Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna Lecture 031 on 23-March-2021

Full Transcript(Not Corrected)

OM JANANIM SHARADAM DEVIM RAMAKRISHNAM JAGADGURUM PADAPADMETAYO SRIDHVA PRANAMAMI MUHURMUHU We are talking about how Sri Ramakrishna has been teaching us a lesson establishing dharma sthapana naturally I will have to remind you what is the relationship between the gospel of Sri Ramakrishna and what we are discussing the duties of every human being and such marvelous way comprehensive way unambiguous way Vedanta discusses the duties of each stage of life just to remind ourselves whole life is an evolutionary progress whether we want it or not we are standing on an evolutionary belt and we are all standing it is moving in spite of ourselves and division of life according to the three gunas and division of life according to one's progress in spiritual life that is being discussed here earlier we had seen why Sri Ramakrishna had to keep holy mother and how he respected his father and mother Matru Devo Bhava, Pitru Devo Bhava, Acharya Devo Bhava and that Matru Devo Bhava is not merely meant for children to respect their parents it also includes Pati Devo Bhava, Patni Devo Bhava if this relationship is not maintained then a householder is unfit to get married there was a wonderful incident very high lesson learning incident there was a monk he became a monk he was a disciple of Mahapurush Maharaj I think so and one day he approached and said that I am unable to control my lust Maharaj I want to leave this order and go and get married then Mahapurush Maharaj inquired a few things about him and then he passed a very wonderful remark he said you are unfit to live a married life not only you are unfit to live a monk's life you are unfit to live a married life people think just because we come of age then we are fit to get married the result if such a thing happens and it is happening then they are called Rakshasas, Asuras and so Swami Vivekananda used to say we are all the children of Virochana body is the greatest God and Kama and Kanchana lust and gold are our twin deities whom we are worshipping day and night this is not a human life this is an animal life so certain duties are there and I consider one of the most important duties of parents there are there as I say there are two important duties of specially householders first when they come of a particular age let us say taking into consideration even today's standards 60th year is the cutoff period and we will have to slowly enter into the third stage of life which is called Vanaprastha Ashrama and this is the first stage and it is also highly economical I think much of the jobless problems that we are encountering economic problems we are encountering will be removed by following this Ashrama Dharma the second most important duty is what is it that parents are expected to give to their children it is not enough just to educate them to give them wonderful dress pocket money and just let them grow as animal children not as normal or really expected children they will have to give them the greatest gift of Varasatva we call it that is from the treasure of the parents that possess an automatically not merely physical treasure but moral as well as spiritual treasure so the greatest duty is to see that they are instructed in what is Dharma and how they have to put it into practice obviously it means that first they have to practice it and then only the children will listen and definitely it will have its influence I used to read read as digest and in the earlier editions many years back there used to be inspiring stories practically in every issue and later on they collected these issues together and they published into one single book most marvelous book great lives great deeds now in that there are certain incidents are there and the what are the duties of the parents teachers etc one journalist took it into his head that I would like to interview this of course happened many years back all the great people at that age and then ask them one single question what is it that inspired you to become great and he went around many great people and he also wrote to people whom he could not meet and surprisingly he was expressing it in one of the issues of the readers digest inevitably invariably they all many of them have replied either it is their father or it is their mother and many of them have referred to there was one particular teacher not particularly impressive personality as a teacher but she had done her best to inspire people not merely teaching what what is written in the textbooks but bringing the lives of great people many incidents from their lives and used to inspire the students and all the students later on gratefully acknowledged it is all what we are today is because of what we received from that teacher and the journalist traced that teacher and she was quite old but very sharp even at that old age and then he narrated what had happened and asked her what inspired you to teach your students extracurricular lessons like this and she said i don't remember exactly what she said but the essence is this that i deemed it as my duty not only to impart the subject matter but above all i consider the life a person lives as more important than what he learns from the textbooks or how much money he earns etc so i am not a great person i did what best i could to tell what i sincerely myself believed in so if that could be the inspiration of a ordinary school teacher we can understand where our children grow with us practically until they are quite grown up sometimes