Video 59

The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna read by Swami Atmajnanananda (06/05/21)

foreign your words are like nectar and bring life to squirt souls they're praised by poets and remove all sin they are auspicious to hear wonderful and exalted those who spread these words throughout the world are truly giving souls welcome everyone to our class on the gospel of srama krishna we're on the chapter the master with the brahma devotees some of these chapters take place over several days this one is many different entries so we're on page 224 and it is saturday june 2nd 1883. srama krishna had been invited to visit the homes of the devotees balarama adhor and rama in calcutta these are three of the most important householder devotees last week i believe i i talked about ram ram chandra datta uh will was we've made adhere before huh yeah and i gave a little introduction i wanted to say a little bit more i find it helpful personally uh when we know who these people are we we we start to feel uh like their family members and and it makes a big difference in understanding why and how srama krishna speaks to them when when we understand the relationship that they had some of them get a little bit of a rough treatment this uh ishan especially uh there's one whole chapter advice to ishaan where trauma christians just blessed him and we we think if it had been us we would have just kind of withered away and just disappeared but ishaan takes it very we turned out that taku loved him so much they were very close and he was a wonderful soul very very generous and same thing with adhar will find that srirami krishna that they argue with each other that the deputy magistrate he was trying to get a big job and tako was saying you already have a big job why are you trying so hard for something else and he argues back if if you're you love this not in so much if he went for a big job would you would you also scold him so but we have to understand how much taco loved him and what their relationship was and also that ishan was not destined to live very long and takur knew all of these things so this also plays into it so i wanted to just go through a little bit auto he was born in 1855 so it says okay so beloved householder devotee of srama krishna he met him first in 1883 this is already june 2nd 1883 so he's a newcomer his father was a well-to-do businessman and although it was 29 let's see oh sorry oh no that's where he was born okay uh and uh he was very uh very well versed in literature and other things he wrote some books he wrote five different books on the bengali poetry huh this is and the beginning earlier days he was agnostic we we hear this term very much uh maybe not exactly an atheist but he had kind of lost his faith he was a modern person this was very common in those days that those who had a modern education lost their faith a little bit especially in hindu temple worship and things like that brahma samaj people a little bit so it says in the beginning that he was an atheist and gnostique and then at the age of it says 28 at the first sight first meeting with shrumi krishna that he became very much devoted to him and takwa drew him near him one day it says takur he used to write a mantra on the tongue so one day he wrote the ishta mantra on the tongue of that means he initiated him so he was one of the initiated householder devotees we don't know for sure who exactly uh tak were initiated and unless somebody was there or he told people they're curious say yogin who's from yogananda takur apparently never really initiated him in the same way because he had holy mother do it and yet we consider him his disciple so audra was his disciple but we see that he had that type of initiation and takur in in an ecstatic state he touched on her on the chest and on the head and blessed him that way and then gradually there's he went into a very high spiritual mood at that time takur went to his house on many occasions and they arranged for kiertan there and it says taku looked upon her as narayan we find this term very often especially with the purna that he looked upon him as narayan with swamiji you know one one time uh swamiji was saying to him or no i think it was the it was hazra huh one of them said you're always thinking of these boys you'll be like uh king bharat they're always thinking the deer he became a deer and everything and so taka got a doubt he was very childlike if people said things he would go to the divine mother and so the one mother said no because you see not ayan in them this is why you're so attracted to nadine and the others and he even said to him not in one day the moment that i won't see narayana i won't see god dwelling within you i won't be able to look at your face so he saw same way so he looked upon adora in the same way that he looked upon some of his closest monastic disciples also uh there's an author within engage in so many different things deputy magistrate trying to get a big job and other types of things but it says practically every day practically every day after what tremendously tremendously hard work at the end of the day he would go to dhakshineshwar to make pranam to sramakrishnan and takwamed bonkim chandra at his house and what else interesting okay there's an aadhaar he used to go to his government job uh on horseback it seems strange this i i guess you could do it just through the street in the middle of the city and everything riding on horseback and it says that tucker warned him many times about this to be careful about this it says but at the age of 30. so this means that while taku was still living at the age of 30 one day he fell off the back of the horse and and he died and even at that time uh srama krishna came to see him and with uh and and blessed him with tears in his eyes so this is our alter i thought you might be interested to hear a few words about