there's a play of the divine that'll be different but in order to get there we have to be able to withdraw withdraw the mind from everything and not that uh that the gyani will spend all day saying looking at a chair and and trying to figure out how i'm not looking at an object i'm looking at brahmin itself we'll go crazy what does it mean we're looking at consciousness itself it won't make sense to us but to realize this i within the real eye within there's no i there there's nothing personal there if there's nothing personal there this pure awareness then it'll be he it'll be it'll be god at the same time but but i'm aware of it that his awareness and my awareness are the same awareness so this i doesn't work exactly and the he doesn't work exactly so we say soham it's something beyond is beyond this is so and the am is neither one nor the other so is it brahman or is it atman is it is it the highest reality or is it my very own self it's neither and it's both sometimes taco will say it's beyond the one and two or it's in between existence and non-existence he'll use that type of language it's something that can only be experienced uh within the depths of one's own consciousness the sannyasi is very little conscious of worldly objects now takur is saying this because generally if he will encourage anyone to follow the path of gyani yoga stricken ghana yoga he'll say that okay but it's really for those who have some tremendous dispassion and i have no interest in engaging in the world and getting married and having a family and having a career is really for the sannyasi and it traditionally it was the upanishads traditionally were meant for the sannyasins the the uh fourth stage of life and the fourth uh category of the vedas all were meant for each other you know the vedas we have the samhita portion brahmana portion and the uh portion that for for those who are the vanaparasanas they'll go into the to the forest and then the upanishads and it corresponds a little bit to the four stages of life so the upanishads were meant for the sannyasins uh either those who took that from a young age into sanyasa or those who took sanyas at the end of life so the sannyasi is very little conscious of worldly objects or should be or if one wants to be a sannyasi he should be very little conscious of worldly objects or if one wants to follow the path of gyana yoga then the helpful if one is a sannyasi but the householder is always engrossed in them so uh not necessarily attached but at the same time it can't be free from earning money and having a house and property and all of that it comes with being a householder it's the duty of a householder so it's impossible for them to live the same type of lifestyle that the sanyasin can live consult the sannyasi can really have no possessions uh in in the ancient india's especially or not even ancient india traditional india this and they also will wander from place to place will have no permanent home they'll go someplace and they'll be uh a nice shady tree and they'll sleep under the tree or there'll be different people they'll have some garden someplace and they'll keep it open so any sannyasi can go and stay in somebody's garden and they may even provide food for them or any temple they can go and take shelter in the temple but they have no place of their own nothing that they can call their own nothing but god that they can call their own but the householder is always engrossed in them therefore it is good for him to feel i am the servant of god or the child of any of the relationships so he's saying that peter bhakti yoga which requires a relationship which requires a particular bhava a particular attitude and even a particular type of superimposition of an ideal upon oneself that i want to practice about saudi abhava then i start imagining myself to be mother yashoda how would she feel what what is in the heart of mother yasoda when she's bathing the baby gopala i try to imagine that i try to superimpose that i stamped that on my mind so that i have that same feeling that she had how did hanuman feel when he felt that it was up to him to rescue sita for rama the whole mind was there how can i feel like that so this we superimpose that that bhava that the mindset and feeling of these these paradigms that we have mother yashoda hanuman radha for krishna any of any of them subala for for any of them and we utilize that so we feel that he says there it is therefore it is good for us to feel i am the servant of god neighbor sir we are sinners what will happen to us now this idea of being sinners uh we find it in two different sources those western educated bengalis of the day who were greatly influenced by missionaries many of them studied in missionary schools they were bombarded with this idea that with original sin and everything they were all born sinners the other will be this this very hinodino attitude this very the of the division of a tradition that there were nobodies were nothing that we're we're the lowest creatures and uh all we can do is pray to lord krishna for please save us please save us so these these will be the two main ones of course every tradition and every individual can have that feeling and of course some people actually probably did many things that we would be con we could uh we would consider sinful things that uh en engaged in in lying and and uh maybe immoral activities and everything so some people had a good right we take girish ghosh yeah he said that uh even the place where i said no one should sit there i'm such a sinful person that it's the mountain of sin this is the highest his highest mount meru that he used to use that that type of language tucker's idea was yes you may have done things which you shouldn't have done but that doesn't stamp you as a sinner the real self it can't be stamped the real self is always pure and perfect it's just this mind and if we can get rid of this idea of sin in the mind and get rid of