This is from My brother at Laguna beach Kali temple; Swami Bhajanananda Saraswati (friends with Janaka Mark Stevens) also commented on his photo. Swami wrote: DEVOTEE: Reverend sir! What is the way? SRI RAMAKRISHNA said in Kathamrita: There are two ways. The way of discrimination and the way of love or devotion. The way of discrimination is reasoning about the real and the unreal. The only true eternal substance is God and all the rest is unreal and impermanent. The magician alone is real and the magic unreal. This is discrimination. Discrimination and renunciation. This judgment about the real and the unreal is discrimination. Renunciation is aversion for worldly objects. This does not happen in a day. It is necessary to practice everyday. One has to renounce lust and greed mentally in the beginning. Afterwards, by the will of God, one should renounce them outwardly as well as mentally. It is not possible to ask the people of Calcutta, “Give up all for the sake of God.” One has to say “Give up mentally.” It is possible to give up lust and greed through the yoga of repeated practice. The Gita mentions it. Extraordinary power develops in the mind through repeated practice; thereafter, it is not difficutl to control the sense, to control lust and anger. Just as a tortoise does not put out its limbs once it draws them in. it does not put them out again even if it is cut to pieces with an axe. DEVOTEE: Reverend sir! You spoke of two paths. What is the other one? SRI RAMAKRISHNA: The path of love or devotion. Cry once with yearning in solitude, in privacy, asking Her to reveal Herself. “Cry, O my mind! to the dark Mother with real yearning And how can She ever stay unmobed?” DEVOTEE: Reverend sir! What is the meaning of worship of God with form? And what again is the meaning of God without form and without attributes? DEVOTEE: Just as looking at your father’s photograph, your father comes to your mind, so also by worshipping an image, the nature of reality becomes manifest. Do you know what the form of reality is like? It is just like the bubbles rising from the depths of an expanse of water. Divine forms are seen rising one after another from the great space, the space of consciousness. The divine incarnation (avatar) is also a form. The activities of the avatar are a play of that Primal Energy Herself. What is there in scholarship? God can be realized if one cries to Her with yearning. No need to know many things. He alone who is a teacher needs to know many things. You need sword and shield to kill others. One needs only a needle or a nail-knife to kill oneself. If one goes searching after the “I”, one finds the Divine only. “Am I flesh or bone or blood or marrow or mind or intellect?” Finally one realizes through reasoning that one is none of these things. This is the negative process of neti neti—not this, not this. The atman (Self) can never be grasped or touched. It is without attributes, without marks. But according to the path of devotion, God has attributes. Krishna is the form of consciousness, His abode is consciousness; everything is consciousness. ____ Dust came. Thakur (Ramakrishna) viewed the Ganga. The lamp was lighted in his room. Sri Ramakrishna repeated the names of the Divine Mother and meditated on Her sitting on his bed. Evening services started in the temples. Those who were strolling on the embankment and in the panchavati heard from a distance the sweet sound of bells at the evening service. Floodtide had just come and the Ganga flowed north making a gurgling sound. The sweet music of the evening service mixed with the murmur of the river became still more sweet. Amid all this Thakur Sri Ramakrishna sat intoxicated with divine love. Everything was sweet. The heart was filled with sweetness. Sweetness all around. I hope you will enjoy it. Now, Think and think deeper, find time for it.............Sumantasam Chakravarti
Posted on: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 17:23:55 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015