him there are a couple of very nice books one by swami caitanya and one by swami prabhan and dealing with all of the householder disciples it's very nice their lives are equally inspiring as as the monastic disciples they were all great souls they were all part of this lila this divine play of srama krishna and the more we know about them the more we appreciate we appreciate the role that they had to play so takura evidently had some premonition and he warned her some premonition that he wouldn't live very long and this also helps us understand why he was telling this other don't be so in involved with all of this trying to make more money this and that devote more of your time to to god maybe he knew that he didn't have much time left okay so srama krishna had been invited to visit the homes of his devotees balarama now another thing balarama we may we may wonder if we don't know who he is in the relationship why taka half the time is saying that he's a little bit cheap and stingy he was so generous and taco taku stated his house so many times so tako was so close to him he could tease him a little bit this is a balarama's way you you cook your own food you play your own music but actually balarama was extremely generous and taker appreciated him very much and then ram he would scold this ram and say who was he calling me an avatar and everything but again very very generous and and very close to srama krishna so these are really three of the chief most important householder deputies balarama and devotional music had been arranged by adha and ram this rama was very good at arranging for kirtan so even in balarama's house some of the other homes he would be the one who would arrange for that there would be there were different kirtan parties and and some well-known kirtan singers that they would hire and bring for the occasion the master was accompanied in the carriage by rakal m and others so now we're getting the really inner inner circle inner circle doesn't simply mean the antaranga devotees doesn't simply mean the the monastic members the these householder members also balarama ataram and m and others as they drove along srama krishna said to the devotees you see sin flies away when love of god grows in a man's heart even as the water of the reservoir dug in a meadow dries up under the heat of the sun awkward didn't like people to be obsessed with this idea of sin he used to say those who say i'm a sinner i'm a sinner ami papi ami papi he said they become a sinner he said better to recognize yes i did some things in the past that i shouldn't have done i'll do my best not to do them again and that's the end of it not to dwell on it too much we start to think of ourselves that way we need to have a positive self-image this was swamiji huh they tell yourselves your children of of of the divine the the children of immortality and feel that internal strength so he got the teaching from srama krishna and so he said if you have love of god then all these other tendencies these tendencies they all stem from ego if we if we examine them ego and this desire for enjoyment and this this fear of criticism so many different things that cause us to do things that that we recognize we shouldn't do there's a very nice verse one of my favorite verses in this very present question that arjuna asked sri krishna why do we do these things commit sinful things even when we don't want to as if we're being forced to do it and shri krishna says yeah this is all because of these passions these rajas we can add thomas also there's karma krota and other things that and all go back to this idea of the ego these are all the reasons why people do it and the more we're immersed with this the mind is filled with that the more or the less control we have over the decisions that we make this idea of free will it's not it's not a yes or no thing do we have it or don't we have it it's a question of degree the degree to which we're in the grip of anger and jealousy and lust and greed that's the degree to which we don't have so much free will when we're free from them then we can freely decide things based on what we feel is the best thing for ourselves and for others so he says you see sin flies away when love of god grows in a man's heart even as the water the reservoir dug in a meadow dries up under the heat of the sun so we shouldn't think of it as such a big thing that it can it can disappear very easily but one cannot love god if one feels attracted to worldly things to lust and gold merely taking the valve monastic life will not help a man if he is attached to the world it is like swallowing your own spittle after spitting it out on the ground tutu fellaini our tutukawa tucker has this is very nice waving expressing this tutu i was when i first read that word i thought what a nice way of expressing it when we go when we spit something out tutu so tako usually he uses this expression a few different times it usually if a monk or somebody's uh takes a vowel to renounce something and then they they trend they transgress and they go back and enjoy it so uh someone who takes the monastic vowels and then goes back to the world uh this is this is generally the sense in which he used it but what he's saying is that inner renunciation is the main thing it's not the external renunciation if we take the vowels external vowels of pronunciation and still we have tremendous attachment and longing for enjoyment then we won't get the fruits of our renunciation after a few minutes the master continued the members of the brahma-samaj do not accept god with form so they're still in the carriage now and there aren't any any brahmos there it's just well of course am had the connection before both em and rock call had been members of the brahmos homage but of course now that they're they're uh completely devoted to him but anyhow he's talking about that the members