Video 46

The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna read by Swami Atmajnanananda (02/26/21)

[Music] [Music] foreign your words are like nectar bringing life to scorched 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 184 in swami nikhil nikhilanandiji's version of the translation it's friday march 9th 1883. actually we're in page 185 we started this section last week and sriram krishna is in his room with raqqa m and a few other devotees it was the day of the new moon and the deputy had asked why has god put us in the world okay now we're right at the middle towards the middle of the page during these days ceramic christian's heart overflowed with motherly love like the love yeshode felt for krishna so he kept rakal with him rakhal fell toward the master as a child feels toward its mother he would sit leaning on the master's lap as a young child leans on its mother while sucking her breast this this is a something with the screen okay sorry for the delay technical difficulties uh so i this means that shirami krishna was in this uh this one of the one of the moods called the vatsalia bhava and this is something that came upon him especially whenever he saw raqqa you may remember the vision that takara had before rock called came to him that a son would be born to him and then he he was very surprised he said how can i have a son i have no relation with my wife and then he heard the voice of the divine mother say no it will be a spiritual son manasuputra so we all take understand it that way takara understood it that way that rakal had that special relationship with srirami krishna we we call all of them takushontan all of his them or his children but this was in a very special sense that he looked upon raqqa not just as his child but as a small child so he would get into this this mood just as mother yasoda used to look upon the baby gopal as as god himself would get that feeling and both would get into that moon so tak was looking upon rockal who was then probably what 20 years old and and big and strong and yet he would sit on taco's lap as if he were a small child it didn't seem strange to either of them because he looked upon takur you could say as his mother we we don't know exactly if that was his mood that was the mood of of swami shivananda but in any event he would feel like a small child in the presence of srama krishna and taqwa from his side would get that motherly mood so taker would have different moods at different times we may wonder how can he think of himself as a mother of a small child and at the same time think of himself as a child of the divine mother but his mind was very flexible and elastic and we go from one mood to another this is one of the astounding features in taquer's life we find so many other great souls they'll have one mood and they'll attain perfection in that mood and that'll last throughout the whole lifetime but takur he went from one to another he practiced all of them the different attitudes in different moods generally his overriding attitude was that of a child to the mother but during this period of time and specifically when raquel would come he would get into that mood now when gopala ma would come then the reverse would happen he would think of himself automatically as the baby gopal and sometimes would even crawl in the ground in her presence so every things triggered different moods and attitudes in the mind of suramar krishna and so this would have been a very odd site for people to see there's a this 20 year old man fully groaned sitting on the lap of srama krishna and as if it's a small child sitting on the lap of his mother and neither one felt to be anything unusual because they were in that mood they're not in the ordinary mood at this time raqqa was thus seated by the master when a man entered the room and said that a high tide was coming in the ganges this was always a big event i don't know why they thought it was something so special but a high tide really meant that the waves would come over and sometimes the part of the embankment would break off so it was some special thing i don't know how often it came of course there'd be a high tide every day or and every month there'll be something but this was some some special thing that they all used to run and try to see the master and the devotees ran to the panchavati to see it at the site of a boat being tossed by the tide srama krishna exclaimed look look i hope nothing happens to it because the ganges there is not terribly far from the ocean so that means that sometimes the water is flowing north and sometimes it's flowing south if the ocean water is coming up or going back so this was the special thing that people like to see they all sat in the panchavati the master asked m to explain the cause of the tide m drawn around the figures of the sun moon and earth and tried to explain gravitation eptide flood tide new moon full moon eclipse and so forth now we we have this idea we hear very often that uh if one attains the perfect knowledge then what is salvagna one is all-knowing and some people think that that means that even scientific facts that someone will know everything it doesn't mean that at all talk was the perfect illustration he was all-knowing and yet he could barely do addition he could add okay he couldn't subtract very well multiplication he couldn't do it all and this high moon and knew this tide and everything was too much for him his mind couldn't grasp these things his mind his mind was on a different level so master damn stop it i can't follow you it makes me dizzy my head is aching well how can they know of things so far off see he was a village boy we have to always keep that in mind and never really cared for school he used to skip his classes and and with some of his friends go to the mango grove and they would put on plays and sing and dance and do all of that so is that right plain brainer left brain he was one of them huh one of them the he didn't have that mathematical side