Video 50

The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna read by Swami Atmajnanananda (03/26/21)

[Music] 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 the chapter advice to brahmos page 200 and the date is sunday april 8 1883. it was sunday morning the master looking like a boy was seated in his room and near him was another boy his beloved disciple rakal em entered and saluted the master ram lal also was in the room and kishori ki city is probably m's younger brother i think there was a second kishari but uh em never mentions the fact that he's his brother throughout the entire gospel of swami krishna he's very careful not to bring any any family issues when family issues come up he doesn't even he'll use a second nickname not the m something else uh money mohini or something like that so ramallah was also in the room and kishari and several other devotees gathered by and by manila malik a businessman had recently been to benares where he owned a bungalow master so you have been to benares did you see any holy men there manilal yes sir i paid my respects to trailanga swami bhaskaran and others were the two very famous well-known sadhus in benares that almost everybody went to see and this talailangaswami he was very well known in other traditions also i read some things about him years ago about he was supposed to have lived 300 years all sorts of things nobody knew too much about him probably they say that his name was really tailanga that he was a telugu telegu man who had come up to the north uh somehow it became this trilanga which sounds like a good sanskrit word but i'm not sure that it means anything actually in sanford so probably he was a telego man but he didn't speak most of the time he remained silent uh holy mother also met him huh and maybe bhaskar and many of many of those who went uh they both stayed in different places right on the ganga the different bathing gods in benares there are all sorts of places where sadhus can stay it's really a city for sadhus and very easy for them to to get their their food and lodging and everything people would have uh garden houses and things and they would simply let us come and live in the garden area or gordon house or something without bothering them at all it'd be very convenient for them master tell us something about them manila is living in the same temple where he lived before on the money karnika ghat near the vanimaddha minaret manikonika ghat is of course the famous cremation ground and they say for i don't know how many centuries that there's never a moment when there's not a body being burned but there'll be three or four at a time so as one finishes there'll be another one going on my first trip to india i went i went to benares i stayed in a very nice place there was a burmese buddhist vihar that i could stay just as a as a guest they had their their own guest house there so i stayed there and i used to walk to the ganga every day and take my bath there and and i just didn't enjoy the different places there and one night i decided to spend the the night whole night at the money karnika got watching the bodies burn it sounds a little bit odd but it was very inspiring experience and it gives great dispassion this is why many sadhus will meditate in a cremation ground and you really get this feeling this this body is not the person and how temporary life is and how one after another bodies are being burned so he had his place there people say he was formerly in a more exalted spiritual state he could perform any miracles now he has lost much of that power master that is the criticism of worldly people manila swami keeps a strict vow of silence unlike him is friendly with all master did you have any conversation with manila yes sir we had a long talk among other things we discussed the problem of good and evil he said to me don't follow the path of evil give up sinful thoughts that is how god wants us to act perform only those duties that are virtuous very simple very simple type of instruction master yes that is also a path meant for worldly minded people probably he knew that this manila was also a worldly minded person even though he's a devotee but uh we can assume that the bhaskaran was a man of great renunciation and had done a lot of tapasya's spiritual practice but anyhow this is the advice that he gave to him so he says that yes that is also a path meant for worldly minded people but those whose spiritual consciousness has been awakened who have realized that god alone is real and all else illusory cherish a different ideal they are aware the god alone is the doer and others are his instruments those whose spiritual consciousness has been awakened never make a false step this was one of the special teachings of swami krishna he would give the illustration of of a musician or a dancer that we see these these great artists who whatever they do it'll it'll be beautiful i i always remember he is the artist so many of the paintings in our center he was a fantastic artist and i used to marvel at him because sometimes he would have to do a little sketch or i would i would ask him he'd give me a project to do and and he would make a little drawing even making a little square a rectangle it looked like a work of art it looked like picasso had get something you know he did a few things like that on a napkin or something it was it was almost impossible for him to do something that didn't look artistic so this is what tucker is saying because we read that god realized soul is beyond good and evil they can do whatever they want and nothing will touch them and many sadhus will say that they can even do unethical things