of the brahmos hamada do not accept god with form narendra says that god with form is a mere idol now i i have this feeling that half the time when there's a discussion about god with form that there's a total miscommunication that that the brahmos were almost incapable of thinking about on god with form in in any deeper higher sense any sins other than image worship or idol worship with what they would call they considered it idolatry so uh talkward's understanding of god with form is very very subtle a very beautiful combination of the subjective and the objective the ocean taking form of blocks of ice so many different ways he explains it dyeing the cloth different colors that a lot of it is is due to the longing of the heart of the devotee what form god will take a lot of it has to do with with visions of god that we see or the way that we worship god very little of it has to do with image worship but even then when the when the brahmos would come back and and talk about the idol suramar krishna would say but i see it as as chinmaya i see it as the embodiment of pure consciousness so even even that and you would tell them see it as a as a symbol of god don't think of it nobody is actually worshiping this piece of stone they're worshiping god through the image the very nice incident that took place in the life of swamiji he was traveling must have been in gujarat i think not quite sure and he was having a discussion with one of the ministers the duan and anyhow one of the places about image worship and he couldn't convince him that there was nothing wrong with image worship swamiji used to say that how can i criticize worshipping god through the image when my own master this ramakrishna had the highest god of realization through that type of worship and now he said to him that you see the picture of the maharaja on the wall you bring it down so he brought it down and he said now spit on it he said how can i spit on it he said why can't you it's just a picture it's not him and he said yes but when we see that picture we we want to show respect to it and we feel that it's timitive and swamiji said just so with the worship of god through the image that it brings to mind this idea of god so we have certain respect for it that way so taqwa said the members of the brahma-samaj do not accept god with form narendra says that god with form is a mere idol he says further what he still goes to the kali temple meaning surami krishna suramar krishna and his party arrived at balarama's house he went to balarama's house they say a hundred different times i don't know who kept track or anything but more than any other place in calcutta and he went really we see so many times he's visiting these deputies homes in in calcutta he went to balaram's house so many times rahm's house surveillance house he went to em's house on a couple of occasions i don't think am recorded those times though for some reason do we have any record of him at his house but taka says to him i want to go to your house one day so we assume that he went there and he out to many of the devotees homes and of course many of the brahmos and they had their festivals and things in their homes sometimes so suramar krishna and his party arrived at balaram's house jaguarnath came to invite the master to his house at four o'clock in the afternoon takur would go almost anywhere we don't know much about this yogyanat i don't know if his name comes up again but apparently he was a devoted to srama krishna who had some respect for him wanted him to come to his house so he invited him to to his house at four o'clock in the afternoon sram krishna agreed to go if he felt well after yogyanat's departure the master went into an ecstatic mood he said to the divine mother mother what is all this stop what are these things thou art showing to me what is it that thou dost revealed to me through rachal and others the form is disappearing but mother what people call man is only a pillowcase nothing but a pillowcase consciousness is thine alone probably taqwa was thinking again about this idea of god with forming god without form he used to say that god with form is not it's not something written in stone it's something that uh is invaluable each one of us will see god in in a different way and when this he said this box of ice form this will be the form of god through the devotion the cooling power of our devotion but when the sun of knowledge arises it melts back into the formless ocean so takuru is thinking now mother what is this you're making everything melt back into the formless this this is a little early this is only 1883 but takwa says towards the end when he got closer to the end that this formless form of mother started coming to him and this happened with ram prasad also the songs that he wrote that he composed at the end the end of his life were more about this formless aspect mother is the infinite absolute reality and this idea of a pillow case this is this is such a sweet idea that taco would say that the real person the the real self has nothing to do with this outer garment just like the pillowcase and the and the pillow we we come upon this this term and very nice we may have read it recently very another nice incident they're talking about and one of them says he keeps your picker picture in his in his room where he stays so srama krishna effin in an ecstatic mood again also he says just a pillowcase that what is it to look at this picture that's not the real self now there was another time when hazra hasra and who was it not the version of charan somebody else they were going to see a holy man huh sriami krishna they were uh krishna kishore krishna kishore he got very mad at hazrat hallelujah what's the point in going to see just the cage of flesh and bones to see the holy man so he goes so he said someone whose mind is thinking of god day and night you're calling just