Video 61

The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna read by Swami Atmajnanananda (06/18/21)

your words are like nectar bringing life to squirt souls they are praised by poets and removal sin they are auspicious to hear wonderful and exalted those who spread these words throughout the world are truly giving souls welcome everyone to our class on the gospel of srama krishna we started last week chapter 11 with the devotees at dakshin deshwar it's monday june 4th 1883. if you're following in the book it's page 231 and suramar krishna is talking about himself that this is a great blessing for us these all of these reminiscences and talking about his past experiences i mentioned last time that he breaks that one of the cardinal rules don't talk about your spiritual experiences he breaks that rule constantly for our benefit that in his case it didn't make any difference with us if we get something a little special we feel very proud of it we want to tell people and it's not a very good thing but tucker had no ego and and he did this all for our benefit so we would understand what spiritual experience is what it really means because everything basically comes comes down to on direct experience there's nothing very interesting about there well it's interesting of course the theory and philosophy but the whole point of vedanta is to have that experience on our own and there are many types of experiences that suramar krishna had that we won't have and and we don't have to feel bad about it he was such a rare soul that he had almost every possible variety of spiritual experience if we get one or two little glimpses of anything that he had we'll be very happy but we know the possibility of it and we know the reality of it and this is why it's so helpful for us that it gives us that uh inspiration that enthusiasm to do our spiritual practice so so we get a lot of nice uh reminiscences from suramar krishna now about his days of of sadhana of spiritual practice oh what an ecstatic state it was even the slightest suggestion would awaken my spiritual consciousness this is a concept we come across many many times in the gospel of srama krishna that this was a particular personality trait that aqua had that one thing would would trigger an association we also may have it in different ways with him it was a completely spiritual thing that it would trigger uh he would see something it would trigger a certain memory of past experience or something in in the in the scripture something that would awaken the spiritual feeling of that particular kind in his mind and he would have that experience so it wasn't just a kind of association he would think of one thing or he or something it would remind him of something else but he would go into some spiritual mood it happened so many different times and he he always points to the example of radha that radha if she ever saw a black rain cloud that immediately she would think of sri krishna that it was supposed to have been the color of his complexion and would go into an ecstatic mood or if she saw a peacock because he used to wear peacock feather in his crown and then she would go into a mood like that chaitanya deva also but this was very very prominent uh in the life of srama krishna there may be many great spiritual souls that have high realizations and everything that don't have this it's partly a personality trait of his and he talks about this being like dry kindling that if it comes close to a flame immediately it catches on fire like that so this really means that's what it means to to catch fire you can say like one light to another light so he was like that that dry straw if he got close to anything i would go up in flames quickly so even the slightest suggestion would awaken my spiritual consciousness i worship the beautiful we read this last time this sundari 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 wish witnessed a ram lila performance i saw the performers to be the actual sita rama lakshmana hanuman and bibhishana then i worshiped the actors and actresses who played those parts okay so now this is the new part at that time i used to invite maidens here and worship them and maidens this this will be young girls this will be commodities huh yeah this is a tradition in india uh especially during durga puja the uh uh next to last day of the puja that they'll worship a young girl usually in our order she'll be five six seven years old something like that as a special manifestation of the divine mother the idea is that no sexual idea comes into the mind of the girl at that age so there's perfect innocence and purity this is so so ceramic krishna said i used to invite maidens here and worship them i found them to be the embodiment of the divine mother herself this is actually one of the most beautiful parts of the durga puja worship and they get the biggest crowd on that day and it's it's just amazing to see the these young girls they must go into some spiritual mood themselves because they'll say it for for an hour something like that and without moving with a beautiful smile on their face they're told not to do anything so they just sit so peacefully and calmly and they'll be actually worshipped on to them and ringing the bells and wearing incense and offering flowers and everything at their feet and it's so sweet we know one uh one she's not a girl