immoral types of things and say these things don't touch me i mean i've realized god no taco will say that yes these things won't touch them but if they've really realized god it won't be in their nature to do it not that they couldn't do anything with the feeling that i'm not the doer and they wouldn't get the karma for it but it's impossible the mind has been changed they're full of satwa at that point so this is what it means that they won't take a false step this expert dancer they won't miss a beat everything will be in tune with nature and harmony even by accident they won't do something wrong so those whose spiritual consciousness has been awakened never make a false step they do not have to reason in order to shun evil they are so full of love of god that what whatever action they undertake is a good action and everything is for the welfare of others whatever they do is to set an example for others and it's for the benefit of others they're fully conscious that they are not the doers of their actions but mere servants of god they always feel i am the machine and he is the operator i do as he does through me i speak as he speaks through me i move as he moves me now this is something that takur talks about all of the time there are different songs kamala kanto's songs famous ram prasad song where we read that this is one type of spiritual attitude but it's more than a spiritual attitude this is actually the result of realization and we we have to make sure that if we do it as a spiritual attitude we understand that it requires us to eliminate all selfish motive from everything if we want to be able to say that i do as god makes me do then i have to make sure that this ego isn't intruding this was the big dilemma that girish ghost faced he was given an instruction like this gives the lord your power of attorney as a sadhana which is different as a sadhana very few people can do it it becomes a little bit hypocritical unless every moment we analyze the mind and is there some hidden mode of some selfishness behind it otherwise to do whatever we want to do and then let's say it's the will of god it becomes a type of hypocrisy and tucker also says that but he nevertheless will say that this is the highest ideal and those who have that highest type of realization this is how they feel because there's no i left if there's no i left then who is it who can be the doer of action so for takur we see it manifest in two different ways if he had a little bit of sense of i then it was i do as mother makes me do if even that disappears then there's a mother speaking through me either she's telling him what to say or she herself is speaking through him not much difference but we can see that one is an even higher level we were reading this morning from the gospel that taqwa says sometimes i look within i see two are there i see divine mother is there and her child is there the devotee that means me so some slight sense of distinction and and the separation is there uh in that case then the devotee will say i'll do whatever mother wants me to do can't have that type of attitude then taker says sometimes this i disappears completely and mother alone is there then who is there to even say i do as mother makes me do everything is the will of of god or i do as the wind blows this is how i i act like the dry leaf in the wind this is the other attitude that just whatever past karma may be there uh will or whatever circumstances lead me to do one thing or another i won't make any decisions i won't do anything on my own this is another type of spiritual attitude so it says they always feel now he's talking about those whose spiritual consciousness has been awakened either god realized those are very highly spiritual souls they always feel i am the machine and he is the operator i do as he does through me i speak as he speaks through me i move as he moves me this is an ideal that we can appreciate and we can see the beauty of it but in the beginning of spiritual life better to take responsibility for her actions yes i did it if it was good thank god if it was a bad i'm sorry i won't try to do it again it's safer type of attitude for the awakened souls are beyond virtue and vice they realize that it is god who does everything so now he's not simply saying those whose spiritual consciousness has been awakened he's saying fully awakened souls so it's raised to even a higher level beyond virtue and vice they don't have to worry am i doing something according to scripture this isn't harming this is a dharmic because automatically whatever they do is good it's not that they can commit evil things and and they won't be touched by it the if we if we want to make a slight distinction and we want to say that killing people in battle is evil and that sri krishna is telling arjuna to do that that of course it's for the sake of dharma but just for the sake of argument no karma will cling to sri krishna because he knows he's not the agent of action even though he knows he's an avatar also but it has to be for the sake of dharma something like that otherwise not out of the desire for worldly possession or anything else there was a monastery in a certain place the monks residing there went out daily to bake their food one day a monk while out for his arms saw a landlord beating a man mercilessly the compassionate monk stepped in and asked the landlord to stop but the landlord was filled with anger and turned his wrath against the innocent monk he beat the monk till he fell unconscious on the ground someone reported the matter to the monastery the monks ran to the spot and found their brother lying there four or five of them carried him back