Video 63

The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna read by Swami Atmajnanananda (07/02/21)

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 this is a little bit different starting uh this month we will be having the class starting at eight o'clock gospel class i used to pre-record it i used to do it usually friday morning friday morning but now so we'll be starting just at eight and i know in the past i pre-recorded it and it would be available a little bit early some people would would watch it before eight and now you have to tune in just at eight and i think it'll be it'll be posted now it's live streaming but it'll be posted a little bit later so you can see it later but this this hour between eight and nine uh i think if you come in at 8 30 you see it at 8 30. you don't see it from the beginning i don't know how it works but anyhow that's uh that's what i think is happening okay we're uh on the chapter with the devotees of the chinese four part one and it is tuesday june 5th 1883. we are on page 238 and the conversation uh okay we'll go back to page before that ceramic christian had asked m tell me which do you like better god with form or the formless reality um sir nowadays i like to think of god without form but i am also beginning to understand that it is god alone who manifests himself through different forms now you'll remember the very first time that m met sramakrishna they had this discussion about god with form god without form and m his conception of god with form was image worship that was that was what the brahmos had kind of taught that when they talked about this soccer puja it meant worshipping the image in the in the temple uh and srama krishna gradually got him to understand that the very subtle thing that god can reveal himself in different forms that this whole universe is the form of god god comes as the avatar there are all different ways of understanding what the sakhar is what that means so now so this we can see that em still he's a little bit uh attracted more to the idea of the impersonal absolute but now he's starting to understand that god alone who manifests himself through different forms and of course gradually he's starting to accept ceramic christian as the avatar so this is another way of worshipping god with form and this is really taking human bodily form master will you take me in a carriage someday to mati shields garden house at belgoria now we find that when tucker talks about worshiping the formless we're meditating on the formless that he doesn't give us any particular way of of meditating he places us in a mood he'll he'll give examples like uh the bird soaring freely in the sky where now we'll see with the fish being released into into the river or an ocean with the ocean uh just that feeling of freedom because there's nothing to focus the mind on if we're talking about the formless the uh infinite absolute formless reality unless we think of the vast sky or the ocean something like that which is a little bit more symbolic so i this is why he's talking about this will you take me in a garden someday to mati shields garden house at belgoria when you throw puffed rice into the lake there the fish come to the surface and eat it ah i feel so happy to see them sport in the water that will awaken your spiritual consciousness too you will feel as if the fish of the human soul were playing in the ocean of sachit ananda so what he's telling him is that we put the mind in a particular mood we're not really thinking about anything try and try to imagine what it would feel if we were released from bondage like the fish that's been kept in a fishbowl and how it'll dart and swim all around with a great joy or a bird that's kept in a cage so that feeling of release that feeling of freedom that feeling of vastness and the infinity this is this is that idea of the infinite absolute reality otherwise how do we focus the mind on the form of this problem we focus the mind on either on a form of god or on some type of symbol even if it's a word even repetition of om it's something for the mind to focus on this is a little bit uh putting the mind in a mood and and it's feeling just how we feel if we can imagine if we were fish joyfully swimming in the ocean in the same manner he says i go into an ecstatic mood when i stand in a big meadow i feel like a fish released from a bowl into a lake spiritual discipline is necessary in order to see god now we hear taku are talking about grace all of the time and without the grace of the divine mother we can't have realization sometimes we think that oh isn't that a nice teaching we'll pray for grace all we need is is is a little bit of yearning for god uh we practice truthfulness we weep a few times we can realize god but we have to remember that uh without sadhana without spiritual practice none of these things will come this this longing for god comes through spiritual practice purification of the heart comes through spiritual practice grace comes through spiritual practice we if we think of the examples that taqwa gives we we remember only the the boatman with the sails up and lying back in the wind carrying it we don't remember how hard he has to work tucker says he has to struggle that uh a big boat and row it out and pull up the anchor and raise the sail a lot of hard work then when there's when the breeze comes he can relax doesn't have to do so much yeah or the bird doing the mask bird doesn't simply just lean back and say okay wherever the ship takes me it has to fly in every