anymore young young woman who was a kumari she came here several times she would knows her she was kumari twice yes yes unusual two different occasions so and it's a big thing for the devotees and and of of of bermat uh if their daughter is chosen to be a kumari is a great blessing for them i always had this curiosity to uh do a study what happens to these commodities to these little girls who receive worship as the divine mother uh how does it affect them in later life do they have some some special spiritual stature or something like that i think it would be interesting of course i've never done it but but the one the one girl young woman who comes here now is very sweet and it just must be such an experience for them they get carried in and put on a throne and it really just as if and all dressed up with the nose ring and everything and then the beautiful sorry that just as if and and they receive worship that's offered to the to the image of mother durgo on other occasions this so this is the living durga in the form of a small child kumari puja i only saw it once in buttermud they do it outside on the steps so so many people can see it it was really it was really fantastic one day i saw a woman in blue standing near the buckle tree the sita was supposed to wear blue she was a prostitute but she instantly kindled in me the vision of sita so he only saw the thing that would uh awaken the it was the blue sorry that did it i forgot the woman i saw that it was sita herself on her way to meet rama after her rescue from maravana in ceylon for a long time i remained in samadhi unconscious of the outer world so not just that he thought that it reminded him of sita but he went into samadhi so this is that uddipana with first suramar krishna another day i'd go on to the maidan this mauidan is a big open area right on the bank of the of the ganges where all different things i think when he goes to the see the circus they set it up there there's a big book fair that gets set up there uh there are places you'll see people playing soccer and other things and or just lazing around just a big open area taco went several times for for different things one day i'd go on to the moydan in calcutta for fresh air a great crowd had assembled there to watch a balloon ascension so any anything could could take place there all different sorts of things suddenly i saw an english boy leaning against the tree as he stood there his body was banned in three places didn't matter the english boy or not but it was been in three places you've seen this pictures of of uh krishna as as the coward boy that he'll he'll be uh legs in one way and hips and the other way in the top the other way playing his flute the tribanga they say that the vision of krishna came before me in a flash i went into samadhi once at shihor shihor was the nearby village to kamarpakura this is where hridoy and his family were from so some of taqwa's relatives that were in that area and now we have an insha'allah it's founded in chihuahua and it's also in the same direction as that vishalaki temple right where taco head is his first kind of ecstatic experience wanted shihor i fed the cowherd boys so of course he'll be thinking of krishna i put sweet meats into their hands i saw that these boys were actually the cowherd boys of vrndavan and i partook of the sweet meats from their hands even when takur saw this plays in the theater they would ask them how did you find him and he would he would say this uh nacho and he used this term that i saw that the actors and actresses i saw them as the very people they were they were supposed to be that he he would would his mind would just ascend to that plane not that he didn't know they were actors he would forget that and just see them as as they were being portrayed at that time i was almost unconscious of the outer world so this will be a certain period i don't remember exactly but in between his his assault sadhana period i think uh before after he finished uh the ram lila ramlala the period and everything before this he lived with yamatura babu uh had a big mansion there were wealthy people in the area of calcutta called john bazar and takari says matar babu kept me at his john bazaar mansion a few days i think it was actually a year or something it was months it was several months at least yeah a long period while living there i regarded myself as the handmaid of the divine mother so this is a type of spiritual practice it's a little little bit of a mixture of this sakyabhaba and madhur very common for uh not very common but those those who do it to consider themselves to be like radha the beloved of krishna and and to get immersed in this idea themselves men do it and of themselves as the woman who worked in love with the man this uh so dressing and asari and everything uh so taka did it uh dressing as a woman uh only with his attitude as being a handmaid of the divine mother they were worshippers of kali i believe mature babu and his family so they had an image there and he says the ladies of the house didn't feel at all bashful with me they felt as free before me as women feel before a small boy or girl i used to escort matu's daughter to her husband's chamber with the maidservant so whenever taqwa did anything he he did it literally this was another thing if he wanted to practice the spiritual ideal of looking upon god