even after growing up and if we do not inspire them that would be the greatest dereliction of duty that was what maha nirvana tantra and many other dharma shastras are outlining and that was what swami vekaranda is categorically telling us the following are the duties towards the children a son should be lovingly reared up to his up to his fourth year he should be educated till he is 16 when he is 20 years of age he should be treated as equal to the father exactly in the same manner a daughter should be brought up and should be educated with the greatest care and when she marries the father ought to give her jewels and wealth i would like to insert a small note here at some point in the history i do not know exactly when our father's parents somehow started treating their daughters as unwanted children it is well known in the history how many daughters used to be female children used to be thrown to the crocodiles to the rivers because of the fear of dowry etc how many people committed suicide unable to fulfill the demands of the son-in-law etc one of the greatest evils that had taken place in indian history especially in the hindu history how many daughters were mercilessly burnt of which i have spoken in my last classes how many women have been neglected and our holy mother herself one of the greatest examples she was unable to go to school and her parents of course willingly or unwillingly unconsciously neglected to send her but what happened was that there was one niece of holy mother called lakshmi devi and then she was going to school and she had basic textbooks and when she used to come back home holy mother eagerly used to ask her you teach me what you have learned and one day sri ram krishna's hriday noticed this snatch away the book from holy mother said ladies women should never be educated because they are very bad characters they will grow up and start reading romantic novels and then all sorts of mischievous ideas come into their heads and they must be pativarathas how how much distortion has come in the propagation of dharma dividing men from the women male from the female all attention has been given only to the male and female has been neglected of course i have to admit it's not only in the hinduism but in christianity worse in islam women have been treated like chattel but hinduism also committed a gravest sin that was one of the greatest discoveries of swami vekananda neglect of the women neglect of the masses so what what is this maha nirvana tantra is telling exactly like the male children in the same manner the daughter should be brought up and should be educated with the greatest care and when she marries the father ought to give her jewels and wealth fortunately it after this modern government has come the wealth also nowadays according to law should be distributed among all the children equally male and female okay now we will continue swami vekananda continues then the duty of man is towards his brothers and sisters and towards the children of his brothers and sisters if they are poor and towards his other relatives his friends and his servants then his duties are towards the people of the same village and the poor and anyone that comes to him for help having sufficient means if a householder doesn't take care to give to his relatives and to the poor know him to be only a brute he is not a human being here also i would like to insert a small note here it is there that the duty of man is towards his brothers and sisters towards the children of his brothers and sisters but the dharmashastra inserts a very precautionary note if they are poor and it goes even towards the children also so i'm just giving a practical example i don't want merely a theoretician supposing there are parents they are quite rich and they have children children have been educated and they are married perhaps and they are earning good amount of money they are not poor at all now comes what should the property of the parents where should it go should it go to the children because it is they are my children and here sadly most of our devotees fall into the trap and i will tell you two reasons what is that a trap and it should be avoided first of all if a person claims i'm a devotee of god then his attention should be that what does god expect me and only i should do what he expects me and should not do what he doesn't expect me to so sriram krishna is an exemplary and then you know what he said a devotee should be he is of course he was talking about sannyasin a sannyasin should not have any attachment but a householder also should develop detachment how ram krishna gives an example of birds here are the parent birds both male and female they have laid the egg hatched the egg the young one has come and they will not mate until this hatchling grows into such a capacity that it is able to gather its own food and once it grows up if that one still wants to cling to the parents then the parents kick the young one out of the nest and start a new family sriram krishna used to tell and that is what i would like to remind my duty is only to tell what is right and there ram krishna categorically states if the children are quite wealthy and they are standing on their own feet they are quite capable of looking upon themselves it is not the duty of the parents to pass on their property to their children sadly i think 99.99 percent of our devotees fail in this duty and yet dare to claim that they are true spiritual aspirants devotees of god so common sense has to be used are my children quite capable or i know several cases where people