direction until it's exhausted exhausted till it feels that if i don't go back now that i won't be able to make it and that's why it turns around and goes back to the ship so spiritual discipline is necessary in order to see god and we know what tucker did i had to pass through very severe discipline how many austerities i practiced under the bell tree tucker head in different places for the different southerners that he did so when he did his tantre sadhana under the brahmani this was done mostly under the bell tree if you go to dakshineshwar you'll see the panchavati which is a little closer to the ganga and takwa did so much of his spiritual practice there and then there was a little hut behind that where he stayed during his vedanta sadhana where he was in samadhi for six months uh but the tantric he did mostly under the bell tree this is all the way to the extreme north and a little bit away from the ganga very close to that that wall the other side was a ammunition magazine they called it kind of an armory kind of thing so how many austerities i practiced under the bell tree all of the different tantric practices i would lie down under it crying to the divine mother oh mother reveal thyself to me the tears would flow in torrance and soak my body yeah when we when we hear that takur would would go into the into the jungle north of the temple this is before anybody came before his realization of of divine mother that probably he went as deep as he could so people would know that he was doing out of sight of everyone so that would also be towards that bell tree m you practiced so many austerities but people expect to realize god in a moment can a man build a wall simply by moving his finger around his home master with a smile amuritha says that one man lights a fire and then bask in its heat now we haven't met amrita yet huh okay so i thought you know i like to give a little background on these people because uh we get to know them when we read this if we know a little bit about who they are it gives more meaning to everything huh so it's nice to see who these people were because sometimes we just hear a name a few times and we think this isn't a very important person that they didn't have too much contact with srama krishna but there were actually two amritas one was mahindra dr sarkar's son this will be the other one um he was a follower of keshav that meant he was a member of the brahmos homage and he was one of talkwar's householder devotees it says devotee and after meeting srama krishna his life made it with a great transformation in his life and he says that he was just charmed by the tremendous life with srama krishna and takua he loved him very much he showered and showed great affection for him in 1883 uh when uh when taku went to see keisha then we find him there that uh so that that was maybe the first time that they met and when taka was in in kashipur and he expressed a great desire to see umrita so the wonderful thing he's there practically on his deathbed and it came into his mind that he wanted to see this this devotee and so he went and he spent a long time with takur and just in conversation probably just the two of them then it says in later life that uh we find he had a tremendous love and devotion and and and and respect and faith for srama krishna and and swamiji also uh were very very impressed with ambarito when he saw what a wonderful life that he led and how much devotion he had for ceramic krishna so takur is quoting him there's one thing i like about topwa that he never takes credit for anything if he heard it from somebody else some of his most important teachings that give a twist to your to your emotions and body last 21 days and some so many of them he'll always say one wondering sadhu said it or totopori told me or uh taren goswami he'll always quote somebody so here he's saying amrita says that one man lights a fire and then bask in its heat i want to tell you something else it is good to remain on the plane of lila after reaching the nithya now this is this is the language that shrama krishna uses from a philosophical point of view this will be from the relative to the absolute viability to the paramatica and it really means that going from this this level of sense experience and with his ordinary human mind and going higher and higher in different stages and getting to the roof this is the roof idea when we get there we've reached the nithya we've reached the absolute and this is when the mind is merged in samadhi that is staying on the roof not many people can stay there too long the uh the avatars can go back and forth others can stay for some time and come back down and then most people they stay too long and they'll they'll be converged in that absolute the body will fall off after some time but tako is saying or m says you once said that one comes down to the plane of the leela in order to enjoy the divine play now very often people feel that if we get to this nithya that uh it's impossible to come back down unless we're ishwarikoti then 21 days we're gone but there's so many times when tako talks about going up and coming back down and living in the world is as a free soul and even mukta so here we have to assume that we can reach that roof only we won't we should keep our foot on the top rung of the ladder we shouldn't go up there and spend too much time and maybe we'll go aha and jump over to the other side and won't care to come back but we can get up there we can have that realization so this is uh so first takwa says it