Video 58

The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna read by Swami Atmajnanananda (05/28/21)

foreign your words are like nectar bring 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 i think most of you know that this was a hymn from the bhagavata called it on the section called gopigita and m did two things one uh using this as the introduction to the and generally this is chanted before readings of the of the gospel of swami krishna uh using this is the introduction and taking the term kotamrita which we have tabakatamaritam and using that is the title he is he's raising the gospel to this status that the bhagavata has for the worshipers of krishna in the invasion of a tradition especially in bengal they hold the bhagavata to be on equal footing with the vedas sometimes they call it veda and uh so i am in in a very nice humble way is saying that the words of srama krishna were equally as holy as the words of shri krishna in the bhagavatam which means that this is this is the equivalent to the bhagavad gita our swami ishat mananiji in chicago he's been giving a series for a year ever since he came to chicago a series on the gospel of srama krishna and i think the title he gives is panchama veda if the fifth veda so that goes back to that same inversion of a tradition that so for us this is also what they call called vedetulvia equal to the vedas in holiness and sacredness okay we are on page 221 the date is sunday may 13 1883. the master paid a visit to the hadi bhakti pradhani sabha of on the anniversary day of that religious society i don't know anything about this group we don't hear about them i don't think a second time in the gospel within an event that plays a very secondary role but it shows that rama christian would go anywhere wherever the name of god was sung wherever there were sincere devotees it didn't make any difference to him he was perfectly non-sectarian that way so he was visiting this place it is the anniversary of the founding of their society kirtan and other forms of devotional music had been arranged for the occasion the song centered around the video episode of sri krishna's life kirtan can be almost anything but in the in the tradition of the day and generally it meant uh uh this kirtan has started in the tradition of caitanya dayu and this will be mostly with this rather krishna episode chaitanya deva really was was the one responsible for popularizing that and even even long possessions going down in the street outside with with music and singing and dancing and very often one line will be sung and then everyone else will sing the same thing and then the the leader will sing another line and we know in taku's life he loved this kirtan whenever he went to deputy's homes if they could they would arrange one we'll we'll see that that was arranged there would be professional kirtan singers and then all the devotees will participate uh very often ceramic christian would be the first to get up and start dancing and then sometimes go into somati and then the others would form a circle around him and dance and go around in a circle so if you if you're looking for a very nice theme for meditation some morning you can try to imagine takur dancing just on his own arms raised and everything maybe going into samadhi and all the devotees in a circle singing and dancing with the kirtan the theme was rata's peak because the sri krishna having visited chandravali another of the gopis in vrindavan this is another theme this is called man man or abhiman this feeling that uh it comes from uh from tremendous uh intimacy we find it in in these two traditions one with uh with the the voice of iteration with radha and sri krishna and the other in the shakta tradition ram prasad use uses this idea very often the small child will also have peak that mother i asked you to give me that you wouldn't give it to me i won't look at you like a small child that attitude uh towards god which shows that tremendous intimacy and that closeness in everything so this was this was a common thing that radha she would get piqued she her feelings would be a little bit hurt she would take a little umbrage a little pride that's okay then you don't want to talk to me i won't talk to you i'll look in the other direction when you come and then as soon as your christian says something then everything melts away so it's just a kind of superficial type of peak radha's friends tried to console her and said to her why are you peaked it seems that you were not thinking of krishna's happiness but only of your own now uh sramakrishna when he talks about three different types of love he'll talk about the different the different gopis that the lowest class of the gopis were the ones that wanted wanted to be happy in the presence of shri krishna whether they could serve him best uh it didn't matter that they wanted to be the ones to serve him they wanted to be the ones who were always present at that time second class would be those who uh wanted to uh to feel the joy of the company of recreation but wanted him to be happy also and then the highest which was radha herself was that she only cared for the happiness of sri krishna whether she was the one to serve him or not it didn't matter so this is a little bit of a misunderstanding that the other gopis had they're thinking that you were only thinking about your own happiness not krsna's happiness that you weren't the one to get to serve him rather said to them i am not angry at his going to chandravali's grove but why should he go there she doesn't know how to take care of him so uh in the end it's true that anarathi was really thinking