those tendencies to do those types of things then the mind will become pure people taco says the mind is like linen that's already been washed before it's going to be dyed it says like like a cloth that's come back from the from the washer men and it is ready to be dyed it has to be washed first so that the mind is like that that the mind can take on it's not that it's stained and we have to get rid of that stain of the mind but we feel that it's like that we feel this is our just our conception that it's been stained by all of the sinful things we've done of course we've created some scottish and our personality has been formed by that but when he talks about the mind it's almost the same as talking about the self the self can't be stand that that way and if we want to stain it if we want to dye it then we died in positive thoughts we died in the divinity which is its real nature so the neighbor says sir we are sinners what will happen to us master all the sins of the body now very often he'll say don't call yourself sinners sometimes he'll he'll get a little upset what is it with you people that all you do is say i'm a sinner i'm a sinner if you think of yourself as a sinner you'll become a sinner here he's taking a different approach he says all the sins of the body fly away if one chants the name of god and sings his glories the birds of sin dwell in the tree of the body it's a very beautiful idea they're not part of the tree they dwell in the tree they're not part of the tree they can be made to fly away singing the name of god is like clapping your hands as at a clap of the hands the birds and the tree fly away so do our sins disappear at the chanting of god's name and glories this was taco's practice especially first thing in the morning when he would go around and he would look at all of the holy pictures in his room and he would chant the divine name and he would clap his hands like that so we have that nice story that when totopuri came that he saw takur doing that clapping his hands now in some parts of india when they make chapatis they'll use a rolling pin in some parts of india especially in punjab he was from punjab that they'll take it and they'll they'll go back and forth each time they do it like throwing up a pizza in in the air you know with the pizza pie they'll go back and forth like that so toto party i would would tease him and say what are you doing are you making chapatis but for taquer the chanting of the name of god and clapping his hands the all the the birds of sin would fly away not that he had to do it that way but it was a joyful thing the point for him was that it was a joyful thing very often he would dance first thing in the morning the devotees would be in the room they see takur had gotten up maybe three o'clock in the morning and he's singing and dancing and clapping his hands and going to the pictures and chanting the name uh just filled with joy who wakes up like that we wake up and say oh my god is the time to get up can i sleep another five minutes but he couldn't he didn't like to sleep he couldn't wait to get up and just filled with joy so our sins disappeared the chanting of god's name and glories and taco loved this idea if any time somebody came back from visiting a holy man and taco would say what did he what advice did he give he and if he said he said chant the name of god. rama or the name of krishna talk would say ah wonderful he would never say that's all that he said what a simple thing everybody knows that he would say wonderful so takwa put great emphasis on the power of the name of god because for us the name is the one thing that signifies the reality of god more than anything else we may say well we picture an image in our minds also yeah we do that to a certain extent but uh even an ordinary thing if we say the word mother huh just think of the emotional emotions that come up just with uttering the word mother it brings the mind more than anything else uh the totality even a picture it'll have to be from a certain age and a certain time in a certain place and all of that but the name gives us everything so there's something special about the relationship between the name and the one named so the vedanta they'll very often say that there's no difference the name of god and god himself or one and they'll put great emphasis on the name of god we know the story that once krishna was you know they they do a thing sometimes where someone will will offer to give the amount of gold equivalent to the weight of the body and they'll have these huge scales with huge pans and the person can sit on one side and the other side whatever it is if it's not gold it can be rice whatever they'll keep putting it more and more on until uh that that pen is heavier then they'll know that that's the weight of the person so they were doing it with uh with a sri krishna he was sitting on one side no matter how much they put on the other side of the pen uh krishna was heavier so then mini was there and she said get rid of everything i said i know what to do and she took a tosi leave and she wrote the name of krishna on it and she put that tosi leaf on the other side of the pan and immediately it went down so she said see the name of krishna is greater than krishna himself these are just ways of showing how uh in the devotional schools in general uh how much emphasis and how much of a devotional attitude there is towards the name of god that it's something very sacred again you find that the water of a reservoir dug in a meadow is evaporated by the heat of the sun likewise the water of the reservoir of sin is dried up by singing of the name and glories of god so what he's saying is that we're we're taking this as an ocean of sin we're taking this as this is my nature that i can't get rid of this this is who i am that i'm a sinner and tako is saying that this is justice on the surface on the surface we may look at we we dig a small reservoir in in the meadow