a cage of flesh and bones so takoya agreed with that so it's not that he didn't he didn't see that different people are worthy of more respect than others he did of course but sometimes he would go into that mood where he would see just the same rama dwelling within all the beings he used to say sometimes tumiyano and whether you know it or not he would tell the devotees whether you know it or not you're rama that means the god alone dwells within all of you the modern brahmagyanis that means the brahmos so much the modern brahmagyanis have not tasted thy sweet bliss he's talking to the divine mother now in the semi-conscious state their eyes look dry and so do their faces they won't achieve anything without ecstatic love of god they say that this was one of the gifts that taku gave to the brahmos so much this is the idea of this ecstatic love of god that's why we see that the songs that were am composed later pagul kori mother make me mad with i love all of these were after tara looking out and others came in contact with suramar krishna mother once i asked thee to give me a companion just like myself is that why thou hast given me rakhal we know that image that tucker head and that the divine mother said you see this is this is your child and he said how can i have a child and she said no a divine child spiritual child so that was rakaal swami brahmananda the master went to adar's house where arrangements were being made for the kirtan many devotees and neighbors had gathered in others drawing room anxious to listen to the master's words master to the devotees both worldliness and liberation depend on god's will it is god alone who has kept man in the world in a state of ignorance and man will be free when god of his own sweet will calls him to himself it is like the mother calling the child at meal time when he is out playing when the time comes for setting a man free god makes him seek the company of holy men further it is god who makes him restless for spiritual life now we always run into these difficulties when we hear these things but what about karma and we were reading the other night holy mother she was saying how does god do all of these things through his law through this law of karma so there's not a real contradiction here that we can understand hey mark we can understand that one of the ways that if we say why will god keep people from from wanting to realize him why will god do that if we understand that this law of karma is is that divine will divine will is that we get what we what we deserve as we sow so we reap one way of understanding this of course others will uh will say don't get too technical talk we're saying the divine mother is doing it except the mother isn't doing it but then we we have that question why will the divine mother keep some drowning in worldliness so we look at the other side of it where swamiji will say that nobody blame but ourselves we ourselves have dug the hole that we're in and we ourselves have to get ourselves out so these are two extremes these two different explanations god's will and karma some will say everything is karma taqwa really would say that karma can be can be lessened a little bit through divine grace which really means to our own devotion of course takwa didn't talk about the divine mother the way we understand the divine mother he for for tako or she was a living presence and a living being not not just he says divine mothers is in brahman together with shakti but it was more than that this was someone who spoke to him some divine presence of which which is very hard to to fathom for most people further is it is god who makes him restless for spiritual life in hebrew what kind of restlessness sir this restlessness of ecuador is usually the term that's used that tucker used he likes that term very much uh he he used to say that this is the final stage we want to have a little bit in the beginning but this grows and grows and grows to the point where it becomes impossible to live without god when it reaches that point then we'll have the vision of god and uh there i don't know who was the first one who did it but there was someone who coined this term yoga that is a path of of uh path to god realization through yearning alone and he took this to be the main teaching of srama krishna adding another yoga to the other yogas of course we need this intensity and this this and great longing for god no matter what spiritual path we're on master like the restlessness of a clerk who has lost his job now it doesn't sound like much huh nowadays people they lose their job they can collect unemployment now we have so many millions of people out of work who aren't looking for jobs and there are too many jobs that are available it was different in taqwa's time if we remember what happened to narendra that type of yearning where barefoot he went from place to place fearful that his parents and that his mother and his brothers and sisters would starve to death that type of longing for a job he's talking about he makes the round of the offices daily and asks whether there is any vacancy when that restlessness comes man longs for god a fop seated comfortably with one leg over the other chewing beetle leaf and twirling his mustaches a carefree dandy cannot attain god neighbor can one get this longing for god through frequenting the company of a holy man so this is the question if this is the the means for god realization then how do we get it how do we acquire this this longing for god we can't pretend to have it we can't uh taco says we forgot so we say okay now i'll wait for god we it has to be genuine it has to really come on its own so we wonder how can it come so it's a very good question can it be done through holy company and we know how often taqwa talks about holy company probably this is the best answer yes the very best answer when we see yes we have a glimpse of