especially when i was in uk and there were a millionaires who own several houses and their children are earning quite a good amount of money and they claim to be devotees of sriram krishna and they don't have the heart what they distribute to the in the service of sriram krishna in the form of poor people is peanuts so to say anyway i will become very unpopular if i go on talking like this so the duty of every householder is to help his family near family brothers sisters only if they are poor and until they are poor and so also his other relatives his friends and servants and then that doesn't end there then everybody who is poor who deserve everybody to the one's extent one has to help naturally the question comes that should a householder be a spend thrift and go on giving the idea is a householder has also a right to save for a rainy day as we say for future but a true devotee totally depends upon god that's why there are several people quite wealthy people they voluntarily renounce every property and live especially brahmins several vrittis they call it ways of surviving one is bhiksha collecting madhukari madhukari means like a honeybee going from flower to flower just taking a little bit and in the process also returning in the form of pollinization this is called madhukari madhukara vritti is called madhukari then there is called uncha vritti uncha vritti that is they go to the fields and in the earlier days farmers used to leave something and then they will gather whatever seeds or paddy things like that and they live in that way. Swami Vivekananda gives a beautiful story how a brahmana gave up and his entire family gave up in order to feed a guest and as a result they went to heaven and even most marvelous story two birds and each is great in his own place that was the chapter in karma yoga two birds entertained a monk and a king etc and they gave up their lives for trying to try trying to feed these guests so-called guests as a result they went to heaven now this is a great story of course it is an extreme example i do not think it will be very practical here but what is meant is common sense should be used and this is one reason why i said i told you that this is part of the duty of becoming a bhakta after all we are discussing the gospel of sriram krishna only for the sake of progressing in spiritual life going towards nearer to god the nearer we approach god just as sriram krishna used to say the nearer a man approaches blazing fire the hotter he becomes until when he becomes one with the fire he himself becomes a fire in a way of speaking what it means is as we approach god we become godlike and we acquire godlike qualities that is looking upon everybody as equal no question of i and mine and all these do's and don'ts are gradually to lead us towards that highest culmination so if a person doesn't commonsensically share and care he is not a loving person and a person who says he loves god but doesn't love anybody in this world especially the poor and the needy such a person's love is not only worthless it is hypocritical love so such a person's swami vekananda quoting from maha nirvana tantra of course he modified the language of the maha nirvana tantra a little bit he is no him to be only a brute he is not a human being then excessive attachment to food cloths and the feeding of the body tending of the body and dressing of the hair should be avoided the householder must be pure in heart and clean in body always active and always ready for work now the idea here is that excessive attachment there will be a normal attachment it is at this stage of our spiritual growth to expect any one of us that you are not i am not the body that is very unrealistic we should be neat we should be clean and we should be keeping everything nicely etc but excessive attachment i cannot live unless i get this food or cloths nowadays you know when i was in uk sometimes when i used to travel in the london city i used to be astonished the people who sell the dresses a whole street is filled and each shop huge shop like almost 10 to 15 blocks each shop you even now if you go there you can see that i used to wonder how do they maintain how do they pay the rent in this costliest city of the whole world how do they sell obviously they're keeping there obviously they're selling obviously they're making profit and people buy excessive cloths excessive ornaments excessive ointments the whole bathroom or dress room is filled with all these things it is if worldly people want to have them we have nothing to say this subject is not meant for worldly people only for those who sincerely long for spiritual realization they should be simple and dressing of the hair etc should be avoided there is all that means deha bhimana i am the body the whole spiritual practice is to reduce this identity with the body and with the attachments but if we go on taking great care not only it is unspiritual it is antisocial too you might be wondering what is the swami talking about antisocial well it is here suppose there is a let us say woman devotee as an example male devotee also appears and that person takes care to appear very beautiful the moment that person steps out of the house everybody's most people's side will be they'll be attractive that means they are attracting the thoughts of other people male female and other people also that means what they're violating the vow of chastity they may not do physically grossly something wrong but they're saying look here how beautiful i am and i am worthy of being enjoyed by every one of you that's why i am drawing your