Video 70

The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna read by Swami Atmajnanananda (08/20/21)

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 srimad krishna we're starting a new chapter chapter 12 the festival at panihati monday june 18 1883. sri ramakrishna had been invited to the great religious festival at panihati near calcutta this is on the western bank north of just north of uh mud yeah just a few miles not very far and tucker went there almost every year i know when he first started going and the last time he went was when he kind of got cold yeah and was a little bit annoyed at rahm and others why did they let him go and it rained that day and after that as he the throat cancer started to come yeah and somehow in the beginning he thought maybe that was why why do i have this scratchy feeling in my throat it was after that bunny hati that time yeah so srama krishna had been invited to the great religious festival at panihati near calcutta this festival of the flattened rice was inaugurated by raku nadas a disciple of sri caitanya he was one of the six goswamis the sanatara and ruben and the others the main main disciples of caitanya deva who wrote the literature and and uh he sent them to vrndavan and they established temples and things there they were all very important it is said that used to run away from home secretly practice his devotions and enjoy the bliss of spiritual ecstasy one day nityananda said to him thief you run away you run away from home and enjoy the love of god all alone you hide it from us i shall punish you today you must arrange a religious festival and entertain the devotees with flattened rice so is it not much of a punishment a very simple thing flattened rice it'll be something like puff dries also it'll just be a little snack for everyone since then the festival has been annually celebrated at panihati by the way thousands of the followers of sri caitanya participate in it its chief feature is the singing of the names and glories of god and the dancing of the devotees and religious fervor the center of this festivity is the temple of radha krishna built on the bank of the antes the master had been invited to the festival by manisen who was the custodian of the temple rama m rakhal bhavanat and a few other disciples went with the master in a carriage on his way to panihati srama krishna was in a light mood and joked with the youngsters but as soon as the carriage reached the place of the festival the master to the utter amazement of the devotees shot into the crowd he joined the kirtan party of navid goswami money sends guru and dance totally forgetting the world now every now and then he stood still in samadhi carefully supported by goswami for fear he might fall to the ground this was a common occurrence for srama krishna he we associate him mostly with divine mother mother khali but he used to say that whoever he was with he he would get into that mood if he was with the vaishnavas he would get into that mood if he was with worshippers of shiva or with the nondualist whatever and but the division of a tradition was something special with him because he grew up in the vaisnava family it wasn't it wasn't the same type of vaisnava family they were worshippers of rama they were worshippers of rama which was a little bit different from the followers of of godanga of caitanya deva and who really formed a whole community unto themselves a little bit separate from from everyone else and takwo in the beginning it's very interesting he didn't seem to know that much about caitanya deva yeah and he made some interesting statements in the beginning he said was was he really such a great soul or was he set up by these vaisnava fellows and the worship and everything like that and he was curious about it then when he went to navajo yeah and he had no experience there and he thought how strange then he was in a boat and then he had this vision of the two golden complexion young boys and he they had this theory that the course of the river had changed a little bit and when it was on the bank of the river the river had moved so anyhow he wasn't standing in exactly the place where everything that lila took place before and then when he was in that area then he anyhow after that he became greatly devoted and became convinced that caitanya david was an avatar also and so many instances of taqwa going into ecstasy at the time of kirtan we we hear about all the songs being sung under all the songs that ram prasad song to the divine mother and everything but there's something special about this kirtan done by the vaisnavas because they really they're really masters at the singing and dancing and playing the instruments and and uh it's really a fascinating thing to see they tucker used to say that i think they had a week-long festival or something in shambhazar near uh friday's place near kamarpakura what does it called shambles are fully chambered or something anyhow where uh there the rumor was that a man had died eight times and come back to life that means it had the samadhi and so day and night he was in an ecstatic state and and people were climbing the walls and rules just to look at him and everything so this was uh something that was was not at all uncommon and shouldn't have been unexpected and every year when he went to this bani hati he would do that just singing and dancing the whole time would be exhausting for him i went once to one of these types of festivals yeah in near dhaka shabbat hometown we went every year they have i think it's eight straight days of kirtan non-stop and