Video 92

The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna read by Swami Atmajnanananda (03/18/22)

[Music] 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 srimad krishna did i not finish a week last time and now i'm going to start where my bookmark is it's uh it looks like i didn't finish that this is the chapter instruction the vaisnavas and brahmos huh do you remember did swami b do it this time where did i stop you said this will be a long passage really okay what page do you have i think in this book two and six he did that okay i have november 26 1883 that's right okay and then i'll start where my the bookmark was uh okay i'll start in the due date sorry everyone okay it's november 26 1883 it was the day of the annual festival of the sindoria party there were different branches huh of the brahma samaj i don't know too much about that and very often they they met at somebody's house the ceremony was to be performed in manila malik's house the worship hall does anybody know did they have different uh different places where they made one big hall i know they had you know the worship hall was beautifully decorated with flowers wreaths and evergreens and many devotees were assembled eagerly awaiting the worship their enthusiasm had been great greatly heightened by the news that srama krishna was going to grace the occasion with his presence kesha vijay shivanath and other leaders of the brahmos homage held him in high respect now we have three different people and three different levels of high respect it's not all exactly the same k sub and and they're all in one sentence it's interesting because keshav and vijay had already split and they were not really on speaking terms we remember when they went on the the steamer together and it was embarrassing for them they both found themselves there and the al-qaeda of course had tremendous respect for swami krishna vijay had more than respect for him he really was very much influenced and we'll see that he renounced everything shivanata i have no idea what this story is with him that takur praised him so much of course he said sometimes that he didn't keep his word he didn't come but i see not didn't seem to really have that same respect for srama krishna he is the one who wrote a few times that he thought that thinking of god too much he had lost his head and he was influenced by kesha many of them had these different ideas even in trilogy the one the great singer who was very much influenced by ceramic christian he wrote a book and there he also said how much it taker changed after meeting kesho actually kesham changed talk where did he change he adjusted himself he he always adjusted his teachings to those who came to him not that he changed but when you we see when he gives instructions to the brahmos and everything it'll be something suitable for them so keshav vijay shivanat and other leaders of the brahma-samaj held him in high respect that means ramakrishna his god-intoxicated state of mind his intense love of spiritual life his burning faith his intimate communion with god and his respect for women whom he regarded as veritable manifestations of the divine mother together with the unsullied purity of his character his complete renunciation of worldly talk his love and respect for all religious faiths and his eagerness to meet devotees of all creeds attracted the members of the brahmos homage to him okay now this is m's appraisal of the situation not all of them were so attracted and i think there was a little bit of uh some who accused foreign krishna of not being so nice to his wife because he renounced the world so it's not that all of them understood his reverence for the divine mother and in all women and everything some of them i think were annoyed when he came especially he would come sometimes and go into samantha and that would be the end of the whole program that he had to turn the lights out on one time when he was there so they were all different and there was jealousy also and we see with majumdar when he went to the united states how much jealousy there was so it's a very complicated relationship taco was so simple he didn't have any of these negative feelings towards any of them but they were very complicated people were western educated and modern types of people devotees came that day from far-off places to join the festival for it would give them a chance to get a glimpse of the master and listen to his inspiring talk srama krishna arrived at the house before the worship began and became engaged in conversation with vijay krishna goswami and the other devotees the lambs were lighted and the divine service was about to begin the master asked if shivanath would come to the to the festival a brahma devotee said that he had other important things to do and was not coming so we get a glimpse what's more important than seeing srama krishna so he and this happened several times that tucker even went i think to his place once he wasn't there so master i feel very happy when i see shivanat so he was so simple that he i don't know he didn't notice or he didn't care that she if not sometimes he didn't avoid him but he didn't go out of his way to see him all of the time and there were some devotees who liked to gossip a little bit and so he always said oh this devotee said this about you that's a ram especially but so but he was above all of that i feel very happy when i see shivanand he always seems to be absorbed in the bliss of bhakti further a man who is respected by so many surely possesses some divine power shiv not also became one of the acharyas that kesha passed away of course and then bj krishna left and everything i don't know if he was at that time but he also used to lecture he's a big fat man i heard he was a very large person he he fell off the the podium with the platform one time i don't heard i read it somewhere some story about him so this is