Video 99

The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna read by Swami Atmajnanananda (6/10/22)

foreign [Music] 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're on the chapter with the devotees at the chinese war part 2 this is page 334 friday december 14 1883 this chapter is with the devotees of sinister but really the most important aspect of this chapter is that m has his longest stay at one stretch with srama krishna this is one he's been i don't know how long two three weeks something like that a long period and a very important and troubling period in his life because he was struggling with so many things struggling with uh whether to live at home he wasn't happy with his living in his father's house he had moved out this is a constant struggle back and forth doc were telling him to go back home and he couldn't live with them he was the only one really with any spiritual interest uh except for his younger brother tishari who used to come with him sometime and the struggle between uh householder life and monastic life he was a very uncomfortable fit with the householder life and always had this longing to lead the pure monastic life so all of these things are kind of he's struggling with these in his mind we get a sense of it throughout all of this this uh this chapter this period at nine o'clock in the morning srama krishna was standing on the southeast veranda near the door of his room with ramallah by his side rakhal and laku were moving about this rakhal and latu latu was staying with taqwa more or less all of the time and rock cal uh in different periods he would stay there so this is the one time when they apparently they're both living with the swami krishna were moving about em arrived and prostrated themselves before the master srama krishna said to him affectionately you have come that's very good today is an auspicious day the day before he went then he went home then he came back again and now he'll stay on if if i remember quickly it was the last day of the bengali month and the day of the full moon and was going to spend a few days with the master practicing spiritual discipline in more than a few days a long stretch this is the christmas vacation the master had said to him if an aspirin practices a little spiritual discipline then someone comes forward to help him talk with a way of saying that he'll be there to help him without mentioning his name of course the master said to him you should not eat every day at the guest house of the kali temple the guest house is intended to supply free food to monks and the destitute bring your own cook with you there were two different uh feeding places one connected with the kali temple and one with the with the krishna temple one was of course the vegetarian side and then the other was non-vegetarian and uh many many people were fed ronnie rashford she set up the dakshayswar temple garden so that many many saturns came many poor people came sadhus loved to go there they had a nice place to stay and food and everything was very very comfortable for them but food wasn't meant for someone like m who had his own uh its own income and everything am had accordingly done so he brought a cook with him the master arranged a place for the man to cook and he asked ram lal to speak to the milkman about milk a little later ramallah began to read from the atma ramayana the master and m listened while he read this was one of srama krishna's favorite texts and he refers to a lot refers to it a lot but he doesn't recommend it for the householders uh kumar and i are reading it now i've never read it before but we were slowly going through it and mostly they remind a story nothing very much different but from time to time this uh ramen himself will give some beautiful philosophical portions and about renunciation and things and probably there are there are portions that are highly dwightic also that we haven't read yet i i'm not that familiar with the text but uh tucker for some reason didn't like them the householders to study it too much and yet he'll have ramallah reading it in front of all of them and the m who would follow anything that srama krishna said anything he said for him it was it was like the gospel that he couldn't still he read a little of this remember he seemed to be very familiar with it at the albert ryan that we see in the chapter in veronica mutt they're talking to terendra and raquel that he was familiar with it so a little later ramallah began to read from the the master name listened while he read rama had married sita after breaking the great bow of shiva on the way to ayodhya with his bride rama was confronted by the warrior sage parasurama who was about to make trouble for him threw a bow at rama and challenged him to string it rama's father was seized with fear with a smile rama took the bow in his left hand and strung it then twanging the bowstring he fixed an arrow and asked parasurama where to shoot it that curbed the pride of the warrior sage prostrating himself before rama parasurama worshiped him as the supreme brahman as foreign krishna listened to rama's hymn he went into a spiritual mood and now and then chanted the name of rama in his melodious voice then the master asked ramlao to read about guhaka ramla read was chief of the untouchables and an intimate friend of rama when rama sita and lakshmana were starting into the forest to redeem dasharatha's pledge ferried them across the river rama embraced gujaka tenderly and told him told him he was going to spend 14 years in exile wearing the bark of trees and eating the herbs fruits and roots that grew in the woods the bark of trees and this this means just the the dress that the ancient sages this is motivation we've read about that it's hard for us to imagine what it means bark of trees but they had some way of making some dress out of it so it just meant