attention to you this is the main this one whether one puts on beautiful scent or puts on lipstick etc mind you i am not talking that one should not be neat clean and beautiful and simple there is a pure pure way of being beautiful and there is an immodest immoral way of being beautiful one has to be very careful otherwise who is going to suffer only spiritual spirituality is going to be suffered moving on to the to his enemies the householder must be hero then he there he then he must resist that is the duty of the householder he must not sit down in a corner and weep and talk nonsense about non-resistance prarabdha puro janma karma and this world is duniya teen din ka hai this is what is there if they want to take you take away and our india has courted ruin only because they misunderstood the highest vedanta philosophy jagat brahma satyam jagat mithya for whom is this teaching jagat mithya not for ordinary people it is meant for the highest sannyasin who had acquired sadhana chatushtaya sampatti mainly it is meant for sannyasins not for householders for householders it is the the world is not mithya the world is a leela of god god created the world so that we can advance in spiritual life by slowly expanding ourselves our love our caring and sharing and our tolerance forbearance to all the unexpected events that can happen in life all these things are there to expand ourself from the narrow selfishness to the greatest selflessness we should we must never forget at all so a householder should resist of course i am not saying that many many wicked people are very wicked and they they can prove to be very brutes they can also injure or kill which we read every day in the newspapers but the point is that if it is possible strong enough somebody must protest and somebody must report if somebody is doing something else then only he is a good householder then only there is a chance for him to progress in spiritual life so if a householder doesn't show himself a hero to his enemies he has not done his duty and to his friends and relatives he must be as gentle as a lamb there is a saying vajradapi kathorani mruduni kusumadapi the hearts of great saints vajradapi kathorani harder than a diamond when when he himself has to suffer or go through hardship but when other people suffering is witnessed mruduni kusumadapi that person must become extremely gentle so this is one then we will continue there are lots of things we have to discuss swami vekananda discusses it in his karma yoga but because this is a gospel place i will just touch briefly accepting where it is necessary to elaborate a little bit it is the duty of the householder not to pay reverence to the wicked because if he reverences the wicked people of the world he patronizes wickedness and it will be a great mistake if he disregards those who are worthy of respect the good people he must not be okay so if there are wicked people adharmic people then it is the citizens every citizen's duty to report it of course the counter comes if we try to do that we will be in great harm i'll tell you something very interesting at one time i i think it was in brindavan somebody was there he was severely beaten injured crying for help and then one of our swamis saw him and then he was trying to help some people were shouting no no don't even go near anywhere then the swami he never understood this philosophy he asked why are you preventing me from helping this person he will die if i don't help him then the passersby were telling we can understand swami your sympathy but if you take this person the first person that would be harassed by the police will be you they will never try to find out take the trouble to find out how this person had come to this end but you are the nearest person and police will harass you and i think there is a great truth in that statement such is the condition of our poor india where we are afraid to help helpless people even though we know that we are in a position at least to do some help but a householder according to our dharmashastra should be a hero and every great king should be protecting such kind of citizens encouraging such kind of citizens so if he disregards those who are i'll come to that so patronizing wickedness is a great mistake and it will be still greater mistake if a householder disregards those who are worthy of respect the good people so not only a person must actively take part in see that evil doesn't propagate but when a person finds a good person then that person must be highlighted he must be held up as an ideal to everybody including himself and his own children and unfortunately nowadays we only put up hold up only those people who are cinema actors actresses are great wealthy people and then the people who are celebrities who are whose lives most of their lives are the most brutal lives in the whole world most sinful lives in the whole world from the spiritual point of view so a householder also must respect good people and then only there is chance not only he will be a good householder but he will also be a good example for other people and such a country where such a large number of good householders reside that country will be a great country and a householder must not be gushing in his friendship he must not go out of the way making friends everywhere he must watch the actions of the men he wants to make friends with and their dealings with other men reason upon them and then only make friends in other words friends will be the mahamrutyu not only they will eat up your time your energy they create bad vibrations and many times there