as the lover and to himself or as the beloved himself is the lover he would dress and act that way when he uh followed the attitude of the dossier bhava looking upon god as the master and himself is the servant and then he really tried to feel uh that he was hanuman mohave and he he would tie his cloth so did part of it hung in back like a tail and he would hop from place to place and climb trees and live on bananas and all these things yes to create that in his mind but also this was his natural tendency he he did everything very literally he used to say that uh whenever he did any practice for some years or some period he he did these vaisnava practices he would dress the way they did they were something called bake some long long kind of gown type of thing and so he did that whenever he practiced during his islamic period he even wanted to take food cooked by a muslim to to feel that he was really part of that tradition the proprietors of the temple wouldn't allow it because it would have made it they were very orthodox but they allowed him to get a muslim cook to direct a hindu cook to cook according to the way the muslims do their spices and things like that so he did everything very literally he he would remove all of the pictures of the gods and goddesses uh because this wasn't an islamic tradition and everything so this is the way he and and how he could identify with people he used to say that uh if you if you want to know what someone is like then live like they do eat like they do dress like they do do all of those things when uh when i was traveling through asian countries and things i didn't know anything about vedante at that time but i like to do that i would dress the way that the people did in the eat the way and and try to learn a little bit of the language otherwise you feel like an outsider and a stranger you don't get to know them and they say you make a little attempt to learn a few words of their language how happy they are and how they receive you and treat you like one of their own if you go there and just as outsider and just staring at everyone this and that then they won't react that way so it was very nice teaching swamiji says in one time this was takwa's way that he lived like them and he and he acted like them and did everything like them so yeah it sounds strange to us to think uh the srama krishna wearing asari and dressing like a woman and everything but it was accepted in those days this was this was a type of of practice not terribly common uh that uh in order to feel uh for those especially who worshiped sri krishna with his mother to to feel that they're the the beloved to identify with uh with radha just as for the wat solya bhava they try to identify with mother yashoda with actually stepmother of the baby krishna even now the slightest thing awakens god consciousness in me rock called used to repeat the name of god half aloud at such times i couldn't control myself it would rouse my spiritual consciousness and overwhelm me the one way of doing japa some some people will just have have mudder and some people will do it without saying anything but moving the lips sometimes he says that he would see roccal doing that so you can't hear anything but you can tell that they're repeating it other people don't of course uh there's no way of knowing they don't move the lips they don't say anything and then there are others who uh if it's the different types of tradition hari krishna tradition they'll do it loudly and sing it so they're all different ways of doing it srirama krishna went on describing the different experiences he had had while worshiping the divine mother as her handmaid he said once i imitated a professional woman singer for a man singer he said my acting was quite correct and asked me where i had learned it the master repeated his imitation for their devotees and they burst into laughter after his noon meal the master took a short rest manila malik an old member of the brahma samaj entered the room and sat down after saluting the master who was still lying on his bed manila he was a member of the brahma-samaj but he came to ramakrishna quite often so he he must have had some special devotion towards him there were different classes those from of the brahmos who would uh some devotion for suramar krishna those who as soon as they met him they give up gave up their brahma so much and in narendra's case one of one of the really outstanding traits of swamiji was loyalty if if anyone was ever did anything nice to him or he had a friendship with somebody he always remembered he he was so loyal to even people that nobody cared about there's a hazra and and some some others that were even criticized for it so i have a feeling with ibrahimo-samaj that he felt some type of loyalty he had joined and signed the pledge so even after meeting sram christian he continued to go for some time so this manila al-malik will will find him on several occasions uh coming to srama krishna so manila al-malik and all the member of the brahma-samaj entered the room and sat down after saluting the master who was still lying on his bed manila asked him questions now and then and the master still half asleep answered with a word or two manila said that shivanath admired nithya gopal's spiritual state okay now shivanath the shivna chastry he was one of the main i guess he was an acharya also