about the welfare of sri krishna himself these are beautiful themes that give us a model of paradigm for forming a relationship with god in a very personal way so that just a small child will be able to force his demands on the mother and even used a little bit of psychological warfare okay you won't give me that i won't talk to you i won't look at you psychological warfare and also with radha and krishna okay that's a very short entry that day we don't know what else took place but that's all that m has then we get to the next week may 20th 1883 the following sunday a kirtan was arranged at the house of ram one of the masters householder devotees okay now i thought i would just read a little bit about this is he plays a very very important role in this ramakrishna leela we've met him many times before but anyhow just to remind ourselves uh he was some type of relative of of swamiji's narendra i'm not sure exactly how it doesn't spell it out right here okay he came from a devaluation of a family and in the beginning he was a bit of a skeptic about religious things and a daughter died to him one of his daughters died and that got him on some type of spiritual search that why did these things happen how to get rid of this suffering and sadness and everything and he also had a cousin his cousin was mano mohan mitra and he was the brother-in-law of raqqa so we have these all these different connections that actually this monomohan was responsible for both ram meeting srama krishna and rakhal after after that marriage so they went together one day in 1879 to dakshineshwar and as soon as he saw sriami krishna that he felt some some peace in his heart and began began to start going very frequently and he looked upon a krishna really as the object of his worship and srama krishna went to his house that will be this meeting uh the first time in 1881 so this is before most of the direct disciples came and gradually his mind thought it became a great devotee and during taco's lifetime he wrote several things he he wrote one of the early biographies of srama krishna he wrote something tatwasala and taktwa prakashika so a collection of the teachings of srama krishna and he also put out a monthly magazine and all of this about the life of swami krishna he and one of mohan were two of the earliest to proclaim sri ramakrishna as an avatar they were great in great devotees that way and actually both of them it says here in later days uh gave lectures in different places on the life of of sriami krishna and his house he has a house in kolkata and then at some point he consoled suramar krishna about purchasing a garden house conquered and and he does and shirami krishna went there and kind of inaugurated it and that became a great place with pilgrimage ramchandra was a very generous person many of the devotees actually lived and stayed with him tarak who became swami shivananda and nitigopal also stayed sometimes so different devotees at different times and his is conquer yogodan is also known as this is now one of the large centers of our order and very often it was a long tradition for a long time that one of the vice presidents will stay there and live there and of course talk with relics that a good portion of his relics are there that's another long story i won't go into now but after the passing away a good portion of them were there so this is considered a great pilgrimage place so this is ram chandra datta the following with sandhya kirtan was arranged at the house of rama one of the masters householder devotees surrounded krishna graced the occasion with his presence the the musicians sang about radha's pangs at her separation from krishna so we saw this man and this this feeling of peak then the other is this virus that the tremendous agony of heart anguish there's vyakulota when she wasn't able to see shri krishna we have to remember that she was a male most of the gopis were probably all of them were married and young they were given in marriage at a young age at that time and they had their household duties and they had society to worry about and they pretty much snuck out very often at midnight on the full moon night to spend time with sri krishna so the whole time that she's not with him she's thinking when will i get to to leave here and to sneak out and be with krishna so this is the musicians saying about radha's pangs at the separation from krishna rather said to her friends i would love to see krishna from my childhood my fingernails are worn off from counting the days on them till i shall see him once he gave me a garland look it has withered but i have not yet thrown it away alas where has the moon of krishna risen now has that moon gone away from my firmament afraid of rahu's peak this is peak this is the mythological explanation of uh of an eclipse i think we had one last night something yeah some lunar eclipse anyhow that rahu gets angry for some reason and swallows the moon and that's why we see it disappear on the night of the eclipse alas shall i ever see krishna again oh my beloved krishna i have never been able to look at you to my heart's complete satisfaction i have only one pair of eyes they blink and so hinder my vision and further on account of streams of tears i could not see enough of my beloved the peacock feather on the crown of his head shines like arrested lightning the peacock seeing krsna's dark cloud complexion with dance and joy spreading their tales pikachu like the rainy season when it gets dark they spread their tails and dance oh friends i shall not be able to keep my life breath after my death place my body on a branch of the dark tamale tree very dark