but the intuitive side of course was off the charts and then he says you see during my childhood i could paint well but the arithmetic would make my head spin i couldn't learn simple arithmetic srama krishna returned to his room with the devotees looking at a picture of yashoda on the wall he said it is not well done she looks like a garland seller the master enjoyed a nap after his noon meal adhar and other devotees gradually gathered this was other's first visit he was a deputy magistrate and about 30 years old now i personally find it interesting uh if we know a little bit about the uh the actors in this play that suramar krishna put on and there's a very important actor in this play uh he had a very intimate close relationship with srama krishna so i just want to read a little bit there's something called baked porychoi in the bengali version which is very nice that all of the important people that we come across devotees uh and relatives of srama krishna that we come across in the gospel there's a little description about them so i thought i would just re tell us a little bit about sen was his full name he was then what 30 years old is that what i said okay so he came from a world to do family he was very intelligent in the beginning of his life that he was an atheist then he met takur when he was 28 it says here anyhow and he became a great devotee at the first visit first sight of taqwar he felt this tremendous attraction towards him then one day takur initiated him he wrote something this was his typical initiation he wrote the ishta mantra on his tongue and in an ecstatic mood he placed he placed his hand on arthur's chest and on his head and blessed him that way then gradually audrey went into had some thai spiritual experience and became fully overwhelmed with all of that tucker went to his house many times and went into somati during kirtan there taku looked upon the author as narayan himself so he had a very high opinion of him he was talented in many different fields and he worked very hard he one thing we'll see throughout the gospel that uh as a deputy magistrate he earned a good salary and was highly respected but he had a chance for a very big position to make a lot more money and this is the ongoing tension between them that how much should he try and and how much should he go to this person and that person and flatter them to get recommendations so we can get this big position uh takwa saw bon kim at his house also then but at the age of 30 suddenly one day he fell off the back of a horse horseback riding and died suddenly so the very very tragic death at a young age then at this time also when after he fell off the horse taku went to see him and with tears in his eyes also touched him and blessed him so this is aldersen see sometimes we we get a wrong impression that we'll see him criticizing him so much why do you care about this so much getting a better job and everything and he argues well well how about narendra if he gets a chance for a better job is it okay for him they go back and forth this is only because taqwa saw that he was so qualified as a spiritual aspiring the same thing happens with ishaan ishaan mukupati we read this chapter and we think talk was scolding him so much but we have to understand he's doing it because he loved him so much and had such high regard and respect for him he was such a generous wonderful person so it's good for us to realize this relationship and then we can we can understand that in the midst of talk we're kind of scolding him that the tremendous love and affection is there behind it okay so this was other's first visit he was a deputy magistrate and about 30 years old so m doesn't know exactly his age at this time he was probably a couple years younger than that and died within a couple of years utter to the master sir i have a question to ask is it good to sacrifice animals before the deity now remember this is his first visit that means he's coming without too much devotion we read there that he was an atheist at a young age and that he felt his tremendous attraction to srama krishna at the first visit so now he's asking a very mundane type of question because probably he's not at the point where he wants to ask how can i realize god it'll come of course but so he's asking about sacrificing animals a very standard question for the educated people of of uh of calcutta at that time that were influenced by the brahmos homage and reformers and everything it certainly involves killing and of course we'll know that he's come to a kali temple where they have what they call bolidan where they will sacrifice a goat to the divine mother and and then distributed this as prasad master the sastra prescribes sacrifice on special occasions he's not going to give a very strong opinion taker always said that he came not to destroy that his his goal wasn't he didn't come as a social reformer he came to to bring spirituality to the world so he's not going to take a very strong stance but he says sastra that means the scripture is prescribed sacrifice on special occasions such sacrifice is not harmful take for instance the sacrifice of a goat on the eighth day of the full or new moon now remember that this is a part of india where goat meat was very commonly taken so whether it's offered to the divine mother or not these goats were raised to get slaughtered there wasn't they didn't do too much else huh you couldn't share them and and and and knit things and everything i guess you can huh goat goat hair you can they do with some fancy thing in kashmir that's partly gold and what's it called begins with a p anyhow but the main function the reason if you go to india and you see goats running all around it's because they're gonna that'll be their food so if they're going to slaughter them anyhow then at least now they're they're trying to bring in some a spiritual side to it at least so he says the sacrifice of a goat on the eighth day of the full or new moon is he says is not harmful but