is good to remain on the plane of the leelah after reaching the nithya now he's talking about himself also that he'd like to be in that lower plane m you once said that one comes down to the plane of the leela in order to enjoy the divine play master no not exactly that the leela is real too now why he says that is not perfectly clear that he must think that m is has something in his mind he must think that m is is feeling that this is really not real but we come down and we can kind of enjoy it taku says no that this is also equally a manifestation of the divine i think he's trying to impress that idea on him anyhow this discussion quickly comes to an end it's a shame it's a nice discussion because taqwa says let me tell you something whenever you come here bring a trifle with you this is uh yeah perhaps i shouldn't say it it may look like egotism this of course is a tradition that one should not visit a holy person without bringing something now i don't want anybody to think that they can't come to the center they have to bring something every time they come to the center i remember when the when i first met swami swahanandiji in berkeley and so the first time i went i bought some flowers and i took and i gave the flowers they offered in the shrine and then i went a couple days later and i brought flowers again third day i also brought flowers and he said you don't have to bring every time once is enough but this was a very traditional idea and srirama krishna is trying to explain to him that it'll be good for you it'll be good for you to bring a little something and i don't want to be the cause of anything among old anything inauspicious to happen so this is the reason why he's saying it it doesn't have to be any it can just be a tiny little nothing almost so whenever you come here bring a trifle with you perhaps i shouldn't say it it may look like egotism i also told adrian that he should bring a penny worth of something with him i is not to bring a penny worth of beetle leaf this is nothing this is just just a token have you noticed devotion and he seemed like man and woman yeah takur had this theory that different devotees went with each other so he used to compare himself to a housewife who you know we have all of our pots and pans and lids and everything and then we get them all mixed up we don't know what goes with what but he said i'm like that housewife who knows which lid goes with which pot yeah here sometimes we put one on it's too big or it's too small it's not the right one it doesn't match exactly so uh he liked it to pair up devotees either they had the same mood or they complemented each other or they helped each other somehow but uh it's true and that and that they were they were good friends and uh very sadly above not drifted away a little bit after after his marriage uh he takur probably felt that he was fit for leading the life of a monk but we know in those days that very often the family decided it wasn't the son's decision whether he should marry or not or daughter's decision but the family would arrange a marriage and sometimes they would just wouldn't take no for an answer they had to do it huh that happened with you too very often it works out i i think that the deranged marriage is is not a bad idea and then it is not based on any emotional type of thing and there will be some similarity some commonalities and something to to base a relationship on so i am i have nothing against these arranged marriages if if the two have some say in the whole thing it was not forced on them uh but holy mother was very much against this idea uh very often they would the devotees would come and say my daughter doesn't want to marry we want to arrange a marriage he said why should you force her into that type of life if she doesn't want it and tucker also uh so uh bhavanat i don't think tucker was involved in that some sometimes uh he would tell him don't marry this and that or uh he warned porn his parents you forced him to marry that uh he may may not live a full lifetime uh anyhow in the early days they were very close and takwor he liked that not not that uh one their their spiritual attitude was exactly the same but they complement each other they helped each other he meaning is devoted to narendra bring the render here with you in a carriage and also bring some sweets with you it will do you good knowledge and love both are paths leading to god those who follow the path of love have to observe a little more outer purity but the violation of this by a man following the path of knowledge cannot injure him it is destroyed in the fire of knowledge even a banana tree is burned up when it is thrown into a roaring fire we we find this in many of the more dualistic and devotional paths that there's more orthodoxy and uh many of the vaisnava tradition especially uh great amount of attention paid to type of food that one needs a lot of restrictions with regard to that how many times you have to bathe all of these different things the path of knowledge those who follow that path they don't bother so much and takur this is why when when any food was brought by these marwari devotees or others that taqwa hesitated himself to take because these people may not have such uh purity of intention and everything he himself hesitated to take it and he wouldn't let the disciples take it he would give to narendra because he recognized that he was this burning fire a burning fire of of knowledge and and renunciation and that he could swallow everything he could so uh but we do find