wood and inscribe on my body krsna's sweet name the dark wood because of the dark complexion of krishna reminds her of that the master said god and god and his name are identical that is the reason rather said that there's no difference between rama and his holy name is saying rama but it any of any of these these holy names there's a nice story from one of the puranas about uh practice of giving away gold equivalent to somebody's bodily weight that someone there will be huge scales with two pans and someone will sit on one side and they'll put keep putting gold on until gold weighs enough to raise the other pan and then they know that's an equivalent and they did it with krishna himself and no matter how much gold they put on it was never enough to raise the that side so uh rukh mini said get rid of all of that gold i know something even greater than sri krishna himself she took a toasty leaf and wrote the name of krishna on it and put it on the other side of the scale and automatically it went like that so just to show uh the greatness of the name this of course is is because of the spiritual practice and repeating the name brings to mind the reality so there's always a tremendous emphasis placed especially in in these devotional traditions to repetition of the name of god so that's also a very short entrance and now it's may 27th 1883. so we see that uh m has been visiting sramakrishna on three consecutive sundays this was of course a day when he was free from his work srama krishna was in his room at dakshineshwar conversing with the devotees it was about nine o'clock in the morning master to m and the other devotees it is not good to harbor malice the shaktas the vaishnavas and the vedantas quarrel among themselves now we we have two competing traditions that we see in india one is highly liberal tradition where everyone knows that uh the same god is being worshiped through different names in different forms and this is this is i would say the vast majority of people that they won't hesitate if they see a temple no matter what it is to go and worship bow down we have a very nice tradition in this country most of the temples and many of them of course are south indian temples with lots of different deities and they'll combine them all together we have our shiva vishnu temple in india it would be unusual to have a temple with achievement you'll have either one or the other uh even even though people of both traditions may visit them but here we we have some of them with all the possible deities you can imagine so that anyone can go and can worship there and there's no feeling of sectarianism on the other hand that we have members of all of these different communities the shaktis worshipers of the divine mother the device universe and also the vedantists who will represent a rather fanatical element and they will only go to to their own temple and they'll only believe that they believe that salvation can only be had by worshiping krishna by worshiping mother all of that so we find that also you may remember a very interesting meeting that took place between matar babu and the voice of jaren huh right and srama krishna they were all together and one of them i don't know which one went first the vaisnava chatham was something he'd said something like one one can only get liberation by worshipping krishna and then mata babu said something like that he's the helmsman to take you across the ocean and then he said what about mothers yes she'll be the one sitting in the boat anyhow they started going back to the force so ramakrishna he he touched his leg a little bit just to to warn him that don't get this mata babu too upset so we find that in in ram prasad village and in this town there was an invasion of a poet who would go around following ram prasad and ram prasad would sing the songs and this other poet i forget his name something some goswami would would write songs mimicking that we we have one example several times in the gospel that and talkward doesn't really mention too much he says one person says this world is a mansion of mirth the other that says this this world is a framework of illusion and the other says no it's a mansion of mirth taco likes the second one better the first one is actually ron prasad and the second is this other goswami in srama krishna's village there didn't seem to be the sectarianism and everyone seemed to be equally happy and mixing all together and everything so we we find both of these the vedances it means the edwardians here generally uh when this term vedante is used it means and their quarrel will be a philosophical quarrel and it will be equally among the the different schools of vedanta we have three main schools but there are also other uh schools of maybe lesser significance but uh they all argue against each other and they'll have debates and everything maybe not with that same fanaticism but still trying to disprove the other theory and prove their own theory and taqwa was all about this non-sectarian view to saying the same god worshipped by all people so he says it is not good to harbor malice the shaktis the vaishnavas and the vedances quarrel among themselves that is not wise padma lochen padmalochen one of these great scholars who came to dakshinishwar and met suramar krishna all of them came at different times some of them came at the invitation of the brahmani when they had that big convention to see if takur was in avatar or not others came at different times and uh most of them were not simply pundits most of them uh they saw surah christianity's simplicity and everything and were highly impressed and many of them of course gained