a talk we're talking it's about shivanand but he has one great defect he doesn't keep his word see so so many times this happened once he said to me that he would come to dakshin but he neither came nor sent me word that is not good it is said the truthfulness alone constitutes the spiritual discipline in the kali yuga this was one of takur's great teachings that he mentioned so many different times this truthfulness if one can cling to truthfulness for 12 years many times he would use that 12 years is considered one yuga i don't know how they come up with that idea but if they can do that you can realize god it is said that truthfulness alone constitutes the spiritual discipline of the kaliyuga if a man clings tenaciously to truth he ultimately realizes god without this regard for truth one gradually loses everything now is it just an ethical teaching is it what's what's the real meaning behind this behind truthfulness this is these are things that really require a little bit of deep thought that when we when we feel that tendency not to tell the truth what is it based on what is it based on there's something behind it i'll tell you a nice story uh i think i heard it from swami gautaman but i may be wrong i think it was one one of our swamis who worked with tribal boys it was a very nice story he was telling us that one day he thought that he would give these these boys uh ethical teaching about telling the truth so he said you always tell the truth the boys are looking at him he didn't never tell a lie and they're looking at each other then one of them says what's a lie and he said a lie well if something happens and you say it didn't happen or something and they why would we say it didn't happen if it if it happened and they didn't get the content it dawned on him that why am i telling these boys they don't have that on the concept of what it means to tell a lie they're so simple so we have to ask ourselves what what is it that compels us sometimes to want to hide the truth or at least not be fully open anybody self-interest there's some some ego behind it some self-interest either we have something to gain or we want to project an image of ourselves we we're we're thinking in terms of how would it appear to other people if if i divulge this fact or something what would they think of me so it all goes back to ego and false identification so it's not just an ethical teaching that one should always tell the truth that we ourselves feel it huh the moment we start to say something that is not 100 true or it may be true but we're not giving the full story or the way we present it most of us we feel it we know that inside that ah we're not really being 100 truthful and then what is what is it does it mean to be really truthful i think about this sometime that uh if we're if we're talking about the real nature of the south then anytime i say something like i'm hungry i'm tired you hurt me this and that it's not a truthful statement of course we can't go that far we can't go that far but but truthfulness really means living in accordance with a higher truth so not just how events take place or anything a lot of it goes back to uh what is the real nature of the cells who am i really and uh and this this ego idea of what do i want people to think of me i want everyone to think i'm a good person i'm a nice person i'm an intelligent person i'm a caring person all of these things and so i speak in such a way that will give that impression it may not be a lie but it also there may not be the sincerity behind it so this truthfulness is a very deep subject uh what does it mean to be really truthful sometimes you have to lie out of kindness yeah now that's a different story this so when are we permitted to tell a falsehood yeah if it's to save somebody else's life if it's out of kindness these are different things but but when we trace it back to our own self yeah that's what i'm thinking of more yeah of course we we have our rules about uh telling the truth that it has to be priya and it has to be hita it has to be a pleasant truth never speak an unpleasant truth and it has to be beneficial somehow so they say is it true is it kind is it necessary before we say anything we should have that test is it true is it kind is it necessary see we may say things that are true but they're not kind we may say things that are true and kind but not necessary and we say well why did i say it most of the time we say things that aren't necessary why did i say it i wanted the other person to know you know to give an impression the we have we have no way of letting people know uh who we are on the inside except through speech the things that we say this is the way we can say look this is me this is who i am through our speech there were actions a little bit but mostly through our speech swami toriyama made a statement once about swamiji that he never heard him use the word i without feeling the deep down he had the sense of atman even he says i'm hungry now normally we say that means i'm completely identified with the cells but he got that sense with swamiji that it was you know the eye for him always meant to self the oddmen that way so is it anyhow these are things that require a lot of reflection and deep thought why do we say the things that we say and why such an urge to talk so much there's some people they i'm not going to mention anybody nobody should take offense but they constantly talk and you wonder why what are they is it to communicate something is it just to say something about themselves so it's good to reflect on these things it's nice to keep conversation is it not that everything has to be deep and high level and everything sometimes just just out of camaraderie we like to talk and chat with other people that's fine but we should just it's good to observe what is this tendency what is the motive behind the things that we say and is there something