these these god realized souls sometimes i i wonder that uh i had the opportunity to see very briefly some of these great souls and they leave such a deep impression i'm reading now the long section about gopes miraj you know i talk very often about this paratin shah dude very beautiful book about these early swamis of the order and this gopis marais the swami saridesh anandiji who was a disciple of holy mother he was was considered to be one of the [Music] saintliest of all the the monks of our order and so many of the swamis i'm reading some so many of these great swamis who became president of the order later they would go and sit at his feet he was so highly respected i i only saw him on two different occasions but even just seeing him for the first time you just feel there's this tremendous power there and you you see this the joy and calmness in his face that you think yeah wouldn't that be nice if i could get some of that we we remember the story of buddha when he had his four trips outside of the temple garden and he saw a sick person he saw an old person and he saw a dead person they caused him to have a little bit of this endowed about what is the really valuable in life and everything but the fourth trip he saw a young monk walking no possessions yet full of joy and that did it that was enough to say ah i want that i want to become like that and then he renounced everything so this is a good question can can one get this longing for god through frequenting the company of holy men master yes it is possible but not for a confirmed scoundrel so we shouldn't think that everybody who went to see srama krishna walked away with tremendous longing for god everybody had a different capacity to imbibe to assimilate that that joy and bliss and and god had that that he manifested uh some of them saw takur and weren't the least bit interested it had no effect on them that we know of maybe later in life they remembered and something happened but at least at the time so it says not for a confirmed scoundrel a sannyasi's commandolu is a water pot made of bitter gourd travels with him to the four great places of pilgrimage but still it does not lose its bitterness the kirtan began the musician sang of sri krishna's life in vrindavan radha kirtan generally means this the events in the life of sri krishna and radha and and secondarily the life of chaitanya deva and nithyananda and others uh generally kirtan is with regard to this tradition uh not that they you won't have i mean you will have these uh you'll have these other groups that come and sing songs about mother kali and everything but generally kirtan refers to this radha friend i am about to die give me back my krishna friend but radha the cloud of krishna was ready to burst into rain it was yourself who blew it away with the strong wind of your peak we saw this last time on this abhimaan that this type of spiritual attitude that one has when there's a very intimate close relationship you didn't look at me i won't look at you or the little child oh you won't give me what i want then i won't talk to you anymore that type of peak obama you were certainly not happy to see krishna oh this is the friend talking you were certainly not happy to see krishna happy or why were you peaked radha but this pride was not mine my pride has gone away with him who made me proud what was her pride that she could serve krishna it was nothing nothing personal after the music srama krishna conversed with the devotees master the gopis worshiped katyayani in order to be united with sri krishna i didn't know exactly if there's any special reference uh iswami b he said kathy just the name of parvati name of the divine mother i don't know if there's there was some special incident or if they actually literally went to a temple that way but what it means is that they recognized that this divine mother this divine power has to be propitiated that every it says everyone is under the authority of the divine mother muhammad the primal energy yeah we normally will associate the gopis of course as worshipers of krishna himself but they were lovers of krishna that doesn't mean they they couldn't worship the divine mother that they would go to the temple and do all of that anyhow there there's probably some story behind this i don't know the gopis worshiped qatari in order to be united with sri krishna everyone is under the authority of the divine mother muhammad the primal energy now when takwa says the primal energy he doesn't mean just this inert energy or anything he's talking about the divine mother as the as the ultimate reality what we would simply say god that god with with the power to uh to create the world and to uh to bestow grace in the world all of these different things what talk we usually say brahman and shakti together will this is not shakti separate from brahman but brahman together with shakti so muhammad the primal energy even the incarnations of god accept the help of maya to fulfill their mission on earth therefore they worship the primal energy except the help of maya tako used to say that they have to have a little bit of this maya within even to take birth even to live in the world there has to be some type of identification with the body even a little bit a little bit of a desire for enjoyment taco used to keep these little things that he would like to enjoy otherwise otherwise the mind would go up he would be merged in brahmin he wouldn't be able to talk to people or do anything so a little bit of rajis and thomas has to be there even for the the divine incarnations a little bit of attachment has to be there how attached they were takwa was to to swamiji and raqqa and all of the others holy mother also swamiji we see how when when goodwin died and other tragedies came how he would how he worked bitterly they all could weep when when their loved ones passed away but there was no