and laid him on a bed he was still unconscious the other monks sat around him sat hard some were fanning him finally someone suggested that he should be given a little milk to drink when it was poured into his mouth he regained consciousness he opened his eyes and looked around one of the monks said let us see whether he is fully conscious and can recognize us shouting into his ear he said revered sir who is giving you milk brother replied the holy man in a low voice he who beat me is now giving me milk that means he sees the same self in all beings makes no distinction between a good person and a bad person that the same divine presence is within all so this was an example we have we have examples there's one story of one one sadhu well-known story it was at the time of what they called a mutiny that was actually a rebellion not really a mutiny but uh as as he was dying uh he said tatumasi that word that something like that so uh this is a sign of of the highest knowledge first of all not not just seeing the self and all but absolutely free from from anger huh we would naturally expect that somebody beat him so badly beat him unconscious that he would have some anger or some resentment some hatred towards him but one does not attain such a state of mind without the realization of god so we we have to understand some spiritual attitudes and spiritual moods come after god realization some are used in order to realize god some can be used to realize god but we have to understand that we're superimposing an attitude uses that expression that we're trying to imagine that we're that type of person we're trying to feel how would this great sadhu react somebody strikes me and i say i'm not angry i may be angry inside but trying to tell myself so that i really won't be angry to teach myself that we adopt that type of spiritual attitude this can also be done but we have to realize that it becomes real and spontaneous after god's realization different the same thing with what we call the ripe ego this ripe ego is used at the time of sadhana that we we adopt it we take it on we make let that be our persona i may not feel it 100 but i try to keep telling myself that i can't claim credit for anything because i'm the servant of god that i have to feel that whatever i'm doing is not for my sake but for the master and every time we fail and do something selfishly we have to remind ourselves so this is a mood attitude that we adopt or any other other bhava for the sake of spiritualization of sadhana after having the highest realization when the mind comes back down then we also live in a world with some type of spiritual attitude and relationship and that's a different type of dasami taco says that i am the servant of god or the child of god that's the something that we really feel to be true and which we need in order to live in the world it's not in order to take us higher again it's it's in order to keep the mind on the lower level because once anyone experiences that that highest type of of samathi the pull is so great that most people can't resist it the very few can come down this is why tucker is constantly trying to keep his mind on a lower plane so ibrahimonda people would wonder why he's always laughing and joking with kids and fishing and all of that he had to try to keep his mind down he was very similar to swami krishna in that way manila sir what you have just said applies to a man of a very lofty spiritual state i talked on such topics in a general way with the bhaskarananda so he's saying don't think that bhaskaran they simply said avoid evil lead a good life and didn't give anything any more helpful in spiritual life anything more sophisticated or subtle that he must have said other things also master does he live in a house manila yes sir he lives with the devotee master how old is he manila about 55 master did you talk about anything else manila i asked him how to cultivate bhakti he said chant the name of god repeat the name of rama another very simple thing either either he is also a very simple child like nature or he knows he can't give anything he can't tell his money lol you you do japa ten thousand times a day that it won't help him anyhow takur likes it and master says that is very good the worship was over in the temples and the bells rang for the food offerings in the shrines as it was a summer noon the sun was very hot the flood tide began in the ganges and a breeze came up from the south srama krishna was resting in his room after his meal the people of boshirhat rakhal's birthplace had been suffering from a severe drought during the summer months we know his birthplace is shikura kulingram which i think is probably this is bashir had maybe is a larger area and she is it is a smaller village area our swami sarve devarandiji was there for many years and was so beloved that when he left when he was transferred to uh california to hollywood and had to leave there that literally the devotees were weeping and i had the great fortune of of going to the sheikh rakulingram the the birthplace of raqqa which is now one of our centers and uh going there with swami sarvadevan and and witnessing how after so many years that so many people still remember him and he started all different types of relief work and a small orphanage and and these different village uh schools ended shunderbon area and a very poor area with some tribal people and others and very hard to get to we had to go by boat to some of the places remote village areas and doing fantastic work there there's all these dedicated volunteer teachers and all these these children especially girls who probably no one in their family had ever gone