Video 55

The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna read by Swami Atmajnanananda (05/07/21)

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 good morning no it should be good evening everyone it's actually morning for us but by the time this is posted it will be evening so anyhow welcome everyone to the class on the gospel of srama krishna we're on page 216 in the english translation and this is chapter 10 the master with the brahmo devotees part two the date is april 22nd 1883 and sramakrishna is in the garden house of bani madhav pal at sinti near calcutta and this is the occasion of the semi-annual festival of the brahma-samaj so many of the devotees of the brahma-samaj were present and sitting around the master and asking him questions so we stopped last time with the question brahmo sir is it good to worship god with form an image of the deity made of clay now i very briefly started this discussion last week but it's a big discussion so i thought we could start over with this saka worship this akata with with form has so many different meanings excuse me and when the the brahmos object to it they have a big objection to it it's almost invariably image worship but this is a very small part of what we mean by worship of god with form when trauma krishna talks about it is a very expansive view of it so and very brief we can say that the discussions are generally on on three or four different levels one is this idea of going into a temple and seeing an image made of stone made of clay it can be anthropomorphic or it can be on many many of the the images are simply natural things things we find in nature if you if you look at the three deities that are worshiped in trauma krsna's family home so the element of uh vishnu vaisnava worship is there with raghu here rauku here is not a picture of rama it's a stone a shalagram and then shiva is worshipped there it's not a picture of shiva it's a shiva lingam also a stone and then shitala is worshiped and it's not a goddess it's it's a picture of water yeah so uh this this image worship it wasn't always with some anthropomorphic image but some type of symbol will be there so this is one type of worship the promise were deadly against it so much so that you had to sign a form you had to make a pledge uh if you wanted to join the brahmos homage that you wouldn't participate in any of that type of image worship or idolatry even to go into a temple and bow down before an image and wave incense and do all of that they thought that was some somehow barbaric that because partly because this was the the uh attitude that the british had and remember this is british india at that time and the brahmos were highly educated people they thought themselves to be educated people and modern people and westernized to a large extent and keshov of course went to england and had a meeting with queen victoria it was very very big deal and everything so they were very much against that now for suramar krishna first of all he had no objection to that type of worship he himself did it that swamiji used to say how can i say anything against this worship of god through the image when krishna himself had the first vision of mother kali in front of the image and as a worshiper of the divine mother so this is one one aspect but we have all of these other aspects uh all of the different gods and goddesses or the avatars these are also can be considered worship of god with form so even if we don't have that image before us if in the mind when we sit for meditation we're picturing the image of shiva in our mind this is also some type of of saka worship worship of god with form now what if we simply uh worship god as as not near gona but saguna is having some type of qualities and attributes the brahmos didn't mind that they didn't mind that too much but still it's a borderline it's not this infinite absolute reality it's now we add some little personality to it in the upanishads the personality is not very much emphasized it's more shakti it's more of his power not so much that god is there listening to our prayers but god has the power to project the universe and sustain the universe and withdraw the universe these three powers that we know then the final one which is also very interesting and and goes back to the vedic period is that this whole universe is the form of god this vidat idea that god is not simply transcended and god is imminent god dwells within this universe this universe is the form we have that purisha suktom that we can picture the the sun and the moon is the two eyes of god like that that we're looking at this universe but we see it as as the divine person divine body this is also some type of sakaar sakata and worship of god with form so the brahmos they objected to this uh what they call worship of god with form because they restricted it very much to one particular aspect this image worship they they were really trying to base their whole theology you can say on the upanishads if they thought very deeply about it they would have seen in the upanishads that you have not just niergun brahman but saguna brahman and you have brahmin the concept of iraq that the universe is is this manifestation of brahman on some level so this is the question is it good to worship god with form and then he says an image of the deity made of clay so they used to use the term taco with sometimes the first time that m said that he said why do you say it's chinmoy it's it's the embodiment of consciousness itself and and was very confused he didn't quite know what that meant at that time but in any event this is the question and srirami krishna he answers you do not accept god with form that is all right so his attitude was not to disturb anybody's inner feeling whatever their their spiritual mood or attitude was not to disturb it but to tweak it sometimes if he saw that there was something lacking in it or it was one-sided or it was a little bit too fanatical then he would try to to counterbalance it somehow other times he would say no you're okay don't worry too much about it you don't accept it you don't accept god with form that is all right the image is not meant for you so he's also saying okay what you're really asking me i know it's image worship you're saying this this worship of