Video 85

The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna by Swami Atmajnanananda (01/14/22)

foreign your words are like nectar bringing life to squirt souls they are praised by poets and removal sin they are auspicious to hear wonderful and exalted those who spread these words throughout the world are truly giving souls welcome everyone to our class on the gospel of srama krishna we are on the chapter the master in m and this is saturday september 22nd 1883. you may remember from last time that long conversation between shiramakrishna and ishan which is very interesting because it's a year before another big conversation and i i never really tried to juxtapose these two conversations because uh it almost seems like ishan either forgot everything that tucker said or ignored it a year later because he'll start doing his ritualistic worship and his buddhism and everything and gets a little bit of a scolding so it's a very interesting section uh that thakur is telling he's addressing others also but ishan seems to be the main person here the conversation is taking place in the drawing room of adhere's house oh sorry page number is 291. the other's house in kolkata and rakhal atar m ishan and other devotees were there and it says many gentlemen of the neighborhood were also present it was afternoon generally when taqwa would go to somebody's house all of the close devotees would come if they could and then the host would invite some local people some of them who were curious some were interested and some were less interested but that seems to be the case and if it's normally very important then m doesn't even give the name for that okay this is page 291 a wt sir what do you think of the navavidhan seems to me like a hodgepodge of everything this navavitan was the name that keshav gave to the brahma samaj that he either we can say that it's split or that he was kind of removed and started another branch but it anyhow there became two huh there was a shadowhunter in brahmos this was just the in general and then he gave this name which means no dispensation i think they use that term also a technical term new dispensation so he's referring to uh keshav's group it's it's still the brahma so much keisha didn't change anything he had to come up with a new name because he couldn't use the old name anymore so we have different names adi brahma-samaj that was the original one started by devendranat tagore and then i guess when it split one became the shadow on the other became this love of idhan so quesob's jews underwent a change after meeting srama krishna but that had nothing to do with with this split this split took place because they were unhappy with kesha he arranged his daughter's marriage to a very wealthy family this was the maharajah of kuch bihar and she was a few months short of the what they call the marriageable age now the second thing is that it gets mentioned every once in a while that he married her to someone from a different cast now i don't know why the brahmos would care about that huh huh but they managed they mentioned do mention that yeah you can take take it off for a second i can't hear you yeah yeah [Music] yeah that i know yes he's saying that uh even those who convert to christianity they'll keep their brahminhood and the you know other castings and yeah so it was very deeply seated but the brahmas were so against all of that stuff so it's a little unusual anyhow the other thing is that they were shocked because uh child marriage was something they were very much against i think the marriageable age was 16 according to the brahmos and she was just a few months short london do you know no anyhow something like that so anyhow they gave this fancy name for some reason to to keshav's new group master some say it is a modern thing that sets me wondering then is the god of the brahma-samaj a new god the brahmana will speak of their see takur didn't make any distinction to him they were all brahmos he knew that there were two groups vijay was with one acacia with with the other the brahmos speak of their cult as a new dispensation well it may be so who knows there are six systems of philosophy so perhaps it is like one of these but you know where they speak who speak of the formless god sorry but do you know where those who speak of the formless god make their mistake it is where they say that god is formless only and that those who differ with them are wrong now we we know that this idea of god with form uh carries with it uh a lot of baggage and and there are so many different conceptions of what it means from the old vedic period where uh we had this idea of purusha and this whole universe is the form and body of god and others will say no this god would form we're referring to shiva and durga and all the deities and for the brahmos it seems like the real objection to the worship of god would form was image worship which they call idol worship that was the real objection philosophically their concept of brahman was not simply this impersonal absolute but a brahman they could be prayed to so a little bit like the personal god but real real objection was to having an idol or an image yeah so uh takur wanted them to understand that these are helps and aids in spiritual life and that there is they have a symbolic purpose and everything and anyhow he didn't want them to to have such a uh an arrogant attitude towards the people who follow this image worship that they're just worshiping clay idols and things like that in stone now when takur talks about god with form of course he has a very uh sophisticated and subtle