Video 81

The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna read by Swami Atmajnanananda (12/03/21)

[Music] foreign 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 we are reading from the chapter the master and m from the gospel of srama krishna page 280 and it is monday august 20th 1883. and shiramakrishna is in his room at duck sinistra m yeah this was the follow-up of the convert last last time the conversation was about uh m said yes sir you said that god himself has become everything the universe and all living beings even he who meditates is god master what is more one cannot meditate unless god wills it so this is where we're starting now one can meditate when god makes it possible for one to do so what do you say am true sir you feel like that because there is no i in you when there is no ego one feels like that okay now this is a very very interesting statement because we generally think that [Music] meditation depends upon self-effort it depends upon the state of our mind it depends upon [Music] preparation all sorts of different things we very rarely would think that one cannot meditate unless god wills it now why will god will for us not to be able to meditate we don't have to take this so literally to me it means that we shouldn't expect to be able to have a good meditation every time we sit for meditation that it's a rare thing that if if we have a bad meditation we shouldn't think that [Music] we wasted our time we did something wrong this is this is the nature of the mind when we say god wills it we can say what tucker the expression he liked was the grace of the mind and when that happens we don't know sometimes the mind is very agitated and we think it'll be useless to sit for meditation and yet it becomes quiet other times we sit for a long time and the mind runs around then sometimes it gets quiet at the very end so all sorts of different things but it's very hard to pinpoint exactly why and when and how the mind becomes still and quiet this is my experience anyhow and what does that mean what is the practical ramification of that that we can't miss a meditation that that we and and we shouldn't end it too soon we shouldn't just give up we shouldn't skip a day because that may be the day when the mind gets quiet in tucker's words we can say that may be the day when god wills that we have a good meditation or that's the day when we have the grace of the mind the grace of the mind means that the mind becomes still and quiet so it's not exactly in our hands and yet it is we have to make effort but we never know when and why and how the mind will become uh will become still and quiet the mind will become our friend and we won't have to fight the mind [Music] of the mind and the will of god for a dualist they're two different things i if we if we've tried to get to the point when we talk about the will of god or we talk about karma or we talk about the grace of the mind this is all ways of trying to help us understand that there's something mysterious about cause and effect that we we can't say exactly why things happen the way that they happen we when we say it is somebody's karma we're giving an explanation that's that's also not based on any uh empirical evidence we have no idea that it's it's a pure assumption that somebody did something in the past lifetime that would lead them to have some type of bad experience in this lifetime it's there's nothing empirical about that we can't go back and check we uh we take it on faith now there are other people who they won't deny that karma but they'll say everything is god's will that also is nothing that uh we can we can verify this is also our spiritual attitude and uh take it on faith now i make a distinction between taking something on faith and accepting something as a spiritual attitude it's a spiritual attitude we don't even have to take it on faith that it's true we can just we can just use it as some operative way of looking at the world that whatever happens is for my good so i can say that whatever happens is for my good i don't have to to even take it on faith that it's true but i can i can operate uh with that mindset so that whatever happens to me i'll i'll take it as something that is beneficial without knowing why or or how and it'll turn out to be true or at least it can or it seems to turn out to be true but with meditation i think that the main point here is that there is definitely not any strict cause and effect between uh even even what we do uh suppose we do everything right we wake up and and we we take a shower and we read some spiritual thing and we clear the mind of everything else and we sit for meditation we don't have a good meditation so uh we don't know why and i think if if if we analyze meditation and our minds and everything and try to see uh say out of an hour we sit for an hour how many minutes do we have of real concentration or of real devotion that some real feeling comes if it's if it's a few minutes then we can say that we had the grace of the mind that it was a blessed experience something like that right depending on the intensity of it and everything is unrealistic to think that uh we'll be able to do exactly what we want to do in meditation it's unrealistic to think that okay i'll sit in meditation i won't allow the mind to do anything except repeat the mantra and to visualize the image of the ishta devata oh my field is seated within my heart face to face and no i won't allow any other thought to come into the mind it's unrealistic it won't happen so we we say it in meditation in hopes that the mind will gather together at some point and uh and that will bring some joy and that will bring some conviction of the truth of everything and that will make it worth it that's what we mean by a good meditation if we have just a