to school before i'm quite sure even many of the boys at a young age they're poor people they have to go out and even children have to work so it was very nice to see see that area it's very beautiful beautiful you want to see beautiful village areas of bengal go to the chunderbon area we went on the same trip to a place called shomeshar this is the birthplace of that was really a gorgeous village this uh i love the villages of india they're so quiet and serene the people are so simple it's a very nice experience master to manila raccal says that the people in this native village have been suffering seriously from a scarcity of water why don't you build a reservoir there this was something that was a very standard thing people with money they would build a road in villages that didn't have roads or they would build dig a reservoir for areas where they had trouble with with a drought or they would have a feeding place for monks or a place where they could stay these were all very standard things that wealthy people would do in order to get punya together we read about it even in the upanishads and so taco is recommending that for him for one thing he's a wealthy man there's manila and it'll be good for him to do that type of work and on the other hand there's a need for it we we forget how how compassionate taqwa was because very often he's telling people don't get too involved in charity work this and that realize god first and but his he had a very tender heart and whenever he he heard of anything like that people suffering from drought that he would try to do if he could easily get have something done he would try to do it so he says why don't you build a reservoir there that will do the people good smiling you have much so much money what will you do with all your wealth but they say that telis are very calculating italy is the certain caste in india the people who make oil so if you if you go to india you'll see sometimes especially bengal all these seeds mustard seeds other types of seeds drying out in the sun and then they'll collect them later and they'll grind them and they'll make oil and they'll sell them and they can become pretty wealthy through all of this and they have a reputation for being a little miserly so tucker is poking him a little bit we don't know why exactly but it's an interesting incident that takes place here but they tell me the teles are very calculating all laugh so now he's a little embarrassed italy it's also not a very high caste they they'll be considered they may be wealthy but they'll be a little rustic or they won't be considered very sophisticated people and again miserly manila was truly a calculating man though he suffered no lack of money this is m speaking in later years he set up an endowment of 25 000 rupees for the maintenance of poor students so who knows if it wasn't this little poking this uh what taco said here that awakened this in him you uh you know the story of uh rockefeller that some people question whether it actually actually took place or not but it certainly sounds quite possible to me that when swamiji was in chicago there were many well-to-do people that came to see him because they were the circles he was traveling in they were the ones who would come to the lectures and things highly educated people well-to-do people and it said that one day the rockefeller came to meet swamiji they had some type of conversation or something and swamiji said to him you have so much money why don't you do something to help people like that he got offended and then he left and he must have thought about it and he came back and he wrote a big check i think that he was the founder of the university of chicago it may have been for that very big check and he wanted to show swamiji that he was going to give some money because he was so fabulously wealthy and he said swamiji are you going to thank me now for this and he hardly looked up maybe he barely looked up and said it is for you to thank me so this is for the money love to thank takur that it's a great blessing and privilege to be able to serve others they say if you have money then give money if you don't do japa there's a holy mother like that that expression manila was truly a calculator oh sorry manila made no answer to these words of the master about his cast characteristics he stood a little bit in silence later on in the course of conversation he remarked casually sir you referred to a reservoir you might as well have combined yourself to that suggestion why allude to the oil man cast and all that some of the devotees smiled to themselves the master left presently a few elderly members of the brahma-samaj arrived the room was full of devotees srama krishna was sitting on his bed facing the north he kept smiling and talked to the brahmo devotees in a joyous mood most of the time he faces north that's because more people can be sitting in the area uh against the back wall facing the bed south that way but i always remember that uh when em went the very first time and he walked through the the door from the inside of the courtyard that taco was facing east as if waiting for him to come so when he walked in and taku could see him entering through the door he kept smiling and talking to the brahma devotees in a joyous mood master you talk glibly about prima prema is a very high state of love of god this bhakti is devotion will be even something more the real real full uh deep type of of love that it fills one very this this divine type of love so many songs are written about it and and people talk about it but it's a very rare thing you talk glibly about prema but is it such a commonplace thing now he's