deeper to this than simply yes i don't want to tell the lie so anyhow takur he leaves that one to us he doesn't say too much about it except for this in truthfulness that mon mocha that we have to what we're feeling inside and what we're saying should be the same but to look at this motive is very interesting something that happens like in this case you did not come yeah so like i say i'll go and i cannot come yeah sometimes uh now this is really about keep keeping one's word making a promise that we can't keep sometimes uh we we simply can't we're so it's it's good to say i'll try i'll do my best something like that that some sometimes we we shouldn't be so bold to say yes i'll definitely come so we have a lot of people that they'll say yeah if it's if i talk with whales i'll do it right you remember the story with gidesh that uh takura told him do you give your power of attorney to to me or to god we'd it was kind of half and half with that story one day he said and now i'll go to the theater there's some work to do and he said no you can't simply say that it's because you want to do it you'll do it if the mother's will you'll go something like that so yeah we forgive people if uh if they say they'll do something and something comes up that uh was was unplanned and unfortunate we forgive them that's not such a terrible thing the this other thing is more psychological i'm not talking so much about you know if we say we'll do something we can't do it something comes out but what is the motive for for our speech it's an interesting subject in terms of uh not speaking the unpleasant truth yes so in terms of uh like telling your kids something that nobody else would tell them something that you think that they can improve upon but okay yeah yeah so how do you yeah no there's something called tough love huh you have you heard that expression tough love you can even punish someone very severely out of love if it's what they need yeah so yeah with children with children sometimes uh we have to be brutally honest with them even other people the husband and wife sometimes if we see they've really veered off that they're losing becoming they've lost track of the real ideal in life whatever it is some some very strong things sometimes we have to be really honest and say this may hurt your feelings but if i'm doing it for your best they'll understand if we're not doing it to hurt anybody we're doing to help so we can of course then we can do something like that sometimes the truth is unpleasant so but when it says don't tell an unpleasant truth it means don't go out of your way to tell somebody doesn't look good someday don't go up to them and say that that's an ugly dress you're wearing you know your hair looks awful there's no point in that but if it's something like uh you know i've i've noticed that you've been hanging out with bad company and your grades are going down and and you're going to get yourself in a lot of trouble it may be a little hurtful but we have to do it that time yeah it's a complicated question when we can do things when we can't do things i remember that one of the letters of swami permission he was talking that at one time during the riots communal riots there's a gang came to the house of this family little girl was there and they wanted her sister they said it's your sister at home they were going to brutalize her and everything so she said no she went to the village house so then they left my sister was really there so swami permission he said uh i bless that that uh lying little girl something like that i bless her for for her courage and bravery to do it so there are times when we can't tell lies of course if it comes to that yeah you ask another question yeah yeah so sometimes this thing comes to the mind when krishna had asked yadhishtra to say ashwa tamar died [Music] you know tucker would say christina did so many good things why do you only listen to look at that one thing yeah i know from some kind of comfort that yeah it's okay to sometimes do yeah because he did that yeah no it's okay to sometimes have failings and and but we shouldn't look upon that as an ideal there's one of the funny incidents in his life that a little bit of cleverness was there it's like we see a great soul he'll cross his fingers and so it won't count as alive so that doesn't mean we should do it yeah they won't really be great souls of course but yeah everyone points to that one incident yeah this is going to do something yeah no don't let it come to your mind okay yeah no think of the good things and let that be the ideal yeah remember these things were written by people we don't know these incidents happened or didn't happen and then whoever the author of this particular incident was whether they thought very deeply about it or not we don't know all these things these are all legendary things and stories to come about and everything how much is true how much was made up is it impossible for us to say so we uh we take all the positive things this is why tucker said the scriptures are a combination of sugar and sand there'll be things that we we we don't have to throw out but we leave behind we take we take the sugar the other stuff we don't bother about so sometimes even even in scriptures we have to pick and choose [Music] that's true yeah we don't know if it really served a higher purpose or anything but it's it sounds too clever to us when we yeah when we read it yeah without this regard for truth when gradually loses everything if by chance i say that i will go to the pine grove i must go there even if there's no further need of it you all know what the pine grove is yeah that's where he went to answer the cults of nature so he felt the urge and then he got up and started walking saying no maybe a little gas or something i really don't have to go and so then what does he do he said i must go there even if there's no further need