Video 60

The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna read by Swami Atmajnanananda (06/11/21)

[Music] your words are like nectar bringing life to squirt souls they are 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 are on page 228. we started this last week this is the chapter the master with the brahmo devotees part two and it's saturday june 2 1883 suramar krishna had been invited to visit the homes of his devotees balarama adhar and rama in calcutta devotional music had been arranged by adha and ram the master was accompanied in the carriage by rockall m and others and i don't remember where we are one of the houses and the katak had been invited these kataks this is uh it looks like ram's house the kataks usually uh relate some of the stories from the from the puranas or mahabharata ramayana and uh they're very dramatic and they they'll sing and espresso with some songs and some quotations and things like that and everyone enjoys it very much so now he's talking about a story about the pandavas so once that this is the qatar once the pandava brothers performed the rajasuya sacrifice all the kings placed yudhisthira on the royal throne and bowed low before him in homage but bibhishina the king of ceylon said i bow to narayana and to none else at these words the lord krsna bowed down to yudhisthira only then did did bhavishana prostrate himself crown and all before him this is actually srama krishna speaking sorry he's speaking to the to the qatar yeah and he'll be talking about this idea of nishta there's one point of devotion do you know what devotion to one ideal is like it is like the attitude of a daughter-in-law in the family she serves all the members of the family her brothers-in-law father-in-law husband and so forth bringing them water to wash their feet fetching their towels arranging their seats and the like but with her husband she has a special relationship there are two elements in this ecstatic love eyeness and minus so he's a little different topic yeah takur talks about as nishta very often the very very important concept i think of nishta as the liberal version of fanaticism the fanaticism is the people who are so dedicated to their own ideal that they think that there's nothing else this nishta is that same same degree of devotion to our own ideal and yet understanding that everyone else has a right to that same devotion to their ideal and that that's equally valid everyone's path is valid we're all worshiping god through different names and forms and different traditions and everything but we have some very special devotion to our own spiritual path and there's nothing wrong with it some people may think that oh she will only go wherever tucker's name is mentioned and he won't go anyplace else he only wants to hear about swamiji this and that very narrow-minded it's not narrow-minded this is a very natural thing if this is the spiritual path that we're on this is what we want to do we respect everybody else from time to time we may go also we may enjoy other traditions but we have a special relationship if for example we're going somewhere maybe on a train and we see people are reading their books and everything and we see one person reading the gospel of swami krishna then we oh this is my own person we may even go up and and ask them oh i see what you're reading did you go there this is you've been initiated this and that we feel some special connection so this is nishta not that we don't respect everybody else but we seek out this our own family people that this is this is our very own so this idea of uh belonging to a tradition this idea of of just taking special joy in that particular spiritual path and not swerving from it we may enjoy reading some other things from time to time we may get some some benefit of course and it's good to see other traditions but come back to our own to be established and and that's one point of devotion to our own spiritual ideal it's a very very nice thing we only have to avoid the fanaticism which which says everyone else should come to the same ideal of course we're happy if people come we don't mind that but we'll never say that their ideal is wrong there's a lower ideal or anything like that everyone is welcome to their own ideal but we feel comfortable we feel some joy with our own spiritual tradition and with others who follow that tradition we feel a special closeness so takwa continues there are two elements in this ecstatic love inis and minus yeah i always find it very curious that these are the two things that generally we think are great obstacles in spiritual life [Music] so this i and mine that these are great obstacles in spiritual life that we should feel that i am not the doer i am not the enjoyer the divine mother does everything through me i'm only an instrument i don't want to take pride or even responsibility or or get a claim for anything that i do and nothing belongs to me everything belongs to god but the path of devotion we're allowed to have this feeling if we spiritualize it this is what taqwa means and and and the very common theme for the path of devotion we take things that ordinarily might be obstacles and we spin it around we give it a twist we change change the intention of it a little bit so generally we'll say that desire is a bad thing and yet taka says it's the greatest help and and passion that we should be dispassionate free from passion but he said no we have to have tremendous passion for god realization tremendous longing for god realization what is it if not a type of karma a type of intense desire but spiritualized and even given that direction so it's the same thing the sense of i that yes i also have a mother i'm also a child of of the divine i also belong to this tradition i'm the monk of the roman christian order i have that pride it's not arrogance or anything but pride we're happy about it and this mama