talking to the brahmo members i don't know why specifically but of course there are others in the room as well there are two characteristics of prema first it makes one forget the world so intense is one's love of god that one becomes unconscious of other things forget the world we can understand this two ways one that the world becomes something insignificant the other is that even to this premier one can achieve these states of bhava and ecstasy and samadhi even so that one is not even aware of anything else he'll give examples caitanya had this ecstatic love he took a and this is a quote many songs are written about this he took a word for the sacred grove of vrindavan and the ocean for the dark waters of the yamuna there were a couple of instances when caitanya david was in puri for where he stayed it was right by the the ocean and walking along the beach and seeing the waters of the ocean he was reminded of the yamana and thought of sri krishna this is what's called udipana and this is the the characteristics that takara had in common with the caitanya deva very very similar and of course we read about it with radha also and his mind was so immersed with its idea that this is the yamana and sri krishna would would graze cattle on the banks of the yamuna that he entered into the water and practically drowned and in one case the fishermen had to fish them out of their nets the way they throw out the net to catch the fish they brought him back and one theory is that possibly this is how he died also because the body was never found we don't know exactly how he died a very pious version of his belief that he merged in the image of juggernaut inside the temple others had this other theory is also there nobody knows exactly what happened but we do know that he had that characteristic that that quality of association that uh seeing something would trigger there's a divine thought in the mind and then he would no longer see he would no longer be seeing the ocean he's seeing jamuna that radha was no longer seeing the peacock with the tail feathers up she was saying sri krishna himself because he kept a peacock in his in his headdress or the dark rain cloud not seeing the dark rain clouds anymore seeing krishna second one is no feeling of mine is toward the body which is so dear to a person one holy gets rid of the feeling that the body is the soul so this comes suprema these are the same things that will come through guyana also so this is this is where the path of of love and the path of knowledge path of devotion and knowledge where they'll dovetail we'll have see the same types of very positive spiritual effect from these two different types of causes there are certain signs of god realization the man in whom longing for god manifests its glory is not far from attaining him so we look for for road signs milestones these the divine qualities will start to manifest we read in in gita about this uh in the asura that this is love and devotion and calmness and same-sidedness all of these things are considered divine qualities that belong to god we can say brahman makes no distinction brahman is equal calm the same everywhere when we see those characteristics in the devotee then we know that they're close to attaining what are the glories of that longing they are discrimination dispassion compassion for living beings serving holy men loving their company chanting the names and glories of god telling the truth and the like this is all the david sampad this is the treasures of this this very saturated divine type of personality that we can develop when we lead a spiritual life these are ways that we can recognize in other people also we want to know how to how to tell if someone is a real holy person or not that we have to see that they have this discrimination dispassion compassion for living beings serving holy men loving their company chanting the names and glories of god telling the truth and the like the state of a servant house will tell you unmistakably whether his master has decided to visit it first the rubbish and jungle around the house are cleared up second the soot and dirt are removed from the rooms third the courtyard floors and other places are swept clean finally the master himself sends various things to the house such as a carpet a hubble bubble for smoking and the like when you see these things arriving you conclude that the master will very soon come we read about this example as one type of grace and there's there's a very final ultimate grace that we all know we when we think of grace we think that some enlightenment comes that god reaches out and touches us we have some direct experience but this is the the first type of grace we read in vivek true dominion the three different types that even getting this human birth is due to the grace of god having this longing for realization the grace of god finding a real spiritual teacher all through the grace of god so talker gives this illustration that in order for god to enter into our hearts of course god is always there but to manifest for us to realize that the heart has to first be purified so if this grace is to come this initial grace comes so tucker says that there's a king and he and he tells his ministers i'd like to visit a home of one of the subjects in my kingdom just to see how they're doing how the ordinary people live are they suffering too much are they struggling getting enough food this and that so they said very good and the king said pick one family so they pick one family and the ministers go and they say that it needs to be cleaned up there's a little bit dirty that there's no no furniture there if the king actually comes