of it lest i lose my attachment to truth now we should remember also that a little bit later taco will say i think later we'll say that this fanatical attachment to truth has lessened a little bit nowadays so he he recognized that a little bit is by like shuchi bai there's the same thing a little bit of some a fanatical attachment to truth it was it was just too much that uh there's so many so many stories that uh one time he said he would go to jodhu malik's house that day and then he forgot so he found out yes it was too late it was midnight or something but he wanted to go there and stick his foot just inside the property and call out i've come and then go back home so that he would feel that he kept the truth he did these things so that we would do it to a certain extent he did it 100 so we would do it a little bit this was this is the way he did everything we can't try to do things the way he did but he said the highest ideal so that we can aspire to it to a certain extent and everything was literal with him so even like touching money things like that everything was very graphic and literal and tangible in his life after my vision of the divine mother i prayed to her taking a flower in my hands mother here is thy knowledge and here is thy ignorance take them both and give me only pure love here is thy holiness and here is thy unholiness take them both mother and give me pure love here is thy good and here is thy evil take them both mother and give me pure love here is thy righteousness and here is thy unrighteousness take them both mother and give me pure love i mentioned all these but i could not say mother here is thy truth and here is thy falsehood take them both i gave up everything at her feet but could not bring myself to give up truth because if he gave that up then everything else would would be a lie if if he gave up truth then when he says mother i care for you alone then then there's nothing behind it there's no it doesn't have to correspond to any feeling or anything like that so that was the one thing that he couldn't give up soon the service began according to the rules of the brahmos homage they had something that was a little bit like in church service that there would be some reading some sermon they would do some prayers common prayers the attorney would stand up they had their own kind of prayer book kind of thing and songbook and everything sing together the preacher was seated on the diocese after the opening prayer he recited holy text of the vedas and was joined by the congregation in the invocation to the supreme brahman they chanted in chorus brahman is truth knowledge and infinity the really the the beginning of the brahma-samaj we can trace it back really to ram mohan roy i believe and he wanted to introduce the study of the upanishads in bengal he was the first one to translate the upanishads into bengali i think it was the first one you know our prabhu the prana that was her master's thesis is his translation of the kato punished into megalith and so when the vengeance came they it was all really based on the upanishads which is all the formless formless aspect of god uh but with with uh gunas so sagona uh this was the way that they'd like to worship so this this element was there a little bit of some vedic chanting and everything but really some of the teachings from the upanishads so not too much in fact nothing with these gods and goddesses and puja and worship and and certainly no image worship they were really dead against it i think he was a deeply spiritual person as well i don't know that much about him or both yeah yeah i think i think he was a very good person swamiji wrote something about him that highly praising him and giving him credit really credit for kind of the renaissance in bengal yeah yeah yeah so you're not a good person i don't know if god realized or anything like that don't know anything about that but it wasn't like something yeah but vidya were a little bit of an agnostic a little bit but otherwise yeah he was he was also a social reformer that was a big part of it yeah but he really wanted to bring this this study of the upanishads to bring the very important thing they say that max mueller brought you know the vedas to india he presented with a gift he gave to them so there's ramachan a little bit the upanishads with a gift he gave to bengal that way so that it was part of that revival and everything yeah anyhow swamiji praised him very much and i know that they chanted in chorus and brahman is truth knowledge and infinity it shines as a bliss and immortality brahman is peace blessedness the one without a second it is pure and unstained by sin the minds of the devotees were stilled and they closed their eyes in meditation they say that one of the gifts that takur gave to the brahmos homage was calling on god his mother and we see many of the songs that tara looked not specially composed after that were addressed to the divine mother on my day my bhagavad-gita the famous song that we would see over and over again no mother make me mad with i love that was uh written by loki the the main song writer of course later main song or your root to go himself but in those days and through his contact with srama krishna the master went into deep samadhi he sat there transfixed and speechless after some time he opened his eyes looked around and suddenly stood up with the words brahma brahma on his lips see he was he was put into that state through the prayers about the supreme brahman so naturally when he comes down that's what comes into his mind again this is very typical with takur soon the devotional music began accompanied by drums and symbols in a state of divine fervor the master began to dance with the devotees this is something that probably they never did before he came the dancing and everything i don't think that was part of their agenda in the early days he had a big effect