that god belongs to me and i belong to god there's this feeling of closeness and intimacy and if we can have the mammoth of course if we can have it for everyone that we feel the whole world to be our own we feel that connection with everyone then of course is the even the greater thing so two elements in this ecstatic love i ness and minus yoshoda used to think who would look after gopala if i did not this is the mother foster mother of the baby gopala krishna of sri krishna and she had that feeling that he'll be helpless without me what would he do that i have to be there he will fall ill if i do not serve him she did not look on krishna as a god the other other element is minus yeah every once in a while she would get a glimpse with that time he stole the butter and she wanted it to see if the butter was in his mouth and opened it and she looked down she saw the entire universe there every once in a while she would be given a little glimpse of his true nature but then would forget and she didn't want it the gopis also they didn't care for this idea uh krishna dwells within the hearts of all why are you wandering longing for him and everything we don't care for that we want to see or gopala who you want to see or beloved she did not look on krsna's god the other element is minus it means to look on god as one's own my gopala uddhava said to yashoda mother your christian is god himself he is the lord of the universe and not a common human being oh exclaimed yasoda i'm not asking you about your lord of the universe i want to know how my gopal affairs not the lord of the universe but my gopala so this this i-ness i in mind how faithful to krishna the gopis were that means they had that nishta that they didn't care for anything else or anybody else after many entries to the door keeper the gopis entered the royal court in mathura where krishna was seated as king this is after sri krishna he reached a certain age where he had to take over his his duties he was prince he had to leave vrindavan he could no longer just be the lazy cowherd boy just going out and grazing the cattle and playing his flute and all of that he had his duties and he had a dress like a prince with a turban and all of that in mathura so it wasn't there govinda it wasn't there krishna that they were seeing the door keeper took them to him but at the sight of king krishna wearing a royal turban the gopis bent down their heads and said among themselves who is this man with the turban on his head should we violate our chaste love for krishna by talking to him where is our beloved krishna with the yellow robe and the bewitching crest with the peacock feather do you observe the single-minded love of the gopis for krishna even it's the same krishna but even their devotion was to that particular form the particular form of krishna that they knew in vrindavan the idea of vrndavana is unique i am told that the people of dwaraka worship krishna the companion of arjuna but reject radha this is is one of the very interesting elements in the worship of krishna that different places with different traditions worship him at different stages of his life so the vrndavan period you will find both this vat salih bhava worshipping him as the infant the gopala and then also as the as the young boy uh go in the hood the beloved of uh the the gopis and the gopas so they will have the sake of bhava and we'll have a madhur bhava but then uh as as as we travel out of the bengal and brindavan area they either the division of a tradition at least according to the caitanya followers of caitanya it moved in two directions the home was within bengal but caitanya david spent most of his time in puri so and with the juggernaut temple and he sent the goswami to brindavan so they're the two great centers there but you go a little further west and the tradition changes a little bit that taqwa is talking about krishna as the companion of arjuna what we also find is the concert of rook mini especially dwarika because he was supposed to move there i don't know all of these the details of this somehow after mathura towards the end of his life he went to dwarika anybody know why the stories about that anyhow and and then he got shot being mistaken for a deer got shot in the foot or something done anyhow and yeah so his worship there and no mention of radha krishna anything like that or the baby it's a whole different story as almost as if they're two different people or three different people the way christians worship the different stages of his life and the different traditions i don't think we find much of this in the bhagavata there will be other scriptures and things but in any event they're common all over india i would think so i know nowadays all these south indian temples will even have it but i don't know if that's a concession to you know this all india concept or kumar in the south do you see these rather krishna temples could be could be the vaisnava tradition is a little bit different but it's very very strong these of course the mantua tradition uh will be more this brindavan idea with the young i think it's just in in gujarat western parts where the rookman is more important and the other point is that nishita will even even apply uh to different periods in the life of krishna so much a devotion to the the boy krishna the baby krishna that when they see him in a different form then it's almost as if someone else taker very often gives the story of when hanuman went to dwaraka and sri krishna said the rook mini you better take the form of sita i'll take the form of rama that hanuman he knows that we're the same but he doesn't care to see us he wants to see his beloved rama and sita hey devotee which is the better ecstatic love or love mixed with knowledge what is it okay this is will be very very high type bhakti can mean ordinary devotion or bhakti can be in the very heights of devotion when