there's no place for him to sit if they want to serve him tea there's no nice tea set so they spend a little time there getting their workers there cleaning up repairing things getting some nice furniture everything so that when the king comes he'll feel comfortable there that everything will be pre-arranged so that'll be the final grace the first is that initial grace and when we see that we know that ultimately that the king himself will come so this is what tucker says when you see these things arriving you conclude that the master will very soon come when we see these divine qualities manifesting an individual we can we can have that faith that they're very close to god realization a devotee sir should one first practice discrimination to attain self-control tucker always uh gives us the easy way to do things in order to control ourselves if we just use the strength of the mind the will of power to discriminate and say uh this won't be helpful to me even though i like it so i should give it up and then it'll be a bit of a struggle but if there's a simple way to do it so that we drop things off they they leave us that uh rather than fight the desire for something get something that's that's more appealing to us and then the desire for the other thing drops off that was the way he generally liked to do things to give us the easier way and more efficient way of doing it so he says that is also a path it is called the path of each other reasoning but the inner organs there's a footnote this is referring to the mind and the intellect is what we call the manuscript this uh it really means that all the functioning of the mind the mind itself the inner organs are brought under control naturally through the path of devotion as well it is rather easily accomplished that way sense pleasures appear more and more tasteless as love for god grows so this is why tako used to say you simply you want to leave the west just start walking towards the east automatically you'll leave it behind so fix your mind on something higher replace the desire for worldly things with a desire for god which is a far more adorable object of of our love and and desire than anything in the world sense pleasures appear more and more tasteless as love for god grows can carnal pleasure attract a great streak grief stricken man and woman the day their child has died devotee how can i develop love for god it's a very good question because what do we know of god even even somebody that we know and another person to develop love for them is not a simple thing unless they have that personality unless they feel attracted to us and we have intimate conversation with them but we're talking about something so subtle and what do we know about god to say that yes oh i love god god is love some people may be born with that but most people taking the spiritual life if there's something tangible this is this is why the whole hindu tradition gives us so many different quranic stories and and uh what we read in ramayana and mahabharata different different intimate different ways the bhagavad gita to picture god picture god in a lovable form if we're very maternal in nature we picture god as a baby krishna that way we can love we can love god the way that a mother loves a child because we know that we know that the love that a mother has for a child and that simply has to be transferred we know how much joy we had from our friends when we were when we were young when we're 8 9 10 11 12 years old how we love our friends i just want to stay with them and play with them and everything so we're told you want to love god picture god as a friend and try to develop love that way otherwise if we just say god is infinite absolute reality how do we love that infinite absolute reality or our very own self okay that's good my very own self what does it mean to love myself i'm not talking about my personality i'm talking about that that witnessing consciousness it's not really very easy to think how do we do it so it's an interesting question a good question and remember that the brahmos had come so perhaps this is this is a brahmo devotee who doesn't like to think of god with form and even the attributes of god will be very vague things yes god is all love god is all compassion god is all mercy it's not a personality type thing we fall in love with the personality so it's a good question the master repeat his name so again very simple thing repeat his name and sins will disappear thus you will destroy lust anger the desire for creature comfort and so on okay now devotee is saying okay i'm asking you how to love god and then you say repeat his name now i have to ask well what good will that do and and how do i learn to even enjoy repeating the name of god namiruchi how do i get the taste for the name of god you say repeat the name of god uh we read about uh dr shorkar at one time yes he gets a little fed up with the conversa conversation they're talking about repeating rama or something he says why not repeat sundesh sunday sunday for if we have no love then just repeating the name what good will it do so the devotee says how can i take the light in god's name master pray to god with the yearning heart that you may take delight in his name we pray for that o lord please give me a taste for your name and we have to do it over and over again one of the one of the most beautiful and uh really really subtle teachings of the gita is that the highest type of happiness won't be appealing to us when we first taste it shri krishna goes so far is to say that it may taste like poison to us in the beginning but if we if we keep at it we keep doing it we keep trying it we keep