living the simplest type of life he promised to visit gohuka again on its way back to ayodhya after the period of exile was over the pariah king waited patiently but when the fourteenth year had run out and rama had not returned guhaka lighted a funeral of pyre he was on the point of entering it when hanuman arrived at rama's as rama's messenger in a celestial chariot rama and sita soon appeared and guhaka's joy was unbounded after the midday meal sriracha krishna lay down on his bed to rest and was seated on the floor presently dr shamma and a few devotees arrived the master sat up on the bed and began to converse with them master it is by no means necessary for a man always to be engaged in his duties for a man it means for a woman also we we have to remember when this was translated this is in the 30s that this language gender and language was a completely different thing at that time anyhow actions drop away when one realizes god as the flower drops of itself when the fruit appears now tako used to give slightly different teachings about these things uh we're we're reading this from the production of the jesus lecture he makes a big point oh no i'm reading this other thing about taco's different teachings on different subjects based on uh who he's talking to this and this is one thing that when do actions drop off now here he's saying that when one realizes god other times he'll say as we progress in spiritualize slowly they drop off and he gives the illustration of the daughter-in-law who's pregnant and the mother-in-law will reduce her duties little by little by little by little and the main point is that we don't make that decision ourselves that it seems to be automatic and it's either grace or just our karma gets exhausted or whatever it is but uh as we get closer and closer to god realization through some magic of some either talk with grace or this karma or something we have more and more time to do our spiritual practice till we have that god realization now he says actions drop away when one realizes god now other times he'll say that after the realization of god one will go back and live in the world this is also possible so it depends he gives the example of the clerk who's sent to jail and then when he's released he says what does he do does he go about singing and dancing in the street he goes back to being a clerk so uh depending on on the the nature of the individual and and the type of karma and whether household or a monk that they may go back and do what they did before and this is one of the great themes of gita even shri krishna himself he says i don't have to do anything there's nothing that i gain by doing anything nothing i lose by not doing something but still i remain engaged in action so for the welfare of others or to set an example so uh this is for some reason here he's talking about uh these actions drop away when one realizes god that means that one doesn't act out of a sense of duty afterwards is free completely free this is something we see in the life of swamiji how he was so devoted to of course for him duty meant mission it meant tucker's mission so devoted to it and so longing to be free from it his scorching midday son of duty he would talk about and how happy he was when when he went back to india turned everything over to swami brahmananda and it said now everything is yours and he made him the president and everything he really wanted to be free from all of that so everyone is a little different srama krishna how to the very last moment last breath that he took he was helping people through giving teachings even when you could barely talk so there's so many different ways of this manifesting itself that after realization or getting closer to realization what we do what type of duties we perform the householder may continue but there'll be some period when mind gets completely absorbed in god otherwise realization is not too easy in order to really have that okay come on come on okay mataji is here she wanted to add something come on prasad you were saying okay yeah rahm prasad is is a very good example of a mother's grace here his his uh his life story was very in many ways very similar to srama krishna that he had to go into calcutta for work he lived in not a village he lived in a town not far from from kolkata but he had to go there for work and he was a clerk and he had to keep accounts and he wasn't at all suited for that and instead of really keeping the counts he would scribble scribble into the right name and everything and then he started composing songs and he was the only one in the office who didn't take bribes so nobody else liked him there so so they they went to the boss and said there's ron prasad you love him so much what is he doing he's not keeping the accounts he's writing the songs and everything and his boss he doesn't talk with his grace for her mother's grace the boss started reading these songs and tears came into his eyes and the first song and you remember the first song there's something about keeping shiva not able to keep the accounts of mother something like that something about his situation so his uh his his boss said ron prasad you weren't cut out for this type of life you go back to your home you compose your songs you do all of that i'll give you the same salary that you had before so he went back and then the second thing happened he was uh he used to go the bathing guard is not for i went there to the seahorse a very nice place have you been but yeah you can walk from his home to the ganga there so he used to go there and uh while bathing he would sing the songs and and one day in the boat there was some maharaja of that area i don't know who it was went by and heard him singing and also was charmed so gave him a little plot of land and some monies and he didn't have to work his whole life he could devote his whole life