we read the narada we find that it is this this is a definition of bhakti tasmin with regard to god the highest type of love of god is called bhakti other times we we may feel bhakti yoga this is the path of devotion it's not the highest type of prema or bhava mahabhava anything like that so when he says this ecstatic love this is the highest type of devotion and gyani mishra bhakti will of course have to take a backseat a little bit because we're talking about the very highest there's ghana mishra bhakti takwa he talks about it in different senses and sometimes he talks about it so favorably that many people will say that this was what he taught that this this harmony this mixture of the path of knowledge and the path of devotion because we get so many teachings about what is the real nature of the self what is the real nature of brahman uh not in conflict with any of this devotion and takwa says we don't really mix them up we take this to it until we keep it in our pocket we tie it in the corner of our cloth and knowing this ideal of oneness we feel a little sense of separation because of this ego sense and and because of that it enables us to have this highest type of devotion but it's not a dualistic type of devotion where there's a real separation between ourselves and god there's always this idea that uh when the son of knowledge rises and uh the block of ice melts it goes back into the ocean and everything is oneness again there's always that idea that the beautiful song of ram prasad really expresses it this this idea that yes tasting sugar is a very nice thing and becoming sugar is also what ultimately all of us will do we'll all all attain to that oneness in that highest state of realization but ram prasad says i don't want to become sugar i want to taste sugar and taquer says i like to keep a little sense of separation a little little feeling of i in order to enjoy that relationship so this is the gyana mishra bhakti sometimes when they talk about sudha bhakti taco will will talk about is a very high ideal but that usually means the type of devotion that doesn't care for uh doesn't ask for anything in return that'll be a heitu ki bhakti there's a motive-less devotion other times if people talk about oh i only want pure devotion then taka will say unless you know the object of of your devotion then how can you have real devotion so he never likes people to be too one-sided some people say oh i don't want to listen to all this there's an argument he said no he said no that you should understand these things a little bit so should have the from that that point of view that it excludes all the other paths i only want this feeling of devotion for for some of course this is a very high attitude for others it can be a little bit of of uh fanaticism and uh unless we realize this this uh the real nature of god is being a nameless informedness and able to take all forms then we can think that my path is the only path so this is this is not a good understanding of sudha bhakti but better to have that feeling that i just want pure devotion that means i only want to love god i don't ask for anything in return that type of issue bhakti that pure devotion very very high thing otherwise we practice this this is this is why we we don't simply read devotional literature we read gita upanishads and everything we want to know what is the what is the real nature of of the devotee and the real nature of god and what is that connection and when we realize that there is a connection either either absolute oneness or at least the very least we're a part of god we're a wave in the ocean of the divine then that feeling of intimacy becomes even greater tucker he talks about three different types of devotees those who say that god is up there they look far away that god is up there here's our prayers and the other is to say no god dwells within the heart this of course is very high and then the highest he says sing then god has become everything that that would be the highest type of the spiritual attitude so now he'll talk about the animation of in this an important sense that we have to know something master it is not possible to develop ecstatic love of god unless you love him very deeply and regard him as your very own so there's going to be a sense in which we have to be able to establish this relationship otherwise for most of us if our concept of god is is yes something very vague then how do we how do we form a relationship i remember when i was young that we always used to hear god is love god is love love god god is love love god i used to think what does it mean i don't even know what it means god is love what does that mean can can we identify someone with an emotion can we and and then how do we love god god is some amorphous being that it just didn't make sense to me it didn't make any sense to me because i didn't have any concept i i didn't we're supposed to imagine god somewhere and have been on a cloud playing a harp with the angels and things none of it made any sense to me that's why when i came to vedanta and uh and i heard this thing yeah it should make sense that swamiji has a very nice statement he says the highest truth goes beyond reason but it will never contradict reason and tell talk we're told swamiji yes you don't accept anything unless you understand it and the role of reason is so important in vedanta even though we know the highest truth is beyond it but we have to go through it it has to be something reasonable has to make sense to us so this ecstatic love of god it requires uh some understanding of the relationship so that we can feel that intimacy that closeness to god he doesn't really answer the question here except he's trying to say that if we want this ecstatic love then it requires a little bit more it requires we we won't get it unless we feel some connection unless we feel that god is our very own god dwells at