it's really fascinating to see that people really get into a fervor with this dancing and then a circle and everything and singing and dancing so uh uh really it's hard to believe that he could he could be exactly like uh the most devout vaisnava at the time of attending this type of festival and then other times everything is mother how he could switch back and forth like a chameleon that's really hard to imagine but he had that ability and it was natural he didn't he didn't have to do anything he would be in that with those people in that place and with that atmosphere and he would go into that mood so he would become the main attraction of the whole thing there'd be thousands of people but just really to see him so he joined the kirtan party of navad goswami manisen guru and dance totally forgetting the world every now and then he stood still in samati carefully supported by goswami for fear he might fall to the ground thousands of devotees were gathered together for the festival where everyone looked there was a forest of human heads the crowd seemed to become infected by the masters divine fervor and swayed to and fro chanting the name of god until the very heir seemed to reverberate with it drums symbols and other instruments produced melodious sounds the atmosphere became intense with spiritual fervor now remember that this is the time when all the brahmos were coming to him and they seemed so dry to him he he praised them of course for whatever spiritual attitude they had and everything but i really he said that they didn't learn to taste the joy that uh this this type of kirtan and everything the deputies felt that goranga himself was being manifested in the person of sri ramakrishna they even even though keshav and the others the brahmos and they didn't care for any of this this stuff at all still they tried to say at one point that keisha was godanga and chief not was nithyananda something like that to identify them so one time they were talking about that in kesha and taka was there and pointed to him and said well what about him then talker said i am the dust of the dust of your feet i am the servant of your servant something like that but swamiji used to say many times i heard tako say he and he himself was manifest to all three so the way these are the main figures there now taku used to talk about this in a symbolic sense also nithyananda so this uh if we have this non-dual this non-dual reality that we have that realization then we'll get this chaitanya this awakening some divine ecstatic consciousness and the nithyananda will be in eternal bliss so he used to use it in that sense also but takur when he would go into these moods he would feel the sense of identification of course he always used to say with rama and with krishna but also with within so yeah he had the firm conviction that gauranga was also an avatar the devotees felt that gauranga himself was being manifested in the person of sriram krishna flowers were showered from all sides on his feet and head the shouting of the name of adi was heard even at a distance like the rumbling of the ocean srama krishna entered by turn into all the moods of ecstasy in deep samathi he stood still his face radiating a divine glow in the state of partial consciousness he danced sometimes gently and sometimes with the vigor of a lion again regaining consciousness of the world he sang himself leading the chorus this is the traditional explanation of the different states of that caitanya david himself used to experience that uh sometimes he would be lost in ecstasy sometimes in some ecstatic mood dancing other times a little bit uh on the ordinary plane of consciousness but of course filled with devotion so talk we're singing the song behold the two brothers have come who weep while chanting huddy's name the brothers who dance in ecstasy and make the world dance in his name behold them weeping themselves and making the whole world weep as well the brothers who in return for blows often two sinners huddy's love caitanya deva and nithyananda were all they're usually called brothers they weren't brothers biologically we're just in a kind of spiritual sense behold the two brothers have come who once were kanai and balai of raja so this is another theory that they have they identify all of the main figures in the caitanya lila with the main figures in the krishna leela so gauranga of course would be krishna himself and his friend balahi will be balarama his friend that'll be nithyananda they who would steal the butter out of the pots of the gopi maids behold the two have come who shatter all the rules of caste embracing everyone as brother even the outcast shunned by men who lose themselves in huddy's name making the whole world mad who are none other than hadi himself and chan his hallowed name yeah most of the devotional movements we're [Music] free from this cast distinction and uh you know many of the device numbers that we made will have the name das and this i believe is is kind of a title that many of them took that they could have been vanities and charities and things like that but this is a way that nobody will know what their cast is the same thing with uh the sikh tradition they're all in brotherhood they'll all have the same last name thing like that that's a different thing we'll talk about the gold swamis in a minute yeah yeah we'll i'll get that will come up here behold them who saved from their sinful ways the ruffians these were two characters who used to go around and and make fun of everyone and even beat them up and they they even had nithyananda then they