to his spiritual practice so there's a good example so we can say how grace uh i had a word karma however we understand it but somehow the the example of the mother-in-law it's not the daughter-in-law who decides the mother-in-law takes care of everything that means a divine mother but this other thing actions drop away when one very large as the flower drops of itself when the fruit appears that means it's natural it's not a force type of thing taco gives so many examples of of how these this happens naturally and if we force it then uh it it won't be helpful for us he gives the example if we we scrape our hand and we get a little sore and a scab forms and if we if we pull the scab off before it's healed underneath it'll bleed again and then another scab will form if we wait when it's perfectly healed the scab will come off on its own so for for suramar krishna if if he heard that somebody decided to just renounce everything and knew that they weren't ready for it he would scold them say no you have your duties and obligations at home you have to fulfill that but if it's genuine then he would of course always support it he who has realized god no longer performs religious duties such as the santia now this is a little bit different now he's talking about some formal type of worship he's not talking about uh after god realization one has to renounce the world and leave home and do all of that someone can still uh if if they were a teacher or they were whatever the profession is they could do it but uh they're released from having to do this formal type of worship and everything just as a sannyasi is sannyasi doesn't have to realize god but just becoming a sanyas and then there's no need to do in fact not permitted to do a lot of vedic type of formal worship and things and tacos see he says he always realized god but other times he'll say those those who have developed love of god the realization of god is a very rare thing if if we only take it that way it'll apply to very very few people but he also talks about those who develop great love for god bhakti real bhaktiv they also don't have to do these formal types of things he was realized god no longer performs religious duties such as the sandhya in his case the sandhya emerges in the gayatri when when that happens it is enough for a person to repeat just the gayatri mantra then the gayatri emerges in om after that one no longer chants even the gayatri it is enough then to simply chant om these are all formal types of worship that in the indian tradition when the brahman boy takes the sacred thread he gets initiated with his mantra when when we take our brahmacharya vows we also get that with the sacred thread along with that and it's something that i know many many cases young monks will join the order and when they join they'll ask they'll take initiation they say does this mean we don't do guided if they're if they were invested with the sacred trade do we not do our gayatri mantra and generally they're told to continue almost always and it's considered very very sacred and we know that and it was it was very restricted in the old days that we don't bother about that of course and in our tradition at all but this was such a sacred vedic mantra that it was given yes to the to the brahmins and boys this uh twice born at some time it may have been the three upper classes cast otherwise we think generally brahman's different traditions in different places but the point is that it's not necessary to do all of the form of worship in the beginning but not to give up everything so the sandhya it means that you have to do certain types of rituals along with it with this chanting of the tree and at some point that can be given up in just the channel and when the mind is so merged in god fixed in god then one doesn't even have to do that then simply home so there's a talk with a way of saying that it's a gradual progression that formalities drop off the more that there's a real love of god grows and sometimes of course he talks about two completely different stages that when this real love of god comes then automatically everything else falls away that also he gives some beautiful examples that uh in the dry season we have to follow the course of the river of all ins and outs and everything and do exactly follow everything according to the way it's laid out there and the rainy season then we go straight we don't bother everything it's flooded flooded so when everything is this gita also has that beautiful verse what use the vedas and all other rituals and formal things when there's a flood everywhere that means that flood of love of god devotion how long should a person practice such devotions as the santia as long as he does not feel the thrill in his body and shed tears of joy while repeating the name of rama or hadi so look first he said god realization now we're saying just this so uh they're not he's not contradicting himself he's just into two different scenarios or did two different ways of looking at it but uh we uh actually for for those following this path of devotion they care more for this tears of joy than they do for mukti that type of liberation they care more for getting real devotion real bhakti so as long as he does not feel a thrill in his body and shed tears of joy while repeating the name of a rama or a body people worship god to win money or a lawsuit that is not good a devotee we find that everyone strives after money even keshav sen married his daughter to a prince okay now this is also a complicated thing it's not and takur always it seems that he always defends geisha he loved keshov so much and very often he would say his father's duty to look after the daughter the uh reference is to kasab giving his daughter in marriage to the son of the maharaja of kuch bihar and the one of the very strong principles of the brahma-samaj on the