now he'll talk about himself so this is this is kind of a very standard thing that he's saying that means he's living in the kali temple he's not going to start have some protest movement that they should stop this animal sacrifice or anything like that but he says i am now in such a state of mind that i cannot watch a sacrifice also i cannot eat meat offer to the divine mother therefore i first touch my finger to it then to my head lest she should be angry with me yeah talk where he went through different moods he said at one time i can't cut a lemon with a knife without having to say first om kali something like that so he would go through different moods again in a certain state of mind i see god in all beings even in an ant at that time if i see a living being die i find consolation in the thought that it is the death of the body the soul being beyond life and death so i am one day heard all of these teachings and thought god dwells within all beings that he should be very cautious about things so he told sriami krishna that yes sometimes when i'm eating you know they would eat on the floor and very often fish he said cat would come and start eating off the plate and i can't do anything and tucker said what do you mean you can't do anything you can even give it a slap to push it away and then was it m or somebody else who came asking about is it okay even to kill insects and things like that and so at that time takwa was taking his mattress and beating it and killing all of the bed bugs so tucker had different moods there there were times when uh he saw life in in a blade of grass to such an extent that he couldn't walk on the grass at other times he would do it so it depended on the particular mood that he was in one should not reason too much it is enough if one loves the lotus feed of the mother so he's really telling aadhar okay you've come here you asked a question i gave some kind of answer but these aren't the things to occupy your mind with that if you're really serious about this then you should try to develop some type of devotion one should not reason too much it is enough if one loves the lotus feet of the mother too much reasoning throws the mind into confusion you get clear water if you drink from the surface of a pond put your hand deeper and stir the water and it becomes muddy therefore pray to god for devotion now takua he even at the first visit he had some type of sick sense where just seeing someone he he could tell if they had a mind attended towards devotion or tended towards uh towards meditation or knowledge or what so he must know this about adhere we've i was reading the other day somebody was saying that uh uh when the all the direct disciples would be there taka will be talking about nothing but not knowledge and and renunciation and then m would come into the room and now again it's not a dear bhakti and he said so we don't get all of these things in the gospel because when em was present i am as much as tucker loved them and had a high opinion of him he belonged to the householder a stage of life and he didn't want to confuse his mind too much or the problem with them was he had such a longing to renounce everything so takur didn't want to increase that longing knowing that he had his responsibilities to fulfill so he's telling him pray for devotion beyond druva's devotion there was desire he practiced austerities to gain his father's kingdom but prahlada's love for god was motiveless a love that sought no return a devotee how can one realize god now we're getting a real question and we know that taqwa has a a list of at least half a dozen things and depending on his mood and depending on whom he's talking to he'll give a different type of answer so now he says through that kind of love so that kind of love means this motiveless love a haitiki bhakti he uses this term ohituki or heitoki both that means that we don't seek anything the highest type of love we read this in the in the bhakti sutras the highest type of love is is and the highest type of prayer is to pray for uh only pure love is not to seek anything even mukti the real devotee doesn't even pray for for liberation only praise for love so this is considered the highest type of love in the in the scriptures and according to srama krishna also now he he makes a very nice statement that we'll find repeated many many times but one must force one's demands one's demand on god one should be able to say o god wilt thou not reveal thyself to me i will cut my throat with a knife this is the thomas of bhakti gives two different illustrations of this attitude very very different illustrations for different types of people one he says this is the the bhakti of the of the dakota that they'll fall upon their victims and they'll beat them and say you have to give me all of your money or i'll kill you so this this is one type of forcing demand the other is called abdar abdar and it means like a small child always tugging at the mothers mommy i have to have this please give it to me please give it to me i won't be able to live without and starts crying and weeping and every like a small child this is also forcing demand on god so he uses he gives both of these different illustrations that depending on our attitude if we're more of a heroic nature then we'll take what he calls this thomas of bhakti like the dakoid and if we have this more childlike nature then because he says that if if we keep pestering the mother then finally she'll she'll say okay let me make the child happy and she'll give in and she'll give whatever the child wants so he likes both of these attitudes we say generally thomas is a bad thing but taco always knew how to utilize and give a twist to things if we have this thomas attitude within us we can even turn that towards god and and make that it turned into something positive devotee can one see god okay now again we're we're stuck with these words that are the best way that we can convey a meaning and yet aren't completely appropriate