least that god dwells within the heart then we start to feel oh god dwells within as that light which lightens up my very own mind as that inner ruler that inner guide then under companion we start to get some idea then we get this concept that of course if we believe god comes as the as the avatar then a very tangible thing otherwise we get this this concept that uh this this nameless formless god can be seen uh as taking a name and a form for the sake of the devotee so that we can have this loving relationship all of these concepts enable us to to form that relationship and to allow that relationship to grow into a loving relationship so this is that guyana and how taco will talk about uh these different uh elements say that again yeah now yeah now this is a very standard thing almost all of the highly devotional schools are either dualistic or fallen under qualified non-dualism the the uh the bhakti of the of the non-dualist is a little bit different a little bit different type of thing those who are really strictly non-dualist they won't be able to have the same type of devotion their devotion will be to the to the truth or their devotion i mean it can we can be it we can be a strict adwaitin and feel that devotion towards these great souls that are born as srama krishna and holy mother and we can we can do that we can have that that type of devotion but this is what takwa said to swamiji that not in your vedantic sense in the sense that well everyone is a manifestation of god still i always feel that those who are nondualist can feel like they're are there a small wave in the ocean and that srama krishna and holy mother they're gigantic waves and the little wave will stand in awe of the giant wave and want to bow down before and worship in and look upon it as the ideal and can see the the power of the entire ocean in that huge wave and for the non-dualist this is enough they don't have to say oh god descended from earth from heaven and came down to earth and took the this form this is enough and to enable them to have that type of devotion or to feel god dwells within the heart and then to uh to do this eye and mind in this superimposition and and to add these divine qualities that this infinite absolute brahman is also the source of the whole universe the running with no within the heart uh also we can look upon we can paint the face on and look upon this infinite absolute brahmin as the divine mother and feel the love that a child feels for its mother so these are different ways that uh that we can do it the the strict duelist has no problem i'm here and god is there and and god is the beginning the end of everything and uh i offer all of my worship and prayers and everything to that type of god it's very easy to practice devotion that way but if we want to be reasonable logical people then we start asking questions then very often the duels will say stop don't i don't want to question these things that this is it's written in the scriptures this way i believe that i felt faith in it and don't start telling me that i'm worshiping my own self this and that i don't want to hear it so i'll put my fingers in my ear and i won't listen to all of that so taco presents us with a type of devotion that is based on oneness these he's always preaching the path of devotion for this kali yuga and at the same time he says every spiritual path ends in oneness that's a deuter so it is a jana mishra bhakti to a certain extent and it makes our devotion very firm it puts it on shake unshakable ground because we know the truth of it we can experience in our own hearts this this this feeling of uh i i exist i am and it has nothing to do with the body the mind of the senses it's something transcendent so we can feel that oneness with with the absolute the devotee is fine as long as the devotee doesn't have to uh question anything the duelists so and they have their own ways of arguing of course there's nothing wrong with dualism but swamiji says that that type of devotion leads to fanaticism i worship god this way because god is this way i worship god as mother because god is mother you're worshiping god his father you're wrong god is mother there's not father somebody said no god is father not mother see the the non-dualist will never have that attitude and i shouldn't restrict it to that most mostly i think even these all these great acharyas and everything they'll admit that god can be worshipped in different forms when it comes to the avatar though then there'll be a little this actually god actually descended and took this form and this is the easiest way to get god realization so they'll they'll take it that way and yeah let's see this story taqwa says listen to a story once three friends were going through a forest when the tiger suddenly appeared before them brothers one of them exclaimed we are lost why should you why should you say that said the second friend why should we be lost come let us pray to god the third friend said no why should we trouble god about it come let us climb this tree this is a very counterintuitive story you'll see the friend who said we are lost did not know that there is a god who was our protector the friend who asked the others to pray to god was a gyani now we would generally say he's the bhakta he is the devotee but taqwa says he was aware that god is the creator preserver and destroyer of the world the third friend who didn't want to trouble god with prayers and suggested climbing the tree had ecstatic love of god we would say he's the karma yogi or he's the gyani but takur is explaining it in a different way it is the very nature of such love that it makes a man think himself stronger than his beloved this is the attitude of yeshua this is about saudi arabia one one of them of course and even even the motherboard later nirada i felt it yes i i should i should deserve him because i know how to serve him best