brahma-samaj i think this was something passed by devendranat tagore was this marriageable age of girls and keisha arranged this marriage when his daughter was just below that age and it wasn't such a horrible thing but it looked very hypocritical and because of that that there was a big split video krishna goswami was a highly principled person he thought that this was not right even though they were very close so there was a split and kesha ended up with his uh vidhan and and the other brahmos and it's interesting because uh keshob didn't live long after this and vijay didn't stay in the world long after this because he renounced everything and became a monk so uh but this is that that ref reference okay just said he didn't really marry his daughter for the for the money of it it was arranged a very good marriages uh he was looking after her welfare so anyhow master said kaiser's case is quite different god provides everything for a genuine devotee even without his making any effort the son of a real king gets his monthly allowance i am not talking of lawyers and men of that sort who go through suffering in order to earn money and who become slaves of others to that end i'm speaking of a real prince a true devotee has no desire he does not care for money money comes to him of itself so it sounds like he's saying in keshav's case that it wasn't greed or anything and kaiser probably knew that he wouldn't live long at that time when he arranged the marriage because he's suffering so badly at this time and uh tucker knows when even when tucker first went met em one of the first things he asked him when he finds out there's a connection with the lizzie ishan who's related and he says oh was keisha because he knew he was ill at that time so it's quite likely that the kesha felt some urgency to arrange this marriage of course i'm guessing at all of this because of his own health and you know tucker never blamed him for it the gita describes such a devotee as content with what comes to him without effort we have a few different places where this this idea is there and it's really meant for if we do it literally it's meant for the sadhus uh if we take it a little bit figuratively it's meant for everyone the real devotee that means that uh for assad they won't make any effort even for anything whatever comes of its own this is a practice that some will do swamiji did this on different occasions where he said today i won't even beg for my food we'll see if tuck would bring something for me or not and almost always something would come that way so there's some sadhus that won't even do that whatever comes of its own without effort even shuska barnabat they'll just be like the dried leaf on the tree they won't make any effort wherever the wind blows them they'll go for the for the householder it simply means that whatever comes after performance of duty unselfish duty then one is content with that not always seeking more uh more money and more wealth and and enjoyments and everything this idea of contentment uh contend with what comes without effort or without much effort there's a very nice verse i don't know where it's from a candidate there's a definition of who was a brahmana you know that verse yeah that he use who will uh wear any clothes eat any food that means whatever comes to him who can lie down anywhere him the gods call a brahmana and not someone who's just born in a brahmin family there's a definition of a brahman from a spiritual point of view who's worthy to be there are a lot of verses and put on us and others and other things they talk about this nama brahman those who are brahmana name only and this is this is who is really living in brahmin the person who doesn't care about uh where they where they sleep what food they get what clothes they have anything like that content with whatever comes taking it is mother's will or just taking it as uh this is my karma this is what is is due to me from whatever i did in the past so i won't i won't question it i'll be content so gita describes such a devotee that's content with what comes to him without effort a good brahman without any personal motive can accept food even from the house of an untouchable orthodox brahman village and then family his father was extremely orthodox that way for him to say this is amazing how liberal a liberal thinker that he was he does not desire it it comes of its own accord hey devotee sir how should one live in the world now you remember when m asked a series of questions in the very beginning this was one of the important questions that he asked master and taco will give the same answer this was one of the answers he gave live in the world as the mudfish lives in the mud one develops love of god by going away from the world into solitude now and now and then and meditating on god okay so he's giving he's not giving a follow-up with that first part we'll get it later but the first part is live in a world without being attached to anything so that no stain comes and the second thing is go into solitude from time to time the third thing of course will be holy company he doesn't uh talk about it here i think but uh when am asked the question he'll he'll mention those three things especially one keep holy company to go into solitude from time to time and three lead a life of detachment live in the world like uh the maidservant in the rich man's home or like the mudfish he said one can live in a world unattached the mud is there and the fish has to live in it but its body is not stained by the mud such a person can lead the life of a householder in the spirit of detachment the master noticed that m was listening to his words with great attention now this is what i was saying that uh and was was really this was he was a very serious person to begin with he didn't laugh and joke around that much tucker noticed that at the very