but one of the main leaders the acharyas were often just hired people this evening was higher up he was a kind of right-hand man i guess and then after keisha passed away he more or less took over i think he was kind of head of that he was a funny case because takur uh always praised him and and seemed to love him so much and and yet the shiv not he appreciated takur but also thought that uh uh two special things one he was a little bit off his rocker that the the bayhead that he had thinking of god too much that he had become a little bit off and second thing was that he had this idea that actually takur changed more after meeting keshav then keshob chained after meeting sramakrishna that before that he was too much against the householder life and this and that and after meeting keshav that his views became a little more normal and everything when the truth is that keisha is the one who changed more and the whole brahma so much changed more after after meeting swami krishna one thing they say he gave them the gift of the name of mother that before that everything was jesus it was very kind of dry and like that but then many of the songs afterwards would be a drifter mother and this idea of ecstatic love that's why that song on my demo pagulkori the mother make me mad with i love that takur liked it so much and this trailokianat one of the brahmos that this this shows that this is not a song that they would have written years earlier before meeting shiramakrishna that shows that influence that he had on them they of course they the uh they really couldn't bear this idea of worshiping god in an image they called it idol worship uh this was partly because they were almost all western educated and western educated in those days really meant being educated in a christian missionary school because that's where they could learn english and that's where they could learn western subjects and things so they heard constantly from the from the british uh or it wasn't always british but uh some of the missionary schools were run by people from other european countries or ireland or even you know some american also that this was the worst in idolatry so they kind of picked up on that and they they really you had to sign a pledge if you joined the brahma-samaj that you would not go into a temple and bow down and worship an image like that this was an athama to them manila said that she've not admired nitigo paul's spiritual state then the theopoly another interesting case that he was he was a young man he was in his early 20s at that time probably and very simple and childlike he would ask him a question he would answer just one or two words but he would go into different ecstatic moods srama krishna sometimes said he was in the state of the paramahamsa and yet he never became part of the inner circle really and he later had a little bit of a following and there's even one at least one temple with his image there what is it and that is in raspberry avenue really okay yeah so uh and he was also in right now he used to live yeah he kind of didn't have any place to stay he wandered he and and tarak swami shivananda the two of them ram chandra data was very generous that way he allowed them to stay in this in i don't know just jogadon or maybe in calcutta he had two places he may have taken some of the relics after his death okay you can look it up in the in the uh teeth yeah at the end tell me about him he was born in a very big family he was born in a big oh okay a well-to-do family the master asked him in a sleepy tone what they thought of hazra yeah hazra was another character that and swamiji became big buddies he used to sometimes criticize surami krishna and and it was very had a very high opinion of his own spiritual attainment and put her in a show always sitting outside telling his beads and doing his his jumper and he had a little dead so every once in a while he was hoping people would offer to give him some money or he would ask for money then srama krishna sat up on his bed and told manila about bhavanat's devotion to god and another strange thing this is bhavanath the taco loved him so much he had such a high opinion of him and then a marriage was arranged for him then takur was even more impressed oh you see he and his wife only talk about god and when taka says he's your wife have a little fun he would say no how can you say that to me that i will only the next thing you know they're having kids and he's not coming around much and everyone is saying well what happened to bhavanat takwa is very ill and kashi poor and everyone's a little surprised he and narendra were very good friends and uh taco used to he used to pair uh devotees up sometimes because he knew that they had a similar spiritual ideal or they complimented each other or they would would be helpful uh in encouraging each other spiritually so uh they were kind of uh a pair and then even swamiji said yes look at in bhagavan how he doesn't have that same tejas that he used to have and everything and we don't know why these things happen pacquiao called him in it even even in ishvara koti in in the early days he got demoted and porna became the sixth one another interesting thing yeah so there are many things that we don't have answers to many nothing much is questions on him right not no i mean there will be something in the back of the book also