understanding of god with form that just as water can form into blocks of ice through the the cooling power of the devotee that they can form and take before so that uh the the form will not have that same uh eternal in most cases that the eternal element to it but will be an aid for the devotee to to conceive of god with uh with different virtues and qualities and even if conceive of god with the physical form for the sake of meditation and concentration and devotion so it says that i know that god is both with and without form and he may have many more aspects it is possible for him to be everything now he's going to continue that was a kind of a little aside one devotee asked this question he didn't you know go on too long now he goes back to ishan to ishan the chit shakti mahamaya has become the 24 cosmic principles okay in one sentence we have so many different elements here we've talked about this chitchat that if we're talking about the power of brahmin there are different types of powers but all of them will have to be fall under this chit-chakti there's a power to create the universe and and with uphold the universe and withdraw the universe it's all through some type of concept of cosmic mind there's a power of consciousness itself to not simply remain what it is but to manifest itself as this visible universe somehow or to enter into everything all of this is that power because it has to be a chit shakti there are no material elements hanging around that the brahmin will create a universe out of this is the idea that everything comes from brahman itself and if brahman is consciousness and the power has to be a power of consciousness so chit chakti now he's identifying with muhammad so we've we've talked about this what is the distinction between muhammad and maya and and all of these different things this mahamaya generally this is uh what means by personal god who is looked upon as the divine mother who has this power of creation maya is is another very interesting thing we when we studied the upanishads we saw this this term maya it comes very early in the vedic tradition then it means a type of magic and then we don't find it in the upanishads at all i think until shwetashwater upanishad this mention of maya which is a little bit later and then it becomes so such a dominant idea so it goes from something some magical power to some power of delusion so this mahamaya will create the universe but also represent a little bit of mailing power so that we fail to understand our real nature or if if we want to look at it from the other side roman fails to understand roman has become everything and roman is is is now dwelling within all beings and then somehow with the brahmin who is fallen under delusion but we don't generally don't think in those terms brahmin falling into delusion becomes a jiva so it's the jiva who's subject to avidya and has to realize its oneness so this mahamaya will be really ishwara saguna brahman the personal god with this idea of motherhood added to it and for takur we we have that leeway this is our own uh contribution to this idea of the personal god that we like to think of god uh by focusing on the qualities of the mother that means this perfect selfless love there's compassion sweetness all of that uh there's there's no special truth to god his mother as opposed to god with as father these are just uh personal preference how we like to look upon god god doesn't have any physical organs that we could say is either male or female and so a lot of this is this subjective side that gets added to it but there's an objective side to it also vermin alone is is that ultimate reality then there has to be some objective truth to this power that's connected with the brahmin that will be a chit shakti which will allow this brahmin to somehow be responsible for this universe somehow whether it's a projection whether it's a false appearance whether a manifestation however we understand whether it's a dream there has to be something which allows this brahmin to create or project somehow it allows us to explain how this universe comes when when we start out with it simply brahman alone exists and brahman is pure consciousness brahman is inactive brahman is inactive how is brahman responsible for the universe for creation so we have to bring in some type of secondary thing we bring in maya we say muhammad so this will be personifying this maya as the divine mother which is really none other than our ishwara this god the creator with a little bit of bhagavan a little bit of the personal god added to it because we bring in the motherhood that's big so this he says this chitchat has become the 24 cosmic principles now we're really going into this transition not see we have two ways of looking at it one if we're using this snake and rope we never have to account for how the rope comes to appear to be the snake it's just ignorance there's no transition there's no uh evolution that takes place to explain if we go to 24 cosmic principle principles we're going back to evolution that it's some type of uh actual manifestation actual it's not just on misreading of something because they combine we start with mahad and we go to it we have we have the whole list of things it combines from this cosmic mind to come down to the subtle elements to the physical elements and then the evolution of this this natural world as we see it so this means we're bringing in this concept of prakriti also into this so we have we have maya we have shakti we have prakriti these are all the correlative categories that go along with the brahmin