god with form but i know what you're really saying is uh what about these these foolish people who bow down before a stone image in a clay image don't we have to teach them that god is not stone or clay that was em's first argument with srama krishna so he's very being very kind and sweet to them of course he's invited to their place and this is their semi-annual you know celebration so he's he's uh uh he's telling them what they what they'd like to hear and what they need to hear because he did take that attitude that god can be realized through any path very often he would say yeah but don't think that yours is the only path that's all for you it is good to deepen your feeling toward your own ideal from the worshipers of the personal god you should learn their yearning for instance now another interesting thing is that srama krishna always looked upon the brahmos as bhaktas devotees worshiping god as a personal god and i think the brahmos looked upon themselves as ghani's not so much that they had their devotion and everything but as i said before they were following the upanishads this is the ghana yoga there's a very traditional type of yana yogas to study the upanishads but thakur said no that you don't have that dry because in taqwa's eyes uh the upanishads men advaita vidanta and that meant impersonal god because that was the outstanding school of vedanta in those days even today when people discuss vedanta generally they mean it that means impersonal absolute brahman even though if we look at all the different schools of vedanta the followers of advaita vedanta are probably a very small minority look at all the followers of ramanuja and the madhuaa all of the dualistic schools of isis schools and other schools they'll far outnumber the dwightins but philosophically it has a great tremendous importance and the influence of shankaracharya was was especially great like brahman you have to have a mind a higher caliber because you focus you don't like we need an image to focus i don't know what they're thinking like like buddha never had a image yes yeah this is a difficulty uh the this question is that that's a suppose we do like this idea of the formless absolute then how do we how do we practice meditation if we look at the meditation on the in the upanishads we have two different types one is uh not exactly meditation but deep reflection on the truths of the upanishads this is called so we have our sharavana we listen to the the maharakias the the guru says and then we we hear that then we think what exactly does it mean i know that i'm something different and brahman is something different so let me think what could it mean it can't mean to me as this body so i eliminate that it can't mean brahman as a ishwara so i eliminate all of that and then when i start to get this feeling that oh that if my nature is consciousness and the nature of brahman is consciousness then there's only one consciousness then we let the mind fix on that idea so it's a different type of meditation it's not really it's very deep reflection or contemplation the other there are things called vidhyas or upasanas in the in the upanishads these are symbolic types of meditations so if we think one image that i like very much from the mondica upanishad is uh is is the arrow that goes into the target and using using targeted brahmin and using the mind and om is the arrow and and and trying to picture even if we think i have that image in our minds of that arrow in the target then that feeling of merging is in the mind or in gita we have that image of the candle in a in a with a flame in a windless place so this is a type of meditation on the absolute we can say well you're actually meditating on a candle and a flame it's true but the mind is becoming motionless by meditating on something motionless so there are different ways of of doing that it we we don't have to uh when we say a higher level uh i would say not necessarily higher but the number of people qualified to do it would be fewer and generally it's it was always held to be for those who practice renunciation for the yanis and yeah a little bit more difficult because there's nothing concrete but we still we can still taqwa says try to you want to know what it's like to meditate on the absolute try to picture a bird that's released from the cage or a picture of the fish that's been let out of the fishbowl and they're swimming joyfully in and out just to give that feeling of perfect freedom and everything not that the fish we're not meditating on the fishes brahman or the bird is brahmin we could i mean that's also possible but this is just to get that feeling of what it's like to to be free feel ourselves one with that absolute no restrictions anything like that itself as the form yeah we can we can well this this will we'll get to that that uh we can we can easily think of of brahman as not having any form but having these these power shaktis so the maya will be the different powers that brahman has yeah we can we can do that type of meditation but generally the self-inquiry is it is one type of meditation for those following this path of knowledge now the point i'm getting to here is that sram a christian is really going to think of them as belonging to the devotional school and that he's going to encourage them to try to increase that devotion that longing for god now this is actually a very very common attitude that we find in western religions that there's no particular form of god but god has qualities of of love and justice and mercy and kindness and all of these things and we can picture god that way without any particular form now in in mystical schools mystical judaism and other schools god can be thought of as sitting on the throne that means we're actually picturing but but it's it's purposely uh known to be symbolic not to be taken literally now in hindu tradition if we think of the different gods and goddesses there will be a variety of interpretations there will be those who will say no very very literally it's true and there'll be those who say yes there's some subject subjective aspect to it that i'm picturing god according to my desire what i want to say and everything the attributes that i superimpose i'm attributing certain qualities to god i'm doing it i know that