on them oh today's holi everyone yeah so dave of grade on joy and kirtan singing and dancing and everything the birthday of caitanya deva also so in a state of divine fervor the master began to dance with the devotees vijay and the other brahmos danced around him the guest it was very common that takur would stand up and the others would form a circle and do kirtan going in a circle around him and he would just be dancing we just have to use our imagination actually some of these dramatic uh performances this is a serious that they've done with the life of takur and everything in the past 10 years something like that they were very helpful for me i got a good picture of what it might look like for him to be dancing that way and others so there's some value to these some of these dramatic presentations the guests and the devotees were enchanted many of them drank the sweet bliss of god's name and forgot the world the happiness of the material world appeared bitter to them at least for the time being after the kirtan all sat around the master eager to hear his words master it is difficult to lead the life of a householder in a spirit of detachment once per top said to me this is a celebrated leader of the brahma-samaj that's all that it said here but we know he also went to to the united states when swamiji was there and we read in some of the letters this bourbon dara how he was just consumed by jealousy and uh spread rumors and things about swamiji how we could do it is very hard to to understand that he was a cheat and he was he was really an actor that now it's true he was an actor because they all they used to put on plays in the brahma so much but he wasn't an actor he's a sahasi and that he was a lawyer he studied law so he so the people are thinking oh he's a clever lawyer and he's an actor and he's pretending to be assadhu to raise money and even about his life mixing with women and everything he spread all sorts of of rumors and swamiji was so kind all he said it was poor imagined consumed by jealousy this pharmacy really it was amazing how uh he could lose his temper but he couldn't get angry at people there's a difference there you know there was uh i think swami subotan on the g he said that he never saw swamiji get angry now how can we imagine that he yelled and screamed lost his temper so many times but it wasn't real wasn't real anger the temper slight temper and everything but swamiji because he was free from pride such a proud person but free from pride the one story that i always remember is he was somewhere probably in gujarat and and conversing with the pundits there in sanskrit swamiji wasn't a sanskrit pundit he learned it and he studied it but these are people who from their childhood from the childhood they were the absolute masters of it they could they could come on the spot recite compose poetry and everything perfect verse and everything they were absolute masters and swamiji he studied it with his brilliant mind he probably picked it up faster than anybody could but still he would make some mistakes and they would laugh at him and he would laugh along with him huh anybody else they would be so offended how dare you laugh at me and everything swamiji was different so he said once pratap said to me now another strange case because he was one of the early ones to ride something on takur which which brought his the attention of the people of calcutta to him it was in one of the early things was written in that uh what is it called the the the uh periodical or newspaper that the brahma-samaj put out so at one time he had some high regard for swami krishna we don't know what happened to him this is jealousy we hear that after tucker passed away that they came up to swamiji and and they tried to cut a deal with him so that they would they would let him be the main acharya or something for the brahma-samaj and he turned them down of course he had his own mission and everything to do so there are probably a little bit of bad feelings because of that also so once pratap said to me sir we followed the example of king janaka he led the life of a householder and a detached spirit we shall follow him this is another thing everybody points to jannika yeah why renounce the world that god couldn't could be realized as a household janika did it so we read in gita janakadi janaga and others how many others they i think shankaracharya lists two or three other names or something is not so easy it's not so easy to realize god after renouncing the world so anyhow they they all point to this janika follow him i said can one be like king janaka by merely wishing it how many austerities he practiced in order to acquire divine knowledge he practiced the most intense form of asceticism for many years and only then returned to the life of the world is there no hope for householders certainly there is this is this is a case where takur uh really embodies the teachings of the gita gita says everybody can all when gita specifically mentions women and and outcasts and it mentions that not because they're lower class but because they were excluded there's a decada rather they were excluded from that and were given no chance for liberation or god realization so this gita was a really radical change kind of revolutionary type of thing and talk what was all of these great uh we can say devotional teachers he was really a bhakti one is the avatars that they didn't care for any of this cast distinction or householder sannyasi distinction of course tucker had special regard for sanyasa we know but he never said that the householders can't realize god so is there no hope for householders certainly there is they must practice spiritual discipline in solitude for some days so he said basically that don't think that this mental renunciation is such a simple thing you have to be prepared for prepare the mind for it and you have to do some spiritual