brahman or ish whatever however we look at it the male side the female side different ways of looking at it tacos combining all of them and showing that there there's a way to look at it with some type of harmony we don't simply have to say muhammad that this brahman never there's no real change there's no real creation it's it's just a pure illusion uh like a dream in a dream we don't explain the the existence of the chair if somebody says well who made that chair in the dream oh nobody made it it's a projection of mine and what is it really made of what what's inside that the cushion is it is it wool or is it cotton suppose you have a dream and you dream there's a chair somebody says well what was inside of the chair which it was a red chair it was a nice cushion they said what was inside of it i didn't dream that part how can i say there's a very interesting conversation one time that one one devotee had a vision of of krishna and he said to krishna why is it that your earrings aren't aren't moving or enjangling that's your christian said if you make them move then they'll move something like that so this this brings in all these elements and uh it gives a positive way of understanding creation that it's not unreal like a dream but it is this power that belongs to brahman that is inexplicable this is also the maya part definition of maya is that which makes this seemingly impossible possible this is the the main difference that the relationship between purusa and in paragraphy is one of just closeness proximity that they're they're separate but there is a dependence between them there is a dependence it's not absolutely separate in in parallel universes there there's uh we can't have parakati without yeah so they go hand in hand but you're right we don't we don't have to trace back to purusa or this universe back to maya that will be the one distinction so they won't say that this buddhism has become this whole universe they won't they won't explain it that way the property has evolved and and then uh it goes back so evolution uh takes place and then reverse process takes place one day as i was meditating my mind wandered away to roshke's house i'll talk about him he is a scavenger i said to my mind stay there you rogue the divine mother revealed to me that the men and women in this house were mere masks inside them was the same divine power kundalini that rises up to the six spiritual centers of the body so within everyone now if and this is my recommendation if we're really not too committed to understanding how brahman becomes this whole universe we can at least try to see how brahman is dwelling within all the beings as the real self or if not as the real self then at least as the under yaman as that ray of consciousness held it we can we can understand how the one sun is reflected in all the different containers without understanding where the containers came from the container is filled with water if somebody says well the sun is manifesting itself as those containers well they don't confuse me but we can understand this that within each and every being that light that we see shining out of the lies of the eyes of everyone is the light of god we can all understand it it's a simple thing we have to remind ourselves the same consciousness within me as within everyone and it has a divine source now i want to get to this uh his name is roshik and he was not simply some would they use the term scavenger huh yeah it's a funny term but anyhow it uh it means someone who cleans the trains and before there was real plumbing and everything they would go around to the it's the inside of a house there would be a little back entrance i stayed in a house like that when i lived in kolkata yeah there's a little back door that the the scavengers could go in and clean it out i had a very interesting experience also i stayed in a place called oakla you know that in in delhi yeah yeah is it really yeah and it was like a little old pakistani community the old muslim i i made friends with with someone from thailand my first trip to india there's a muslim from thailand who was studying in new delhi at the university and so i went and i stayed with him and it was just like you were back in the 19th century or something like that and they had that arrangement that uh we'll get to also this idea how they carry water in in this in this skin but the same thing with the scavenger would come and without even entering there would be a little place that you'd pull something out you you wash out there's been no plumbing and then you push it back in so this is what they did now this isn't just some simple outcast there's a great devotee we're talking about that aqua loved very much we have to remember that that uh how he had this this special relationship anyway i want to read a little bit this is from the shattered mutt the story of roshik this is the place where where he where he lived and why shattered him up because they purchased that house and where he had his vision and everything there and now it's a kind of computer center teaching center for girls yeah i went there with swami sarve davanji one time a very nice place okay so this is from that article make sure i have it from the beginning this is recalled i heard from ram lal that's really christian's nephew about the master's unconditional grace bestowed on roshik that's hard he was the sweeper scavenger sweeper they used to use all these funny turns for it he was the sweeper of the dakshinishwar temple garden now where they have latrines there i don't know because tucker never used them he just went to