beginning that these young boys were laughing and everything and he said oh you see him sitting there he's a little bit older than the others he was 28 or something and the others were 18 or 20 something like that so but here he's really listening very carefully because in his mind he has this dilemma he really uh we don't see it so specifically mentioned here because these will be private conversations with srama krishna but he really he would have been very happy if taqwa would have allowed him to become a sannyasis he was we feel that taco left him in the world to to give this special ideal gurihi sanyasi that someone while uh in the ghastia ashram in the householder stage of life has the mindset of a and he really had that and we know that there were different times when he would even sleep among the homeless to feel that he had no home he would go there was in front of where is it the metropolitan college any other big open area and a lot of homeless people would just put their blankets down and sleep there so he would do it sometime just just to feel that he also was fully relying on god had nothing no home of his own nothing to to call his own university metropolitan university or something so we know and and it's his family life wasn't very happy uh at some point i don't know if it already happened or it happens after this the child dies son dies wife goes nearly mad maybe they so uh great turmoil in his mind so taco is noticing it that not just listening to his words with great attention but really should he lead the householder life should he renounce everything because in those days it wasn't that unusual that even a married person had this tremendous renunciation feeling of great argue that they would leave the world they would renounce the world in fact there's one one time did we read it yet it comes later i think when tucker is looking for him and he can't find him and then later he says oh i thought for a minute that you dumped the wall and ran off you know they don't renounce everything then i thought no he doesn't do anything without thinking about it carefully first so tucker noticed that em was listening so he addresses him master looking at them one can realize god if one feels intense dispassion for worldly things a man with such dispassion feels that the world is like a forest on fire he's being a troublemaker now he's just going to create and not i'm joking of course but he's going to create a little more turmoil in him's mind i think he regards his wife and children as a deep well so now i'm just thinking what am i going to do there is another another incident we remember when uh in the beginning when uh m says to surah krishna what should one do if one's a wife is is being becoming an obstacle in one's spiritual life then he says you give up such a wife and if she threatens to commit suicide such an ungodly voice yeah so then again am is deeply thinking oh my god what to do and then tako goes back and says but if one leads a very sincere or spiritual life then everyone around the all family members and everything they'll also come around that way so then he was greatly relieved so he'll also get relieved a little bit after a while but he regards his wife and children as a deep well if he really feels that kind of dispassion he renounces home and family it is not enough for him to live in the world in a spirit of detachment so this is really his grandfather swamiji's grandfather this is a good example that uh after the birth of of one son this is why swamiji had no uncles on his father's side his father was the first son that was born and after he was born then his grandfather renounced the world that was also part of the tradition that if one married at least leave a son to look after the the wife at least do that much and uh so he he renounced the world nobody saw him anymore his name was what was his full name no huh and there were two two special instances one swamiji's grandmother was in benares and she happened to slip and when sadhu was there and they helped her up and she looked and saw it was her husband and he quickly ran away he recognized her and quickly went away then they caught him another time and brought him home forced him somehow and more or less locked him in the room and uh and they saw that he would he would just sit in a minute he didn't take any food they'll throw the appointment he'll just die what what point is it so they left the door open one day and he just escaped so when the swamiji was born narendra they all said he resembled his grandfather and they wanted to name him after the grandfather and then swamiji's mother she said no he was born through the grace of shiva he should be named vireshwar for for shiva and then later they called him of course but that was a genuine case he was a genuine had that real renunciation so swamiji had that in his bones through his family line also lust and gold alone is maya if maya's once recognized it feels ashamed of itself and takes to flight this uh there are some nice sanctuary verses i don't remember them about this that looking at my admirer out of uh out of uh embarrassment will run away there's uh this maya there are other stories uh about this one one i like very much is something ramada maharsi would say about the about the ego this is mostly when we say maya we say we look for this ego we try to find his ego and we won't find it if we search for it takur this is his onion example really that you want to find this this ego you look as and the body mindset is everything you peel away you peel away peel away and there's nothing you find there's no ego left there but does ramon maharsi he says his ego is like an uninvited guest at a wedding wedding crasher that the both sides of the family see somebody walk in and he's very loud and obnoxious and he's drinking too much and eating too much and stuffing things