then sri ramakrishna sat up on his bed and told manila about bhavanath's devotion to god master ah what an exalted state he is in see how he's praising him so much he has hardly begun to sing about god before his eyes filled with tears the very sight of a harish made him ecstatic the hadith taqwa somehow let him stay at dakshinishwar he was a married man [Music] family and everything but some somehow taqwa authority was very sincere and he allowed him to stay for some other times if someone was a married devotee he would say what you expect people from the neighborhood to feed your family go back home and look after them but for some reason hadis got to stay there i don't know for how long the very side of haris made him ecstatic he said that haris was very lucky he made the remark because haris was spending a few days here now and then away from his home srama krishna asked m well what is the cause of bhakti not that he was expecting an answer but he's raising the topic why should the spiritual feeling of young boys like be awakened and remain silent master the fact is so then of course taco will give the real answer all men may look alike from the outside but some of them have fillings of condensed milk yeah there's a certain type of sweet in bengal a little bit like a crepe and they they roll it up like an egg roll so on the inside you can't tell you can't tell what different types of fillings are there yeah some may be very sweet coconut and sugar and everything and some may be made from dal and other things what is it called but some of them have feelings of condensed milk cakes may have fillings of condensed milk or powdered black grams so that won't be you know so sweet but they all look alike from the outside the desire to know god ecstatic love of him and such other spiritual qualities or the condensed milk now what taku is saying is that a lot of these things have to do with or some scholars where we're born with certain spiritual qualities or worldly qualities of course a mixture that these are things that are very hard to tell by looking at somebody from the outside and when and how these things awaken they may awaken from very childhood it may come later in life but very hard to judge just from the outside so we ourselves don't know why we may feel the tendency towards some types of enjoyment some types of spirituality different things we may not be able to trace it back to any logical thing these may be just from uh we're born with these tendencies from past lives or god knows what so turquoise is really saying that in a case like bhavanath would be hard to say exactly but from the outside we can't really know suramar krsna spoke reassuringly to the devotees master to him something oh i am a bound soul i shall never acquire knowledge and devotion but if one receives the guru's grace one has nothing to fear now he'll tell a very nice story this is a story that swamiji liked very much swamiji told it very often in the west with a little bit of a difference when suramar christian tells the story he does it in the context of the importance of the guru when swamiji tells the story he tells in the context of uh having that inner divinity within us that has to be awakened it's it's the the story of the uh and taqwa's telling is a tiger and goats when swamiji tells us it's a lion and sheep but it's the same story so but if one receives the guru's grace one has nothing to fear once a tigris attacked a flock of goats as she sprang on her prey she gave birth to a cub and died the cub grew up in the company of the goats the goats ate grass and the cub followed their example they bleeded the cubbly to two gradually it grew to be a big tiger one day another tiger attacked the same flock it was amazed to see the grass eating tiger running after it the wild tiger at last seized it whereupon the grass-eating tiger began to bleed the wild tiger dragged it to the water and said look at your face in the water it is just like mine amioja had a way with words he he uh he liked all of these cute little expressions and rhyming things and everything huh that's what it is yeah you see what i am you were there's no difference between the two of us this is what the guru will say we look at the guru say ah how wonderful his soul and everything and we see divinity shining within and guru say you're the same only you don't realize it look at your face in the water it is just like mine here is a little meat eat it saying it he thrust some meat into its mouth but the grass-eating tiger would not swallow it and began to bleed again gradually however it got the taste for blood and came to relish the meat then the wild tiger said now you see there is no difference between you and me come along and follow me into the forest so there can be no fear if the guru's grace descends on one he will let you know who you are and what your real nature is so he's stressing the idea of the guru swamiji stressed the idea that we're all lions or tigers that we have that uh tremendous strength and fearlessness the the lion has no enemy this uh the king king of the forest and they have nothing to fear so swamiji always he liked that idea that's why this vedanti kesheri the the magazine that's published out of chennai it means the lion of vedante he used to repeat that that verse that we have to uh jump out of that cage of this of the body and