that that in in some of these uh very devotional dualistic traditions it's interesting because many of them they don't care for cast they're very liberal in that regard but at the same time uh they are very strict with regard to bathing and with food and everything like that there's an expression voice no more they'll have to bathe so many times every day they'll obey themselves to death and sadhus there's they have a reputation because they bake their food and and very often don't get much to eat if there's any big feast they can really stuff themselves so they can eat themselves to death the yanis follow the path of discrimination sometimes it happens that discriminating between the real and the unreal a man loses his faith in the existence of god now this probably means a personal god and we find this in the case of uh swamiji at a certain point this was a little bit also because of when his father died but we find it with kali mirage with swami abernanda that he was he said we laughed at this idea of the personal god and then somebody said yes tako used to say that one passes through that stage and uh really the the followers of the vedanta they their ideal of god is more impersonal absolute not so much this this idea of the personal god but a devotee who sincerely yearns for god does not give up his meditation even though he is invaded by atheistic ideas a man whose father and grandfather have been farmers continues his farming even though he doesn't get any crop in a year of drought yeah tucker always said that we have to be like that like the he says in the hereditary farmer that uh that means that whether we have good meditation bad meditation whether we're in a good mood getting any enjoyment from it whether it's a chore and and it just seems to be we're just treading water we're not getting anywhere we don't give it up that the farmer who knows nothing but farming what will he do you take it up as a hobby then you can give it up and try something else you don't get a crop but if that's all you do that's the only way you can make your living that's the only thing you know then we'll do it year after year so that's how we have to be because our spiritual practice may be dry we may get drought for some years then we have to just continue through lying on the mat and resting his head on a pillow srama krishna continued the conversation he said to him my legs are aching please stroke them gently okay now again are his legs really aching does he really need for somebody to massage his legs is it for m's sake he probably enjoyed it also but this is for him so thus out of his infinite compassion the master allowed his disciple to render him personal service okay that's the end of that day now it's june 8th 1883. it was a summer day the evening service in the kali temple was over suramar krsna stood before the image of the divine mother and waved the fan a few minutes taco used to like to do that he would go and this you know this the yak fan jammer he would go and wave it before the divine mother and go into some type of ecstatic mood there's a nice scene that we read about once m went to the kali temple and ramallah was there and very hesitantly he said is it possible for me to do that and ramallah said yes and he gave him that yak because he was remembering how tako used to like to do that this is part of the oddity service also uh fanning the divine mother and really when taka would do it the mother was living for him he really felt that and we find this with swami ramakrishnan and uh when he was in in the drastic chennai it would be so hot some nights he would spend the whole night before the pictures ramakrishna fanning it thinking that if he doesn't taku will feel hot that for him that was the living reality holy mother used to say that the one that the the person in the shadow or the the image so she always felt that uh tucker lived in in in the image in his picture she would see light coming from his eyes when the prasad came uh the whole came and so that was uh now we may think it's foolish it's a stone image but that our gain is according to our attitude and our feeling and our emotion and our love arrived from calcutta with flowers and sweets kedar was about 50 years old at first he had frequented the brahma-samaj and joined other religious sects in his search for god but later on he had accepted the master as his spiritual guide he was an accountant in a government office and lived in a suburb of calcutta now we've met him several times before we know he was good friends with krishna goswami because his work took him to near dhaka and they would meet together and we read in another place that he told takur that many people came to him and almost looked upon him as a guru he doesn't like to say it exactly but he had a little bit of that feeling and asking what should he do if they bring gifts is it okay and does he need more spiritual power this and that so he was a complex person and he he had [Music] been a member of some of these different organizations they did some funny types of things and tucker loved him very much and at other times well we'll see what happens that is that he has a different feeling about him okay before we get to that now we'll talk about tarik tariq was a young man of 24 his wife had died shortly after their marriage he hailed from the village of barasat not far from calcutta now this is our swami shivananda but i think there's a mistake here i don't think he could be 24. i'll tell you about his marriage huh he can't be 24 right he