tremendously from from taqwa's company so one of them is this padmalojan padmalochan was court pundit of the maharajah aburdhuan once a meeting of the pundits once at a meeting of the pandits sorry once at a meeting the pundits were discussing whether shiva was superior to brahma or brahma to shiva padmalochan gave an appropriate reply i don't know anything about it he said i haven't talked either to shiva or to brahma now this is of course an extreme case why they'll have such a discussion like that these brilliant pundits is very very hard to know generally this this idea of trimurti this uh it's an interesting idea because those who don't know much about hinduism maybe have a superficial knowledge first thing they'll learn is there's there are three deities and one is brahma he creates the world and then one is vishnu he looks after it and then one is shiva and he destroys it i don't know anybody who really follows the belongs to any of these traditions that really accepts that as anything those who worship shiva he's everything he's a creator destroyer everything same thing with narayana so this is this is just kind of a a allegorical way of saying that the three cosmic functions and giving the three different names of course in the puranas we'll have them having discussions and everything as if there are three separate deities nobody works with india anyhow he's i don't know the story he got cursed by somebody so there's only one temple in all of india plus he is not very important he created the universe and then he gave it up now it's up to everybody else so either you want the one who's in charge of things or the one who's going to withdraw things at the end so you don't really find of brahma in india there's one temple somewhere in rajasthan is it or in the south anyhow if people feel sincere longing they will find that all paths lead to god this is this included all different religions all the different faiths and paths within hinduism all of the different philosophical schools all of these will be included under math so whether one is a dualist one can realize god is a dualist one can realize god is a qualified nondualist and one can realize god is an adoitan so takwa didn't limit it to different religions or different traditions even to the philosophical schools but one should have nishta single-minded devotion this is a very very important idea mentions it all of the time this special devotion we have to our own ideal you know in ram nam we chant that verse that devotee says no i understand this is shrinatha so the lord of laksmi narayana and janaki nata the lord of of sita that'll mean rama i understand that both or really that supreme self they're really not different but to me even even though i know that they're the same i only want to see my lotus side rama and we have that other story from the puranas that when hanuman went to see sri krishna and dwarika that he said rukmini you better take your former sita i better take my form as rama that's the only one that hanuman wants to see so this is nishta it can it can be a little bit fanatical but that's not real real nishita understands that everyone else can have their own ishta that same devotion too they're chosen deity to the form of god that they want to see that this is this is really a personal type of thing so now takur will explain what this nishta means it is also described as chaste and unswerving devotion to god chaste and unswerving the the real meaning of all this is like the uh a woman who is totally committed to her husband or to her lover it can be both ways and she won't look at anybody else or care for anybody else perfectly faithful to her own her her own ideal it is like a tree with only one trunk shooting straight up promiscuous devotion so again this will be like like the lover who has many lovers that promiscuous that means that of course we can do it if we see it that oneness but otherwise is we switch from one thing to another we're devoted to the idea of srama krishna one day the next day we go to some other group and the next day another group this would be this lack of nishta so promiscuous devotion is like a tree with five branches such was the single-minded devotion of the gopis to krishna that they didn't care to look at anyone but the krishna they had seen in vrindavan so he even after he left and he went to mathura became i had to where's his princely attire with it was a turban and all of that they didn't want to even look at him they wouldn't unveil themselves who is this fellow so they said they didn't care to look at anyone but the krishna they had seen in vrindavan the shepherd krishna be decked with the garland of yellow wildflowers and wearing a peacock feather on his crest at the side of krishna at mathura with a turban on his head and dressed in royal robes the gopis pulled down their veils they would not look at his face who is this man they said should we violate our chaste love for krishna by talking to him so it looks like fanaticism but it's fanatical devotion this type of fanaticism isn't bad as long as we recognize the right of everyone to have that same devotion to their ideal the devotion of the wife to her husband is also an instance of unswerving love the division of it traditionally in this this uh relationship between the lover and the beloved there are two two types one is called swaki and the other is parakiya this will be the wife to the husband parakeet will be the the lover to her paramour this is even considered higher this is this is radha and krishna higher because willing to give up everything other the good name reputation everything for the sake of