they had them bleeding and everything they beat them and they embraced them the brother interview and you know they got converted they who cannot distinguish between a friend and an enemy behold the two brothers who come again to save mankind horrible day [Music] any of this song i would when i when i was in india one time i think at the time of brahmacharya there are sessions where we do all this kirtan singing and dancing and all the songs this was the one song another vaisnava song that most of them really really got into more than anything else i was surprised i don't know why i i somehow i i didn't think that uh those who came for a variation of the families they would say innovation of a tradition the shocked is and the others they would be more attractive this ramakrishna but it's not like that and maybe the majority came from vaishnavi families even but they used to love this song and so this was the one song that they would sing over and over again and get up and start dancing and everything did you find it it's there [Music] the two brothers have come again the master sang see how all no diya is shaking means under the ways of gauranga's love these are two songs that talk with sayings many many times how taqwa learned all of these songs remember he didn't he didn't read books and things that he would memorize these songs what a fantastic memory how many thousands of songs he must have had committed to memory the crowd with the master in the center surge toward the temple of radha krishna only a small number could enter the rest stood outside the portal and jostled with one another to have a look at srama krishna in a moment of intoxication he began to dance in the courtyard of the shrine every now and then his body stood transfixed and deep samanthi now these are all very very devout people that really they're probably feeling that they're seeing gauranga himself saitanya dave himself that or at least that taqwa had imbibed that spirit that spirit to such an extent hundreds of people around him shouted the name of god and thousands outside caught the strain and raised the cry with full-throated voices but literally thousands this is no joke the big open field the echo traveled over the ganges striking a node in the hearts of people in the boats on the holy river and they too chanted the name of god when the kirtan was over manisen took srama krishna and navad goswami into a room and served them with refreshments afterwards rama m and the other devotees were also served with the prasad in the afternoon the master was sinning and money sends a drawing room with the devotees was also near him money offered the carried hire to srama krishna according to rama and the others the master said why should they accept it from you they earn money he became engaged in conversation with novadeep master bhakti matured becomes a bhava now he's going to be talking to them about all of all of the traditional concepts regarding bhakti yoga that were all recorded based on seeing caitanya deva himself and based on what was written about radha rather krishna leela in the many texts that they wrote caitanya david he didn't write a single book after this conversion that he had he wasn't interested in anything he wrote that one poem that we have that one him but his disciples especially rupa and uh and sanatana and goswami also they they they wrote big books very scholarly books and with all categories how many different types of of uh levels of devotion there are and physical changes in the body and moods and all of these things and uh so these are all things that tak where he must have heard all of these things of course he's talking from his own experience but using all the language and all the technical terms so when they say mahabhava mahabhava and prema these are all technical terms different levels and stages that one can attain to and each one will have its own physical manifestations so bhakti matured becomes a bhava so bhava we take that to mean some deep spiritual mood ecstatic mood something like that next is mahabhava maha deeper and stronger then prema forever would be some fully ecstatic love of god and last of course the attainment of god gauranga experienced the states of mahabharata in these are rare things he's mentioning this in particular because we'll see these are not for everyone he also forgets his body which is so dear to a man goranga experienced prima he jumped into the ocean thinking it to be the yamana now this is one of the signs that mind is so filled with this this divine leela the divine play and in his case of course this rather krishna play that when he would be in that mood he would see everything he this is in puri that he's he's looking at the ocean but thinking is the yamana convinced and uh this was what happened with radha that uh this she would say the peacock feathers and the dark clouds and she would be saying you know seeing krishna everywhere krishnamay seeing krishna everywhere so this was with godanga he had that same thing so we jumped into the ocean thinking it to be the yamana and practically drowned they say that the fishermen caught him in their net and and reeled him in and he was a huge size and something like that some people that you know they nobody knows exactly how he died they never found his body or anything so one theory was that he merged into the image of juggernaut in the temple in puri the other is that probably he could have drowned in the ocean because this happened more than one occasion he would just become unconscious and just saying the yamana he's thinking how can i unite