we we only know vision with regard to the physical seeing with the eyes now can we see god with these physical eyes generally we have to say no now krishna he would have visions of course with his eyes open that's a different thing but talking about seeing god taku would say that this the mind has to rise to a very high level at that very high level we have some type of direct experience which comes to us as something very very tangible we don't know how to explain it because we only know we explain things with this ordinary mind so it's not just this pure mind but the mind that ascends to a different level where we don't see things we see things the way we see them because the mind is at a certain level and the senses are functioning in a particular way when the mind goes to a higher level then one can have different visions and one can have some direct experience that doesn't even involve subject and object there's there's no distinction at that time so we said yes surely one can see so you see we can say realize both aspects of god god with form and without form how do we see the formless not we only know how to see things with form so he's obviously not talking about science the way we understand sight but we can have the direct realization of the formless absolute as our very own self if we if we think of the illustration of of the pond and and taking uh water out of the pond using a different container every experience of god with form will be like taking god in a particular size and shape container the water takes that shape and we have a different name for it bonnie or joel or water or whatever the name is and the shape will be according to the container whether it's a bucket or a pitcher or a pouch whatever it is every experience of god that way has to have a particular form and has to have a particular name if we want to experience the formless then we dive into the into the pond that's all we dive into it we we can't if we want to take it out then that means it has to take the shape of the mind it'll take some particular form the experience of of the of the formless has to be oneness that we have to attain to that state of tanmaya where we become merged in that so that will be experiencing we can say god without form one can see god with form the embodiment of spirit again god can be directly perceived as a man with a tangible form seeing an incarnation of god is the same as seeing god himself god is born on earth as man in every age now tucker also says that worshiping the avatar is the same as worshiping god or we can say we get the same result from it swami swaniji had a very nice way of expressing this i i always got a kick out of it because of kind of a double meaning he would say the avatar is as good as god is as good as god if you want to repeat the name of the avatar of repeating the name of god you have the vision of the avatar having a vision of god but it also means it has the same goodness the same qualities as good as god the avatar or worshiping is as good as an equivalent to the worship of god so we may wonder if our meditation we're trying to to picture of the image of the avatar and is this really meditating on god god is infinite absolute nameless formless reality taku are saying that you'll get the same result from it but we have to understand that it's not an ordinary person if we see the divine qualities within and know that there's a special manifestation so god is born on earth as man in every age the standard explanation is for the sake of dharma the devotees explanation is for the sake of the devotee so that the devotee has some tangible form to worship taqwa says the avatar comes in order to bring bhakti to the world and not for the sake of dharma that that's so also there that's of course a big part of the theory the idea of of the avatar especially from gita but the devotee has a little bit of a different view the avatar comes from time to time to revive this uh not just dharma but this whole devotional mood and attitude in the world okay that's the end of that day the next day that we come to is march 11th so this is two days later this uh will be a sunday march 11th 1883 and it's ramakrishna's birthday so it's very fortunate that because of the sunday more devotees can come and they celebrated his birthday every year now we always hear that oh in india we don't celebrate birthdays we hear that all the time some people don't even know when they were born and kumar has a birthday every saturday because he doesn't know when he was born so we assume that if we do it every saturday probably we'll be right that it will catch one of the one of them will be the actual day but in shirama krishna's case they observed his birthday every year and had a special celebration for it so it was from a christian's birthday many of his disciples and devotees wanted to celebrate the happy occasion at the dakshineshwar temple garden from early morning the devotee streamed in alone or in parties after the morning worship in the temples sweet music was played in the nahbat it was springtime we we think of this as the place where holy mother lived where takur's mother lived but the whole point of the nahbat there was one in the north and one in the south this is where the the musicians would go and go up to the top usually chennai maybe other things also and would play the music at the time of special occasions or puja or anything like that so that was specifically for kind of a music tower you can say so after the morning worship in the temple suite music was played and then it was springtime the trees creepers and plants were covered with new leaves and blossoms the very air seemed laden with joy and the hearts of the devotees were glad on this auspicious day arrived early in the morning and found the master talking smilingly to bhavanat rakal and kali krishna there's a kali krishna that we know of course who became swami virjanandiji disciple of holy mother and monastic disciple of swamiji and later president