little bit of concentration uh for a short period of time and the rest of the time we're at least making an effort a sincere effort that sincere effort will yield fruit that's that's the important thing that we're doing it with with the devotion and love and sincerity and really trying our best even when the mind is wandering this is called obiasio 90 percent of meditation is of yoga the mind wanders we bring it back and wonders we bring it back if it stays there for a while then we're fortunate so the way tucker is explaining is that don't think it's all in your hands he's saying in the will of god we can say grace of the mind we can say our good fortune we can give any explanation but it's not completely in our hands so we don't want to miss this is the main point we don't want to miss we i i have this theory that mostly uh the wandering of the mind uh precedes the quiet of the mind and if we if we don't sit long enough we only sit through all of the garbage and everything and we don't get the mind a chance to get tired of all of that so this is why meditation is involved some struggle and uh uh giving enough time giving enough time because we go through different different things if we if we could graph meditation we it won't be any straight line there'll be lots of ups and downs then and then maybe at some point it'll start going up and up and up and then then we feel so the will of god so this very very interesting way that he puts it i don't remember talk we're saying this in in other places or explaining it exactly this way one cannot meditate unless god wills it one can meditate when god makes it possible for one to do so what you say now and gives an answer that is a little bit different from the way i've explained it he says true sir you feel like that because there's no i in you when there's no ego one feels like that we can say uh of course in a talker's case you know when is it that he cannot meditate i mean the mind is completely emerged in god all of the time so it doesn't really apply to him it applies to us uh of course if we have no sense of i can the mind still wander no sense of eye can the mind still wander yeah actually actually the mind sometimes uh because the mind is wandering so much we for we forget even who we are and what we're trying to do it can it can be immersed in the ishta devata or it can just be merged in some daydream we can just be daydreaming and forget even see we can we we sit for meditation the mind can be so merged we feel that yes we're sitting face to face where there is the divita we open our eyes we forgot where we were sitting or we could just be daydreaming some vacation that we took to the bahamas we sat on the beach and everything we opened our eyes we said oh i i forgot i was the whole time i was in the bahamas right so center my eye can be gone both times uh but the one it's it's just uh merging in something higher and the other it's just the mind is so engrossed in in interesting things the mind likes to be interested and if if we if we don't allow ourselves to enjoy things physically mine will do it mentally we can enjoy things that way it's another it's a type of enjoyment thinking about things thinking about enjoyable things another way of enjoying things when you're trying to focus the mind of trying to meditate it's harder but like when you're listening to a nice version or reading something sometimes you automatically just go into that mode yeah we can't compare them we can't say that suppose we say prayer whenever i pray i'm fully focused right so so we say so i'll give up meditation because i can't be fully focused there are different types of things if uh i feel great devotion when i listen to music that doesn't mean that we eliminate all of our other practices yeah meditation is the hardest of all of them why does mine wonder why this mind wander less in the morning and more in the evening i don't know if this is universally true but uh if we've had it we've had a night time to forget everything we had a little bit of a clean slate and then we remember what happened all throughout the day but i don't know is that true with everybody i don't i don't i never noticed too much my mind wanders both i mean we know that we do a little spiritual reading first we we even take a shower and do all these things we know these things are very helpful to clear the mind so the conversation is is switching quickly so the m is explaining tucker's statement because he says there's no eye in you now taku will start talking about the role of the ego master but it is good to have a trace of ego which makes it possible for a man to feel that he is the servant of god takwor he explains this and this is also not the way he usually explains it he usually says that there's going to be a trace of ego and because there is let that rasco remain as the servant here he's saying it's actually good now does that mean that it would be better than if we have no ego at all see no ego what does it mean no ego what we're really talking about is is uh eliminating this thomas ignorance ego is having a pure pure sense of eye right it's identified with the higher self or the servant ego something like that but it is good to have a trace of ego which makes it possible for men to feel that he is the servant of god tucker always says that uh this is what we cling to in spiritual life is this is this is we we take shelter in this this is this is our refuge he uses these two words that we have a particular spiritual attitude and different he has different keywords and we we assume a certain type of personality that will allow us to have that power that relationship that servant ego something like that so that we can establish this connection with god have a relationship with god and this is this is basically what we do in the