with my krishna the ordinary jiva does not experience mahabhava or prema now this is very similar to what taqwa says about the ordinary jiva not being able to have the highest types of samathi the nirvikalpa samathi or if they have it they can't come back from it and this is because uh of this idea of what taco calls that we're all a certain size pitcher we can only hold a certain amount of of water so the spiritual emotions in these higher states are so strong that the whole system gets shattered a little nervous system of body health and everything like that so tucker says that this mahabhava these these things they they enter into the body like an elephant entering into a small straw hut it'll just just destroy the whole thing even swamiji when he was in omernot experience that he had was so overwhelming that it affected his heart and blood clot came everything yeah so uh we can imagine with srama krishna with his with his really fragile body not that he had strong health or anything how he could withstand all of these spiritual emotions and all these realizations and all of these samantis this is this is one of the best types of proof that we have that he was really a superhuman person if we want to say avatar we can say but for the ordinary jiva to attain to real uh love of god however whatever name we do it is enough for liberation we shouldn't think that this this means that we'll be deprived of some actually some of these higher states uh which would you bring in this we talk about this on all the time if we if we look at the life of radha and even srama krishna how these manifest and with this horrible burning sensation in the body and even blood coming out of the pores constant weeping uh he had to remain immersed in in water all day long because of that burning sensation in his body that it was it was so hot that the bromine when she was there in order to to touch him to help him move or something she had to put a cloth in between so her hand would burn from it so we shouldn't feel bad that we're not getting these things this is part of part of that whole package if we want to have that highest type of ecstatic joy then we have to go through uh this video before this milan of hawa that means this uh this feeling of separation from god which is tremendous feeling of tremendous anguish in order to have the deeper that is and the more anguish we feel the greater the joy of union with god so this is these are reserved for these very rare saintly types of people we don't need these we get a little bit of devotion the whole life can be transformed so we shouldn't feel like we're missing out on anything yeah the uh in in the christian tradition the the many of the saints uh they would meditate so deeply on on jesus on the cross that they would actually have blood come from their hands just because he was supposed to have been kind of nailed to the cross that way and how that that power of merging the mind in that image really can affect physically the body and it changes that way yeah we have the examples like that in the uh the tradition of the the saints and the roman catholic tradition so talker says the ordinary jiva does not experience mahabhava or prima he goes only as far as bhava but guranga experienced all three states isn't that so now he's referring to the earlier three states that we had that uh because uh tucker had exactly the same thing no we did yes sir that is true the inmost state the semi-conscious state and the conscious state master in the inmost state he would remain in samadhi unconscious of the outer world so tako is talking from his own experience in the semi-conscious state he could only dance in the conscious state he chanted the name of god introduced his son to the master the young man was a student of the scriptures he saluted srama krishna he studies the scriptures at home previously when hardly saw a copy of the vedas in this country max mueller has translated them so people can now read these books yeah he had a whole team of great pundits and i don't know if it was actually translation but he was the first one to to actually publish them and this this isn't the upanishad this really means regrade and other things and these were never supposed to be printed it was not that people were were lazy or anything this was an oral tradition but because he did that many people had the opportunity to study them and everything so it was a great contribution max miller is very highly thought of in india i remember in in delhi there's a max mueller house imagine huh yeah in bengal they call them moksha mula max i think said this or maybe he himself said that he was a rishi in the previous lifetime and and swamiji asked him why don't you go to india you'll be so highly appreciated there and he said i'm afraid i'll give up the body if i go there i'll remember my past lives is rishi something like that he was he was a german origin this descend but i think lived in england yeah i think they'd moved in so anyhow these would be things that only scholars not with necessarily with with such uh high spiritual ideas that we find in the upanishads so it's more of a scholarly thing so taqwa said too much study of the scriptures does more harm than good so too much that means that the pundits sometimes it'll become a craze it'll become uh an obsession of this study of the scriptures and memorizing verses and and uh going through all the grammar and and all the commentaries and everything uh it builds a tremendous type of intellect but not necessarily a great devotion and it's taking time away from from spiritual