of the order this is not that same kali krishna that kali krishna was then a student of ems and only came i don't believe that he ever met ramakrishna i don't think so but he but he he came after taqwa passed away and of course was he actually was the first of the of the second generation of monks to join the baranuka mud so there's a different kali krishna and prostrated himself before srama krishna master to him i am glad you have come to the devotees one cannot be spiritual as long as one has shame hatred or fear lodia this was a favorite expression of srama christ's i don't know where it comes from he had so many expressions like this that he must have heard from so many different people sadhus passing by and everything and he loved little plays on word he was very good with these these puns and things like that eloquent poke he would say pashmani pasha you know all sorts of different things very nice little things jay shoi shay roy jay very sweet little things that that he would he would say so uh shame hatred or fear shame now this doesn't mean modesty we have to remember that with regard to holy mother that she always used to say and takuroso that modesty is is the bhushan is the adornment of a woman this is this is the crowning uh characteristic uh to have a little bit of of modesty not a little and holy mother of course was the embodiment of modesty it doesn't mean that this means being too proud shame is a form of pride too proud to sing before others too proud to do this before others perhaps they'll criticize me this and that uh it it looks like it's a type of humility but it's the ego of humility the type of pride is there that very simple people suppose they can't sing well and they like to sing it won't occur to them that people will laugh at them or anything very simple people they'll just go ahead and do it they won't care others they'll think no what will people say if if i get up and i sing and dance what would they think of me this and that so that's what he means this type of lord of shame and then hatred hatred is a horrible thing hatred and anger these are two of the most poisonous emotions that we can experience and really they can they can just uh poison the mind so this uh hatred and then fear fear is something that uh this this was the special special thing that swamiji spoke about this fearlessness that oh what is there to fear if we if we take this attitude that we don't care what will happen to us we only want to have this highest god realization should we be afraid of anything afraid of failure afraid of physical harm anything what do we care about any of that so this timid attitude so tako didn't like so these three things loja grena boy shame hatred or fear now holy mother used to say lord you have to have all of these now she was looking at from the other point of view she wasn't trying to criticize or go against anything that takwa said but a little modesty is good and not hatred but uh we should know uh whom to stay away from what what type of company that we should avoid and then fear and just just cautiousness so we can see both sides of this but taku especially now going to talk about shame because and this is partly directed to m that taco would always get annoyed at m because others would would join in the singing and dancing and then would sit in the corner he was he was too shy and too reserved the sun coach this is another another thing that's considered to be one of the one of the obstacles sun coach it means to strength to shrink away from things to to be reluctant to not want other other people to see us it's also based on ego a little bit if we have no ego what do we care people see us or know what we're doing or anything like that so takur he's saying especially on this day on his birthday that people should abandon all of this he says great will be the joy today for those fools who will not sing or dance mad with god's name will never attain god so whenever am the very few times that he would actually sing or he would join in the dancing taco would be very said happy even m got up and danced he'd be very happy how can one feel any shame or fear when the names of god are sung now sing all of you and his friend khali krishna krishnasang thrice blessed is this day of joy may all of us unite o lord to preach thy true religion here in india's holy land thou dwellest in each human heart thy name resounding everywhere fill the four corners of the sky today thy devotees proclaim thy boundless majesty we seek not wealth or friends or fame o lord no other hope is ours for thee alone thy devotees long with unflagging love safe at thy feet we fear have we what fear have we of death or danger we have found the fount of immortality to thee the victory o lord to thee the victory okay i'm going to make a guess i don't know anything about this song i'm going to guess this may be from the life of buddha that gedi recently composed a play buddha charita on the life of buddha just because the thrice blessed day this is this is what we we generally associate this with uh the birth and the nirvana the enlightenment the buddha and the parent the final leaving of the body the buddhists consider all they all took place on the same date so it is often called the thrace and blessed day so perhaps i don't know what else it could be referring to and everybody knew everyone was singing gerisa's songs they became very overnight a big hit and so anyhow that's my guess if anybody knows whether i'm right or wrong send send a little note send the email or put something in the uh if you're watching this on the youtube you can you can always make a comment astronomy krishna listen to the song with folded hands his mind soared to a far off realm he remained absorbed in meditation a long time after a while kali krishna whispered something to bhavanath that kali krishna wasn't a very close devotee i don't know too much about him but mostly he was a friend of bhavanat then he bowed before the master and rose srama christian