tasting it we start to develop a little taste for it and at the end it tastes like amrita it tastes like nectar so this is this is one of the distinguishing characteristics of satwik happiness that in the beginning we may not get much joy out of it we may do it mechanically just repeating the name but through if we do it with some sincerity and with prayer and and with a little whatever little devotion we have this taste will come taste for the name of god pray to god with the yearning heart that you may take delight in his name he will certainly fulfill your heart's desire so saying the master sang a song in his sweet voice pleading with the divine mother to show her grace to suffering men takwa's voice we wonder what his voice sounded like i remember reading that m said that he had never heard such a sweet voice as a taqwa's voice and this i talk about our swami permission quite a bit he was a great disciple of holy mother and they wrote so many songs he also had a beautiful voice he and pramesh maharaj was very close to him so m said that his was the second sweetest voice that he had heard and then he had swamiji also swamiji had it probably from what we hear a deeper voice a baritone type of voice but takur must have had a beautiful voice very sweet voice and holy mother she would sing very softly because she was so shy but they say she also had a beautiful voice would be nice huh if we had recordings of taqwa singing or holy mother singing swamiji so saying the master sang a song in his sweet voice pleading with the divine mother to show her grace to suffering men o mother i have no one else to blame alas i sink in the well these very hands have dug we create our own problems with the six passions for my spade i dug a pit in the sacred land of earth and now the dark water of death gushes forth how can i save myself o my redeemer surely i have been my own enemy how can i now ward off this dark water of death behold the waters rise to my chest how can i save myself o mother save me thou art my only refuge with thy protecting glance take me across to the other shore of the world then the master continues he's saying again what a delirious fever is this that i suffer from o mother thy grace is my only cure false pride is the fever that wracks my wasted form i and mine are my cry oh what a wicked delusion my quenchless thirst for wealth and friends is never ceasing how then shall i sustain my life talk about things unreal that is my wretched delirium and i indulge in it always o giver of all good fortune my eyes and seeming sleep are closed my stomach is filled with the vile worms of cruelty alas i wander about absorbed in unmeaning deeds even for thy holy name i have no taste oh mother this is what triggered the song and tuck was mine probably even for thy holy name i have no taste oh mother i doubt that i shall ever be cured of this malady this is talk we're saying the type of disease that there are certain types of illnesses covet 19 this is this is one of the symptoms that many people get they lose taste the taste buds don't function they lose their taste for food not just their appetite but it doesn't taste good they they won't be able to tell if something is well cooked or bad or sweet or anything so as a type of malady type of disease the devotee will say that other people won't care i've been no taste for the name of god so what i have better things to do but an individual who wants to feel that to feel the joy of repeating the name of god this is a sign of devotion to pray this longing longing for devotion is a sign of devotion longing for the ability to enjoy the taste of the name of god is a sign of devotion this is also a part of that yearning not simply yearning for god realization and god vision but yearning to be able to have that desire if we don't have the desire for god realization we can pray for the desire for god realization or the desire for for bhakti and prema then the master said even for thy holy name i have no taste a typhoid patient has very little chance of recovery if he loses all taste for food but his life need not be despaired if he enjoys food even at little that is why one should cultivate a taste for god's name how do we do it we repeat it not only do we repeat it but whatever name we repeat we try to think about the personality behind it we try to read about it we repeat the name of krishna we read the bhagavata we read about all the incidents we repeat the name we picture this with radha and the other gopis uh all of the things will bring tremendous light and joy to the heart so this this is this question of practice we wonder how can something so wonderful as love of god come from dry mechanical practice we know their choice it starts out as dry and mechanical but it gets sweeter and sweeter as we keep keep continuing with that practice that is why one should cultivate a taste for god's name any name will do durga krishna or shiva then if through the chanting of the name one's attachment to god grows day by day and joy fills the soul one has nothing to fear so this is another stage when we develop this namiruchi this taste for the name of god then we've reached more of a kind of a safe plateau of course we have to keep going higher and higher but we we go to different levels from which we shouldn't worry about falling back again now i've reached this this stage where i love to do spiritual practice i love to repeat the name of god it's a good sign this is this is like the woodcutter saying okay now i see that there is a sandalwood forest that doesn't mean i've reached the end of it i go a little further there's a silver mine i go a little further a gold mine then i