the pine grove but anyhow it must have been for all the workers there must have been some place there yeah yeah i'll get to that every day he saw the master from a distance and observed that many people visited him roshik pondered i am so near to the master still i cannot go to his room and touch its feet they were outcasts they would people wouldn't go near them in in some communities you know if they your shadow touched their shadow you had to go bathe it was really it was really uh tremendous [Music] negative feelings towards these people at that time so he said what sin have i committed the master is saving so many souls good and bad how unfortunate i am i see him from a distance but cannot go near him the thus a storm was raging in his mind over a period of a few years he had no peace one day a golden opportunity came the master went to the pine grove to answer the call of nature and brother ramlal was waiting near the panchavati roshi hid himself behind the tree and thought i don't care what will happen i can't bear it anymore when the master was returning roshi prostrated himself on the path near the nahabhad grabbed his feet and cried out father baba what will happen to me this unexpected approach started the master and he went into samanthi and to which lasted for some time roshik washed the master's feet with his tears so intense was the agony of his heart gradually the master returned to the normal state touched rashik's head and said you have achieved everything can you imagine oh this didn't print out very well another memoir from caternaut the roshi ghadi of dakshinashwar village belonged to the sweeper cast i saw the master talk to rashid standing in his courtyard as if they were friends seeing rashik a little tipsy the master said with a smile i understand your condition don't drink too much rosie fell at the master's feet and said father i cannot afford to drink who will give me money to buy alcohol luckily not about punjab's mother died so i got some extra money for doing some cleaning in that house but whose mothers whose mothers are going to die every day father in his famous lecture my master in america swami vivekananda said my master one sought permission to clean a sweeper's house now whether he's we don't really really hear that he sought permission the way we hear it mostly is that uh in dead of night he would go out and without anybody knowing he would go in and clean out the house obviously it's the same rosiq that he would go there and does it say and with his his hair was very long in those days he would use his own hair to clean out the latrine this was to get rid of this pride of cast he used to explain it that way a little bit difficult to understand yeah yeah did not have a dream yes and the sweeper had the poorest i would imagine that awkward that he probably preferred to just go out in the pine grove yeah yeah otherwise sharing with everybody else and yeah otherwise it is strange why they didn't build one for him or something like that he must from a village he was probably used to that yeah i think that was that was probably he wouldn't like to do it uh you know my master one sort sought permission to clean the sweeper's house the sweeper of course refused so late at night when all were asleep tucker used to go to his house he had long hair and with his hair he would wipe the place and said allow me to feel that i'm lower than the sweeper so that the pride of belonging to a higher caste is completely removed in doing so not only did he erase his own pride but also established in the modern skeptic minds that such eradication is truly possible this is another reminiscent oh this must be ram laos whose uncle means ramakrishna was resting one afternoon in his room he got up and then came out to the veranda pointing to russia the temple sweeper he said to me roshik is not an ordinary mortal but a denizen of heaven in human form another day the master went to the pine grove while i went behind him carrying the water spout and towel for his use rashik was sweeping around the panchabati grove in the temple garden when uncle was returning to his room roshi prostrated at his feet smiling the master inquired about his welfare roshi got up and said that he could not get over the misfortune of his lowly birth which condemned him to the despicable life of the sweeper see some people think oh who is this takur people and pure people they touch his feet he would yell and scream and nothing to do with cast we have to understand that roshi got up and said he could not get over the misfortune of his lovely birth which condemned him to the despicable life of his sweeper uncle replied that he should not bemoaned his social status for he was after all born a human being the highest of god's creation the supreme spirit dwelled in him also the master reminded him of his good fortune to have been entrusted with the sacred task of sweeping the temple courtyard and temple steps sanctified by the dust of the feet of thousands of devotees who came to worship at the shrines with tearful eyes roshig asked father shall i be saved with the gracious smile the master asked him to raise a tulsi grove in the corner of his courtyard and chant the lord's name there that that tushi grove is now the the main room in this computer center and the little shrine shrine is there today now we get to the last the last days oh something what is that okay this didn't print out well i can't read all of it but anyhow brahma talking to rosie's wife what has happened how was roshi she replied that her husband was very ill her sons had called in the