will he was he was uh i think he would be 20 years yeah he was eight i think he was eight years older he was born in uh 54 was it much older like eight years older i think this is this is a mistake anyhow doesn't matter uh in those days not everybody knew their age even and he could have been one of them but but this is our swami shivananda okay his wife had died shortly after marriage what happened was uh they family was was not well to do they're very generous his father was a very spiritual man they kept people at their house and they were very generous but didn't have much money and he had a sister and they were trying to arrange a marriage but every every chance that they had they found that they couldn't afford to do it to arrange the for the dowry and everything so they found one family that there was a a son and a daughter and he of course had his sister so with two two pairs and they they made that suggestion let's do a swap there won't be any exchange of dowry or anything son marries the daughter the daughter the other daughter marries the son so uh tara's father said look this is the only way unless you agree to this your daughter may never marry we simply can't afford to arrange her marriage so he was very obedient loved his sister loved his parents so he agreed to it without having any inclination to marry and his uh his wife uh never lived with him they uh and and died very shortly after their marriage i don't know how long it was when uh narendra found out that the nature got married but never never consummated the marriage never lived with his wife and then he said oh then he's a maha producer great soul that's how he got his nickname yeah so one of the future monastic disciples one of the the first to really because even at that time uh he was living like a sennheiser he had no place of his own uh he lived at rahm's house uh quite often and seemed to just wander about he had a job but he didn't have much interest in anything and was really uh ripe for full renunciation and of course became one of the great great souls of the order he was the first president after swami brahmananda so second president of the order swamiji himself was kind of president of the of the whole thing in the beginning but he designated his family roman on the first president of belgium so this is tarak his wife had died shortly after their marriage he hailed from the village of barashat not far from calcutta his father a highly spiritual soul had visited srama krishna many times he was the one who gave the amulet that when when takur was going through that period of uh divine madness showing all the signs of mahabharata and body was burning they they didn't know what to do sometimes he would spend the hours immersed in the ganga so much burning of the body and the the brahminy said put sandal paste all over your body that helps sometime but he this uh product's father he gave him an amulet which he wore you know around his arm and that seemed to take care of it so tako said when the zitard came he said for some reason i feel like asking you about your your your background and everything i normally don't do that i don't ask anybody that and when he told him he said ah now i know why because your father used to come a very wonderful man and everything now this is the the only case that i know of where he got full blessings full blessings from his father to become a monk when he went to his father and said he wanted to renounce his father said yes i too had that desire when i was young but i couldn't do it i bless you fully that you may be able to renounce everything and realize god so taco is remembered it was very fond of his father he's a very high opinion of him tadak often went to rome's house and in fact stayed there for some different periods and used to go to dakshineshwar and the company of ram in nitigopal he also stayed in ram's house quite often he worked in a business firm but his attitude toward the world was one of utter indifference astronomy krishna came out of the temple he saw ram kedar and other devotees standing outside he showed his affection for tarak by touching his chin he was very happy to see him this is a very nice thing you see the women do it with the small children huh they'll touch the chin and kiss their finger like that it's very sweet what do they call it so holding the chin and showing affection that way returning to his room and the master sat on the floor in an ecstatic mood with his leg stretched before him rama and kedar decorated his feet with flowers and garlands the master was in samadhi now we get to the kedar okay they believed in certain queer practices of a religious sect to which he had once belonged there's something called navaroshik i i i don't we hear about this and ghosh para and other things i i only know about that because in the in the glossary here that it says there's nowhere else it must be similar thing huh one of one of the kind of little bit fringy yeah when they they do certain unusual practices uh so old kedor he held the master's big toe in his hand believing in this way that the master spiritual power would be transmitted to him the poor man is in samadhi he's trying it's like siphoning gas from somebody's car asked for i'm a christian to regain partial consciousness he said mother what can he do by holding my toe yeah somebody else wants what did he do he he bit holy mother's toe and she said what are you doing he said i want to make sure you'll remember me yeah one lady cather said humbly with folded hands still in an