the beloved so that's considered kind of a higher in this the scale of ecstatic love so he's talking about this other sokhia the devotion of the wise to her husband is also an instance of unswerving love she feeds her brother-in-law brothers-in-law as well and looks after their comforts but she has a special relationship with her husband and tucker often says that it's because of that relationship that she also has love for the others so we love every other ideal because of the love for our own ideal which we see as all-encompassing we talk about sriami krishna as being started with devadevi that means when if we if we really offer our love and devotion and worship to them that includes every other possible way of worshiping god all the different deities or different conceptions of god and everything included in that likewise one may have that single-minded devotion to one's own religion but one should not on that account hate other faiths on the contrary one should have a friendly attitude towards them the master bathed in the ganges and then went to the kali temple with m he sat before the image and offered flowers at the feet of the divine mother now srama krsna's nista was a little bit different because he had the type of mind that whatever mood he was in or whatever devotees would come he would feel that nishta for that particular way of worshiping god so he used to say when the invasion of his began to come they thought of me as a vaishnava because in their company that love for krishna would arise in his mind when they shocked us would come the same thing that i'm a worshiper of mother and brahmos also thought that he was one of them everybody thought they tried to pigeonhole him and see him as one of their own but he had nishta uh in in this very uh liberal sense that uh he felt this tremendous devotion to every aspect of god because he had practiced all of them he was unique in that regard but mother kali seemed to be the default default nishita that uh when when he was finished with whatever spiritual discipline he was doing and had that realization whether it's a dualistic or devotional vaisnava he seemed to go back to feeling himself as the child of the divine mother that seemed to be the the strongest and most comfortable attitude for him to feel a child of the divine mother so the master sat before the image in the kali temple and offered flowers at the feed of the divine mother now and then he put flowers on his own head and meditated see part of the worship sometimes the worshiper would put flowers on his head but for takur sometimes he got into a mood where he saw god dwelling within him even worship himself in that way just feeling that divine presence within after a long time he stood up he was in a spiritual mood and danced before the image chanting the name of kali now and again he said o mother o destroyer of suffering o remover of grief and agony was he teaching people thus to pray to the mother of the universe with the yearning heart in order to get rid of the suffering inevitable in physical life this of course is m's guess and when m says something like this it's not it's really his conviction these are rhetorical questions and and really feels that this is what's happening now did tako do these things pretending that oh now let me give them a teaching and i'll pretend that if no this was something natural to him but however we understand the divine mother within inspiring him to do this as a teaching or that just naturally it would become a teaching but this is was how he taught others by by observing him when he would pray out loud did he have it in the back of his mind let these rascals learn how to pray to god i don't think so at the same time he must have known or felt that it was the divine will or somehow proper for him to pray out loud whereas he might have told the others you pray in solitude that he would do it out loud knowing that this would be for the benefit of others some of the most beautiful sections of the gospel of course where when we hear srirami krishna praying to the divine mother within earshot of others so that they had that opportunity to to hear how one should call on god srama krishna returned to his room and sat on the west porch and other devotees were with him nakur had been known to the master for about 25 years he doesn't play a very significant role in the gospel i myself don't know very much about him he was the devotee of godanga and had a small shop which srirama krishna had often visited when he first came to calcutta from komarpukur so this will be somebody that takur knew when he was still still a teenager late teenager when he came with his brother what happened after takur's father passed away and the monetary financial condition was wasn't very good they decided that ram kumar would go to calcutta and act as a priest and do some tutoring uh in the sanskrit studies and things like that and earn a little money and that he would take srama krishna with him and train him to do the same thing and they lived in in the area of calcutta that i guess it's somewhere close to the tontonia kalibari the kali temple there and not too far from m's house somewhere in in that area they lived there for i don't remember how many years couple of years maybe maybe a year or two before ram kumar came up with the solution for the kali temple the problem was rani rashwani she had built this beautiful kali temple and now was about to hire priests that will conduct the worship there priests had to be brahmins he was from a low caste quebec cast and so the priests weren't willing to do it so this ram kumar he wrote an opinion that why not put