practice so too much of the scriptures and does more harm than good the important thing is to know the essence of the scriptures after that what is the need of books one should learn the essence and then dive deep in order to realize god the divine mother has revealed to me the essence of the vedanta it is that brahman alone is real and the world illusory this was a nice incident with swami turian when he was just a college boy and he was coming to srama krishna he loved to study and read the upanishads and everything and study vedanta and tucker noticed that he hadn't come for a while so he asked the others where is that boy huddy that that nice uh very very disciplined brahmin boy and they said oh now he's spending all his time reading vedanta so missing the opportunity to be with ramakrishna and then when he saw him he said well i hear you're spending all your time studying vedanta and he said yes sir and he says is it anything more than brahman alone is real and the world is unreal he said no sir he said then you know what no you have to practice yeah we shouldn't we shouldn't think that we should not study the scriptures this uh swami turian he went to all of the upanishads he would read a verse he would he would sit and he committed to memory and meditate on it and verse by verse he went through all of the upanishads that way he's a great not just scholar a great thinker deep thinker the essence of the gita is what you get by repeating the word ten times this is what total purity told him the word becomes reversed it is then tagi which refers to renunciation the essence of the gita is o man renounce everything and practice spiritual discipline for the realization of god but how can we persuade our minds to renounce master you are a goswami okay so this is yeah this is the point here it is your duty to officiate as priest and the temple you cannot renounce the world otherwise who would look after the temple and its services you have to renounce mentally the one of the features of the gaudiya vaisnava tradition is that the gurus are all the householders and in kind of unbroken line of descent they trace trace themselves back to one of the goswami's you know so normally uh advaitacharya that'll be the main one but the because the other ghost for me is they didn't marry they weren't sanyasins but they didn't marry i think vishnu priya there's a line that goes to her and uh maybe through nithyananda also but mostly advaita is swamiswananji wants because he came from a goswami family yeah and they go swami so they're the gurus of the tradition and i asked him once he said ah we don't know exactly probably advaita yeah so uh that was that was their duty and their obligation to very pious people it wasn't just that they did this to make to make money or anything uh they earned very little money and devoted their lives to the spiritual and scriptural study and everything like that but uh this was the tradition if they all renounced and became monks then that tradition would die out so these were cool gurus family it would be a family tradition and one family would have another family say a non-brahmin family would have the brahmin family goswami family and uh all of their descendants would be initiated by all of the descendants that would go one to the other the other like that i heard that uh swami swanji's family uh it wouldn't have been his father father that young maybe maybe before that somebody in the in the family that they were the gurus for some shogun on this side yeah they were that this so the ghost armies and then and they the villages were very close to each other not only that but uh when swami swanji was a school boy he lived in the town of the hobby lunch not in the village and swami shokanando also lived in the town of the hobby earlier not at the same period but their houses are like four houses away they're on the same block almost yeah yeah and he ended up being his assistant in san francisco that wasn't by chance i think they they thought it would be a nice match the headquarters so the number difficult swami now he's a little inspired by srama krishna they'll renounce everything called on god and god realization how can we persuade our minds to renounce master you are go swami it is your duty to officiate as priest and the temple so there were the there there is a monastic tradition but it's not so strong there's boy doggies and they weren't very highly educated people simple people and not in generally in india the the the priests are not so highly thought of and the sannyasins are the ones who were given the greatest honor in this particular division of a tradition the ghost swamis have more honor and the others were considered to be kind of ordinary people and sometimes they didn't keep up the traditions that will and other things so so you cannot renounce the world otherwise who would look after the temple and its service you have to renounce mentally it is god himself who has kept you in the world to set an example to men you may resolve in your mind a thousand times to renounce the world but you will not succeed god has given you such a nature that you must perform your worldly duties krishna said to arjuna what do you mean you will not fight by your mere will by your mere will you cannot desist from fighting your very nature will make you fight yeah now this is also an interesting idea because uh we've we've spoken so many times about uh this idea of free will and to what extent are we bound by our nature and our some scholars and things like that if we look at in gita we find that sri krishna seems to