is the danger of their influencing dragging us down to the world so much of wonderful truth is there in the dharmashastras if we wish to progress not only in spiritual life keep the society in a very good condition so then swamiji is quoting these three things he must not talk of a householder must not talk in public of his own fame maybe a person is a great great person a great musician great scientist great statesman or in a great position great writer great speaker great player there's so many great people are there in this world we have to recognize god's manifestation in them but he should never trumpet his own fame he must not preach his own name or his own powers he must not talk of his wealth or of anything that has been told to him privately a man must never say he is poor or that he is wealthy he must not brag of his wealth let him keep his own council this is his religious duty this is not merely worldly wisdom if a man doesn't do so he may be held to be immoral because trumpeting one's own glory or greatness and it is funny many kings used to employ by paying money these are called vandimagadis early morning before the king gets up oh king this world has never seen another great man like you you are the son of such and such a great grandfather grand mother and then father and mother 14 generations they'll be praising however stupid this king might be exceptional cases are there but these vandimagadis are employed that's why when sriram krishna made use it to meet a devotee called shambhu malli and then directly one day sriram krishna questioned why do you keep these flatterers with you of course that fellow was very clever fellow intelligent fellow and he said oh but acharya so that you can rescue them you can save them you are the savior that was not the real answer but one should never brag one should never allow others to brag of his greatness what is the simple reason but any such thing exhibition will only go to bolster our ego and we are trying to reduce our egotism not to increase the strength of our egotism ahankara must be reduced we move on the householder is the basis the prop of the whole society he is the principal earner the poor the weak the children the women who and the women and who just minute they have to be maintained only all these people maintain their duties with the help of the householder and these duties must make the householder feel strong to perform them and not to make him think that he is doing things beneath his ideal therefore if he has done something weak or has made some mistake he must not say so in the public if a person has got greatness hide it if a person has weakness do not publicly exhibit that one or brag about it rather go to the guru and beg his help i have this weakness oh guruji please help me to overcome it after life is there to slowly get rid of our mistakes and strengthen our abilities therefore a householder must never brag about in public and he should not talk about his failures also such self-exposure not only uncalled for but also unnerves the man and makes him unfit for the performance of his legitimate duties in life at the same time and he is very important thing at the same time he must struggle hard to acquire these things firstly knowledge secondly wealth it is his duty and if he doesn't do these things then he is a nobody he is neglecting his duties what are the duties acquire as much knowledge as possible acquire as much wealth as possible this looks strange here is a man whose duty whose goal is to move towards god and what is the use of acquiring knowledge because knowledge is none other than Saraswati whether it is Paravidya or Aparavidya both are very helpful in this world knowledge is always uplifting problem is not knowledge problem is the misuse or improper use of the knowledge if somebody comes to learn music and if this person comes to know impart to that man or it could be any other type of knowledge that's only an example i give at the same time in the Taittiriya Upanishad and many of these things are elaborations of the 11th section of the first chapter of Taittiriya called Sikshavalli it is called a convocation address i spoke about it many times when the students are about to return home from the Gurukula this is called Samavartana returning home soon afterwards he will get married the student the young man gets married and about to assume responsibility as a good householder and that is where the commandments for life in the form of convocation address are given by the Guru and at the end of the address the Upanishad tells us this is the commandment like a military commandment this is the greatest teaching that will take anybody who follows them to the highest goal this is the Veda this is the Upanishad such is the glory of this that is where it comes and then comes Bhooti means acquiring wealth one should never neglect the acquisition of as much wealth as possible of course in a dharmic way so naturally the question that comes is is not this person going to be more involved more attached that is not the point the point is the householder is the prop the more wealthy he is the more he is dutiful towards the station of life the more he can support all the other three ashramas the brahmachari ashrama vanaprastha ashrama sanyasa ashrama and the family and the relatives and the poor people and even the scholars and others and the artists and others and the king and others everybody depends upon the support of this householder if he is not wealthy then he cannot help much but here the commandment is through right means acquire doesn't mean