everything just as the lion will break out of this bamboo cage huh they won't be able to hold it so we can't let the limitations of our human personality and and all of that uh prevent us from reeling that infinite strength we have that we're lions there's a nice story uh about swami turiyananda and gurudas marat gurudasmaraj was the dutch born later became a swami of course the devotee who lived in in the united states and uh was in shanti ashram with swami twitter but this time they were in new york if i have the story right and they were walking at central park somewhere near the zoo and he started telling this guru let the lion out of its cage let the lion out of its cage and people are looking at him like oh they're gonna open the cage of the zoo and let the light out they couldn't imagine what was happening but uh yeah so this idea and this is i've mentioned this before this is what i one thing i love about swamiji for him the self the ottoman the real self wasn't just this pure consciousness it was a source of strength of fearlessness that if we realize the self we become absolutely fearless and i i'm so full of power and strength that we feel we can do anything and then nothing can touch us that we're beyond uh any chance of the world being able to uh impose itself on us that we can withstand anything we can bear anything this is his concept of the self it's very very beautiful very much richer than just this this idea that the the witness and pure consciousness and all of that because if we realize the real nature of the self we become fearless we feel that strength within so swamiji told this story with a little bit of a different twist to it that the main thing was not the role of the guru the main thing was knowing that we're not we're not sheep that we don't have to go around fearful of everything that we're really lions that we can go and assert ourselves and feel that infinite strength and power within which is from the divine presence within if the devotee practices spiritual discipline a little the guru explains everything to him then the disciple understands for himself what is real and what is unreal god alone is real and the world is illusory now this is my pet peeve huh many of you know that this translation of this anitya in the arizona yeah taco very rarely uses normally we say mithya is illusory tako very rarely uses this term methya that almost always uses the term illusory so it really should should say god alone is real and the world is transitory right that'll be a little more the only reason i mention this is that takwa didn't like this idea that this world is illusory like a dream now he makes it maybe we may say it dream like in the sense that it's it's fleeting and there's nothing to hold on to and all of that but not literally in the sense that there's no objective reality to this world and in a dream it's only me i'm the only one who's really experiencing everything uh he didn't like that idea he reckon he recognized that this is a certain there may be some who follow that the the gyani that is this waking state is just as unreal as the dream state that type of idea the term unreal in vedanta means transitory that this is the definition of reality is that it exists in the past present and future it's something unchanging the real has to be unchanging so uh for taqwa unreal and anitya transitory these meant more or less the same thing then he tells another story one night a fisherman went into a garden and cast his ned into the lake in order to steal some fish the owner heard him and surrounded him with his servants they brought lighted torches and began to search for him in the meantime the fisherman smeared his body with ashes and sat under a tree pretending to be a holy man the owner and his men searched a great deal but could not find the thief all they saw was a holy man covered with ashes meditating under a tree the next day the news spread in the neighborhood that a great sage was staying in the garden people gathered there and saluted him with offerings of fruit flowers and sweets many also offered silver and copper coins how strange thought to fishermen i am not a genuine holy man and still people show such devotion to me i shall certainly realize god if i become a true sadhu there is no doubt about it i never really understood the uh the moral of the story except that people are very gullible yes yes but see taco really felt that even if one pretended to be a holy person that that could could make one really feel like it he told the other story of uh of the man who was playing the role of the of the sadhu in one of these these jyatras one of these plays and he did it so well that someone wanted to give him a few rupees and when he offered the rupees and the man turned his head and walked away kind of with a disdain then later he went and he changed his clothes and he came out he went up to that man and said oh you wanted to give me something and he said i offered before and you didn't take it now you want it he said then i was dressed as a sadhu sadhu can't take any money so what tak were saying that even even if we're just pretending sometimes that pretending the mind can understand what it's really like to be a sadhu and we can really feel that anyhow rama rama if a mere pretense of religious life can bring such spiritual awakening you can imagine the effect of real