he needs that type of service and everything why would i rather let you rest yeah yeah so this is a very nice idea that we don't want to pray to god for anything it's special that we want to do everything for god and prevent god from having to go to all that extra trouble for us there's one type of divorce there are many different types this doesn't mean that there will be some people who say you can pray to god for anything you remember the conversation between ramakrishna and dr sharkar and they were discussing whether uh taqwa could pray to the mother to cure him to make him better and everything and he said no i could never ask anything but but pure devotion so dr shahkar says why we lie in the lap of mother we can ask her for anything and tucker said oh what a wonderful statement we lie in the life of mother so there are people with different attitudes there are many people who are afraid to pray to takur for anything but pure devotion because he's so strong about it and there'll be many who say then pray the mother you can ask the holy mother anything these are all the way the mind works they're really not different awkward mother and just different type of attitude if we feel god to be our very own we can ask anything at the same time taqwa says you go to the king you own the vague for a cucumber or a pumpkin or anything you will ask for the highest so different different ways of doing things so the third friend who didn't want to trouble god with prayers and suggested climbing the tree had ecstatic love of god it is the very nature of such love that it makes a man think himself stronger than his beloved he is always alert lest his beloved should suffer so this was radha taco talks about these three different spiritual attitudes that are represented by the different gopis that some they wanted to be the ones to serve him so they cared about their happiness more than his really they may not have known how to serve him others could have done it better but they wanted to do it then the next class they wanted to to get the joy of serving him but they also wanted him to be happy then there was radha she didn't care who served him as long as he was served properly so that was considered the very highest so he is always alert lest his beloved should suffer the one desire of his life is to keep his beloved from even being pricked in the foot by a thorn ram served the master and the devotees within delicious sweets so that's the end of that day then we begin chapter 11 with the devotees at the chenishwar part 1. it's a monday june 4th 1883. about nine o'clock in the morning the devotees began to arrive at the temple garden now it's a monday why would they all be coming anything special is that what it is oh okay yeah generally uh devotees will come on saturday and sunday because they'll be working and if there was anything special to be done any special questions and things like that taco would ask them to come during the week if they could so they could meet with them privately so generally we find that it's on the weekends or if it's the durga puja vacation time they'll get a couple of weeks off or something at that time that they'll come so we'll see this is a monday and devotees began to arrive so there must be some special occasion srama krishna was sitting on the porch of his room facing the ganges m who had spent the previous night with the master sat near him and on many occasions would go and spend time with with srama krishna i don't think his wife was very happy about it and the rest of the family this is one of the reasons he always tussled with his uh family members and was uh had moved out at one point and then talker convinced them to move back in uh because he always wanted to be with srama krishna so em who had spent the previous night with the master sat near him balarama and several other devotees were present raquel lay on the floor resting his head on the master's lap very strange thing huh rachael now is probably uh 18 19 years old and feeling himself to be just like a little boy because uh when takura and raqqaal were together each went into their own mood this uh bhava taco would feel like uh this rock caller was with this baby like the baby gopala and the rock would also feel that like tako was his own mother his mother died huh and he had his stepmother but in in any event we find we find that takwa went into different moods when different devotees would come depending upon that relationship and taker of course had that vision where he saw raqqa as a companion of sri krishna and always connected him with that vrndavan period of shri krishna's life for the past few days the master had been regarding raqqa as the baby krishna seeing trilochia this is trilo the trilokia of the rani rashwani's family he was the son of mathura and grandson rani rashmuni and he had become proprietor of the temple in 1871. because amateur had passed away he was powerful and it was his little daughter that was worshiped by friday that was that was the final straw redoi had to leave because he had become so arrogant and felt that uh this is a talk where he can't do anything without me that he really taku was really afraid of him we we always wonder i always wondered especially how taqwa could sit by and and not do anything when ridoi insulted holy mother so much when she came that time that they all turned around and left and went back to jordan bhatti i think why didn't tucker say something but but we have to understand how he really he was really afraid of this friday how he would abuse him made life miserable for him he said as much as he served me so much did he torture me so it was inevitable that he would have to leave but the way that he that he left was that he worshipped the young daughter of tarelkyanat which is done sometimes we have our kumari puja and everything but this is a brahmin family and they were of course non-brahmins