touch of anything personal there was there was no ego to it it was different from of course from it wasn't real attachment it was a very pure type of love so quite different from what we experience usually so therefore they worship the primal energy don't you see how bitterly rama whipped for sita brahman weeps ensnared in the meshes of maya yeah this is with little expression that tucker used to use must be from a song poncho brute fonte that caught in the snares of the five elements what is what is this trap of the five elements his body that means they have to they have to become embodied beings if they're going to enact their their play and fulfill their mission on earth so if they do that if they take a human body then they have to have a human mind to a certain extent and human emotions to a certain extent which means that they'll experience ups and downs and they'll even weep at different times so in many ways the the avatar is like an ordinary human being but in the most important ways very very different and but they need that they need to have that in order to live in the world they need to have these human qualities and we need to see them with human qualities to be able to relate to them in the life of jesus when he saw the money changers outside of the temple we got furious and started kicking them out and overturning tables and things like that this kind of divine fury divine anger we'll see this in the avatars but there's something holy behind it and it's and there's nothing personal we have a little ego behind all of our things which which clouds and and the colors everything vishnu incarnated himself as a sow in order to kill the demon hiranyaksha after killing the demon the sal remained quite happy with her young ones forgetting her real nature she was suckling them very contentedly the gods in heaven could not persuade vishnu to relinquish his salsa body and return to the celestial regions of course there's a very strong example of of the avatar being completely overcome by maya he was absorbed in the happiness in his beast form after consoling among themselves the god sent shiva to the sow shiva asked the sal why have you forgotten yourself vishnu replied through the south's body why i'm quite happy here they're upon with the stroke of his trident she would destroy the sal's body and vishnu went back to heaven from ottar's house sriram krishna went to ram's house ram chandra one of the chief householder disciples of the master lived in calcutta now this is this is before he purchased that property in kangachi which we know is yogodan and had his garden house this was very common for people who could afford it for wealthier people in calcutta they would have a second place and in those days these were not rural but they were they were kind of i guess the equivalent of the suburbs or something now it's all part of kolkata but and those they would have a place where there were some grounds and it was quiet the air was nice they could have a pretty garden and everything where they could get away a little vacation house something like that so before that uh so taco used to go to his place in uh in kolkata afterwards of course he made it went many times to kakagachi also to see him and surendra did the same thing he also had a property within walking distance of avram unless that was in calcutta i'm not sure anyhow okay because we find in one time sram christian went walking he walked from i i don't remember now if it's uh congrats or in kolkata when they met that sadhu the master had visited his house a number of times and understandingly praised the devotion and generosity of this beloved disciple we we saw last week that he met rama in uh 1879 a couple of years before before this so he he went on several occasions a few of the master's disciples made rama's house virtually their own dwelling place and the two that we know especially are tarak who became swami shivananda and nitigopal and there i'm sure there were others also so he was very generous and kept his house open like that there are many many in those days who did that people were extremely uh open and there wasn't see in in the west we we uh value our privacy so much and this idea that our relatives will come and stay as long as they want and just move in and we may have to move to another room it's this very few will will actually do that at least my experience is that those uh grow up in india that these are very simple things nobody questions it very much that the relative shows up and they want to stay then fine so you you fix up a bed and you move and you adjust i think maybe because of the joint family in the early days that this was more the case and many times the i know kumar knows this that the house of the teacher that they'll just whenever students want to stay there can just stay there that's when we read about the life of a permission on the that his father was like that in their house and i think it was swami shivan and his father also where many students young people they would just come and stay there that i don't know how many they could pack into a single room but nobody seemed to care it wasn't this the same idea of privacy it's a very different concept of privacy i'll tell you an interesting thing i took a course in hindi one year don't try to speak to me in hindi because i didn't remember too much of it but the teacher was trying to explain the difference between and we have the same thing in bengali to me and opne and when you say what to what and somebody was asking well how how do you refer to your wife and i forget and and then somebody said well what do you use to talk to her in private and he thought for a minute and he said we don't have privacy in it yet this is kind of a different concept he was a very nice man a nice uh teacher so rom had arranged a special festival to celebrate the master's visit the small courtyard