doctor but he refused to take any medicine he was a devoted vaisnava he immediately went to the radha kante temple collected some sanctified water and some tusi leaves and gave them to roshik's wife since ramallah did not see her again ramla must have done that he went to their hut a few days later roshik's wife and sons cried and said that he had passed away then they narrated the last days of roshik the sanctified water of the ratakantha temple seemed to have a stimulating effect on rashik he felt better his fever abated and he spent his waking hours enchanting the lord's name and in fervent prayer one day when they returned home after their work at about midday he insisted on their taking meal that when they're taking their meal at once after they had complied to his wish he asked them to take him out to the tushy grove it was hot outside they reluctantly obeyed him he lay on a man with his rosary in his hand and asked them to chant god's name after half an hour his face brightened up there was an ardent look in his eyes and a smile on his lips he exclaimed oh thou hast come at long last how unsurpassingly beautiful glorious resplendent he then closed his eyes and it seemed to them that a halo played around his radiant peaceful face as he fell into eternal sleep of course we understand taka himself came sheikh was not a prominent figure in srama krishna's divine drama although the audience did not see him on the stage he had the responsibility of keeping the stage the temple garden of the chinese war clean he demonstrated in his life that work is worship and each is great in his own place this is a very nice thing if you go to the website and just type in ramakrishna and roshik and then go to this character website you can read all about that [Music] sometimes you would write something we don't this is as much as as we know he gave him his grace yeah he he told him that you're you have nothing to worry about that's you're liberated you're free and everything yeah so he didn't need any or anything like that he was advised about that man that he would have they don't have the same mantra tradition where it's secret and takes initiation the hari krishna this is one today everybody knows it and everyone can do it the goswami tradition there will be some initiation there but just for ordinary people they can just be so with his rotary he can just be doing that and anyhow that's as much as we know anybody else know anything else anyhow it's nice nice story i'm invented [Music] visited when i was in paris uh this is 1971. i stayed and i we met some people and stayed in their apartment there and the the bathroom was not even inside it was outside the shared one and it was a latrine it was just like that really yeah yeah yeah yeah he did not have any industry yeah yeah and all the guests and like they're all dystopias used to go to the staircase and get the job oh boy okay we've we've got a little bit off track here now so this goes right one day i was meditating my mind wandered away to roshke's house he is a scavenger see if we don't know the whole story we don't we miss all of that that what a sweet relationship he had how he loved him and how it really gave him liberation i said to my mind stay there you wrote the demon divine mother revealed to me that the men and women in this house were mere masks inside them was the same divine power kundalini that rises up to the six spiritual centers of the body so taqwa depending on his mood had these two visions we can say of this world one he saw everything as consciousness the way all artificial fruit will all be made of wax or all jewelry made of gold this is one thing everything the other thing is he saw that divine presence only within all living beings that doesn't require uh this any of this philosophical idea of of this unit we can accept it just as physical universe and still understand that the awareness within has that divine source the divine presence is there so they weren't too conflicting things but i think just depending on his mood that sometimes he would focus if he looked at a person he wouldn't so much see that oh i see that that the eyes and the nose and the ears are all nothing but consciousness he would see that god dwelling within that seemed to be the tendency of his mind that way otherwise sometimes you say i see everything this whole universe that's reserved for the mystics how we understand that is a very difficult thing to really understand now this is nothing but consciousness that we're seeing very hard inside them with the same divine power kundalini that rises up to the six spiritual centers of the body is the primal energy the shakti man or woman now this is the point that i was making before that these are subjective things man or woman one said kamarpakura i saw the worship of kali in the house of the lahas the lahas were the one wealthy family in the in comarch and tako was very fond of them they loved him they were uh four daughters and then they all treated him like a young baby brother somehow and you spent a lot of time with them they were the ones who provided the jewelry of at the time of the wedding for devi and holy mother that they had to be returned to them afterwards so i saw the worship of kali in the house of the lords they put a sacred thread on the image of the divine mother sacred thread will only be put on a male image this was the tradition at that time one man asked why if they put the sacred thread on the mother's person the master of the house said brother i see that you have rightly understood the mother but i do not yet know whether the