ecstatic mood the master said to kedor your mind is still attracted by woman in gold what is the use of saying you don't care for it go forward beyond the forest of sandalwood there are many more things mines of silver gold diamonds and other precious stones having a glimpse of spirituality don't think you have attained everything the master was again in an ecstatic mood he said to the divine mother mother take him away we don't find him saying this about other people can you imagine with how cater felt at these words okay there's throat dried up in a frightened tone he said to ram what is the master saying and you know these and when taku would get into a mood these words would come out of his mouth he spoke well what was what was from his heart uh he didn't wasn't always very pleasant but uh it'll be for k there's good ultimately we have to understand that at the sight of raqqa as srama krishna was again overpowered with a spiritual mood he said to his beloved disciple i've been here many days when did you come was the master hinting that he was an incarnation of god and raqqa his divine companion a member of the inner circle of devotees yeah we we remember that period during taqwa's life when he would climb to the roof of he would climb to the roof and cry out where are you come where are you all my disciples there others were coming but not the ones he wanted he said my ears are being burned listening to the words of worldly people i need someone who can come and fully accept my message and that's when uh the they started coming one by one raquel came and there andre came la two came all of them started coming he went back you might see most of them he didn't bring most of them he brought some no he brought many of the later generation it wasn't it wasn't these uh these direct disciples it was the ones who joined afterwards many came because of of caishop through the brahmos i don't think i am brought any of them the director cycles huh okay sunday june 10th 1883. you're here to to back me up i need you're my authority this is my authority okay sunday june 10th 1883. yeah so everybody knows we're starting to invite people to come so i we have a nice little group here and uh anybody who's vex and double vaccinated they're all welcome to come for all of the programs now slowly opening up but we'll continue with these recordings also so sunday june 10 1883 the master was sitting in his room with rakal em latu kishori ramlal hazra and other devotees it was about 10 o'clock in the morning okay i want to talk about kishori now we know about em that he doesn't like to talk about himself very often if he's talking about his wife he won't say who she is especially if it's about grief of the death of their child of their son and he never once mentions that kishidi is his younger brother and kishori is very important i'll read a little about kishori that he was a great devotee in his own right but this for m that would be more talking about himself he's talking about his own brother he didn't like to talk about family members or anything like that so let me see about kishori oh this let's see the bengali original bengali most of you have heard about swami permission on the premise that he his first his first connection when he came to calcutta was with him in fact he came he came to kolkata uh because he had read kotomrito and he wanted to meet m and m recognized his greatness and he was a great literary person also so m asked him to write these these different uh uh appendices to the to the gospel he collected all of this all of the words that won't be known to village things in the old things that people may not understand today and he wrote a little thing about the different places and also something called beit purity about all of the different people that we meet in the in the gospel so this is kishori where did he go okay i have it i have it i have it okay so gupto so he was uh em's brother his younger brother uh he met ceramic christian the first in 1882-83 so around the same time that i think he was the the only brother see em didn't get along with his other brothers we read about that so i think it was older brothers and i think kishari was the one that was uh he was close to and and that uh became a devotee not the others okay then he used to go on a regular basis to the chinese war out of his great love for srama krishna and whenever he got the opportunity he would try to serve him he had a very sweet singing voice and he used to sing before suramar krishna very often and takara loved his songs he was also a member of the brahma-samaj the whole family was so that was kind of a family thing and then he got married and throughout his life he had tremendous love and respect in sradha for srama krishna and at the very end of his life he lived all alone in his house in calcutta and practiced austerities and then there itself gave up his body so this uh it's a shame that because am is so uh reticent about speaking about himself or his family members that we don't know too much about these people but uh so very often and will simply write that kishori was present and unless we know this is no way to know that he's actually his own younger brother okay where were we okay so the master was sitting in his room with rocal m latu kishori ram lal hazra they were both of course living at the temple induction and other devotees it was about 10 o'clock in the morning describing his early life srama krishna said to them it's very nice to think about takur in kamarpukur now i'll mention