was surprised he asked where are you going he is going away on a little business a little uh hesitant to tell what was really happening and apparently the scholarly christian himself didn't want to say it also not spoke for him was bold he spoke his mind very often uh master what is it about bhavanat he is going to the baranaga working men's institute so who knows what that was some union meeting or something who knows master it is his bad luck a stream of bliss will flow here today he could have enjoyed it but how unlucky srama krishna did not feel well so he decided not to bathe in the ganges about nine o'clock a few jars of water were taken from the river and with the help of the devotees he finishes a bath on the veranda east of his room after bathing the master put on a new wearing cloth all the while chanting the name of god accompanied by one or two disciples he walked across the courtyard to the temple of kali still chanting still chanting her hallowed name his eyes had an in-drawn look like that of a bird hatching her eggs okay i wonder if anybody can see this can they see it yeah there's a nice story about this talk we like this image it's a m is using this image but it's a taquer's image that if you want to know what someone looks like when they're absorbed in meditation then look at the mother bird sitting on the eggs to hatch them and she has this far away look absent gaze in her eyes and then srama krishna said to em can you get me a picture of that so sometime later um i forget that if he got a picture or had one made but in any event he got it and he showed it to the master and the master was very happy so on some of the the different editions of the gospel in bengali they'll have that either on the cover or on the inside page this is actually a photograph of a bird but the very early versions they have that same original sketch that it was done of a bird sitting on the egg i don't think it's in this one the five volume version huh so the green five volume version is there and also on the render poor version yeah the point is that even if the eyes are open there's no seeing there's no seeing because the mind is someplace else when entering the temple he prostrated himself before the image and worshipped the divine mother but he did not observe any ritual of worship now he would offer flowers and sandal paste paste at the feet of the image and now he would put them on his own head after finishing the worship in his own way he asked to carry the green coconut that had been offered to the mother he also visited the images of radha and krishna in the vishnu temple when the master returned to his room he found that other devotees had arrived among them ram nitti gopal and kedar now last week when we were reading about march 9th we found that the same three of them were there so probably they were all staying at rom's house that's my guess kedar he he uh his work was in dhaka and his home was in uh halle shahor so when he came to kolkata i don't know if he had his own place to stay but ram would always let people stay with him and nithya gopal we found out last week who was a relative maybe a distant but a relative of ram so he stayed with them quite often so probably they all came together they all saluted the master who greeted them cordially he said to nity opal will you eat something now yes the devotee answered nitigopal who was 23 or 24 years old and unmarried was like a child his mind was always soaring in the spiritual realm he visited the master sometimes alone and sometimes in rama's company the master had observed the spiritual state of his mind and had become very fond of him he remarked now and then that nitigopal was in the state of paramahamsa now what does that mean exactly part of uh it has a little bit of a technical meaning that there are some sanyasins that belong to a kind of paramahamsa sampradaya i don't know exactly what that means but otherwise it means a very high high state of spirituality which is free from many external marks this is one of the distinctive features of the the part of muhammad said that's why takara himself was called the part of mahamsa he didn't go around wearing garuwa putting marks on his head in fact it was just the opposite in those days for asadu to to wear slippers and to have a shirt and keep his hair at a medium length and a beard have a part and barber cut it and every these these were not standard things he remained hidden so the part of muhammad said a little bit of a hidden yogi but it's a state of perfection a very high state the part of mohammed's estate considered the highest so he used to call say this niti obalt he was in the state of the paramahamsa but we'll see that even then he he would warn this nitigopal about certain things after nitigol pal had finished eating the master took him aside and gave him various instructions now we were introduced to this topic last week and i said that there would be more to it this is about uh the relationship that nitigopal had with his woman devotee certain woman about 31 years old and a great devotee often visited sriami krishna and held him in high respect she had been much impressed by nitigopa's spiritual state and looking upon him as her own son often invited him to her house so she she had this attitude this what saliyah bhava attitude now there are two there were two different groups uh this this is probably not so much a group but one of them where they practiced this madhur bhava and that would be men and women together and takoro said that yes it's a very nice attitude if it can be done really with a husband and wife and and with a very high mood and and with an exclusive relationship without anybody else but when it's just male devotee female devotee that every chance that they'll fall from this very high ideal so he warned against that then this other one for somebody uh if if it's a woman looking upon a small child and and and feeling that this is a gopal and feeding the child that's one thing but a 23 