path of bhakti yoga now this to to take on the qualities of something that we don't necessarily have this is what we do in general as a negative thing when when we misidentify ourselves identify with the body of mind and senses but uh for the devotional path uh we we take a paradigm say hanuman serve an ego and we try to feel that we possess the qualities that the hanuman possesses this is this is having a relationship and uh superimposing on ourselves those qualities that allow us to have that type of relationship now for the gyani can the gyani do the same type of okay can we say we want to feel that uh that relationship is me i am from it can we adopt the qualities of brahman okay okay now we can say there are no qualities in brahmin but if we say that brahman isn't first of a witness okay now i can feel that i'm the witness then we can say brahman is goodness we can superimpose we can we can take all of those qualities to uh feel that we're the witness this is another type of bhava relationship and another type of aropa superimposition what does it mean to be the witness we don't judge anybody we're not affected by things we're not attached to things we let things roll off our back this is this is the way we can practice that it doesn't simply mean that i'll just watch everything if we really think what does it mean to be a witness not constantly you know finding fault with other people judging things just observing them not getting annoyed not getting happy everything because we're we're not affected by anything no the mind is functioning but the mind is is the mind is is taking taking on the qualities of the witness so i'm telling myself that you said something to me if i want to take this as sadhana that i'm the witness then why should i be affected by what somebody says to me they said something that's fine that i i'm not uh required to get annoyed or upset or anything just because they said something that's up to them to say it it's up to me whether i want to react or not means your intellect is constantly on alert yeah non-reaction uh keeping keeping it equanimity seeing the same and all of this treating everyone the same i like that verse from the guitar that says the brahman is the same probably near dosha and some if roman is is free from from any faults and blemishes then i want to feel my oneness then i have to eliminate all thoughts and blemishes i have to be same-sided with everyone i have to stop the judging people saying faults and everything so they have the ghani can also do it the very beautiful the spiritual teaching that tucker has he put so much emphasis on this act of bihar you you have to take refuge in a relationship which involves taking on the qualities of that ideal this is why there's a paradigm for all of them mother yasoda for about saliva and sudam so that we can emulate them to emulate to take on these these qualities and we do with the brahmin it sounds odd but if if the roman is is this the witness of everything then i'll try to and that means not getting involved not getting upset not nothing just like the sand smells in the air the air is not affected by anything that we try to do that that's also uh we're uh play acting we're all acting until we till we realize the truth of it today's imagination is tomorrow's realization that's the type of thing so taco says but it is good to have a trace of ego which makes it possible for a man to feel that he is the servant of god ego simply means sense of i if we don't have that either we're sleeping or uh we're in samanti or we're just so engrossed in things that we forgot to reading a book something like that then we kind of forget temporarily where we are as long as a man thinks that it is he who is doing his duties it is very good for him to feel that god is the master and he god's servant so we read in gita that i don't do anything that only the gunners are working this and that and i say to myself yeah but i feel like i'm doing it i don't feel like i've been eliminated from this process that it's just the goodness of the mind interacting with the goodness of nature i understand it there's a nice nice way of looking at things the sankey model and everything but i feel that i'm doing it if somebody says don't you take any responsibility for what you just said i said yeah i have to take responsibility for it i can't just say oh no the intellect told the mind to tell the tongue to say that i can't do that because it'll be hypocritical for me so as long as we feel like that then we can easily say that okay i'm doing it let me do everything as an offering to god let me do it without attachment let me do it without seeking the results if we don't have a trace of ego we can't practice that type of karma yoga we practice the other type that i don't do anything at all i'm just a witness something like that but this is this is actually sweeter sweeter that we this uh the trace of ego allows us to do everything uh with love and devotion and as an offering when one is conscious of doing work one should establish with god the relationship of servant and master now how about other relationships at other times of course these are fluid things we shouldn't feel that we're stuck in one relationship we can also feel that uh god is the mother and we're we're her child we can feel that but other times when we're working we can have this i'm the servant of god i can do anything with strength and everything so because the mind goes through different phases and everything it's good to have one dominant theme but taco practiced all of these things if we if we can combine the four yogurts we can also confine i can combine the different babas not jumping from one to the other but there's a certain consistency to all of these things they're all based on converting this base or ego to