was nicely decorated a cuttack seated on a raised platform these kataks even now you'll find them they can do these recitations sometimes they'll recite repeat verses from from the original text then they'll do it in bengali or any other language and then maybe they'll sing some songs they'll do a whole like like a one-man drama yatra is very very nice and some of our monks one or two of them are very good at it you may remember some of you when our swami what was his name i can't remember he came and he did something like that he was good at a very good singer and someone the life of rama what was his name you remember hindi speaker uh the one the one that uh yeah the three brothers swami atman and his brother one of his three brothers anyhow it's very very nice and in villages and things when there was no other type of entertainment uh sometimes these kataks would go and and do recitations from ramayana [Music] and everything and all everyone would come out and little children would be there this is how everybody learned these quranic stories and other things so they hired him uh to come and give a little performance so akatak cedar on a raised platform was reciting from the bhagavata when the master arrived rama greeted him respectfully and seated him near the reader the disciple was extremely happy the katak was in the midst of a story of king hadis chandra the great king now we're going to get a long section i hope it won't bore everybody we're not going to get too much of taqwa's words but he m decided to put all of this in for some reason the great king harish chandra of the purana was the embodiment of generosity no one ever went away from him empty-handed now the said vishwamitra wanting to test the extent of the king's charity extract it from him a promise to grant any boon that he might ask then the sage asked for the gift of the seaguard world of which hadith chandra was king without the slightest hesitation the king gave away his kingdom then vishwamitra demanded the auxiliary fee little foul there's a little there's a custom in india yeah no this uh i think it means foul that when you when you give something even when you buy something you purchase something then you have to give it a look so you'll you'll see in india if say you you buy rice you need a pound of rice they'll do it so it's exactly the same so you know you have a pound they'll take a little more and throw it on so it goes down there's a foul so tako used to say that he when he scolded yogin huh yoga he bought a pen that had a crack in it and he said no you give the money don't expect him to to be a religious person he's he's selling his goods he's trying to make money you make sure that the thing you buy is in good condition and ask for a little foul and and make sure he gives a little extra a little little gift a little something just to throw in uh for the sake of auspiciousness for the seller i don't know for some reason so this i think is is what's meant here should i look it up see what is so anyhow i'll look it up next time you don't see it so anyhow i think that's it that uh he gave something away but then he said no now you have to give me a little bit more so then vishwamitra demanded the auxiliary fee which alone makes charity valid and meritorious the qatar continued his recitation vishwamitra said to the king o king you have given away the entire world which was your kingdom it now belongs to me you cannot claim any place here but you may live in benares which belongs to sheba i shall lead you there with your wife shebiya and rohitashwa your son there you can procure the auxiliary fee that you owe me the royal family accompanied by this age reads benares and visited the temple of shiva at the very mention of shiva the master went into a spiritual mood and repeated the holy name several times indistinctly the qatar continued the king could not procure the fee and was compelled to sell sheibiyah his royal consort to abraham wither went prince but since even that was not enough to redeem his pledge to the sage hadith chandra sold himself to an untouchable who kept the cremation ground he was ordered to supervise the cremations one day while plucking flowers for his brahmin master prince rohitashwa was bitten by a venomous snake and that very night died the cruel brahmin would not leave his bed to help the poor mother cremate the body the night was dark and stormy lightning rent the black clouds see these conducts could be very dramatic doing all of this and everyone is listening with rapt attention yeah yeah the night was dark and stormy lightning rent the black clouds sebia started for the cremation ground alone carrying the body of her son in her arms smitten with fear and overpowered with grief the queen filled heaven and earth with her wailing arriving at the cremation ground she did not recognize her husband who demanded the usual fee for the cremation sheila was penniless and wept bitterly at her unending misfortunes the impenetrable darkness was illumined only by the terrible flames of the cremation pyres above her the thunder roared and before her the uncouth guardian of the cremation ground demanded his fee she who had once been queen of the world sat there with her only child dead and cold on her lap the devotees burst into tears [Laughter] and loudly lamented this tragic episode of a royal life and what was the master doing he was listening to the recital with rapt attention teardrops appeared in his eyes and he wiped them away the qatar continued when the queen wailing bitterly utter the name of her husband harishchandra once recognized his wife and son then the two wept for the dead prince yet in all these misfortunes the king never once uttered a word of regret for his charity finally the said vishwamitra appeared and told them that he had only wanted to put the king's charitable impulses to a crucial test then