make a distinction between these some scatters these some scatters just tendencies that we have and these these some scatters we can we can change them we can uh suddenly uh give them a new twist and a new direction uh the many aspects of our personality and everything through our spiritual practice that we can change we were born with certain tendencies and certain bad habits and things that we can change all these things but he seemed to hold this idea which we find in gita that there's something a little more uh elementary a little more uh fixed in our personality which is called swabhava or even so in all these verses in the gita your nature itself will will cause make you uh fight in the battle because you're accepted here so the swab is connected a lot with caste for some reason yeah so that uh is born extracted because there's something in his nature that will not change very easily that makes him heroic something in the nature of ibrahim that makes him calm and peaceful and if one tries to do the dharma with the other it won't work so this was the dilemma that sri krishna he wanted to live the dharma of ibrahim or sanyasen and to renounce everything and he had the the accepts this also with regard to a couple of things one will be uh say this this idea of who was meant to be a householder and the other would be who has a little bit of the nature of of shiva and the nature vishnu that those who were born with the nature of the of the devotee he said it's so much ingrained in them that it's not something that one should even try to change whereas if we're born and part of our nature is that we're uh bed tempered we have this some scattered that we can change that's a different type type of thing so the very subtle kind of distinction so when he was talking to video krishna goswami he became a brahmo but it was a bad fit and talker said look you're born in the family of of great bhaktas the great devotees goswami huh and this tradition same tradition that it won't do to try to squeeze yourself into the box of the brahmos that devotion is it's runs through your very veins you were born with it you come from that tradition that family and everything you were born into that family for a reason and uh as soon as vida left the brahmos and he renounced everything and and this this devotion really blossomed forth within him he became considered a great saint he had a big following books a lot of books written about him and everything partly there are certain parts of our nature that we should accept and and and take advantage of this is what swamiji means when he says the path of least resistance so we should find that if i mean why should we keep hitting our heads against the wall trying to be uh i am i am he i am he that if it's if it's not something to suit it to our nature and everything we're good why is this so much resistance against the vernas that they had before like the four varnas that we already had people were really criticized in india and that was one of the main dreams yeah the the gas system uh if if we if we take it to be uh perfectly in sync with the theory of karma then each person who is born into a particular cast not that that person is forced to do the duties of that cast but they're qualified for it and it and it and it works it fits for them uh this is one thing second thing is that swamiji believed or at least at least he struggled with this idea he believed that in the beginning that it probably wasn't hereditary it wasn't that no and that was a big issue with him you read in his letters to this mitra who was a great scholar asking him all of the time was was this a hereditary thing when did it happen like that when did so uh swamiji failed and with a good reason it probably uh and he used to talk about it something like guilds that they had in in europe that even in this country with the with the unions that there will be certain immigrant communities that take to one trade and some to take to a different trade and everything i remember remember i had a summer job uh with the bricklayers in philadelphia and they were all german americans you think after so many years how much would it change and all the laborers were african-american and me i didn't last long at that job it was too hard but but it's curious so anyhow the the swamiji fell the cast has been not so bad if it's just organizing society and if one could switch from one to another and there was inner marriage in the cast in the early days we know that there were mixed casts the zundas and other things they did so swamiji felt that when it got so restrictive so that you you were born in that chaos you had to marry into that cast you couldn't die and privilege when privilege came into it that because the one belonged to a high caster they have privileges over the others then they didn't like it at all towards the end of his life uh he didn't try to defend it in any way he he said this cast is the main problem that we have yeah because we find i mean as much as as theoretically it makes sense theoretically makes sense in practical terms we know that there are people who were born into the lowest possible caste who are brilliant and perfectly qualified to be scientists and and doctors and you know whatever and that there will be people who are born as in brahmins who are qualified to to work with their hands and all sorts of things so the the theory and practice don't don't jive all of the time so that was that's the main difficulty when people are deprived of the opportunity to pursue any type of profession or career outside of the limitations of