sadhana in that state you will surely realize what is real and what is unreal again anitya yeah so what is real unreal i don't mind so much illusory bothers me a little bit unreal that means and sometimes takara says substantial and insubstantial what is a value this is i take it that way more that state you will surely realize what is what is worth doing in life what is of of the ultimate value in life and uh what is just for some passing enjoyment characters god alone israel in the world is illusory one of the devotees said to himself is the world unreal then what's the what does it say so still saying the same with the anita transitory of course the world is transitory no one will doubt that but in the sense that is it is it something to be given up this is the real question is it something to be given up without any real value to it that we're wasting our time if we lead a householder life and have a career and earn money and all of that is the world unreal then the fishermen to be sure renounce worldly life what then will happen to those who live in the world now one of the devotees said to himself this means em we won't know i remember when i first read the gospel i was so confused about that now how does this guy know what what one devotee said to himself then after reading it the second time that they understood so sometimes and will just refer to himself as a devotee especially in cases when he's thinking now this was this was not an idle question for him he really had this this dilemma within he really tortured himself over this question uh of of whether to uh renounce the world or continue in worldly life part of the the reason was that he was not happy in his family life not happy in his family life partly his father and his brothers and everything his wife went almost mad with grief when the child died son died and everything so it was not happy there the other thing was a very sincere longing for for god realization a very sincere longing to renounce everything such tremendous not jealousy envy or or appreciation for the the young monks who renounced everything and the great desire to be to live that type of life and approach ramakrishna on different occasions thakwar said no it's not for you that you be the example of a householder living in the world like a sannyasi and he did that he spent so much of his time alone even sometimes sleeping with the homeless people huh he would go just to feel what it's like not to have anything and he was a great soul but so this uh this this is not just an idle thought this is a very very deep uh question for for him is the world unreal then the fishermen to be sure renounce worldly life what then will happen to those who live in the world must they too renounce it srama krishna who could see into a man's innermost thought said very tenderly suppose an office clerk has been sent to jail he undoubtedly leads a prisoner's life there but when he is released from jail does he cut capers in the street not at all he gets a job as a clerk again and goes on working as before even after attaining knowledge through the guru's grace one can very well live in the world as a jivan mukta so this god realization is a question of direct experience it's not a question of external things of course a household or a monk doesn't matter they have to have that tremendous longing and they have to do their spiritual practice and all of that householder can do it also but what taqwa is saying is not necessarily to renounce the world to do that and after realization also not necessarily to to renounce the world one can go back and and live with the family uh as a jeevan mukden rajiv mukta this is somebody who has attained the goal literally it means free while living free and is very election this is one of the differences between the vedantic tradition which means also hinduism buddhism jainism and others that this concept is of attaining the goal of life while living is a very strong thing and most of the other religions of the west we can say when we talk about salvation and everything we can attain it here that means we we get our ticket here but it's really something for after we die it means going to heaven uh basically it'll mean with salvation going to heaven and because there's no idea of rebirth anyhow so going to heaven rather than going to hell i guess we can say but here the goal is really to have that experience that absolute experience of freedom and the experience of god realization in this very lifetime and after we have that experience to live in the world the concept of jivan mukti depends on this idea of para of the karma that uh two things are running parallel one is our spiritual life and the other is is the physical life and uh the spiritual life we can have our realization the physical life will continue and the classic example we have of course is the is the potter and the potter's wheel and there's the clay on it when the clay is is turned into a a pot and everything is done then that pot is removed so that's kept separate and the the wheel continues to spin just on its pest momentum but the potter doesn't spin it more he doesn't create more karma but it'll keep going and gradually will stop unjust when uh the momentum stops so this physical body will live due to the momentum of our past karma but the soul is something separate now the soul is something unattached