in his pocket and doing everything like that and each thinks that he was invited by the other side of the family and then they look at each other and say they said no did you invite him no and as soon as he knows that he's been caught he runs away so as soon as we this ego is recognized as the real rascal that it is and the troublemaker and everything then it disappears but taco says it comes back this is the problem so what to do about it but out of embarrassment yes now i've been caught i have to run away so there's a great teaching of taku that we recognize that this ego is a flimsy thing it's an unsubstantial thing that there's there's no substance behind it but we can't get rid of that idea of ego it keeps it it'll come back so utilize it form your relationship with god one of the really wonderful teachings if maya's once recognized it feels ashamed of itself and takes to flight a man puts on a tiger skin a man put in a tiger skin and tried to frighten another man but the latter said ah i recognized you you are our huddy at that the man dressed in the skin went away smiling to frighten someone else now we can take this maya also just as ignorance ignorance in general and once we know the real nature of the self or once we know the divine nature of this world or something then we won't get that attachment again all women are the embodiments of shakti it is the primal power that has become women and appears to watch in the form of women it is said in the atma rhino again that narada and others praised rahm is saying o rama thou alone are all that we see as male and sita all that we see as female thou art indra and sita is indrani thou art shiva and sita is shivani thou art man and sita is woman what more need i say thou alone dost exist wherever there is a male and sita wherever there is a female now why all of this this distinction male and female we we know that the sankhya philosophy shock the philosophy all of these see creation as a combination of the active and passive principles or that nature and uh and the absolute infinite near go to brahman sagun of roman however we understand it that there's always this two sides of the same coin and this saguna aspect is always connected with the female side because uh the woman who gives birth to the child child comes out of the woman so when we talk about this universe issuing forth out of this divine womb it'll be looked about as a female otherwise no distinction swamiji is very clear in terms of the ottoman no distinction between men and women there's no sex in the ottoman there's only only one impersonal beyond everything but from this other point of view we have the brahman aspect which is always considered to be inactive and there's a shiva lying flat inert on the ground and the divine mother will be standing and they have to go together this this combination of is of course very very important in the sankia system for them you can't explain reality without both of them together and they're intimately connected but independent inimitably collected with independent and they give this example underpangunyaya the blind person and the lame person that uh prakriti is blind because it's just power and force there's not that the jit there's not the intellect behind it that'll be like a uh a blind person who is very active strong can walk in everything and purusha is like a lame person who can see so both of them have to go someplace one of them can walk but can't see the direction the other knows exactly where to go but can't walk so the lame person gets on the shoulders of the blind person and directs the the blind person uh where to go and they both reach the goal together and you know this is this is one of the these nias these are all these different illustrations that are used uh to explain so this male female uh we have these these images that literally you'll see half of it is a female figure and half of it is a male figure this one way of explaining uh these two aspects of reality we talk about mother nature and father time two differently something like that that the one one is uh the time will be more there's an infinite absolute transcendent and the mother aspect will be the earth mother earth and something like that see what cockroach does first he's saying look upon your wife and everything is uh as the demon and the world is a forest fire and everything then right back but she's the divine mother look upon her see the dwelling within so he gives he does that he'll give these very harsh strong things sometimes and then soften it afterwards he's like an expert physician he used to say first you bring the boil to a head then you can lance it so he knows what he's doing for us it's hard to figure out a little bit to the devotees one cannot renounce by the mere wish so now again reading m's mind he's thinking now him is thinking let me renounce everything then one cannot re renounce by the mere wish there are parabh karma inherited tendencies and the like now this prada the karma we've discussed this so many times the different aspects to it all right what taco is talking about here is samskaras this prada de karma may be responsible for the family we're born into all of that that we can't do anything about and may be responsible for how long we live whether we'll [Music] lead a married life or a life of renunciation uh may have to do with whether uh we have some terrible illness in store we don't know all of these possible possible things he's emphasizing here this idea of some scottish that we're born with very strong tendencies and there may be a very strong tendency to lead the family life to have children and everything and there's no no use trying to pretend that we don't have that tendency and just because we'd love to lead a life of renunciation that we decide to do it despite the fact that the mind is filled with strong worldly tendencies