caste then it's very restrictive and i in the beginning everyone was supposed to have the equal respect because they were all playing their part in society so as swamiji always said that uh the role of of the uh of the workers is equally important and as sacred equally sacred as those who are teachers or doctors or anything else it's very hard to say of course now it's not as bad as it once was i mean the form officially outlawed uh now it's mostly as far as i know it's mostly with regard to marriage and other things but people eat with each other and everything i mean at one time it was really horrible that if someone from a sudden outcast if they walked on your shadow where if their shadow touched your body huh yeah then they could they could be punished and you'd have to go home and take a bath and everything so yeah it was it was pretty bad at one time but yeah so now that we don't believe in the hereditary transmission of cats how do we find out if our nature is like a satria or yeah so now now actually it was much easier in the early days when when we knew what our dharma was there's a big question how do we know what our dharma is how do we know what uh what is the best career path to take yeah now now it becomes a big issue that we have to think about very deeply and uh the question of uh what appeals to us and what we're qualified for like everything else huh a question of uh uh agricutta what are we fit to do and uh and what what appeals to us so the same thing with in our spiritual life tucker always said that uh this question of of of taste that the mother gives the child the type of food that it likes to eat and that it can digest so the same thing we have to find what will what will bring some joy and and satisfaction to our lives and we have to be realistic and this is something that i can do is something i'm qualified to path is is the best for us so there were times when uh deputies would go to holy mother and she would say my child what aspect of god do you like you know for your initiation and they would say something and she would meditate or think for a while and she would say no this is this is more suited for you and they'd be a little surprised they hadn't thought about it and after a while they would come back and say mother how did you know that you were right this is the best thing for me of course these are the special gurus who will do that so yeah so it was very easy when uh when we were told perform your duty in this spirit of selflessness and not look into the fruits and we would know exactly what the duties were because these are all written out in the the in the scriptures the chakri has certain duties and yeah you you join the army and that's the last decision you make you do what they tell you to do and you do it there's out of a sense of obligation and duty and through that one can attain the highest this is when gita says whatever or duties now it becomes a real issue how to decide what to do by that you know the physicians are sugras because the service people you know seriously yes remember yes the swamis of our order they were called monkey yes yeah actually actually in the early in the early days the sannyasins played the role especially in the buddhist tradition yeah that they were kind of healers and they would do that kind of thing yeah so uh yeah [Music] yes yeah yeah so swamiji said you look down on these people you won't but he said if the if the garbage collectors in calcutta stop work for one day that everything will fall apart and if you big shots you don't go to work for for a month nobody will know the difference right and yet you look down upon these people yeah yes yeah so all of these great saints and everything uh they this in fact this idea that taqwa had that there's no cast among devotees of god this was from caitanya day but that was their tradition that they they they was one of their tenants yeah they're doing a good job seats for you know the backward people yeah bring them up to the car you know and also educate them yeah no there was a very vigorous uh uh policy in india for uh what did they call it here uh affirmative action thank you okay let's get back to this so at the mere mention of christian arjuna the master went into samadhi in the twinkling of an eye his body became motionless and his eyeballs transfixed while his breathing could scarcely be noticed at this sudden transformation and his son and the other devotees looked at the master in mute wonder regaining partial consciousness he said to nawadri yoga and bhoga you go swamis have both and now yoga because they were pious people they they worked in the temple they would give the initiation they were partisan people boga not that they were materialistic or anything like that but they were also family people and they they had their simple enjoyments and things like that so uh he was telling them don't don't try to give up this is this is part of your your nature now your only duty is to call on god and pray to him sincerely now there's no reason why these goswamis as they get older in life can't slowly devote their whole life to spiritual pursuit this is what takat is telling everybody householders non-households everybody so now your only duty is to call on god and pray to him sincerely o god i don't want the glories of thy world bewitching maya that means i'm not so fascinated with the world anymore all of its bubbles and the shiny things and everything they don't appeal to me anymore i want thee alone god dwells in all beings undoubtedly that being the case who may be called his devotees he who dwells