somebody could attribute different attributes i want to think of god as mother i don't think that god has a female form but i want to picture god that way that doesn't mean if you picture god his father there's something wrong with it so i i like to use this designation it's it's subjective but real we generally think oh it's just subjective that means it's your imagination it's not real it's subjective and real at the same time just as if we we take water in a picture the form that it takes uh it's not absolutely real but the water is real the form is temporary the form is just because it's in that picture we can move it to something else but the substance is real so surami krishna is going to emphasize this idea that you don't need to have in mind any particular form of god but this relationship idea is still important and you can learn from those who like to worship god with form and he's going to talk specifically about this radha krishna episode so he says for you it is good to deepen your feeling toward your own ideal from the worshipers of the personal god you should learn their yearning for instance shri krsna's attraction for radha you should learn from the worshipers of the personal god their love for their chosen ideal this is actually this is actually the the most important element in this worship of the personal god that we get to utilize our emotions because we all know that feeling of love between the lover and the beloved between the mother and the child the child and the mother between two friends even even that strong bond of devotion between the servant and a very benevolent master that feeling of just wanting to serve uh so it's the whether we picture rama's is really rama or not of feeling ourselves uh to be like hanuman and having the devotion that hanuman had for rama will be tremendously helpful for us in our spiritual life now with with regard to rata and krishna it's this this idea of bakulata this tremendous longing when radha was not with sri krishna how her heart would pant huh she couldn't bear that separation so he's saying you don't have to accept israeli christian things he says it in a few places you don't have to accept that that was real it doesn't even matter was there ever any a young boy and young girl and they lived in the rindavan it doesn't matter but look at the beauty of this relationship that they had whether it was real or not try to imagine that you feel try to imagine how it felt to be radha and longing to to meet with sri krishna at the end of the day sneaking out the full moon night going and his place is fluid and you dance with all the gold to try to imagine that and and superimpose that feeling on your own desire to realize god however you understand god so this is this is the importance of this madhur bhava that it's a very intense relationship and it involves this this tremendous joy of union and this tremendous longing at the time of separation so this is the highest it's considered the highest of the different bhavas in the vaisnava tradition now in the shock the tradition the highest will be looking upon god is mother and taco says that there is that has a few they all have their own special feature and it depends on the individual who is attuned to that special feature worshiping god is mother the special feature is feeling ourselves to be helpless and and and fully depending upon the mother and fully accepting and surrendering accepting whatever comes to us as as whatever comes is the grace of the mother and i'm like a helpless child everything depends on the mother those who have that feeling then this is the perfect attitude for them so those who have this feeling of strength and they're active and i can do anything then hanuman and mahavir then yes i can do anything for the sake of the master let me take this servant attitude that i'm not going to say i'm helpless i can't do this i can't do that i'm not the doer i'm not the agent i am i can do it but in the name of rama i can do it in the name of the master i can do anything so those who who feel that way who have that sense of pride and that sense of action then they give it that spiritual twist and it becomes highly effective for them none of this involves having any type of of firm faith in the actual historic nature of the ramalillah or that the mother kali actually has forearms and any of that it doesn't require that those things are also helpful for meditation symbolically and it may be that there's a certain truth to that we don't know how much is subjective how much is objective is there a realm where these gods and goddesses actually live no stranger to believe that than to believe in this realm what could be odder than this world that we live in now well i think that this is the only possible possibility why why couldn't there be other locus anyhow we don't know exactly these things uh talkworth says and so that he gives the impression that these are all uh our desire and and are the imagination but they're also the vision of the rishis and they said we don't know we don't know what type of objective reality there might be with regard to to these these different deities and everything now it may be that after this lifetime people will go to these different locals they'll have that experience and they're still subjective each one will have its own experience but as good as objective what's the subjective an object of these these this distinction is not so clear-cut huh if we're if we have that that experience we have a dream while we're having it is 100 objective we wake up and say oh it was all my imagination huh but while we're having it even this lifetime when this lifetime is over we may look back and say oh i thought it was so real what happened to it disappeared it's over so we can't say exactly when the believers in the personal god worship the images of kali and durga with what feeling they cry from the depths of their souls yeah picture that a small child who gets lost can't find the mother how we see sometimes in the mall or something the child's lost screaming and wailing for mommy mommy can we see if we can have that feeling that long before god how much they love the deity you should accept that feeling you don't have to accept accept the image and we can also accept the image just as