practice and everything then you'll really be able to do it because mental renunciation is the most important thing for everybody even for the sannyasi it's the most important thing so the difference with this onions there's external and internal both but everyone internal is the main thing there's not attachment and surrender all of these qualities everybody can do that but the tsunami has the the advantage of environment and time and everything to do spiritual practice the household has to find time for all of these things so we always talked about solitude going into solitude this gives an opportunity to remove ourselves from the worldly environment and to devote ourselves with more intensity to spiritual practice and i have my own theory about the solitude to be able to live without any thought of how we appear to other people we live alone for a long time we start to feel ourselves as consciousness itself we live with people there's always some some little bit of awareness that you're looking at at me you're looking at my body how can i say you're looking at me you're looking at my body and there's some inference going on you're listening to my words that you're looking at a person of course not just a physical form but it's the only way you can see me as this as this physical form and that affects everything that we do that the way we we dress we get up in the morning uh what do we think about what we're going to wear if if no one is going to see us that day we may stay in our pajamas the whole day long what do we care otherwise we realize we do things because of what other people think which is good i mean we have to we have to have some consideration for other people but it also means that we're not giving ourselves that opportunity to this feel that i'm just pure awareness pure consciousness which i can do in solitude it's a very nice thing the whole world experienced some sort of solitude yeah this was a good test because there are people who can't bear solitude and these are people whose mind is so outgoing that they have no interior type of life so we find some people that they saw it as a very nice period that they could spend time with themselves and there were other people who just got so terribly bored and lonely and everything so it's a good test of course we all get a little we all miss you know holy company i mean that's that's one thing but not everyone benefits from it it takes a good understanding and a little bit of spiritual growth to be able to really appreciate it and enjoy solitude swamiji once went to some place in northern france i believe and was shown these ancient dungeons that were single cells and people go there and it looked horrible and everything and what was swamiji's reaction ah what a wonderful place for meditation he could go into a cave and live alone he would have been perfectly happy most people can't do that it's it takes a high high level of spiritual growth or at least understanding of who we are and what we want to do there's a stage in spiritual life and we we read this the other day that uh taqwa said nowadays rakkal doesn't even like my company was it taco we said it somebody said it yeah there's a stage in spiritual life where people just want to be alone alone their aloneness is uh is being with one with god that alone there's uh that expression i think from the cloud of annoy that spiritual life is a flight from the unknown to the unknown something like that yeah and this uh cavalia this is the definition of the highest spiritual experience in the the sankey school aloneness but that aloneness means that we're one with that divine divinity within ourselves so yeah we can really feel when we're with other people the mind is just pulled outward when we're alone we can feel that divine presence we can we can just breathe a sigh of relief that we're we're just now we're safe we're alone we don't have to deal with other people it sounds a little bit reclusive but at a certain period in life it's important and tucker emphasizes it very much whether it's for a couple of days or a couple of weeks or a couple of months doesn't matter you see even a little bit and so when we're alone we should try to take advantage of it and reflect deeply who am i and who am i in this situation where there's nobody else to see me there's no one else to make me feel that i'm one with this i have this this theory some of you have heard it before that when we talk about false identification with the body it's through the eyes of the other person if there were nobody else around we would have very little identification with the body if we didn't have mirrors to look at and what do we how do we identify ourselves another one of my funny theories our sense of identification is in our hands unless we're constantly looking in a mirror this is the thing that we look at mostly the thing that's different with everybody uh that this this is we can identify with that yeah this is me i recognize these hands especially the funny hint so other than that we don't see the whole person it's through the other person sees us this way and we know that and we become identified that way objectification the gaze of the other objectifies us the existentialists talked about these things a lot sartre and others yeah the gay is now it turns us into an object and if we're free from that we live in solitude then we can start feeling ourselves as the subject and not the object the subtle point but it's very important we can feel it subtle we can feel it very tangibly if we if we live in in solitude for a while so they must practice spiritual discipline and solitude for some days thus he talked about householders they will acquire knowledge and devotion of the saudis of course of course it goes where it's not that others don't need a solitude we also need it thus they will acquire knowledge and devotion then it will not hurt them to lead the life