something higher and however we do it is helpful [Music] yeah these are different theories that uh the charade we we read that that uh there are the six that are uh these the majestic qualities and then there are six with madhuri the sweet qualities these are for the for the devotees mostly meditation it can be done i actually gave a series of talks on this there was a very nice article that somebody wrote he takes it with all of these six is six madhuria qualities of god and shows how tucker had all of them a very nice thing so yeah that can be if we if we like to think of the divine mother as possessing his power and strength and the energy and all of that at the same time there's love and sweetness looking after a child and all of that so we have we have two different sets of uh so these are the bhagavan for some they'll emphasize the others some of them emphasize the sweet ones some of the lordly ones then m am right m was always reflecting on the nature of the supreme brahman master to him like the akasha akasha space we have value in akasha space and air and sometimes we we use the same the same types of illustrations that uh air can actually pick up uh it can can carry uh impurities and things they can cling to molecules but not space what is the difference when does the air that's moving but space has nothing in it space is empty that's the that's the essential the critical distinction here that space is empty things flow through space but nothing touches space you can you can even catch air in a jar if you want if you want to analyze you know what are the smells and what is the smog and everything you can but you can't do it with space things move through space it can't be confined it can't be caught that's why this akashi is is the better illustration for brahman so master to m now cm says m was always reflecting on the nature of the supreme brahmin so that means that and feels that tucker knows that he's thinking about that that thakura has been talking about this path of devotion and and now he'll switch to this so in m's mind that he's thinking well tucker knows that i like this to this reasoning about improvement and everything so he'll switch the topic a little bit yeah yeah in the same section sometimes his master sometimes movie sometimes okay so the question about the m that he he refers to himself in different ways and uh when it whenever he wants to hide himself so srima m this is what he uses most of the time but whenever there's anything a little personal whenever he's talking about say when his you know son died and his wife went half mad and everything uh whereas a personal type of question then sometimes he'll say money money mohan something like that sometimes he simply says a devotee but we can we can figure out that that it's him so uh different ways that he hides himself but lets himself let people know that he's actually asking that question so we can we can really see that uh things that are deeply personal to him that he he won't even so sometimes he'll just say one devotee was thinking i remember the first time i read the gospel i thought what nonsense how does he know that what what a person is thinking then of course later i realized it was him that's the only way he could know it so sometimes he he wouldn't even say m or or money or money one anything like that that he would just say a devotee like the akash brahman is without any modification it has become manifold because of shakti so this is the big question how does the one become the many is it a brahmin is pure awareness how can space become objects and things there has to be something that allows transformation to take place even if it's a parent transformation and this is a role of shakti this is why taka says we can't simply have brahman without shakti they have to be understood together otherwise we can't explain anything they accept it in their own way yeah the shakti has explained more in terms of maya that it's not an actual transformation or anything but yeah they have to accept it they have to accept it otherwise [Music] but they take it as secondary this is why near going to brahman is primary so someone abram is secretary but they they can't deny ishwara sagun and brahman these are all in the scriptures the first shankaracharya so they they accept it but they don't give the same positive spin to it and they don't give as [Music] realistic an explanation to to it it will be explained more in terms of some cosmic ignorance or something like that but they have to they have to accept they have to accept maya so on mayan shakti or they occupy the same role they're the the things that keep ramen near going to brahman from just remaining they're going to ruin it however we understand it again roman is like fire which itself has no color the fire appears white if you throw a white substance into it red if you throw a red black if you throw a black the three gunas sattva rajesh and thomas belong to shakti alone so this is this is how we have some sliding transition from the concept of maya to the concept of shakti to the idea of prakriti and the three gunas so we have the interesting verse in the in the gita when sri krishna talks about this maya of mine composed of the three gunas so it combines all of them there's a maya this this some kind of divine power which also uh leads to delusion the part of the process of of this creation is that we forget uh our oneness uh but at the same time it it has that aspect this is it becomes nature itself so uh yeah this is my of mine difficult to transcend why do we confuse it so much my thing is like brahman with name and form is maya or whatever but why do we give it so many different names is not so simple there's there's a there's a basic uh uh difficulty if we start out with the concept the development is