a useful symbol for us also we don't have to be very literal about these things rambo how does one cultivate the spirit of dispassion why don't all attain it now the all of these things require a little bit of understanding of the of the brahma mindset they weren't much in favor of renunciation there were no traditional monastic tradition within the brahmos they had no swamis or anything so and did they even like that idea it doesn't seem that they were very much in favor of it it was more of a householder tradition they weren't against it to the same extent that they were against image worship or some of some of the other elements of what they considered modern uh hinduism guru and everything but yeah he needs to chin yes i mean from that right that level when it occurs i mean will it uh transform automatically or yes yeah now this is a little bit of a different story when that when takwor says the image is chin moy he is in his vision he sees everything is composed of consciousness everything but in a special sense i think looking at the deity he won't see it somebody there is one conversation where somebody says oh this this image oh this was made by the great sculptor nubian nubian something and made from basal certain black stone and tucker got a little bit annoyed he said to me this is the image of pure consciousness and everything why talk about who who created it and everything he didn't see it that way that's all yeah but for him everything was chinmoy there's a very beautiful term chinmaya in sanskrit that nothing is material that if we even even the the physicist the quantum physicist will break everything down to to just matter in energy to end really to just energy in motion you can say so what we call matter even from a scientific point of view is not exactly the way we see it when we just look at it but for him it was even deeper than that it would he would see this the manifestation of brahman or the divine mother or shakti manifestation of shakti so this is this passion vairagya is that the term yeah the that's used here yeah so the vairagya it's dispassion but also means renunciation and it also means formally renouncing or mentally renouncing or just being detached from things so how does one cultivate the spirit of dispassion why don't all attain it now the the traditional point of view was that this said varagya came at the end of life at the end of life this was the fourth stage so one had to go through the student stage and the married stage and then retired stage and then finally this full renunciation that we we progressed that way then the different periods of of history this these different movements came where people would take to the path of renunciation at a very early age they could they could do it right from the student age as we do now that this is an option or at any time in between it wasn't very good for those who are just taking to married life uh to to leave the wife at home women generally wouldn't be able to do it yeah although uh with with our uh who is the first sannyasini of the of the order huh yeah uh but she was a child widow but she really didn't she kind of ran away from her husband in the early days and but in in any event the tradition was at least i at least stay in the family life till the sun is born to look after the mother and and then if the pronunciation is very intense that one could read out this is exactly what swamiji's grandfather did that's why swamiji's father was the i guess an only child at least the only son and then shortly after that his grandfather renounced the world now takwo he can give different types of answers to this but here he says dispassion is not possible unless there's satiety through enjoyment yeah he uses this term unless one comes to the end of enjoyment that means that there's a sense in which we can't really give up something unless we've had a chance to to see through it somehow to see through it and this is why the the we have the good hustle stage of life the householder stage of life what are the two aims of that life our turn kama this is our same comedy conscience the two things that takur is always warning warning us against as as leading to tremendous attachment these are the same two things that are supposed to be examined experimented with only guided by dharma this is why dharma one of the others we have dharma art and dharma has to be through all throughout and unless that's there then we won't come to the end of enjoyment we'll get drowned by it by enjoyment so takur had this theory that there are certain types of desires that we should we should try to fulfill that's why we see him coming up with these little little funny things huh had a desire to taste the different sweet meats in calcutta famous sweet meat makers huh so we got all of them he'd put it take russell gold put it on one side of the mouth roll it to the other side of the mouth try to feel though this is what people are so mad about and then they swallow it and said it's gone in a few minutes and it'll turn into the same stuff that everything else turns into so what's the big deal about it he actually got matar babu to spend a huge amount of money on a very fancy shawl embroidered with with the gold and silver or whatever it was and he wore it for a few minutes and he said it only increases once rajas what does it do if does it help one realize god and so immediately he took it off started to stamp on it mata baba said no but don't do that i can return it get my money back and then the other is silver hubble bubble huh does it taste any different is with smoking from that than anything else no but little desires so he said some of these things we have to uh we have to enjoy we have to and then big things children career all of that have a good successful career raise nice children and everything and then say okay i've done it i don't have a desire to do it again this is one way of doing it the other things of course we keep the company of of those who have have that vairagya yes of course nothing can touch that but they don't like that idea too much so he's telling something that will appeal to them he's saying what you're doing is okay that you see through these things it will happen at the right time it's a tity when when you don't want any more now the