year old boy not a boy a man 23 year old if she's doing all of these things and for who knows maybe he wants him to sit on her lap and all of that he warned him that anything may happen so master tunity gopal do you go there like a child yes i do she takes me so he's not claiming much responsibility that he was like that if people said do this he would do that he he was a very simple that way master beware holy man shaadu shabdhan he used to use this expression go there once in a great wild but not frequently otherwise you will slip from the ideal maya is nothing but lust and gold a holy man must live away from from woman all sink there see this 23 years old and unmarried in those days didn't necessarily mean but quite often would mean that would remain unmarried generally the marriages were arranged at a younger age at that time and he had no inclination towards marriage and taku looked upon him as the future sanyasi the paramahamsa so he's he's giving him advice that he won't give to the others but as somebody who wants to lead a monastic life he said be very cautious about that all sink there even brahma and vishnu struggle for life in that whirlpool nitigopa listened to these words attentively m to himself how strange this young man has developed the state of paramahamsa that is what the master says now and then is there still the possibility of his falling into danger in spite of his high spiritual state now the others uh swamiji and the others they were not so impressed with this nitigopal and perhaps wondered why thakur thought so highly of him but also also recognized that thakur himself is warning him so he he was in the state of the para mahanta sometimes so it didn't mean that he was fully established in that and wasn't really part of the inner circle this was the thing that when tucker had his throat cancer and was staying in kashipur this was the sifting of the devotees they used this term sifting that means that someone would fall through the sieve they would be the uh the intimate inner circle desire but then which really we could really see who belonged to that inner circle and the ones that didn't make it through they would be devotees they would come they would inquire they would have regard for srama krishna but not that intimate relationship this nithy gopal he really didn't become one of that inner circle and bhavanath who seemed to belong to it fully in the beginning seem to to drift away a little bit at the end everyone noticed it taco himself so this is a m again thinking to himself what an aust an austere rule is laid down for a sadhu see this wasn't just krishna and we'll we'll see that caitanya deva was even stricter he was very very strict with with this idea i'm not having any association for the monastics with with women whatsoever holy mother was very strict with uh with some of the women devotees also and you know she said to uh was it uh devi who became part of deepana she was a child widow she said even if god comes in the form of a man don't look don't look at his face so she was warning him the same the same way so it's not just just for men this was this was that idea that see the human constitution is such that there's a natural attraction that's all and it's not a good thing or a bad thing it's a natural type of thing but if one wants to lead a spiritual life then one has to fight against this natural attack attraction swamiji was very fond of saying that spiritual life means fighting nature fighting nature whatever inclination we have for enjoyment that will pull the mind away from god we have to fight against that and taco is a very simple thing don't place yourself in it in the situation where temptation will be there remove yourself from that situation it'll make it much easier what an austere rule i am thinking to himself is laid down for asatu he may slip from his ideal by associating intimately with women how can an ordinary man expect to attain liberation unless such a high ideal is set by holy men this is another thing that tucker used to say even with himself he said for for himself he had no no possible danger of having any type of fall in fact he liked the company of the women devotees he was would sing for them and and laugh and everything enjoy but if others were there and there were women there he would he would say that after a while i'll ask them to go visit their temples and if they don't want to do that he himself would leave because he knew that he was setting the the example now i understand why m to himself caitanya punished his disciple the younger hadidas this was a very famous incident in the life of chaitanya deva so severely he was a young future monastic and one day he he took food from the elderly very pious elderly brahmin widow and got kicked out because of that because takur told him that caitanya david had told him not to uh to have any contact with women at all uh in spite of his teacher's prohibition hadidas conversed with the widow devotee but he was a sannyasi therefore caitanya banished him see he wasn't allowed to come to mix with any of the disciples or devotees what a severe punishment how hard is the rule for one who has accepted the life of renunciation again what love the master cherishes for his devotee he is warning him even now lest he should run into danger in the future beware holy man these words of the master echoed in the hearts of the devotees like the distant rumbling of thunder the master went with the devotees to the north east veranda of his room among them was a householder from the village of daksheniswa who studied vedanta philosophy at home he had been just discussing om with kedar we met kedar before decatur not he was interested in everything uh he takwa said at one time what was it he likes to draw water for many whales some he used some some expression like that uh he used to go to court and but very very devoted to takur he had been discussing with kedor before the master he said this eternal word the anahata is the only sound that's