one one alone and brahman is unchanging and everything and how do we explain if we say we bring in maya then we have to say that maya doesn't is isn't ultimately real otherwise we have two realities if we if we say that shakti belongs to brahman then it has some internal distinction within it it's philosophically it's it's the problems philosophically we if we look at all the different schools we have to conclude that there's no there's no good simple philosophical way of understanding how is it the consciousness can be responsible for this whole universe is it is it through a dream process is it through real creation is it because that there's actually nature separate from it that it its presence has to be there we have all of these different theories because none of them are without some philosophical flaw is as nice as they may seem based a bit a little bit on a trickery there's a little trick that uh if this maya can disappear then it was never 100 real to begin with so we don't have to explain where it comes from it's a nice philosophical idea but is it how satisfying is it to us ultimately i think understanding maya as mysterious some mysterious power at the heart of brahmin it's good enough what else what else can we do like dry intellectual philosophical concept so they are actually they realize they truth like that and that is how they even even a god realized soul will have a different understanding of things so we we we assume that these acharyas and these others they had their realization taco was unique because he got to the roof and saw all of the different ways of coming up and going down and and and they tried all of them and found all of them to be true others they knew the path they got them to the roof and and that's what they taught so yeah well someone can be in god rely so and not fully understand the process of it and all that doesn't mean that they'll they'll know absolutely everything about different spiritual paths and everything and yeah what is the exact role of these acharyas we wonder sometimes because they argued so much against each other what does history mean it just just means clever arguments that that you can defeat somebody with with that argument without really establishing the truth of your position or anything brahman itself is beyond the three gunas so the beyond so we have to use this mystical language beyond the three gunas yet the source of them the ground of them both changing and unchanging at the same time we we can understand these things to a certain extent with uh illustrations we use this illustration of water that it's formless but it always has a form so it can be two things at the same time uh we take the sun there's pure illumination but at the same time it has the power has the power to heat things up to give life so many other things so i i have no problem with accepting this universe as as completely mysterious i have no problem with that and tucker says who do we think we are that we can understand these things with this within little this little small container of an intellect that we're trying to pour he says trying to pour five series of milk into once your pot we can't do it now is it a problem with with our intellect if our intellect with greater could we understand and no there's something inherently mysterious about this universe i don't uh i don't get it at all why it is yeah how it is and why it is the way it is yeah this is from from the one of the upanishads yeah he knows doesn't know he thinks he knows yeah yeah doesn't know who says i don't know he knows some yeah what brahman itself is beyond the three gunas what brahman is cannot be described it is beyond words that which remains after everything is eliminated by the vedanta vedantic process of not this not this and which is of the nature of bliss is a brahmin now if we go back to the onion illustration we start out with this idea that there's something inside that we'll find and this is the dualistic idea that within the heart of everything then we'll find either the real self or we'll find god dwelling within something like that for the adwaitin when we peel off each layer after layer after layer we find at the heart of it empty nothing there and that space inside suppose there's a space inside of an onion i don't know if there is or not but suppose the onion has a tiny little space there how do we measure that space we can measure it because that last layer of the onion is there when that lace layer is gone how do we measure it it's infinite and it was always infinite so this is what the indulgence is what remains uh is is is just emptiness fullness emptiness there's nothing there but it's not a nothingness there's pure awareness when we when because we're peeling off layers of body-mind senses or all of that what we're left with when we cease to identify with all of that is just this consciousness itself but nothing particular about it and it can't be confined to anything so what do we learn from that that even now the self is not confined within the body it's not dependent upon the mind we feel that it is it functions through the mind and everything but the mind can cease to to function and that sense of i can still be there so this is uh at the end of this we don't process what's left bliss now how can there be bliss and you have some sense of freedom of course a little bit of i has to be there also a little bit beyond that then we don't know anything then it just merged so tucker says that which remains after everything is eliminated by the vedantic process of not this not this and which is of the nature of bliss is improvement we eliminate that bliss and it becomes it's just some dry uh abstract concept the they used this term you know hegel he had this concept of of the absolute also but there was nothing to it