problem there are different types of desires some the more we enjoy the stronger the desire gets it becomes an addiction yeah or an obsession something like that yeah so this is that pouring heel on fire that it doesn't put it out it makes it burn more brightly but there are others that uh will will do it and that will be the end of it i mentioned last time sometimes with children they have an obsession for something a certain type of food chocolate cake something like that so the mother would say okay eat the whole thing till the child is very happy and then after a while it gets really sick and then says i'm never going to do that again so sometimes we learn that way sometimes we don't learn that way sometimes we learn by watching somebody else there's intelligent people let the other person get sick and i'll also know not to do it so this is the first answer that he gives this passion is not possible unless there is satiety through enjoyment reaching the end you can easily cajole a small child with candies or toys but after eating the candies and finishing its play it cries i want to go to my mother so at some point through fulfilling these desires we realized that it didn't really fulfill that what was underlying that desire some some feeling of emptiness some feeling of need and we think we fulfill it with one thing and we realize that no that didn't really do it that there's something deeper some deeper desert longing desire behind it that i never really understood that's when we turn the spiritual life so but after eating the candies and finishing its play of christ i want to go to my mother unless you take the child to its mother it will throw away the toy and scream at the top of its voice now this is m speaking the members of the brahma-samhaj are opposed to the traditional guru system of orthodox hinduism now in in in the tradition of the of the day in in bengal according to the division of us there was a family tradition kuluguru this is uh it was so it was all all set up you didn't go in search of the guru that there was one family that all the descendants of their family will to be gurus for the local area or those of the same community at least the vaisnava community generally had that type of of guru system so they didn't care for that the other thing is of course that one one goes in search of a guru or one happens to meet one can be a sannyasi it can be from a different tradition anything like that why they didn't like it i don't know exactly kesha was was more or less than guru for them but did not give apparently any type of formal initiation dictionary or anything like that we don't hear of of that and and they didn't like that idea i think it was a little independent streak that many people who opposed the idea that guru had this idea why should i rely on somebody else to tell me what to do the kind of pride the kind of pride generally when people object to it if we if we dig beneath the surface there'll be a little bit of i know as much as anybody else and why should i put myself in somebody else's hands they tell me to do something i have to do it just because they tell us so that's a little bit behind it not not always of course but that can be a little bit there many many traditions uh throughout the world that start out with some intermediary so you you have to have a priest that will perform this yagna for you in in judaism they also had the priest they had the priest for a long time and they also had something like yagna there would be a fire and they would do offerings in it and everything and then it switched to this rabbinical period and the same thing in islam in islam when they do prayer the imam whoever it is will also face the same direction so uh not facing not facing the the congregation but also just being a kind of prayer leader that way but not an intermediary you go directly to god so in the protestant movements this was one of the objections that why do we have to have a priest to go through we should directly go and so they'll have a minister that will be someone who will just kind of guide them a little bit but there'll be some direct access that way so i think the brahmos had a little bit of that idea why do we have to rely on on another individual even though the guru system is not like that really they didn't have a very clear understanding of these things actually part of what takwo did was he tried to explain that the the deeper significance of many of the things that they objected to because they have objected to them on a very superficial level without really understanding uh the deeper significance of them so the members of the brahma-samaj are opposed to the traditional guru system of orthodox hinduism therefore the brahma devotee asked the master about it brahmo is spiritual knowledge impossible without a guru now tako again will give an answer that's very appropriate for them because he knows they don't like it he knows that this isn't part of their system so he says this is the designation generally for brahman that this existence and sud and consciousness awareness knowledge kit and on on the bliss so this is this is more or less saying the god himself is the guru that you worship that brahman for you then brahman will be the guru now these things work in two different ways we can say that the real that god is the real guru or we can say look upon the guru that's god we have two things you know this torment i always like to think of this in two ways god alone is our mother and father and we look upon our mother and father as god also matari devo bhava fitri deva bhava so both different different points of view different ways of of looking at it so when he says this is a very vague statement can be taken in many different ways so they can either feel that okay then i don't need any any human guru that god alone is my guru but the other way is don't look upon the human guru as a human being look upon the human gurus the embodiment of this is generally what he would say to others he's being a little vague here because he knows they'll take it in their own him then way he got one taco tells the story about narada he tells the story that uh the one day naruto came in the presence of uh uh narayan and and lakshmi so they're they're sitting there together and they had