of the world but when you practice discipline and solitude keep yourself entirely away from your family you must not allow your wife son daughter we can add husband mother father sister brother friends or relatives near you so real solitude while thus practicing discipline and solitude you should think i have no one else in the world god is my all you must also pray to him with tears in your eyes for knowledge and devotion now later in this chapter we get that song remember this oh my nobody is your own huh a very beautiful song and sometimes we wonder that why do we say that we have no one to call our very own but god what did holy mother say no one is a stranger everyone is your own so is that contradicting this or is one higher one lower we have to understand that the different attitudes at different times different things are helpful at different times that uh if we want to learn to have reliance on god then we have to understand that that's that's uh that's our anchor that's that's the one thing to really hold on to everything else no matter how wonderful somebody is they can go at any time we can lose them uh we we see a husband and wife sometimes something happens and and they love each other one day the next day they can't look at each other and the next thing you know that they're yelling and screaming at each other and suing for divorce and then what what do they say i thought i knew you i didn't know you we think we know somebody uh when they're nice to us and loving it and then something happens we don't know so this uh well we have this baby back mom think very deeply mind thinking about that okay this uh this song uh reflects exactly the meaning of the bhagavad-gita is such a beautiful sound square to him it's really not a hymn to to go into it sounds like it but it's all about this idea of there's nobody to call your own that this is renunciation and and transitory nature of everything and god alone is that pillar to hold on to so we can feel these things in solitude it's true so while thus practicing discipline and solitude you should say i have no one else in the world god is my all you must also pray to him with the tears in your eyes for knowledge and devotion if you ask me how long you should live in solitude away from your family i should say that it would be good for you if you could spend even one day in such a manner one day can be a long time i i've i was in my avidi ones and it was right after my sanyas and there's a little hut outside that swami swarupanati used to stay in he'd spend the whole day in meditation and everything and uh i thought they they suggested it why not go spend a day in that little hut that was the longest day of my life i i'm used to solitude but i would read a little bit do other things i could cook my meal there's sitting there in the tiny room with nothing there and it's not so simple it's not so easy sometimes so yeah so even one day but we saw the two doesn't mean we don't do any bring books with us we have a routine we can do some chanting this and that just to know other people there to to switch our gaze from inside out to outside in this is the main thing with solitude that i've come to understand so it would be good for you if you could spend even one day in such a matter three days at a time are still better one may live in solitude for 12 days a month three months or a year according to one's convenience and ability one hasn't much to fear if one leads to the life of the householder after attaining knowledge and devotion see sometimes says first realize god didn't live in the world too high we have to go back to this sometimes he says live in the world after attending devotion here he says after attaining knowledge and devotion if you break a jackfruit after rubbing your hands with oil then its sticky milk will not smear your hands while playing the game of hide and seek you are safe if but if you but once touched the granny he turned into gold by touching the philosopher's stone after that you may remain buried underground a thousand years when you were taken out you will still be gold this idea of feeling safe it's it's a very tangible feeling that we've reached the point where i mean we we shouldn't be proud and think there's no chance of a fall but we reach a stage where we feel that yeah now i know what i want out of life that we reach we really feel that we're on safe ground if we don't let go of course if we don't let go and as i say with the minute we have pride that nothing can touch me now then then we're in trouble but we can feel that that now i found this the golden life i found the path i know exactly what i want that i won't be tempted to do anything else nothing can sway me we feel safe there's a nice term to use really that i like this idea we feel some type of safety at that stage the mind is like milk if you keep the mind in the world which is like water then the milk and water will get mixed that is why people keep milk in a quiet place and let it set into curd that's the solitude then turn the butter from from it that's our satina of course we do them together likewise through spiritual discipline practice and solitude turn the butter of knowledge and devotion from the milk of the mind then that butter can easily be kept in the water of the world it will not get mixed with the world the mind will float detached on the water of the world our problem is that the mind is too easily stained by the world and we're too easily influenced by the company of other people ideas of other people this is why holy company is so important and reading holy books reading the gospel reading and everything these are so important vijay had just returned from gaia this is our vijay krishna gosvami that he finally decided to become a monk it was a desire of his we don't know how much earlier but so he says vijay had just returned from gaia where he had spent a long time in