in god he who has merged his mind and life and innermost soul in god one of my favorite verses from gita's in chapter 12 that uh who who is it who lives in god huh he said if you give your mind to me place your intellect in me fix your mind in me all of that then you'll dwell in me for for all time huh if we we want to know that uh where do we have to go how do we how do we do wherever the mind is we're reading these letters aswami permission on that and he talks about this ramakrishna loka as after after we give up this body that will go there but he's telling them look if you if you everything isn't your whole body mind sold everything given to him then right here and now you're living in ramakrishna so this is all the question of the mind uses this expression over and over and over again is all the question of the mind if the mind is in bliss we're in bliss if the mind is thinking of god we're dwelling in god say god is so far away because we're not thinking of god we feel the presence within the heart we're living in god so the beautiful statement he who dwells in god who has merged his mind and life and innermost soul than god he is called the devotee the master returned to the sense plane so it he he's in this ecstatic mood some of the most beautiful teachings that we get are when taka is in that in between mood he goes into samadhi then he comes down a little bit but he's not in that his ordinary state of consciousness still that divine inebriation is there and these words spontaneously come out so the master returned to the sense plane referring to its samadhi he said some say that this state of mind is a disease this was mostly the shiv not jason and some of the brahmos they said yes he's a very nice man but this samadhi thing that there must be something wrong this is too too much thinking of god and he's beheaded he's lost his head somehow but taku didn't mind she thought he knew that he would say those things and still he loved him so much and he would say oh she's not you've come what is this you say that i've lost my head that i've gone red so returning to to was referring to a somati he said some say that this state of mind is a disease i say to them how can one become unconscious by thinking of him whose consciousness has made the whole world conscious manisen said goodbye to the invited brahmins and vaisnavas with suitable gifts of money he offered five rupees to srama krishna now he couldn't touch money he couldn't save money actually there was an exception you know that that this this man who couldn't touch money and couldn't bear the thought of it and uh this to him gold was the whole symbol of of of greed and everything the worst possible thing he made sure that money was collected and set aside for holy mother one was to get bangles made for her and the other was after he passed away so there would be money he made sure that that was done so look at that love for holy mother to go against such a strict rule for him he offered five rupees to srama krishna the latter said that he could not possibly accept any money but money insisted money doesn't mean money money is is his name the master then asked him in the name of his guru not to press him money requested him again to accept the offering srama krishna asked m in a distressed voice whether he should take the money the disciple money's money the disciple made a vehement protest and said no sir by no means because the em knew how important this was for to sri lanka krishna and how tired like he was and how easily people could force him to do things that uh his mind was very simple that way people told him take this medicine and say okay i'll try it all sorts of things so emma's being very protective of him at this time friends of manisen gave the money to rakhal requesting him to buy some mangoes and sweets for the master surami krishna said to em i have definitely said the money that i would not accept the money i feel free now but rakal has accepted it his is now the responsibility there was a similar incident where a large amount of money it was off this ramakrishna and he said no i can't accept it so then they said okay we'll give it the holy mother and the holy mother said and no my accepting it will be as good as him having it also so i also can't accept it because he and tucker was so happy he said see how intelligent holy mother is and that she knew if she took it it would be the same thing as me taking it srirama krishna accompanied by the devotees took a carriage to return to dakshineshwar they were going to pass the temple garden of matishil on the way you'll remember this came up earlier for a long time the master had been asking him to take him to the reservoir in the garden in order that he might teach him how to meditate on the formless god there were tame fish in the reservoir nobody harmed them visitors threw puffed rice and other bits of food into the water and the big fish came in swarms to eat the food fearlessly the fish swam in the water and sported there joyously you see this sometimes in these japanese gardens i think with the koi fish and people will feed them and they all run around in the big circles and spin around coming to the reservoir the master said to him look at the fish meditating on the formless god is like swimming joyfully like these fish in the ocean of bliss and consciousness okay that is the end of of that day stop here um [Music] who is stainless of infinite nature whose heart melts in sympathy for his devotees who is an embodiment of the divine and the supreme lord and ever worthy of our worship [Music] peace peace