this in the name of your guru who was a brahmana and then the brahman priest won't hesitate to come and do that worship she was impressed with that answer and others also thought it was okay and so impressed that she invited him to come and be a priest and he bought srama christian and that began that whole leelah dakshin ishwar so the nakur was one there are some others that thakura knew well before he even had his first god vision in the in the kali temple when he was just kind of assisting his brother half-heartedly assisting him and he also would go from house to house from time to time do these little poojas and things just like an ordinary priest would do so the nakura had a small shop okay still overpowered with divine ecstasy the master sang oh kali my mother full of bliss now see uh and this is a very strange thing also that sometimes there will be some durga puja celebration all songs to godanga there's one occasion i think it was a surrenderer's house and he said taku but there hasn't been a single song to mother yet and then he sang a few songs so takoya was dependent on his mood it wasn't always there that vaisnava came and so here of course he had just been to the kali temple but so he's in that mood now so he's saying oh kali my mother full of bliss enchantress of the almighty shiva in thy delirious joy thou dancest clapping thy hands together eternal one the great first cause clothed in the form of the void thou where's the moon upon thy brow where did they'll find thy garden of head before the universe was made i always liked that line uh brahmando chilona mundo malacco peli very curious thing she is this is divine power she is responsible for this universe existing and yet the devotee wants to think of her still as uh the form that we know with his mandavalet this the garden of skulls around her neck so it's a very funny question before this universe was even created mother where did you find it where did you find the different skulls to make this mother very very sweet it shows kind of the in in the sense of the child-like nature of the of the devotee of the divine mother where did they'll find thy garden of head before the universe was made thou art the mover of all that move and we are but thy helpless toys we move alone as thou movest us and speak through us as and speak as through us thou speakest there's a great theme of of these these great shakta poet saints both ram prasad of course and kamala kante this is the kamala khan song but worthless kamalakanta says fondly berating thee said obama confoundress with thy flashing sword thoughtlessly thou has put to death my virtue and my sin alike nierguni is a beautiful song this uh he sang again mother thou art our soul redeemer thou the support of the three goones higher than the most high thou art compassionate i know who taketh away our bitter grief sandhya or tao and gayatri thou thus sustain this universe mother the help art thou of those that have no help but thee o we turn a beloved of shiva thou art in earth in water thou thou liest at the root of all in me and every creature thou hast thy home though clothed with form yet or doubt formless reality these shaktas are a beautiful blend of of accepting this formless uh aspect of the divine mother and the on the aspect with form so we have this both describing the the nature of the divine mother and in dense darkness mother they formless beauty sparkles very another very curious wonderful thing that formless beauty how can there be formless beauty because and and how can something sparkle in dense darkness so there's this the human mind trying to express the joy that comes from seeing mother even as the void even as that infant infinite absolute uh reality they say in the life of ram prasad that as he got closer towards his death that the songs he composed and and this way of looking at the divine mother went more and more towards the formless and even with srama krishna towards the end he said oh mother what is what is this you're attracting my mind to your formless aspect that was a sign to him that his life was coming to an end the master sang a few more songs in praise of the divine mother then he said to the devotees it is not always best to tell the householders about the sorrows of life they want bliss most householders don't have to be told about the sorrows of life most people in general that there's plenty of it is right before our eyes those who suffer from chronic poverty can go without food for a day or two but it is not wise to talk about the sorrows and miseries of life to those who suffer if their food is delayed a few minutes vaisnava's used to say why should one constantly dwell on sin be merry this relationship between trump and krishna and the vision of children is fascinating to me the division of jaden he he was a great scholar and a very not exactly orthodox or fanatical but but uh extremely devoted to the the vaisnava tradition of course and was the leader of one of those communities this uh ghost para i think and uh they had questionable practices suramar krishna loved this advice they were good friends and very very many times he went with him to their meetings and uh he gives some humorous things at different times he says now they're they're taking a little bit of this consecrated wine got him he said i thought now they'll sit and they'll do their job instead they start getting up and singing and dancing and everything falling over each other and they would hook up the men and women and re-enact this rather krishna business and one time it got a little too much for that and talk was it no i'm not going to go anywhere but still he