so this is what he's saying it's not just uh we have a desire see anybody who who sees a srama krishna there it'll flash in their minds yes he's achieved that by renouncing everything shouldn't we do it that that doubt may come into the mind but he's saying it's not such a simple thing that this again that one has to be qualified to do to do these things once a yogi said to a king live with me in the forest and think of god the king replied that i cannot very well do i could live with you but i still have the desire for enjoyment if i live in the forest perhaps i shall create a kingdom even here i still have desires now negra kim karishiti this is a very big issue in gita that to what extent can we control these things and when in the context of gita is really this question with our arjuna that is akshatriya and this is his swab and this is something that's very hard for him to ever change that he says you're you're bhava this will make you your nature will make you fight in this battle that there's nothing you can do about it if we think it is what will restraint do if we think that that replies to every samskara we have and every little desire then we'll never strive for anything and we'll never do anything so if because of our old prada the karma that we have some tendency for enjoyment then we have to see it through a little bit but it doesn't mean that the whole life we have to that'll define us spiritual life means some type of struggle if if we say that well this is natural swamiji swamiji used to say spiritual life means fighting nature fighting nature that means our nature doesn't mean the external nature that everybody has worldly tendencies i don't care how how qualified they are to lead a monastic life no one is born without some worldly tendencies and desire for enjoyment it tastes impossible we're we're we're part of this animal kingdom impossible to become unless one is a sukadeva or something it'll be such a rare thing so we have to know what things are really and so inherently uh part of our constitution that that we're better off not trying to change them and what things we simply fight and try to change so swamiji's his theory was take the path of least resistance if it's the householder life then that's the best life there's a monastic life that's the best life but these these uh if the some scatters are very strong then the householder life is meant for that it's meant for allowing enjoyment so that we see through it we reach the end of our we reach the end of it and then the sun life of sanyasa will come later at the end of life or next life and don't think that all of us who renounce it have such wonderful some scholars we we just like to struggle a little more than other people maybe or circumstances or grace whatever pandya used to look after his cows in this garden i don't think we know anything about him huh just somebody enduring his boyhood he had many desires hence he established a castor oil factory and earned a great deal of money he has a prosperous castor oil business at alambazar there is one sect that prescribes spiritual discipline in company with women i was once taken to the women belonging to the karta bhaja sect there were at that time a number of different groups this uh gauche para the sahajiyas different bowel groups that some of them were vaishnava and uh they uh their idea was rather krishna that type of thing others were shocked there's also there are different even muslims this uh a lot of these vows they made no distinction between hindu and muslim they could belong to any community no caste distinction there were always interesting people what is kardashek for some reason the division of he was the uh spiritual leader you can say of this this whole group of devotees and takura didn't have he didn't criticize them uh so much but he warned people against them he he said that they they can also realize god but it's not a clean path the dirty pad it's like going to the entering through the uh back door of the house where the train is where the scavenger goes to clean out the the toilets and everything it still gets you in the house it's possible but he said it's a very dangerous thing but tucker was so innocent he would go with his voice of children to these groups and he would watch them they would start drinking he would think oh now they'll do their japa but instead they start singing and dancing and everything and the women in the manner trying to hook up and everything is very innocent at one point it got too much and he said i'm not going to go back again but he's so he's talking about this i was once taken to the women belonging to the sect they all sat around me i undressed addressed them as mother and that they whispered among themselves he is still a parabolica a beginner in the spiritual pet see seeing takur thinking he's a beginner he doesn't know the way according to that sect the is the beginner then comes the sadhaka the struggling aspirant and last of all the siddha of the siddha usually he mentions four the siddha will be the first and then the siddha of the siddha the supremely perfect a woman walked over to waste of and sat near him i asked him about it he answered she feels just like a young girl one quickly strays from the religious path by looking on woman as wife this this means somebody who's not his wife this because they've they would of course it could be husband and wife but generally these were not these were just liberties but to regard her as mother is a pure attitude now look at all the different things he said to him now he's addressing this devotee who has the question but we get the sense that this is mostly for m so praising this life of intense renunciation at the same time saying see got in in everyone and then saying that uh it's a question of some scada it's not just a question of this great desire to renounce