divine mother is male or female there's a beautiful song by kamala kante to the divine mother sometimes i see you as purusa male sometimes i see you as female sometimes i see you as nothing but the void and then he says to think about these things and yes throws my mind into confusion my whole life i've been trying contemplating the real nature of the divine mother and still i know nothing about her real nature mahamaya the beautiful songs one of the distinctive features of all of these songs to shock the song to the divine mother this idea that how can a child understand everything about the divine mother beyond our ability and we don't care to understand everything enough we know we have a mother and we love that mother she loves us enough now this is something that i don't know anything about it is said that muhammad swallowed shiva when the six centers in her in her were awakened she even came out through her thigh then she even created the tantra philosophy is this from chandi well it must be from one of the puranas some story i don't know what the real significance is but those who worship shiva they'll give him a special emphasis those who worship shakti they'll give special emphasis to muhammad so khali will be standing on the chest of shiva this is the kali temple take refuge in the chit chat mahamaya so now and this is the same thing that we get in the gita verse that those cross beyond this mind who take refuge in this muhammad who take refuge in me but then true christian and now he's identified with that so not only is this some principle of uh power and energy associated with pure consciousness but now this personal god comes in the divine mother who answers our prayers we take refuge in her we surrender everything to her will that she's a real operator of the machine so these ideas they keep evolving and and going deeper and then sweeter this sweetness comes in with this idea of of the divine mother so take refuge in the chit shakti the muhammad so that means what does it mean that we'd be like we become like the the kitten wherever mother places us we're happy that mothers is doing everything for me i put myself in her hands i practice this shadow nogatey i practice contentment i try to remember the mother at all times whatever happens i take is her will there's always of of taking refuge in in mohammad ishaan please bestow your grace on me this is a good person he's a very good person he just he had this in the back of his head he wanted to do this ritualistic thing this this buddhist john and and everything and he he had a reputation and for solving people's problems arbitration and things like that he did a lot of things like that but he was a good person master say to god with the guy and tucker loved him of course say to god with a guideless heart oh god reveal thyself to me and weep pray to god oh god keep my mind away from lust and gold and dive deep can a man get pearls by floating or swimming on the surface he must dive deep now we hear about this all of the time group what does it mean to dive deep are you we first of all of course it may it means going inward going to the depths of the mind going beneath this the surface level if we think if we use this analogy of of the ocean of consciousness then if we're floating on the surface that means we're with with this active mind the surface the wave to the mind this is that active mind we go a little deeper and we go to the depths of the mind we go even deeper to that and we get to that source and all of the gems lying at the bottom so it means going deep within and deep within the mind deep within the heart going into this level of feeling and not thinking see when when we when we go beyond this cursive mind this is the mind that's that's uh analyzing and thinking and we don't simply go to a blank state we go to some feeling state we we have this conception partly from our yoga sutra verse this we have some conception that the samadhi means mind is blank but samadhi really means intense concentration intense concentration on a single thing and that concentration will have to make the mind disappear but but the feeling will be there it won't be the consciousness that there's no consciousness or no awareness but it's not of a functioning mind the way our mind normally functions this is why tucker always says when everybody anybody ever says that god can't be realized through the mind he corrects them he says no god is realized to this pure mind because the pure mind is is one with the ottoman the real self pure mind of pure beauty uh one so uh we enter into that level of feeling and energy of love that vindavan of the heart that song it talks about uh finding that place of the divine sport the divinely lit deep within so it can even be where we we forget about this world and we go back into this this lila world this divine play tacos play in induction krsna's play in vrinavan however we understand it and get lost in that and and dive deep into that so we forget everything else and the heart gets filled with joy and with love so these are all we all different ways of doing it the gyani will also have his own way of diving deep uh this feeling that pure awareness that i'm not this body i'm not this mind i'm something separate that'll also be diving deep but for the devotee it'll be entering into this this unlocking the heart expanding the heart not just shutting off the mind this is a kind of a dry thing but expanding the heart that way so and dive deep can a man get pearls by floating or swimming on the surface he must dive deep one must get instruction from a guru now