had great respect for him there's a very nice section in the the great masters from the wrote that when we went to sramakrishna we had a terrible negative view of all these other groups very low-minded people not highly educated in the name of religion uh having these affairs and and drinking and doing all sorts of things and yet srama christian was so liberal he opened her eyes he said even that's a path like entering the house through the through the back door that goes into the train that those days every house would have the the bathroom would be in the back of the house and then a separate door so the scavenger could come in and clean out the toilet and everything and then without plumbing in those days and then take it away that's also an entrance into the house so they were kind of shocked at how liberal taco was he says but it's not a clean entrance and don't and don't do it but don't look down on them this is also a path so it's very very liberal that way and as i say he never seemed to hold it against this version of jordan and if i quote him in many times many times here he sees giving him great credit the division of children used to say and one of the most important teachings of srama krishna that highest worship of god is is not a leelah he said his vaishnava taught me that he said he used to tell me that that you'll see the final stage the highest stage of devotion is this not a lila god dwelling in human form and after taco broke his arm he said it was if the divine mother were telling me don't see god with eyes closed and ecstasy and vision see god dwelling within all beings that exactly what the voice of children told me now i understand he was right so it gives them a lot of credit and so they had this very nice interesting relationship even though the invasion of china he was the leader of this other group that takur he at least said that this is also a path even though he warned everybody against it while the master was resting after his midday meal manohar goswami a singer of kirtan arrived he sang about the ecstatic love of godang yeah now this kirtan as i say it was introduced mostly by caitanya and most of them were songs about radha and krishna but a huge number of songs were also about goranga himself sri krishna himself with nityananda and his followers and reenacting stories about when they would do their kiertan in the courtyard of srivasa and others and so many of the songs are about godanga many of them are about the taking of sannyasa this is nehemiah and so that was also one of the great themes of the kirtan and tako loved them his relationship with caitanya dave is also interesting he grew up like everybody else thinking these are low-class people these vitages and uh they were kind of they were supposed to lead lives of monks they were they were the renunciates of that tradition but they were not highly educated and many of them would uh the boy doggies they would have their weight against their women together and do all that and people didn't uh have a very high opinion of them unless they belong to that tradition the division of a tradition so tucker also he grew up thinking well did they just set up this godanga that caitanya devas a great soul and everything so he said i too had my doubts that's why i was curious i wanted to see and he went to naval drive with mathurbabu and he said i didn't feel anything and then one day on the river in the middle of the river he had his vision these two golden complexion boys there's an italian nemai he saw them and almost fell out of the boat they had to hold him and he he always felt them emerge with him and then he after that he he understood and and always believed that caitanya david was an avatar and had a great devotion from that from that time won mostly he was taqwa came from invasion of a family but they were worshippers of rahm raghuvir quite different from this the gaudiya vaishnava tradition worshipers of krishna the followers of of godanga who really were little bit separate they they their traditions were so distinct from others that they didn't mix too much with others and we see this a little bit in the family of balarama mother on both they belong to that type of tradition and his his other family members were not at all happy that he was going to see suramar krishna and wasn't following their strict orthodox invasion of the way he's strictly vegetarian always doing their their job by carrying their mala always putting lots of marks on their on their head and bodies stamps and all these different things of course they're many bit they're highly educated there's also tremendous tradition of of of study the the works of urupa and and sanatana goswami di goswami highly scholarly works and there's also that tradition as well horizon is fun and she came from that tradition all the ghost farms they all trace themselves back to uh to the original eduardo swami and others okay so this manohar goswami singer of kiertan wrote so uh he sang about the ecstatic love of godanga and the divine episode of vrindavan the master was absorbed in a deep spiritual mood he tore off his shirt and said to the melody of the kirtan assuming the attitude of radha o krishna my beloved o friend bring krishna to me then you will be real friends or take me to him and i will be your slave forever the musician sat spellbound see they're used to this kirtan that other people standing up in and singing but to see somebody get uh into this ecstatic state and identify so much with all of this that would be something astounding to them they probably thought oh how great we are to to inspire him or how blessed we are to inspire