through his spiritual power the sage brought the prince back to life and returned to the king his lost kingdom srirama krishna asked the qatar to recite the episode of uddhava the friend and devotee of krishna they were masters these people they had so many things committed to memory and and could just just at a request they could go through all of these things at the request of krishna uddhava had gone to vrindavan to console the cowherds and the gopis who were sword heart because of their separation from their beloved krishna so this will be after he went to matara and uh and the gopis were missing him so much uh because they didn't have much stance to go there the the first time they went there and saw him dressed up with his with his turban and his royal garb and everything they veiled themselves and said who is this stranger they only wanted their gowinda the qatar said when uddhava arrived at rindavan uttava was a dear friend of sri krishna arrived at the vrindavan the gopis and cowherd boys ran to him eagerly and asked him how was our krishna has he forgotten us all together doesn't he even speak our names so saying some of them wept others accompanied him to various places in vrindavan still filled with krsna's sweet memory they said here it was that krishna lifted up mount govardhan and here he killed the demon sent by the evil-minded kamsa in this meadow he tended his cows here on the bank of the jamuna he sported with the gopis here he played with the cowherd boys and here in these groves he met the gopis secretly uttava said to them why are you so grief stricken at krsna's absence he resides in all beings as their indwelling spirit he is god himself and nothing can exist without god sees gyani he's talking to these simple villagers but the gopis we do not understand at all that we can either read nor write we know only our krishna of who played with us here in so many ways uber said krishna is god himself by meditating on him man escapes from birth and death in the world and attains liberation the gopis said we do not understand big words like liberation we want to see krishna to see the krishna of our hearts the master master listened to the story from the bhagavata with great attention and said it last yes the gopis were right then he sang though i'm never loath these are the words of of krishna himself though i'm never loath to grant salvation i hesitate indeed to grant pure love so this is the idea that this prema is something far greater than mukti i mentioned on other occasions that uh there are certain vaisnava traditions this is gaudiya vaishnavi tradition especially but also in the bhagavata that talks about this panchama purusharta this is the fifth goal of life the this is higher than mukti and very often they'll say we don't want this mukti we don't want this liberation and we we want to be able to worship god we want to live in the presence of god not merging god even taqwa used to say we want to be able to taste sugar and not become sugar so even the shakti tradition has that idea so though i am never loathed the grand salvation i hesitate indeed to grant pure love whoever wins pure love surpasses all he is adored by men he triumphs over the three worlds listen to andravali this is one of the gopis i shall tell you of love mukti a man may gain but rare is bhakti so the liberation is considered something much lower and when it says bhakti devotion it doesn't mean ordinary devotion this is that highest type of devotion where we've become mad with love of god we care for nothing but god we have no selfish interest in anything we only want to serve god so this is something very rare solely for pure love's sake that i become king wali's door keeper down in the realm in the netherworld okay there's a footnote an illusion to the story of narrated in the purana he was punished by the lord for his excessive charity and was condemned to rule over the netherworld but he succeeded in extracting from the lord the boon that he would be his doorkeeper alone in vrindavan can pure love be found it's secret none but the gopis gopas and gopis no the cowherd boys and the and the milkmaids for pure love's sake i dwelled in nanda's house taking him as my father i carried his burdens on my head the master said to the qatak the gopis had ecstatic love unswerving and single-minded devotion to one ideal one ideal do you know the meaning of devotion that is not loyal to one ideal it is devotion tinged with intellectual knowledge it makes makes ones feel so this uh gyani mishra bhakti sometimes takur talked about it as something lower that this pure love is something higher where we don't even care to know these things other times he would say how can you love god without knowing god so depending on the context and the circumstances other times it's this for him it didn't mean that there was no gyan involved it meant there was no selfishness involved so do you know the meaning of devotion that is not loyal to one ideal it is devotion teams with intellectual knowledge it makes one's one feel krishna has become all these he alone is the supreme brahman he is rama shiva and shakti but this element of knowledge is not present in ecstatic love of god because that intimacy won't be there once hanuman came to dwarka and wanted to see sita and rama krishna said his queen you would better assume the form of sita otherwise there will be no escape from the hands of hanuman this is our greatest example probably of nishta this idea of hanuman he knew of course the same rama also came as krishna was also narayana but he wanted to see only that form of rama okay we'll stop here we're on page 228. [Music] is we bow our heads before surama krishna who is stainless of infinite nature whose heart melts in sympathy for his devotees who is an embodiment of the divine and the supreme lord and ever worthy of our worship peace peace peace be untoward