some conversation and then a knot of the leaves so narayana says somebody brings some ganges water and sprinkle it where he was sitting so lakshmi says what is this he's your great devotee he's such a wonderful person great person then why do you have to purify the spot where he was sinning so narayan says yeah he hasn't received initiation and there's there's some idea that we read that it purifies the body of course mostly it's it's in earth but even that that there's some some other type of pure view he tells the story just to show the importance of it now he's he's not placing much importance on initiation but we know that deep within that he felt it was extremely helpful extremely valuable so the funny question is it impossible he's not asking is it helpful to have a guru but is it impossible to realize god without in guru there are two very different questions that taqwa may say that no it's not impossible but your odds go from from you know 75 percent down to one percent he's not asking that he just wants to know is it at least possible because we're being told we don't have any guru this night uh you know this uh krishnamurti j krishnamurti i used to read him when i was young and he was very big on this idea and don't have a guru don't have a mantra don't do this don't do that real ghani and a very genuine authentic person i think very highly realized soul very good good person but you have nothing to do that you're not left with anything i used to say okay so now what do i do just here and realize the infinite absolute reality that'd be nice but anyhow those who haven't guru know that relationship is the most precious relationship in the world and the help that we get is is beyond all estimation and the love that we receive that so no one should ask is it possible to realize god without the guru we should ask how can we get that blessing of initiation because it's such a huge tremendous help for us in spiritual life but again he doesn't want to disturb their attitude too much he doesn't want to say oh you're all fools you don't believe in initiation you think that you'll just get it on your own that is impossible he's not going to say anything like that then he says so so success person could be a woman also if a man in the form of a guru awakens spiritual consciousness in you then know for certain that it is god the absolute who has a form that who has assumed that human form for your sake so when we say sacha then under it alone is the guru we can take that is will god alone or that the one who is come in that human form is the embodiment special embodiment for us of satya dhananda the guru is like a companion who leads you by the hand after the realization of god one loses the distinction between the guru and the disciple what this simply means that the distinction between ourselves and god and ourselves and everyone else disappears so along with that is the guru and the disciple not that we feel that i'm equally as good as the guru it's just he's saying that through the grace of the guru we may realize our infinite absolute nature that we're one with an infinite brahman so what distinction between guru and the and the devotees that disappears then he quotes a line from probably a song that creates a very difficult situation there the guru and the disciple do not see each other there's a footnote because the experiment realizes at that time the oneness of existence and hence does not perceive the separate existence of the teacher swamiji once said the holy mother huh very nice statement they were talking about that and swamiji says it said something like i if i'm merged in in brahman then where is the distinction between guru well i should still see you that way and and she said no my child and he said then i don't want it i want to be able to look upon you with that reverence and everything of course that was just his attitude at that time this first so i said with regard to the to the supreme self there's no difference between whether we we think of it as as uh as narayana and uh or rama it doesn't matter there's no difference still ram is my sarasva is my all-in-all i only want to see this the lotus eyes of rama so yeah this is the attitude the devotee takes there maybe there's oneness in everything but i want to have at least a little bit of the feeling of distinction this exactly what taco means when he says i don't want to become sugar i want to taste sugar i want to enjoy the sweetness of the sugar so a little bit of this line of ego this has no real substance to it but it allows us to have that relationship yeah very beautiful yeah yeah so even though still nevertheless even though that would with this this oneness all merging in this paramount in the supreme self i wanted load aside rama this is the object of my worship i want to see that it was for this reason that janaka said to give me first my teacher's fee if you want me to initiate you into the knowledge of brahman see this idea of initiation goes way back to the upanishadic period when the disciple would live in the forest within guru and serve him and everything he would show up with with fuel in hand with some firewood because they had to keep the fire and they had to cook by it and everything so janaka said to shukadeva give me first my teachers fee if you want me to initiate you into the knowledge of brahman for the distinction between the teacher and the disciple ceases to exist after the disciple attends to brahman the relationship between them remains as long as the disciple does not see god it was dusk some of the brahma devotees said to the master perhaps it's time for your evening devotions so this will mean a sandhya sandhya and everything yeah what they thought about him is very hard to say did they realize that he was a sannyasi as a sannyasi you don't they renounce all of those things he never presented himself that way he never dressed like a sanyasi he never talked about himself that way but of course he was beyond that paramahamsa they knew him as a paramahamsa but this is almost the way they would address you know a very orthodox brahman who would follow these rituals as soon as the sun goes down that they would have to do their gayatri mantra and all of that or they may just think that now now it's time to do some meditation