he's getting it he's getting so many beautiful instructions everyone will have it all if if we're from a devotional tradition we're talking about merging in god itself or himself or herself super conscious this this means that we're somehow functioning without the mind and without the senses that we're we've reached a different level super consciousness generally we associate with samadhi something like that but this is diving deep uh we really can feel that we're relying on the lap of mother there's so many different ways of understanding it we don't have to come up with any technical terms or interpretation of it and going back to the source but feeling feeling that we've we've we've reached that ultimate destination and we take refuge there and as a place of safety and security and peace and contentment freedom to reach reach that and it's within us that's the whole point dive deep it doesn't mean outside of it it doesn't even mean through any type of analysis it means deep within within the heart uh going beyond the mind into the heart center the heart center deeper than the mind this this mind hides things from us we think it helps explain things but it actually confuses us so we have to go beyond that into that heart center so this is my understanding of diving deep once a man was looking for a stone image of shiva someone said to him go to a certain river there you will find a tree near it is a whirlpool dive into the water there and you will find the image of shiva so i say that one must get instruction from a teacher so just we don't know where to dive huh we know we could say dive within the within but uh how to do it this is what we get from our from in guru and from initiation and everything we get the instruction on how to to deepen our meditation and our concentration and our feeling of love ishan that is true sir master it is satchida that comes to us in the form of the guru now don't get confused all these different terms what about muhammad muhammad there's no difference it's a slight different uh connotation you know this connotation denotation distinction denoting the same object connotates slightly indifferent like we we take a person someone says oh that's my mother and somebody says oh that's my friend my co-worker at work denoting the same person but connotation is so different but the same so the same thing sat on this simply emphasizes the existence knowledge bliss aspect not so much this shakti aspect or anything but it's the same thing it is such an under that comes to us in the form of the guru if a man is initiated by a human guru he will not achieve anything if he regards his guru as a mere man takara very often says is the guru this doesn't mean that the guru doesn't have a physical body or anything like that guru is also a person but our attitude should be a little different we should feel that as to god's grace the guru has come to us that the guru represents a special type of manifestation of the divine just as we look upon the avatar as a special manifestation the guru is also out of love and out of respect but at the same time we can feel that there's some objective truth to it that they are are especially endowed with some shakti some power which allows them to be real gurus not just ordinary people well we we have this kuluguru system and everything that they're just they were born in the family of gurus and not like that this is those who have some special commission as talkworld used to say in our order to become president of the order is is not a small thing that we we really feel that uh it's not just that this is the embodiment of such an ananda it's the embodiment of taquer himself that he's dwelling within the guru's of our order and that they're the real power that is giving the initiation and the real source of everything so we don't look upon the gurus as an ordinary person that way the special reference to the guru is the embodiment of that power israeli christian dwelling with them within them in a special way to transmit this power to others the guru should be regarded as the direct manifestation of god only then can the disciple have faith in the mantra given by the guru once a man has faith he achieves all the learn archery in the forest before clay image of drona this is a story from mahabharata that he went to durona and and requested initiation it was refused but he said no i've accepted him in my heart at least as in guru so he made a clay image and did everything for that image as if it's for so he looked upon him as his guru so echolavia learned archery in the forest before a clay image of drona he worshipped the image as the living drona that by itself enabled him to obtain mastery and archery now he's telling this ishan don't mix intimately with the brahmin pundits because he used to do that somehow he had some special connection with the brahmin community i don't understand all of these things but this caste system uh there'll be some who uh will be kind of catch leaders is like the old uh what is it called the pancha panchayat system or something that will will make decisions if if it comes out that somebody uh dined with somebody from a different cast should they be fined a certain amount of money should they be excommunicated for a month something like that so apparently he was involved with these types of things a little bit also off the seashore don't mix intimately with brahmin pundits their only concern is to earn money i've seen brahmin priests resetting the chandi while performing it is hard to tell whether they are reading the sacred book or something else they turn