it's perfectly free it's still connected with the body of course but free from any false identification with the body thus the trauma christian to reassure those who were living as householders manila sir where shall i meditate on god when i perform my daily worship now this is a very common question in those days it didn't mean shall i go to a temple should i go to a shrine room this and that it meant where to focus one's concentration master why the heart is a splendid place there's another funny expression there's when some big celebration comes there'll be beating of drums and things and the king is coming there'll be a procession they'll bang their drums and do all sorts of things because some the big shot is coming something like that so he uses tucker likes to use that expression for some reason with regard to this particular question so that it really means that this is something that it is praised very much in the scriptures and it's a wonderful place to do it and everything so he recommends that that means that when we try to picture god dwelling within we picture god dwelling within the heart not the physical heart within this this cavity somehow uh try to picture god dwelling within facing outward and that we're also able to look and and sit face to face something like that a little bit of a complicated thing i i i spent a long time on this with the talk on the abcs of meditation if anybody is interested but the heart is a splendid place meditate on god there so all the question of using the power of imagination to project the image somehow of the chosen deity if we've meditated on rama krishna or srama krishna tried to picture it and dwelling with the north we see the the many of the pictures of hanuman tearing open his heart and we see rama and sita lakshmi there like that manila a member of the brahma samaj believed in a formless god addressing him the master said kabir used to say god with form is my mother the formless god is my father whom shall i blame who shall i adore the two sides of the scale are even so not the question of which one is better it's the same same reality uh showing itself in two different ways during the day time holiday used to meditate on god with form al-idhari was another one of the characters who stayed at the chaneshwar temple it was one of the priests and everything not not a relation to takur but from the from a nearby village from someone from that area yeah it was uh all of the priests either were family members of taco or acquaintances or from the same area that they would be the ones if they needed a new priest they would recommend somebody and they would come whichever attitude you adopt you will certainly realize god if you have firm faith you may believe in god with form or in god without form but your faith must be sincere and wholehearted shambhu malik used to come on foot from bhagwazar to his garden house at dakshineshwar his house was very close i don't know where it is but taco used to walk to it it was very close on the main entrance way huh when you walk in one day a friend said to a friend said to him it is risky to walk such a long distance why don't you come in a carriage and that shambhu's face turned red and he exclaimed shambu was one of the residents that he was very helpful in supplying money and goods and things for suramar krishna and tucker would visit him in his house in this garden house so shambhu's face turned red and he exclaimed i set out repeating the name of god what danger can be fought can befall me through faith alone one attains everything i used to say i shall take all this to be true if a certain person or if a certain officer of the temple garden talks to me what i would think of would invariably come to pass yeah there's a there's a song that tucker used to sing i don't know if this is it if one leaves that sets out on on the road taking the name of durga shiva himself will protect you with his with his trident in his hand i was i mentioning this because we had a devotee couple very very nice people the he passed away the wife is still living that always did this that and most of us do when going out or getting in the car or something this becomes a habit repeat the name of durga so that everything will be fine so they did this one day and and they got robbed yeah so she came to me uh sunanda then she came to me and said what happened how did it not work she was very very you know very simple and with that faith we repeated the name of durga and we got robbed they got mugged somehow so i didn't know what to say he said maybe you were protected from getting murdered who knows we can't there's a question of faith anyhow we'll stop here and uh yeah these all of these stories that takur tells are also very helpful uh when we sit for meditation we can we can remember some of the incidents in his life and uh marvel at the way his mind worked not just his spirituality but his mind it was it was such a brilliant mind and and this ability to just go into spiritual moods this udipana really a wonderful thing a wonderful thing okay let it stop you then [Music] we bow our heads before surama krishna who was stainless of infinite nature whose heart melts in sympathy for his devotees who is an embodiment of the divine and the supreme lord and ever worthy of our worship om shanti shanti peace peace peace be untoward thank you this