or japa or something like that they didn't realize that he was beyond all of these things far beyond these things so the master very sweetly you see he's not going to say what do you think you have you no sense very sweet he says no it isn't exactly that then he says one should pass through these disciplines in the beginning later one doesn't need the rituals of formal worship or to follow the injunctions so this is the distinction between what he calls bhakti the word comes from vidhi is a prescription and a rule that we have to follow and we find these in the brahmana portion of the uh of the vedas in the early the early period you have to do this you have to do that you have to do certain rituals on certain special days some things the nithya karmas you have to do every day very specific things like that from the point of view of just spiritual practice we also promise to do a certain amount of japa so we we may be told you have to get up at a certain time you have to do this at a certain time there will be all sorts of things that we do uh a time comes when they fall off on their own when we reach a certain state of spirituality we don't have to decide it's not that some will say well have i reached the stage where i don't have to do my job anymore and when that stage comes the jumper will be going on automatically and and we repeat the name once and when we feel overwhelmed with joy taqwa says you'll know it how will we know when we reach that stage when repeating the name of rama even once tears flow from the eyes and the hair stands on end from joy then you'll know you've reached that stage but we we it'll automatically happen so for taco of course it happened quite early he didn't have to bother with any of these routine and ritual and orthodox types of things after dusk the preacher of the brahma-samad conducted the service from the pulpit they did everything almost in a church-like way that there would be a pulpit and there would be some some readings and some sermon and some group chanting they would chant different the verses from the from the upanishads and then the very formal type of singing just like in a church they had a song book so people the brahma's songbook that people could read and now we'll sing him number 34 go to page 16 like that and they would do all of that so they had a whole service very much based i believe on the christian idea yeah but still with the upanishads as the background of course they had special devotion to christ also uh but taka did as well and there's one thing as much resentment as there was towards to the british and towards this forced conversion and all of that at the same time generally there was tremendous respect and recognition of the great spiritual personality of christ at that time i remember one of our swami saying that he he went to of course many of them went to the missionary schools and he said that the the teachers there who were generally these were generally catholic not all with many protestant missionaries of course but saint xaviers and things in kolkata that they would always be surprised that they would say that we could keep a picture of christ on our shrine along with whoever else we worship and they would they would think well how can you do it in addition to all of the others and sometimes they would say well if you accept christ then you want to be a christian and they could never understand how the students would be so surprised why should i become a christian when i accept christ as an avatar why should i convert and leave my this fits perfectly well with my religion so uh this attitude towards christ and the attitude towards christianity were two very different things at that time how swamiji how he said if i had been there i would have not simply washed his feet with with water but with the with the blood of my heart something like that yeah so so much devotion and when he traveled he only carried two books with him when he traveled throughout india gita and imitation of christ yeah he loved that book and he wrote a bengali introduction to it at one time so after dusk the preacher of the brahmos homage conducted the service from the pulpit the service was interspersed with recitations from the upanishads and the singing of brahmos songs many of these of these were written by the great brahmo teacher of course tagore he was he was at this time probably 21 20 21 years old he was two years older than swamiji swamy was 63 he was 63 he was 61. yeah so he was still 1920 something like that he probably had written some songs but later of course he became the most important of all the songwriters before that that uh wrote many of the songs in uh actually is it this is it this date or the next day when rabindranath tagore and the few other members of the tukor family were present on this occasion this is the only time as far as i can remember that we see the name of of tagore rabindranath tagore as being there and and meeting srama krishna how many times he saw him we don't know he must have seen him on different occasions he wrote about him as far as i know once one poem or something yeah yeah purely on takur otherwise he didn't say too much there was not very smooth relationship between him and the brahmos and swamiji and everything and some some uh jealousy maybe anyhow yeah david you're not that's a different story a taco had a long conversation with him he went to his home and met him and everything at that time who knows if rabindranath was there and then saw him at that time also we don't know after the service the master and the preacher conversed master well it seems to me that both the formless deity and god with form are real what do you say now i will assume that he's not talking about the image here he has a little bit of a subtler understanding of what sakara means worship of god with form that it can mean uh thinking of god in in in terms of shiva durga or something like that or even this vidat this idea of the universe what do you say oh i'm sorry this is from a christian saying it yeah sorry well it seems to me that both the formless deity now he's saying it seems to me very funny huh he could easily say i know for certain i've had the highest realization there's no doubt in my mind but he's just how how cute he puts it huh it