have to keep going further until i get to the diamond mine i get to the very end of it but this is definitely a stage positive stage and a very good sign of progress when we get the taste for the name of god the delirium will certainly disappear he's talking about the delirium of the typhoid patient being like the delirium that we have with this deluded by this world bewitching maya and the lure of sense enjoyment and worldly pleasure and name and fame and everything else the delirium will certainly disappear the grace of god will certainly descend as is a man's feeling of love so is this again bahab tim nilab i i i understand how difficult it is to translate this term bhav because there's so many different meanings but i like to think of this as as is one's attitude so it's one's gain it fits in better but this love aspect has to be there also so whatever our spiritual attitude is if there's love behind it then we'll we'll get the benefit of it so this this is also an important element but i it refers to almost anything if uh if jamal bahab tamnilab if if our if our attitude is that i'm free already then we'll get the benefit of that even the gyani can say that this is true two friends were going along the street when they saw some people listening to a reading of the bhagavata come friend said the one to the other let us hear the sacred book so saying he went in and went in and sat down the second man peeped in and went away he entered the house of ill fame but very soon he felt disgusted with the place shame on me he said to himself my friend has been listening to the sacred word of hari and see where i am but the friend who had been listening to the bhagavata also became disgusted what a fool i am he said i've been listening to this fellows blah blah and my friend is having a grand time in course of time they both died the messenger of death came for the soul of the one who had listened to the bhagavata and dragged it off to hell the messenger of god came for the soul of the one who had been to the house of prostitution and led it up to heaven then takwa says verily the lord looks into a man's heart and does not judge him by what he does or where he lives krishna accepts a devotee's inner feeling of love very famous statement so from this we can see that it was it was not exactly what they did but what was their their attitude what was in their heart what were they feeling at that time that one uh he's he's thinking of his friend and thinking of of how nice it would be to be listening to spiritual things the other is thinking of his other friend who's going to have a nice time there and the the gain is more for the one who is in the house of ill fame than it is for the other so this is why why tuck were saying that it's not externally what we do is it's what's really deep within our heart so it makes the difference in the karta bhaja sect this is a vaisnavas act that tries to utilize this madhur bhaga this love between radha and krishna and very often they'll kind of enact that type of of leela with the men and women together used to say that this is like entering the house through the back door through the through the paikana he would say this is not he said yes you can realize god this way possibly but it's not a very clean way to go into it he didn't recommend it very much but at the same time if there was anything positive positive in it that he would accept that this is the card this what is the other one uh there were several at that time and vaisnavchathan who was talk with a very good friend he was the leader of this karta bhaja and the other one is called begins with the b i think and they all can't think of it now so taco would often talk about some of their teachings in a very positive way and at the same time he would never recommend any of his disciples to go there and yet he went there just to see out of curiosity in the kartab sect the teacher while giving instruction says to the disciple now everything depends on your mind this is part of a song that the actual term that uses montour montour is a very colloquial way of saying mantra in bengali instead of mantra and it also means so now i've given the mantra now everything is up to your mind so a little play on words so tucker is saying that yes now it's up to you i've given you the tools i've given you the the seed now you have to grow that seed you have to cultivate it you have to make sure it grows into a big tree now everything depends on your mind according to this sect then this is a quote he who has the right mind finds the right way and accepts the right end it was through the power of his mind that hanuman leapt over the sea again jamal bhabta and nilab because he had that faith that was his attitude that tremendous faith that love if we want to say that he was able to have the results that he had i am the servant of rama i have repeated the holy name of rama is there anything impossible for me that was hanuman's faith ignorance lasts as long as one has ego there can be no liberation so long as the ego remains o god thou art the doer and not i that is knowledge we will stop here this of course is a very big subject because he he plays a trick on us he says that you can have god realization as long as the ego is there and then he says you can't get rid of the ego but then he gives us a way to get out of it that we need to develop this ripe ego anyhow we'll stop here this is page 204 and i'll give closing chant [Music] [Music] who was stainless of infinite nature whose heart melts in sympathy for his devotees who is an embodiment of the divine and the supreme lord and ever worthy of our worship um peace peace peace be on tour