not the result of one thing striking another every sound is the result of uh either the with the vocal cords or if it's a drum or anything like that one thing strikes something and some vibration comes it hits the ear and that's the sound om is the only sound it's not like that it's it comes it's this the initial sound of brahman the one with the brahmin and the other lots of philosophical ideas about this this eternal word the anaheid is ever present both within and without many people can hear that he went to a period where he could hear taqwa could hear it music of the spheres they say sometimes or that the sound that that word or sound from which creation itself comes to shove the brahman master but the word is not enough now takur always likes to push the other side of things so the people don't become too one-sided and they see both sides of a situation in both positions because many times he'll say yes repeating the name of rama very good that's what he teaches this is enough but now he's saying there must be something indicated by the word so there's the word and the what is referenced by the word so we have the word chair if we don't know what a chair is then repeating the word chair doesn't mean anything to us we have to know what the the reference is parity padilla there will be something that it stands for that it represents so he says there must be something indicated by the word can your name alone make me happy unless we know the person some somebody tells us somebody's name we don't know who the the person it doesn't mean anything complete happiness is not possible for me unless i see you devotee the eternal word itself is brahman and now this is this is a good explanation because om doesn't stand for anything other than itself it is roman it's not a reference it doesn't have a meaning the way other words have a meaning that it's there there's no second thing that it indicates if we say it indicates the brahmin but it is brahman it's the sound itself is supposed to be identical with the brahmin not a conventional word that stands for brahman this is the theory behind it master du quedor oh don't you understand he upholds the doctrine of the rishis of old end times they once said to rama because what he's saying is that it doesn't stand for god or any personal god that is infinite absolute this transcended reality with no name and no form or anything so the real standpoint of the gyani so he upholds the doctrine of the rishis of olden times they once said to rama o rama we know you only as the son of da sharata let's say just like bharadwaja worship you as god incarnate we want to realize brahman the individual existence knowledge of this absolute at these words rama smiled and went away so he was fine with that that's okay but when god comes in human form when a soul like ram is born and they don't recognize him or they don't take advantage of him or think of him only as having taken human birth and then they're missing out on this joy that will come through the realization and understanding master seriously oh sorry then kedar says those rishis could not recognize rama as an incarnation of god they must have been fools that cater sometimes he speaks without thinking too much master seriously please don't say such a thing people worship god according to their tastes and temperaments so now we're getting the very liberal doctrine the mother cooks the same fish differently for her children that each one may have what suits his stomach so now he's going to back this this other devotee this is his attitude as a good attitude it may not be your attitude it may not be full fledge understanding god in every possible way but one can realize god this way also the mother cooks the same fish differently for her children that each one may have what suits his stomach for some she cooks the rich dish of palau but not all the children can digest it for those with weak stomachs she prepares soup some again like fried fish or pickled fish it depends on one's taste the rishis follow the path of guyana of knowledge therefore they sought to realize brahman the indivisible existence knowledge bliss absolute but those who follow the path of devotion seek an incarnation of god to enjoy the sweetness of bhakti now in sram krishna's case he worshiped the divine mother that was his form of bhakti not that he didn't accept the avatars but in general most of the of the devotional movements revolve around this idea of the avatar the worship of rama and krishna especially the darkness of the mind disappears when god is realized in the purana it is said that it was as if a hundred suns were shining when rama entered the court why then weren't the courtyards burned up it was because the brilliance of rama was not like that of a material object as the lotus blooms when the sun rises so the lotus of the heart of the people assembled in the court burst into blossom as the master uttered these words standing before the devotees he suddenly fell into an ecstatic mood his mind was withdrawn from external objects no sooner did he say the lotus of the heart burst into blossom then he went into deep samadhi he stood motionless his countenance beaming and his lips parted in a smile good we can stop with this image in our minds of taco on his birthday with all the devotees there in this ecstatic mood and everyone enjoying the bliss of taqwa's presence and of they were all friends and even related to each other so it was really a very wonderful thing to to meditate on and to reflect on this is this is one of the things when we read the gospel of swami krishna it's not just for the teachings is to to reenact this play that actually happened that took took place to recreate that and and to relive it and to feel that we're there with them and we're there on taco's birthday today so a very nice day for that okay let this close with our chant bhaktan [Music] we bow our heads before srama 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 be unto us thank you