seems to me that both the formless deity and god with form are real what do you say preacher so the preacher is going to be a little bit a little bit subtle with this sir i compare the formless god to the electric current which is not seen with the eyes but can be felt now he's not saying anything about god with form here he's just saying that this is a formless master yes both are true so first he says it seems to me that the both are real and now he's going to say yeah they are real both are true and as i say there still may be a subjective aspect to it tucker doesn't deny that if if uh if if it's true in some absolute sense then we have a conflict is it is god really in the form of narayana everything a form of durga but if we're allowed to picture god in that form then god can take any form so god doesn't have one particular form god can take different forms this is why takur likes the the illustration of water water can take different forms it still remains water and these forms don't have to be permanent they can also change yeah so we'll get all of these illustrations god with form is as real as god without form because of the same substance do you know what describing god as being formless only is like it is like a man's playing only a monotone on his flute though it has seven holes yeah in those days of this classical music there could be one instrument that just plays a drone they're just the same note and while the others do all of the improvising so taku would talk about it that way uh it's okay but it's not very interesting the one who can do all of the different notes that's far more interesting though it has seven holes but in the same instrument another man plays different melodies likewise in how many ways the believers in a personal god enjoy him they enjoy him through many different attitudes the serene attitude so this is the thing it's up to us what attitude we like and that attitude will determine the relationship and that will determine the form and there are some specific ones all the different from this this krishna leela mostly as the baby gopala or as the friends of cowherd friends or it can just be whatever we like it can be all different things and asked ramakrishna one time is it okay to to meditate on on my mother as god his mother passed away before he went there and he was very attached to her and thakura said why not why not god dwells within the mother also god dwells within all the beings if that brings that feeling of love and devotion then that can also be done so likewise in how many ways the believers in a personal god enjoy him they enjoy him through many different attitudes the serene attitude shanta baba the attitude of a certain dossier a friend sakyabhaba a mother watson a husband or a lover you see the thing is somehow or other to get into the lake of the nectar of immortality suppose one person gets into it by propitiating the deity with hymns in worship and you are pushed into it the result will be the same both of you will certainly become immortal so the particular see we argue over the means that we argue over the the different ways that we can approach god when the thing is to realize god it doesn't matter how we do it i give the brahmos the illustration of water and ice sachidananda is like an endless expanse of water so formless formless homogeneous no distinction every every uh particle of water is the same as every other particle of water the water of the great ocean in cold regions freezes into blocks of ice now he can say it freezes or he can say through the cooling power him shakti of the devotee it'll form certain particular shapes yeah so is it real if we see that ice of course it's real but i is it absolute no because someone else will have a different it'll take a different shape for them and it can melt back and even when it's in a form it's formless water is still formless even when it's in a certain shape taking a certain shape because that's its nature it's real nature similarly the water of the of the great ocean and cold regions freezes into blocks of ice similarly through the cooling influence of divine love so let me thus through i want to see god in a certain way and even gita says that so when in whatever way we choose to worship god then god will give us that faith and that power to see god that way satyadananda assumes forms for the sake of the bhaktas so it's real but the forms are not necessarily real or they're real but subjectively real and not absolutely real within maya they're real within time space and causation not absolutely real the rishis had the vision of the super sensuous spirit form so nierguna nirakara and talked with it so they had this they received these mantras and everything that they were inspired by it somehow this idea of purusha but devotees acquire a love body and with the tel they see the spirit form of the absolute okay let's stop here this will continue well let me read i'll read the next two things it is also said in the vedas that brahman is beyond mind in words the the heat of the son of knowledge melts the ice-like form of the personal god so the the impersonal absolute is is is the permanent reality the forms come and go that's the only difference but if we want to access that water we have to take it in the picture and that'll and it has to take a certain form or else we dive into it then we don't bother about anything we merge ourselves lose ourselves in it so the heat of the son of knowledge melts the ice-like form of the personal god on attaining the knowledge of brahman and communing with it in nirvikalpa samanthi one realizes brahman the infinite without form or shape and beyond mind and words because the center of eye is gone there can't be a relationship if there's no feeling of i no separation nothing and then anything that can distinguish or separate ourselves from brahman is gone the nature of brahmin cannot be described about it one remains silent who can explain the infinite in words however high a bird may soar there are regions higher still what do you say preacher yes sir it is so stated in the vedanta philosophy what else can he say yeah okay so we'll stop here and close with our chant [Music] 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 [Music] peace peace peace be unto you thank you