to dry so they called the bloodless absolute yeah the brahmin of the upanishads is is full-blooded it uh yeah it contains all the power and everything and at the same time manifests within the heart as a source of joy and bliss and everything so it's not the same it's just this philosophical concept a living presence and of course they've experienced this this is these great souls suppose the husband of a young girl has come to his father-in-law's house and is seated in the drawing room with other young men of his age the girl and her friends are looking at them through the window her friends do not know her husband and ask her pointing to one young man is that your husband no she answers smiling they point to another young man and ask if he is her husband again she answers no they repeat the question referring to a third and she gives the same answer at last they point to her husband and ask is he the one what does she do she says neither yes nor no but only smiles and keeps quiet her friends realize that he is her husband so that last final after 180 i'm not the mayan i'm not the body not the senses not the intellect not the personality not the ego none of these things i can at the end finally say i am the self i can't even do that then just silence what is is that's all well yeah one becomes silent when realizing the true nature of government to m well why do i talk so much m you talk in order to awaken the spiritual consciousness of the devotees you once said that when an uncooked luchi is dropped into boiling ghee it makes a sizzling noise yeah this question came up so many times this uh dr sarkar especially he would say this ramakrishna why do you talk so much so sometimes taco would say because he would say that once we're filled filled with joy filled with bliss then the no urge to talk or say anything because talk over the morning only for these things so taco would say yes but sometimes you when the picture water in the picture fills other cups then you'll hear that same club you'll hear that sound again where he says the honey the bee the when the bee is is sipping honey it doesn't have any need to buzz or do anything else sometimes just out of pure joy it'll do the buzzing sound the master began to talk to him about a hazrah azra we've made many times he's one of the many characters there are a lot of character actors in this play that they have their interesting roles to play master do you know the nature of a good man he never troubles others he doesn't harass people the nature of some people is such that when they go to a feast they want special seats a man who has true devotion to god never makes a false step never gives others trouble for nothing now this is another curious thing and i we come across this this statement about never taking a false step many many times but it's always god realizes all right that after after reality that the incapable person is incapable of doing anything harmful or doing anything wrong or making some moral mistake or anything after god realization just like the expert dancer never misses a beat here he doesn't say that it's just for the god realized soul a man who has true devotion to god a man means a man or woman who has true devotion to god never makes a false step so this will this will be something for us we can have real devotion it's not the same as god realization but we can means immoral act uh exactly what he's talking about hurting other people criticizing people hurting their feelings stealing yeah any unethical thing like that if if we if we're real devotees that way then then we we won't do any of these things you know we had this memorial service for pursuji the other day and they were talking about he was so simple and the great devotion that uh he couldn't lie that was just uh wasn't in in his dna to tell a lie they told one story that uh somebody came to the door i think that avon or something to sell cosmetics and things like that you know asking is this is the lady of the house at home something like that and they were all hiding they said say no and he said i can't tell a lie she's hiding behind the door [Laughter] it's simple and everything so yeah people who have that devotion then what motive do they have for doing anything that will be harmful only motive is to serve god and see god dwelling in others and everything so the motive won't be there it is not good to live in the company of bad people okay now these these seem like such an obvious simple statement but uh takur is always talking about the contagious nature of good company and bad company holy company and an unholy company and how it makes a big difference with regard to how established we are in spiritual life and in the beginning he always makes this distinction in the beginning we have to be extra careful this is what he means by putting a hedge around a small plant putting a fence around so that it can't be disturbed to protect it so we protect our spiritual life by trying to keep holy company and trying to avoid company of very worldly people or immoral unethical people now what do we do when we have our jobs we have other family friends we compromise a little we compromise a little uh try to do it just to the bare minimum whatever we have to do to keep peace in the family and everything uh and we're very aware at that time and and uh we really try to protect ourselves so that we don't pick up anybody's bad habits out of curiosity this was such a faint you know and it was a bad influence on the disciples also sometimes like swamiji interacting too much with him why did he have to keep him there to thicken the plot tucker used to use that expression yeah what is it leader post story or something yeah i he took everything as the will of the divine mother that everything serves a purpose i mean do we ever find