they were part of ronnie's family the khaibarta uh cast that considered very very inauspicious they were furious and and then they kicked him out that was the same time when uh somebody told takwa that he had to leave and then try i said no no go tell him he doesn't have to leave it's it's it's friday so taco said okay he wasn't phased either way so this is that taralokia so takur he was respectful for him but he was so much younger he could he could tell him if something needed to be told so the master was there no jatra performance last night okay so now we know that there was some puja and during the puja this is this was the uh kali puja katyayani with the so okay yeah so generally especially these nighttime all of these nighttime worships very often it'll be a jatara so people have something to do all night long for shivratri especially and others but it wasn't done that time he said was the there no jakhter performance last night there's a footnote a special worship of the divine mother here it is had taken place that night in the kali temple on similar occasions in previous years the proprietors of the temple had arranged the performance of the jatra jatra a very simple type of dramatical performance there'll be some singing and dancing and very exaggerated types of acting and everything but very enjoyable very very nice everyone would would love to watch these things no sir we couldn't conveniently arrange it master what is done is done but please see that this doesn't happen again the traditions of the temple should be properly observed taralokia gave a suitable reply and went on his way after a while ram chatterjee the priest of the vishnu temple came up to sryama krishna master walram i told taralokia that the jaatar performance should not be omitted was i right in saying that see takur had a childish childlike attitude that oh maybe i shouldn't have said it he's a big shot he's the proprietor of the whole temple and everything was it okay that i said that yes yeah he passed away uh shortly before a holy mother came because ataku said oh if only my motto had been here uh he could have arranged for you know nice place for you to stay and everything else what of it sir of course you were right the tradition should be observed the master asked balarama to stay for his midday meal before the meal srama krishna described to the devotees the days of his god intoxication now we hear that one should not talk about one's spiritual experiences huh this absolutely does not apply to srama krishna that everything he was we're so grateful it's such a blessing that he freely told about his spiritual experiences otherwise how do we know what these things are like how do we have faith that these things are possible it was absolutely necessary for him to do that we shouldn't get confused and think oh it's okay for us to talk about it if if we have any spiritual experiences at all and if they're genuine at all there are two different things that and he would warn people that don't start talking about these things then you'll you'll lose whatever benefit you might have had from them sometimes we do it because we want to impress people or sometimes we want to share some sometimes they'll say that if someone is a very dear friend you're on the same spiritual path there's no harm if you share a little bit of your spiritual experiences but some people are so anxious to say that i had this and i saw that and i saw light and everything that the only benefit they get is that uh they're able to feel good by telling somebody else that uh it kind of just self dissipates by by telling it if if it's something really genuine and the joy is is so great that we don't need to add to it by telling anybody else we're content just to enjoy that remember that experience ourselves extremely simple yeah and there's no possibility that he's do saying any of this to impress anybody what he's trying to do is say look god can be realized you can have these experiences you can talk to god you can do all of this how do i know i did it not is the egotistical type of eye but this is how we have faith in these things uh where was he okay before the meal srama krishna described to the devotees the days of his god intoxication raqqa m ram lal and a few others were present we don't get too much of it here but throughout the gospel we get it mastered now and then hazrat comes forward to teach me the holy mother had her useless brothers that she had to live with and everything tucker also had his his redoing his hazra and even ram lao his his nephew uh he didn't really trouble him the way the others did but none of them appreciated him for who he really was a hazrah went back and forth every once in a while he'll show great devotion and bow down to srama krishna and he'll say what is all this half the time you tell me that do you know more than i do and that i'm all attached to these young boys and this and that so there's a hazra and he'd like to argue and our swamiji was very very it was very interesting the aspect of his personality that people that other people didn't care to even hang around with at all he became good friends with yeah so even knowing this is hazrat here he's sitting outside taku's room with his beads to impress everybody now most people would think oh how arrogant this and that but swamiji didn't have that inside of him see this is this is that whole concept that we see the faults in others if we have those own fault swami didn't have this this whole concept of impressing anybody so he wasn't offended when he's trying to impress other people it didn't bother him at all so they were good friends they would sit in chat one of the nice incidents when they were talking about this ashtavakra samhita and this idea that brahman has become all this swamiji and hazura were laughing and saying what a ridiculous idea god has become the part he's become the chair and