everything you have to be prepared for it telling all of these things now lemon's going to have weeks here to let all of this kind of uh run riot in his mind and uh trying to figure out really what to do with his life we have to remember he was ready to commit suicide when he met suramar krishna that he was in such a state and so unhappy at home with his family life and everything so this isn't that many that much later this is still 1883 it's a year and a half after that some of the devotees took leave of the master saying that they were going to visit the temple of kali and several of the other temples m when walking alone in the panchavati and other places in the temple garden he thought about the master's assurance that god can be easily realized and about his exhortation to lead a life of intense renunciation and is saying that maya when recognized takes to flight at half past three in the afternoon and again entered the master's room and sat on the floor a teacher from the broughton institution had come with several students to pay a visit to suramar krishna they were conversing together now and then the teacher asked questions the conversation was about the worship of images master to the teacher what is wrong with the image worship the vedanta says that brahman manifests itself where there is existence light and love therefore nothing exists but bruhman how long do small girls play with their dolls as long as they are not married and do not live with their husbands after marriage they put the dolls away in a box what further need is there of worshiping the image after the vision of god so suramar krishna and swamiji also they recognize that this is an early step kindergarten sometimes they say of religion but necessary for some people we were reading you'll forgive me for quoting him all the time but i i that's what i'm reading and he's so insightful he says if we look at spiritual life as climbing a ladder and there are different rungs of the ladder if the first rung is image worship taking the help of some some symbol if that's the first wrong and we're not ready for anything higher and we refuse to take that step we'll never climb the ladder we'll never climb the ladder so we take advantage of things and there'll be many people we've seen some of the great soldiers of our order it's knotted they reach a state in spiritual life well they they don't show any respect for images they'll still go in pilgrimage go to temples everything and do with great devotion do pranam in the temple it's not that uh but they don't need it is they they can sit in meditation and also uh feel the divine within they don't have to do that but uh it becomes a joyful thing we we get attached a little bit to these these divine images and it's a and helpful and helpful i don't think any of us feel that we're bowing down before clay and you know photographs and things like that is what they stand for you remember the very nice incident in the life of swamiji when he was talking to one of the marajas somewhere where in gujarat maybe and the one who was there and everything and they were talking about image worship and uh how why do people just worship this image is not god image is not god assistant was there huh they wanted something and he said okay you you give me the picture of the marajas the photograph on the wall and uh you put it down and spit on it see what he said or step on his foot and spit on it he said how can i spit it on it it's the picture of the of the they said but it's not him it's just the picture and then he explained see because you have reverence for the person you have reference for the for the picture also because we have reverence for god we have reference for the image that represents it see these all of the educated people it wasn't just the brahmos but it's all of them because of the influence of the british they all had this big doubt about the image worship is it really idolatry they were told right and left by the missionaries that this is idolatry that only heathens worship these images and everything is down it was a very strong doubt in the minds of so many people how long the small girls play with their dolls as long as they are not married and do not live with their husbands after marriage they put the dolls away in a box what further need is their of worshiping the image after the vision of god did tucker stop going to the kali temple he still went but there was no need he didn't have to do it he had the highest realization the master glanced at him and said one attains god when one feels yearning for him and intense restlessness is needed through what the whole mind goes to god okay let's stop here so anyhow we can just we can just imagine uh what em is going through this turmoil in his mind there's a very important chapter i think that uh because tsunami krishna he knows that m has planned this he knows that emma's going to spend several days there and in solitude and meditation and so he's not just lightly without thinking about it telling him all of these things these are for him i feel especially all of these teachings and for him to understand the need for renunciation and at the same time to [Music] know that after this that he can go back to his family and lead the life of non-detachment and perform his duty and so this is really one of the most important periods where astronomy krishna is training him not training him for any special thing but just uh so that he can uh his his mind will have a little bit of contentment and he'll be able to pursue his spiritual life and everything anyhow this is my this is my imagination the tucker is thinking all these things okay let's close here [Music] today who was stainless of infinite nature whose heart melts in sympathy for his devotees who is an embodiment of the divine and the supreme lord and ever worthy of our worship peace peace you