that he has to be rolling in luxury so what is called he doesn't share his things with others but only uses selfishly no you also enjoy because if a person doesn't enjoy his householder's life he will not be happy person and an unhappy person can never think of god who is of the nature of the pure happiness satchitananda swaroopa atman can never be contemplated by a miserable what is called depressed type of person that's why swami vivekananda ji used to say the day you are depressed don't come out of your room and make the whole world also miserable okay so a householder has to it is his bounden duty to acquire knowledge to acquire wealth and then distribute it to the people who deserve it that is the most important point observe carefully the following a householder who then struggle to get wealth is immoral if he is lazy and content to lead an ideal life is immoral because upon him depends hundreds if he gets riches hundreds of others will be thereby supported literally it is true orphans poor people etc going after wealth in such a case is not bad but because that wealth is for distribution a householder the center of life and society it is a worship for him to acquire and spend wealth nobly for the householder who struggles to become rich by good means and for good purposes is doing practically the same thing for the attainment of salvation as the anchorite does in his cell when he is praying for in them we see only the different aspects the same virtue of self-surrender and self-sacrifice prompted by the feeling of devotion to god and to all that is his i remember in the very beginning of the gospel of sairam krishna one day m asks sairam krishna by that time he came to know about the teachings of sairam krishna and then probably he did not properly understand some teachings of sairam krishna m asks sairam krishna is it okay to earn more wealth sairam krishna gives a categorical reply he says yes for a householder he should earn money but he says it is only through piteous means not by cheating not by crooked ways not by cheating others but a dharmic way and then we have to take note of sairam krishna's life and that money must be spent in the worship of god in serving the sadhus and holy people and in helping the poor people this is one type of teaching for what i call a lower type of householder then there is a higher type of householder is there even there what does what do i mean there are people this is i have to remind you even though you're all you have heard me so many times and you can guess what i am talking about a person who is just married until he enters into vanaprasthashrama for that person whatever we had been discussing about it that should apply he must earn more money but at the same time he must make time for worshipping god praying to god reading good books cultivating satsanga remember those five commandments he must cultivate holy company he must now and then retire into a solitary place and call on god with greater yearning and he must always discriminate between what is permanent and what is impermanent and finally he must lead a life of detachment like a maid servant in a rich man's house this is applicable from until a person arrives into the vanaprastha state but as soon as a person becomes a little bit aged and if he has got sufficient money to live a simple life by that time usually the children are well educated well fed well grown up and most likely they are standing on their own feet and it is no longer a householder's duty that we discussed all along then he should gradually try to withdraw withdraw the mind from the external world to the internal world that means more towards god withdrawing the mind from the world and directing towards god that is what is called vanaprastha ashrama if there is a solitary place that's very good here i want to give you a small bit of information we have got in our Ramakrishna order several vanaprastha ashramas we call them usually sometimes old age homes both men and women several hundreds of men and women we take them and they have wonderful marvelous opportunity to live in the ashrama and to attend the classes and more exclusively to practice spiritual disciplines so Ramakrishna is giving to this second type of stage of householder's life who have not yet become householders who are more deeply interested in spiritual life for such people he said that you must earn whatever is needed for the maintenance of the family and a little bit of help to the world this appears to be contradictory to what we have been studying not at all what Sri Ramakrishna means is that there are devotees householders of course and they have not acquired sufficient devotion to god and they have to go through this rigmarole of householdership where all the things earn more money earn more knowledge that is applicable but there are advanced householders even they may be young for them the Sri Ramakrishna advises more dependence upon god just earn what is necessary for the maintenance of the family naturally the question comes what happens a householder supporting the indigent people, poor people, old people, sannyasins, vanaprasthis and the students etc that is Sri Ramakrishna is a different type of answer for that he says that it is none of the business of anybody and it is also not possible for anybody to look after even a single person a completely different answer the world is not a small place that anybody can dare to say I will help the world the god who created this world only he has the power and he has the knowledge what to do what not to do and he will look after