after pages without reading them all left yeah we these these in the old days at least the brahmins had no choice this is how they earned their money yeah they could have a little plot of land and and to grow some rice and vegetables and things but i would have looked very bad if they started a business and became wealthy people and everything so they were poor uh every old story that we hear about in in the scriptures was there was once a poor brahman family in a small village somewhere they all start out like that yeah so they were they were meant to be poor swami swansea used to say that this was this is uh was the grandeur of the brahmins this is why they had so much respect because they'd led very simple lives of not poverty the way we understand it where they've they're living on the street or anything like that but very simple lies with a lot of restrictions the interesting thing about the cast we may think the uppercast people have they can do whatever they want it was the opposite the higher they are the more restrictions they are with regard to food and vegetarianism and things like that uh than behavior and jobs that they can have all that a nail knife suffices to kill oneself one needs sword and shield to kill others that is the purpose of the shastras this is something that we hear uh different occasions holy mother used to say it also this means that for for us to make progress in spiritual life we don't have to be great scholars the uh i i just started reading i read it once before with so many potential energies uh uh kotambengo his commentary on on the on the gospel and the whole introduction is about takara's idea of naruto and this idea that tucker mentions over and over again the limited value of studying scriptures limited value he says that we study too much it'll do more to confuse us than to clarify things and what we really need is to find because his ultimate point will be that this uh gospel of srama krishna presents everything so simply we don't need anything else that coming from the lips of someone who realized all of these things who was very consistent in this presentation of things and yet very liberal and and present things in so many different ways that this is all we need now somebody wants to be in guru and have to teach others then he'll have to have some knowledge of the scriptures we know about all of these things but otherwise yes for god realization it's not necessary there's not a single thing in the upanishad or gita or anything else that we don't get in the gospel of srama krishna not a single thing if we if we study upanishads in gita there's a great joy in that also and not that they should should be like eliminated but they're not not necessary to read all different commentaries and all the all the different theories all the different schools have been onto all the different schools of indian philosophy it's very confusing we really don't need that we want something that will open up the heart center and give it some clarity about everything and give us some conviction taco we'll talk about this we'll we may not get to it today but okay let's see one doesn't really need to study the different scriptures if one is no discrimination one doesn't achieve anything through mere scholarship even though one studies all the six systems of philosophy call on god crying to him secretly in solitude he will give all that you need he goes right to the essence of everything that otherwise we we get lost and there's an intellectualism and what is this doctrine in that doctrine who cares huh these are all i read these things something and i think oh my god what are these people thinking i i've mentioned before i had a philosophy professor and somebody asked and asked him why there's so many different theories and so many philosophies and everything in in the indian tradition and he said they were all monks they had a lot of time with their heads what else would they do sure i'm a christian had heard that ishaan was building a house on the bank of the ganges for the practice of spiritual discipline he asked ishan eagerly because thakura always said that he said go into solitude whenever you can if you can build a little hut someplace that you can go alone he recommended that so he was very happy he asked ishan eagerly has the house been built let me tell you that the less people know of your spiritual life the better it will be for you now remember this because we find ishan doing all of this right on the steps of the kali temple another reason i think that he got a scolding talk we're saying don't let people know about this the less they know the better and he's doing it right out in the open deputies endowed with sattva meditate in a secluded corner or in a forest or withdraw into the mine another one of his his favorite favorite statements of takur that this kone bonne mone yeah you can meditate koni boni moni konnie in the corner of a room that means if we if we don't have uh a place that we can go to that's completely secluded then we find a little place where people won't bother us and otherwise we can go out into the forest but meditation no matter what takes place deep within the mind and within the heart mone bonnie money sometimes they meditate inside the mosquito net okay let's stop here we'll get to and now this will continue it's a beautiful beautiful section this chapter is the master and m but really so much of it is with ishan this will go on and on so we'll stop here this is on page 292. oh miranda 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 [Music] peace peace peace be on tour