solitude and holy company he had put on the ochre robe of a monk and was in an exalted state of mind always in drawn he was sitting before the master with his head bent down as as if absorbed in some deep thought takora was very spoke very highly of of the spiritual state of vijay and his tremendous love for god and he used to say he was a goswami the goswami that means that they came had some direct connection to the caitanya lineage to dwight de goswami or one of the others and he felt that this devotion was so much a part of his nature that it had to come out it was being stifled in the brahma-samaj and it finally did i i always find it curious i don't know what the brahmos thought of him showing up as a sannyasi they had no tradition of sanyasi in the brahmos they must have had some respect for it but it must have seemed odd also and then eventually he left he he had many of his own disciples i don't know that much about his life but i know that big books were written about him and everything he became considered a great division of a saint so he had put on the ochre robe of a monk and was in an exalted state of mind always in drawn he was sitting before the master with head bend down as if absorbed in some deep thought casting his benign gaze on the day the master said have you found your room let me tell you a parable once two holy men in the course of their wanderings entered the city one of them with wondering eyes and mouth a gape was looking at the marketplace the stalls and the buildings when he met his companion the latter said you seem to be filled with wonder at the city where is your baggage he replied first of all i found a room i put my things in it locked the door and felt totally relieved now i'm going about the city enjoying all the fun so i'm asking you if you have found your room so again this feeling have you reached that point where you you you're safe you have your spiritual ideal uh you you know what you want out of life and it's locked in a box there's there's no way that anybody can get it there's no chance of falling from that ideal yeah or small chance or something have you reached that stage then you can feel free you can go about you can mix with other people see this is this is that distinction that uh we think we'll go and we'll help other people and it turns out they drag us down they have a greater power to drag us down than we have of pulling them up in our pride we think we can do that but those who have reached that state they're not affected by any of these things i've mentioned many many times that swamiji's great statement i i like it so much i'll mention it again when i was young i wouldn't walk on the same side of the street that the theater was on now i can live in the house of a prostitute and my mind won't be disturbed in the light in the slightest so that's the difference we have to know how much how easily we're affected by other people and and circumstances environment and everything and have we reached that point where we're more or less safe that uh we we won't mix with other people and feel that temptation yeah they're enjoying the world what am i doing we won't feel that so then we know we're a little bit a little bit safe at that point so i'm asking you later if you found your room to am and the others you see the spring in rejay's heart has been covered all these days now it is open so that was stifled in the brahmos homage it was a little bit stifled there because they didn't care too much for all of this uh uh open display of emotion and everything that is a part of this devotional tradition to vijay well shivanat is always in trouble in turmoil he has to write for magazines and perform many other duties worldly duties bring much worry and anxiety along with them it is narrated in the bhagavata that the other dude had 24 gurus one of whom was a kite in a certain kite it's like a big eagle as a big uh uh eagle that but it's uh uh aquatic bird that flies in the ocean and catches fish in a certain place the fishermen were catching fish a kite swooped down and snatched the fish at the sight of the fish about a thousand crows chased the kite and made a great noise with their coin whichever way the kite flew with the fish the crows followed it the kite flew to the south and the crows followed it there the kite flew to the north and still the crows followed after it the kite went east and west but with the same result as the kite began to fly about in confusion low the fish dropped from its mouth the crow at once let the crows at once let the kite alone and flew after the fish thus relieved of its worries the kite sat on the branch of a tree and thought that wretched fish was at the root of all my troubles i have now got rid of it and therefore i am at peace the avidut learned this lesson from the kite that as long as a man has the fish that his worldly desires he must perform actions and consequently suffer from weary anxiety and restlessness no sooner does he renounce these desires then his activities fall away and he enjoys peace of soul one of my favorite little phrases from gita is a chapter 12. we let go of something peace comes instantly there's not a gap not that well the next day we'll feel it the very second as soon as the fish drops then where is this disappeared so this is partly for the sannyasi these things householders can't give up their responsibilities and obligation but some of these desires and things can be done and this idea that i'm doing anything we do everything just as an offering this is also the tremendous peace of mind if we if we can practice this letting go and surrender and acceptance these three things letting go surrender acceptance whatever happens we take as as mothers will that's all okay let me stop here then this is page 314. [Music] is [Music] we bow our heads before srama krishna 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 peace peace peace