him kicking anybody out or doing anything like that i mean there'll be times when you know they'll make decisions and things but and these were people from his village either relatives or from nearby villages and things and he knew their situations he knew their families he knew their faults he accepted people he was teaching us forbearance and uh when it got really bad with redoi even then he didn't kick him out and then he said he got so bad mother herself made that happen but i if if we take everything as the will of the mother then then we won't interfere that much we have to know when we can emulate takur and we have to know when we just stand back and admire him they understood they understood the nature of lila leela has a specific meaning with regard to the the avatar or with regard to any of these prophets or founders of religions that everyone has a role to play this is the feeling that they have and even hartra had a role to play he could set a bad example also that that was something important to set a bad example so people would know that this is not that [Music] we shouldn't sit and show off that we're doing jungle all of the time and to have these other desires and things like that so yeah he liked these people they were his own yeah and we shouldn't think that that he he didn't enjoy their company and uh sometimes hazard would come and fall down flat at his feet and and taco would say what is this the other day you said i don't know anything so the big play he enjoyed that yeah i mean they were they were all connected they were all village connected or family connected so yeah yeah for taco yeah now did he have any maya did he have any special fondness and an affection for his village people and his relatives yes just because he had a human mind just to the the minimal extent it's natural he said the avatar they also have the human mind we're uh reading this and his question is how can we look upon the rahm is so great when he wept for sita well but taco always points to that example even the avatar has this human mind so uh uh yeah he had a little special affection i think for his village people and and those who but he loved ev on the other hand loved everyone so he was a perfect example of real daya but yes did he have an eagle yeah trace did he ever ever anger trace same thing did he ever have this this maya trace nothing to bind him or anything but just to show his humanness so we can identify with him it is not good to live in the company of bad people the man should stay away from them and thus protect himself to him isn't that so am yes sir the mind sinks far down in the company of the wicked but it is quite different with the hero as you say master how is that em when a fire is feeble it goes out when even a small stick is thrown into it when a blazing fire but a blazing fire is not affected even if a plantain tree is thrown into it the tree itself is burnt to ashes so that means that once we acquire that spiritual maturity and strength we don't have to be so cautious in the beginning we have to be quite cautious i i always think of that statement that swamiji he said when i was young i wouldn't walk on the same side of the street that the theater was on he said now i could live in a house of prostitutes it wouldn't affect my mind at all so what we do in the early but we should never think that we've reached that high state that we're free from any temptation or anything we have to always remain a little cautious the master asked him about his friend hari babu we met him last time last week and he has come here to pay you his respects he lost his wife long ago master dahari he was quite young you remember his wife died 12 years earlier and he was uh 37 something like that or 27. he was quite young let's see what kind of work do you do em he didn't give he didn't give him a chance to answer because it would be a little embarrassing he has come here to pay you oh sorry uh nothing in particular but at home he takes good care of his parents and his brothers and sisters now remember he's a young man he should be doing something master with a smile how was that you were like elder the pumpkin cutter funny expression you are neither a man of the world nor a devotee of god that is not good you must have seen the sort of elderly man who lives in a family and is always ready day or night to entertain the children he sits in the parlor and smokes the hubble bubble with nothing in particular to do he leads a lazy life now and again he goes to the inner court and cuts a pumpkin for since women do not cut pumpkins they send the children to to ask him to come and do it that is the extent of his usefulness hence his name elder the pumpkin cutter why don't women cut pumpkins just too hard or is there some superstition kumara yeah but i think there's a it's it's not considered proper somehow superstition specially [Music] [Music] okay yeah that's a different thing yeah yeah yeah they'll use sometimes pumpkins gourds three different types of things uh in place of animal sacrifice yeah you must do this as well as that do your these those this is uh talk we're talking to this hoodie do your duties in the world and also fix your mind on the lotus feet of the lord read books of devotion like the bhagavata or the life of caitanya when you are alone and have nothing else to do it was about ten o'clock srirami krishna finished a light supper of farina pudding this is a farina pudding because this was a standard meal at night some lucy's and then at the end he couldn't swallow anything so if he had to take this after saluting him em and his friend friend took their leave so this is the end of that day we'll start next time page 281 same chapter friday september 7th 1883 [Music] 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 peace peace