him to this the musician sat spellbound at sram a christmas ecstasy then he said with folded hands won't you please rid me of my worldliness master you were like the holy man who went about the city after first finding a lodging you are a sweet person and expressed many sweet ideas yeah this is uh taco talked about this uh two different types of holy men those who wander from place to place and those who find one place and just settle down there and then this other story he used to say that there were two sadhus and they knew each other and they happened to be in the same place together and they saw that one of them saw that his friend was going and visiting all the temples having a nice time and everything and he said oh how is it you can do all of that and he said first i found my lodging and i took my bundle all of my things and i kept him in a room i locked it up nicely and now i can go back freely i don't have to worry about anything so i settled all of my affairs and now i i'm free so he says you were like the holy man who went about the city after first finding a logic you were a sweet person and expressed many sweet ideas musician sir i am like the bullock that only carries the bag of sugar but cannot taste it alas i myself do not enjoy the sweetness of divine bliss the melodious music went on and all were filled with joy there's a line i don't know i know where it's from when i first read uh the complete work to swami vivekananda every once in a while he would write a little centigrade verse so i was always intrigued interested in these things there was one one nice thing it's actually just half a verse and i don't know where it comes from but it says yetah is this is the same idea and just like the uh the donkey carrying a a heavy load of sandalwood he only knows the weight of the center wood doesn't know the beautiful fragrance and the value of the sandalwood so this is this is used very often for these pundits that they can explain the scriptures very well and and all of that but they they haven't been able to assimilate the real meaning and get joy out of it to get that joy out of it there's an interesting story there was a man who was feeling very depressed and he went to a doctor in town and he said i feel sad all of the time nothing can really cheer me up so the doctor said you know there's a circus in town and there's a clown at this circus and this this clown he just he can make anybody laugh anybody sees them they they just lose all of their sorrow and everything why not go to see him and the man said it won't do any good the doctor said why not he said i am that clown so this is sometimes the way that it is we're the ones who can explain the scriptures but we don't get the taste of it so this was kind of a common theme many people would would say things like that okay i think i will stop here because this is the end of that day we're on page 224 and the next entry is saturday june 2nd 1883. so we'll close oh before i do the final chant uh two two things one uh our sunday program swami nish papanani from saint louis he'll be doing a zoom presentation on sunday so some of you i know uh have trouble watching it exactly at 11 in the morning and we we have it on youtube you can watch it at any time but since it's a zoom presentation make sure that you you log in right at 11 o'clock a few minutes before 11 so that you won't miss it there'll be time for question and answer afterwards second thing is i will be sending out an email about this practice of reading the complete works of swan visualize over the memorial day weekend this is something that was started many years ago by swami swahindiji and it goes all the way back to when he was a brahmacharya in in madras the madras mutt in chennai that they would they would have different people read different sections different pages of the complete works so that the entirety of the complete works had been completed had been read so one person reads one chapter another another chapter and then that one is done so uh we've been doing this uh in our southern california centers for many many years and uh swami sabideranji he wants us to supply 38 volunteers so there'll be a sign up sheet that's being sent out and you'll be able to put your names down and each one will just be i don't know how many pages 20 pages something like that not so much and everyone will be able to say yes we participated in the reading of the complete works of swami vivekananda from page one to the end of the whole thing all nine volumes will have been read so if you can and you like please sign up i hope it'll work we're doing it in such a way that uh if you write your name in there everyone else will see that your name is there you're saying yes i hope it'll work i tried it and i wasn't sure how to do it but anyhow okay so we're working it okay let me close then um [Music] 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 every ever worthy of our worship peace peace one other thing just to let everybody know uh our great thanks to everyone for giving donations for covet relief in in india uh believe it or not uh counting the donation that is on its way we'll have collected a hundred and twenty thousand dollars and this will be tremendous help to all of our centers that are doing relief work our mission centers and hospital centers and everything and we'll continue probably for another week or so so if anyone would like to contribute just send us a check made out to vedanta center but put in the memo section covet relief this can also be done through our paypal but send an email telling us for covert relief or credit card could be okay okay thank you