it may just be a foot deep of water we look at it and we have no way of knowing it could be a very deep lake it could be that the sun will never dry it up and yet we find that at the end of the day it's all gone we realize it was just a superficial thing there was no depth to it so talk was saying that what we're calling sin is is something that if we if we recognize it if we say that this belonged to my past i'm not that person that committed those things i won't do them again that was the main thing for takur yes admit you did it but just take a vow that i won't do that again then we're free from it now it's not that simple of course because the tendency of the mind doesn't change overnight but we understand the concept of it at least you must practice it every day so this is the thing it's not that we do it once that the some scadas are very very deep in order to get rid of them or to change them or create new ones we have to constantly do it over and over again i remember a statement that swami swaniji used to make and i believe he quoted swami yatishwar anandiji that someone had asked him what is it with his japa that we're repeating the same thing over and over and over again why we have to keep repeating it over and over and over again and then he said think how many times you've told yourself not in so many words but you've you've pounded this idea into your mind i am the body i am the body i am the body so to counteract that we have to do it over and over and over again now the name of god of course those who really have this attitude they'll say well you just repeat it once in the name of god if even once i've taken the name of hari or durga you know how can sin cling with beautiful songs like that there's one story i don't remember who it was one great saint he had left the village for the day and he left his son in charge of things and people used to come to him they would confess to him and their their problems and ask for advice so somebody came to the sun and he had done something and the son said okay repeat the name of rama twice and you'll be free from the sin then the father came back and asked him what happened during the day and he told him and he gave his son a scolding he said you have such little regard for the name of god that you said he had to repeat it twice once would have been enough but this is just to show this reverence for the name of god in reality we have to practice these things over and over and over again holy mother of course put so much emphasis on japan japan siddhi we hear this expression all of the time through japan we can attain the highest realization and do we have to have deep meditation the idea is that the name of god has a power of its own and better if we concentrate of course what the holy mother used to say whether you jump in in the river or you're pushed in you'll get wet either way so there'll be some effect of course repeating the name of god but we should be aware that of repeating the name of god what it stands for that it brings the idea of god himself or herself to our minds when we repeat the name so you must practice it every day the other day at the circus i saw a horse running at top speed with an english woman standing on one foot on its back how much she must have practiced to acquire that skill tucker mentions this in different places that she's riding on a little horse and there's a big hoop and when they get to the hoop she jumps up and goes through the hoop and the horse goes underneath it and she lands again on one foot he was very impressed that she could do it this english woman bibi they called her i don't know said some term you know that term anyhow how much she must have practiced to acquire that skill and really it's true that we can we can accomplish so many things through through practice we look at these athletes that uh how how they develop the skills that they have these dribbling skills and everything they'll do it day and night they'll have far more devotion and spend far more time in the practice than we do as spiritual seekers they have a different goal in mind of course but it just shows this yoga this obihasa this constant practice that the tremendous results that it can yield weep at least wants to see god talk with whenever he heard that any of his disciples wept for god he was very very happy that then this goes back to this idea of sin he used to say that the tears of the eyes will cleanse the dirt of the heart will wash away all the dirt of the heart these then are the two means practice yoga and passionate attachment to god anuraga that is to say restlessness of the soul to realize him now we have two in in gita the two things will be this abyasa yoga and vairagya now taku doesn't make a big distinction between vadagi and anuraga even though they're opposite one means complete dispassion for the world but takwa said this passion for the world has to have the other side this passion for god and when that passion becomes so great that we feel that we can't live another moment without realizing god then anuraga turns into vyakulita this this is the one of the probably the most important teaching of suramar krishna that through this intense longing for god realization we can have the highest type of experience this is the most important tool that we have this is this is the real critical if we look at call for cause and effect everything is a secondary cause for swami krishna all of our spiritual practices everything is meant to increase this via this this longing for god and that longing itself will take us to god that's the final rung of the latter he says okay let us stop here then and then takoy after this we'll have his meal with the devotees and then we'll continue with that conversation um we bow our is before suramar krishna who is 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 peace peace peace unto all thank you everyone everyone please stay well and we will see you next time