the table and everything they're laughing and taco comes out and says what are you talking about they said oh there's all the big things you won't understand these things laughing they're joking and he said oh i see and everything and then he touches narendra and he goes into his ecstatic mood for several days he sees everything as brahman so anyhow this is because he and hazra were talking that that came about so he says and now and then after comes forward to teach me he says to me why do you think so much about the youngsters one day i was going to balarama's house in a carriage i felt greatly troubled about it so this again was that childless nature that if anybody said anything to takur then he would think oh maybe they're right this is why so many times when swamiji would say oh these are all hallucinations these visions he would go to the divine mother and say are they really hallucinations so so when hazra would say things to him sometimes he would wonder about it and then he would ask so taker says one day i was going to balarama's house in a carriage i felt greatly troubled about it i said to the divine mother mother hazra admonishes me for worrying about narendra and the other young boys he asked me why i forget god and think about these youngsters though sooner did this thought arise in my mind then the divine mother revealed to me in a flesh that it is she herself who has become man she manifests herself most clearly through a pure soul at this vision i went into samadhi afterwards i felt angry with hazrat i said to myself that rascal made me miserable and then i thought but why should i blame the poor man how is he to know yeah some of the worst visions that tucker had were because people asked him to do things that he didn't want to do pray to the divine mother for his health things like that and he'd have some of these really terrible visions and i don't even want to go into it some of them are very graphic i know these youngsters to be narayana himself at my first meeting with narendra i found him completely indifferent to his body this is very interesting the one thing that impressed him that time i mean there are many things he could just look at his face and and and see everything but he's impressed with the fact that his clothes were a little bit disheveled and uh weren't the and span and everything that it showed that he didn't care too much about his physical appearance anything like that in those days there's narendra he didn't care about what people thought about him at all that's why some people thought that he was very arrogant before they got to know him who is this boy he'll be sitting in the corner singing to himself and everything as if nobody else exists and every but when they got to know him then they they understood who he really was so i found it completely indifferent to his body when i touched his chest with my hand he lost consciousness of the outer world regaining consciousness this will be when swamiji came that first time to dakshineshwar he met him earlier one time at surendra's house he was asked to sing he came from the neighborhood and he sang and then takur he saw the fine young man he said come visit me sometime but it wasn't until he saw him in dakshineshwar that he really recognized that and and he had had that vision of course that he was one of the seven sages and lost in samadhi so regaining consciousness narendra said oh what have you done to me i have my mother and my father at home the same thing happened at jadu malik's house this was probably the third visit huh second or third visit anyhow when uh narendra said third third i think he said oh okay this mad brahman is not going to trick me again with his touch and everything that each time he does then he puts me in some other state of mind he said i'll exert my willpower i won't allow this to happen this time so he said come let us go and they went to jodhu mother's house was just at the southern gate of the dakshineshwar temple compound i've never seen it i don't know if it's still there and apparently there's a uh nahabhad on the northern side and nowhere but on the southern southern side where music would be played i don't know if that's even there anymore anyhow just south of that was jodu malik's house he was a very wealthy man tucker went there many times they had an interesting type of friendship the jodha malik was very devoted to him but not really a spiritual person anyhow he could go there whenever he wanted and even if there was nobody there they would let him in so apparently just he and narendra were sitting there and and again he touched them now there's narendra who had tremendous willpower not a single uh disciples ramakrishna had that that mental power willpower that he had but again just like that lost all outer consciousness and then tucker asked him all of these questions who are you why were you born what is your mission how long will you live all of these questions and the render gave all of the answers proper answers all of the things that he knew from his spiritual vision that that agreed with what he had seen in that vision earlier he said everything everything matched he said and so this narendra who had such strong willpower just like that he went into some type of state other other ones he went into some type of ecstatic state some we can say some type of samadhi uh but this was a little bit different almost like in the trance that almost as it's hypnotized and you could answer questions and everything and he answered all of those types of questions the same thing happened at jadu malik's house as the days passed i longed more and more to see him my heart yearned for him yeah so many stories of how he would weep for narendra and and himself would go in search of him and would ask people have you seen him tell him to come tell them to call me a tremendous longing to see him one day at that time i