again swami permission on the g because that was one of the themes we find in in his letters and in his songs he loved to meditate on this young godai godai is a young boy uh playing in the mango grove and and putting on these plays and uh all of the nice incident this is very much uh in the division of a tradition where uh in the life of krishna they won't simply think of him as the coward boy or or as the companion of arjuna they'll want to think of him when he's born as a little baby and as he's growing up and playing with his friends even before he's a cowherd boy every stage of his life is something wonderful to think about so same thing with with the sri lanka krishna that uh this komar pakur a period of his life was so sweet because he was so carefree he would just go wherever he wanted uh and you'll see he says the women of kumar pakor were equally fond of me they loved him everybody loved him he was just just this sunlight whenever he went into somebody's house they everything you can just imagine how sweet he was as a young boy or swami taratmananda the artist huh he did a very nice painting of his conception of what uh asrama krishna would have looked like when he was about 10 years old very sweet with a nice little smile that'd be i don't know where it's probably still in toruco rology is it still in in his studio there's also of course that studio is probably not there anymore yeah it was it was a nice yeah it was about eight by ten or something not a real big one during my younger days the men and women of kamar pakore were equally fond of me they loved to hear me sing i could imitate other people's gestures and conversation and i used to entertain them that way the women would put aside things for me to eat no one distrusted me everybody took me in as one of the family see these portions of of the gospel are equally as as important we may think that oh where are the teachings you're not talking about meditation this and that but this this we we have different elements in this gospel one is the reminiscences we get to know who swami krishna was throughout his whole life the second thing is the detail that were placed in the presence of him we know exactly where and when and everything is taking place then the third thing of course is the words that flowed from his mouth but the this is very important when we sit for meditation if nothing else is working we can we can try to picture him as a young boy and playing with his friends like sri krishna played with his friends and the pastor and everything but i was like a happy pigeon i used to frequent only happy families i would run away from a place where i saw misery and suffering one or two young boys of the village were my close friends i was very intimate with some of them but now they are totally immersed in worldliness a few of them visit me here and now and then and say goodness he seems to be just the same as he was in the village school now that's not a compliment they're not they're not saying that oh he hasn't changed people are worshiping he's still the same sweet person that means he never grew up that did we we all we got married and we have responsibilities and we have jobs and everything but the same that he he didn't take responsibility for anything he just would roam about uh carefree and everything so he seems to be just the same as he was in the village school while i was at school arithmetic would throw me into confusion he used to say he learned to add a little bit but the subtraction was too difficult and forget about a multiplication completely he couldn't do that but i could paint very well and could also model small images of the deities and he used to do that he used to like to do that and the famous incident of course is one day in the temple of they'd rather go in the temple that the one of the priests fell and dropped the image and and the leg broke and everyone said no you have to get a new one that you can't worship an image or that's been damaged like that so taka said tell me if your son-in-law fell and broke his leg would you throw him out and they thought oh what a brilliant thing so then tucker himself fixed the image and everything of course they got another image i don't know when at the same time or not but if you go to dakshineshwar you'll see the original one is on the side to the right and the one that's worshipped is on the left conjoined image i love to visit the free eating places maintained for holy men and not because he wanted for eating there were places that uh i think it was the lahars they were wealthy family in the village that this people would do that that if they had money they would do something for the for the benefit of society they would uh pave a road or dig a well or started a place for feeding people or a place where saudis could stay and at that time apparently many sadhus who went from north india to puri would pass through kamakura court i don't know why exactly there may have been so many other ways to go but so takur had the company of sadhus all of the time there were always sadhus staying there he used to love to go there one day they dressed him up as a sadhu and he went home and scared everybody but he learned so much from them listen to their conversation could follow everything sometimes would solve their problems even they would have some naughty philosophical discussion and he would say why not look at it this way they would all be amazed a very similar thing is found in the in one of the gospels of jesus that as a young boy when they were going for the census or something i don't know where whenever it was that uh their old men were having some deep philosophical discussion and he ended up teaching all of them so i love to visit the free eating places maintained for holy men and the poor and would watch them for hours i love to hear the reading of sacred books such as the ramayana and bhagavata if the readers had any affectations i could easily imitate them and would entertain others with my mimicry yeah this was something that that lasted not just when it was a boy throughout his life even in dhaksinishwar if there was ever any reading of some sacred texts or any kirtan anything going on he would tell if he don't take me there i want to go there so somebody said to him once that these words of wisdom come from your mouth and without reading a single book you know you know all of these things so he said yes but don't forget how many things i heard that uh all of these things being read and pundits to talking about it and these great scholars explaining them and everything and his memory was fantastic and his power to comprehend things was you know of course fantastic i understand the behavior of women very well and imitated their words and intonations i could easily recognize immoral women immoral widows part their hair in the middle and perform their toilet with great care now immoral widows it sounds like a terrible thing but we have to remember that uh these child widows young girls were very often uh absolutely taken advantage of and uh forced to be on mistresses and things it was a very terrible thing so they're not to be blamed for these things that uh and uh they would be forced to lead a life of poverty and a life of absolute deprivation uh more than than sannyasi's cutting their cutting their hair and and wearing weight and and eating very straight habitia and everything all sorts of restrictions were on them so very often this was the only way they could have a decent life at all that um many wealthy men uh or would take them as a mistress many of those we read about in the the actresses and the theater that they were prostitutes they weren't really prostitutes it was a similar type of thing they could be a mistress of a wealthy person uh who would be their patron and take care of them otherwise they they they were living in slums otherwise okay i'm not going to read this whole thing because he says but let's not talk of worldly things anymore the master asked ramallah to sing ramallah sang who is this terrible woman dark as the sky at midnight the song about mother kali who is this woman dancing over the field of battle like the blue lotus that floats on a crimson sea of blood who is she clad alone in the infinite for a garment rolling her three odd great eyes in frenzy and savage fury under the wade for tread the earth itself is trembling shiva her mighty husband who wields the fearful trident lies like a lifeless corpse beneath her conquering feet this is of course kind of a combination of chandii and just the image that we have if if you go to the kali temple temple dakshin ishwar you'll see that she's standing on the chest of shiva if you look at it straight on you just kind of see the head of shiva there he's lying that way and she's when it says they these all have some type of symbolic meaning he's on the unmoving infinite absolute and she's shakti and she has to be in contact with him in order to to be able to operate the shiva shakti idea that the the combined with combined reality the next song described the grief of mandodari at the death of her husband as he listened to it the master shed tears of sorrow and said once when i entered the pine grove over there i heard the boatmen on the ganges singing that song and wept bitterly for a long time i had to be brought back to my room ramallah sang about the love of the gopis for sri krishna akrura was about to drive sri krishna in a chariot from vrindavan to matara this was when this change in his life took place he had reached the age where uh he had to to leave uh within davin he had to give up his carefree life as a cowherd boy and take over as his royal duties was the the center uh you know not exactly a big palace but anyhow that's weird yeah he was born there yeah the gopis would not let him go some held the wheels of the chariot some laid down in front of it they blamed akura not knowing that sri krishna was leaving them of his own will was explaining this to the gopis ramallah saying hold not hold not the chariot's wheels is it the wheels that make it move the mover of its wheels is krishna by whose will the worlds are moved about the gopis the master said what deep love what ecstatic devotion they had for krishna radha painted the picture of sri krishna with her own hand but did not paint his legs lest he should run away to matura i used to sing these songs very often during my boyhood i could reproduce the whole drama from memory after his meal srama krishna sat on the couch he had not yet found time to rest the devotees began to assemble one party arrived from manila and another from belgoria some of the devotees said we have disturbed your rest master o no what you say applies only to a rajasik man about him people say ah now he will enjoy his sleep the devotees from mani rampur asked the master how to realize god okay we'll stop here so uh oh your battery is running low close okay uh we will stop here let me just do the [Music] closing [Music] 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 shanti peace peace peace be until