said to holden he's was a clerk at the duchenne square temple garden oh these are all the different workers there can you tell me why i should feel this way there's a boy called narendra of the kaister cast this simply means that uh he's not a brahmin who would be shown great respect by everybody the ordinary boy is the cast i in bengal this is also very high this is it's not like a low caste at all next to the brahmins the kaista is the very highly regarded cast why should i feel so restless for him said you will find the explanation in the mahabharata when coming down to the plane of ordinary consciousness a man established in samadhi enjoys himself in the company of satwik people he feels peace of mind at the sight of such men when i heard this my mind was set at ease now just think this ramakrishna this god man of the highest possible caliber is is feeling relieved when a simple clerk at the doctor's word temple tells him no it's okay it's okay it's written in in some of the scriptures also that this and he's ah how relieved i feel so simple and not the least bit of pride other people who would think uh who is he to be able to tell me that this is okay or not okay but he was absolutely free from from pride when i heard this my mind was set at ease now and then i would sit alone and weep for the sight of narendra oh what a state of mind i passed through when i first had that experience so that first had that experience uh would have been the kali temple now we we won't say that this is the absolute first because we know uh when he was walking to the field that day going to the vishalaki temple that i seen the the white crane flying with the dark rain clouds in the background overcome with with emotion fell down unconscious that we may take as as his first type of samadhi or experience and then in the night of shivratri when he lost all out of consciousness and and remained in that mood for three days but he's talking now i'm pretty sure about that real vision at the kali temple when he was about he said mother if you don't reveal yourself to me then i'll cut my throat with a knife when you reach for the knife hanging on the wall and then he had had that vision and that was really the most profound and the first of that type when i first did that experience i could not perceive the coming and going of day or night people said i was insane what else could they say they made me marry so this was uh taquer's and his mother also agreed that if he if he were made to marry then he would have to think about earning money and looking after his wife it will bring his mind down to the ordinary plane so they all thought it was a good idea and they all thought that he'll object to it and we'll have to convince him or force him to do it but like a little boy very merrily said oh okay and he watched oh you're looking at this place in that place and said you can look wherever you want but you won't find my wife she's already been marked with a straw you go to the house of this ramchandra mukherjee and then you'll find the little girl there that's the one so he took it all suggested as a type of interesting little game so they made me marry i was then in a state of god intoxication at first i felt worried about my wife then i thought she too would eat and drink and live like me part of this worry was that she would want to try to drag him down to the world but he was so relieved that that first first day when she came to dakshina's war just to stay with him and he asked her that you know this is the type of life i need what what is your idea you're my wife you have some rights if you really want me to live a certain type of life i have to think about it she said no no i want you to do exactly as you do and i'll also live that way so of course they lived like brother and sister through throughout her life or his his life of course she lived another 33 34 years after he passed away half of her life was without him she lived to be 67. we forget sometimes how many nights she had to to weep for him and what a blow it was when he passed away i visited my father-in-law's house they arranged a kirtan it was a great religious festival and there was much singing of god's holy name now and then i would wonder about my future i would say to the divine mother mother i shall take my spiritual experiences to be real if the landlords of the country show me respect they too came of their own accord and talked with me oh what an ecstatic state it was even the slightest suggestion would awaken my spiritual consciousness i worshiped the beautiful and a girl 14 years old i saw that she was the personification of the divine mother at the end of the worship i bowed before her and offered a rupee at her feet one day i witnessed a ram lila performance i saw the performance to be the actual sita rama lakshmana hanuman and bibhishana then i worship the actors and actresses who played those parts anyhow this goes on what is it that's the name i don't know is is that an actual form of the divine mother worshipped anywhere did you ever hear of that is the name of a goddess i don't know what it means exactly yeah what is it this was just a couple of days ago that we have that we observed it we we didn't of course do anything special here but uh this was when taka worshiped the holy mother showed she this is of all the forms of mother kali this is the most benign it could be because with the the sundari is there in in that name so the possible that this was this similar type of thing okay we'll stop here he'll go on a little bit about these different spiritual experiences that he had so we're stopping here on page the bottom of page 231 okay um [Music] we bow our heads before srama krishna who is stainless of infinite nature whose heart melts in sympathy for his devotees who is an embodiment of the divine and the supreme lord and ever ever worthy of our worship peace peace be untold