them now we should be extremely discriminative to understand the difference between these two sets of teachings one is for those who are yet to grow in spiritual life for that kind of householder the first type all this we are discussing will apply for those who are quite advanced in spiritual life householders who are well advanced in spiritual life for them the second set of teaching because to earn more money or to even get acquire more what is called worldly knowledge one has to invest in time energy and neglect so many other things so Sri Ramakrishna says see you have advanced enough and whatever you have acquired whatever you knowledge you have acquired or wealth you acquired more than sufficient now just devote more of your time life energy attention to more important thing called spiritual life that is the advice of Sri Ramakrishna so we have to be careful even when we are discussing these duties that there are shades of differences between all of them then a good householder must struggle to acquire a good name by all means he must not gamble remember the whole Mahabharata story is a story of fight between the good and the evil and when we are talking about this very generalized compartment called good and evil all the Kauravas are bad people and only the Pandavas are good people such a view is a very simplistic view a person who holds that view is a dullard what is the real thing among Pandavas there are many cruel people wicked people and weak people among Kauravas there were good people are there Duryodhana had done very much good to so many of his people when Karna was completely neglected it was Duryodhana who recognized his capacity and he uplifted him and he remained a friend throughout his life very interesting I will just deviate in today's class and will continue in our future classes when Duryodhana Karna was not recognized as a Kshatriya but only as a son of a charioteer then it was Duryodhana who recognized his special talent and then of course there are ulterior motives were there but that's not the only thing he made him the king of some I forget some Rajya and made him a king so that he can be treated equally as a Kshatriya and whole life he treated him more than his most intimate friends so it is said a very funny incident one day this Duryodhana's wife was playing some kind of dice and Karna entered there he had access to go and at that time Duryodhana's wife was not properly dressed but Karna was not a person to gawk at this his friend's wife or anybody he was a very noble person extremely noble person and he was also called Dhanakarna he was requested by Bhanumati Duryodhana's wife so Karna I am getting bored with other people let us play together and Karna also obliged happily he was absorbed in it at that time Duryodhana came and you know what happened Duryodhana did not chide how come my wife is not properly dressed and you are a male and you dare to enter and look at my wife Duryodhana never suspected Karna even for a millisecond that he was an impure person and Karna never looked upon any other woman as an object of enjoyment or anything these are most marvelous things even today we will not get but the most important point I wanted to bring to your notice was not this Yudhishthira he brought all this heap of miseries by his conduct we praise he was a most righteous person that's right he had wonderful qualities but for the because of the one bad quality he drowned his whole family his brothers everybody into the utmost hell his weakness of Judah of playing cards and he himself admits he had no right to do that Draupadi points out to him after he gambled her how dare a man gamble his wife whom he should treat as a divine mother as we are studying the duties of a husband how you should look upon the wife how did Sriram Krishna treat holy mother how did Yudhishthira treat Draupadi at that moment he lost all his common sense Draupadi as we know turns towards Bhishma, Drona and says is it right for my husband to gamble with me and all those great greaties they never opened their mouth they just bent down their heads not one single person had the guts to reply that what Yudhishthira had done was bad they never pointed out what Yudhishthira has done wrong now what is the point we are talking that every great man will have some weaknesses every wicked person also will have great qualities are there now our main subject point is here that we have with good and evil it is not very easy to discern every person will have only the proportion will differ but for us all these duties as brought out by Swami Vivekananda are most wonderful and again once more why am i why are we discussing especially why am i discussing instead of the sweet parts think of God and sing of God meditate upon God depend upon God etc because all those things are meant for those people who have gone through all these steps acquired the Sadhana Chaturthi Sampanna Sampatthi and then only those things will really come into play only at that time they will give the right fruits and that is why i have been discussing this in in considerably smaller detail if i go into this probably a year or two must be devoted quoting incidents from Mahabharata, Ramayana and then Bhagavatam and many other scriptures both eastern and western but i know we are all impatient people so i will stop here we will continue our class next probably week i will discuss about it with Anuja shortly. Om Jananim Sharadam Devim Ramakrishnam Jagadgurum Bahadapadme Tayo Sritva Pranamami Mohur Mohuhu May Ramakrishna, Holy Mother and Swami Vivekananda bless us all with Bhakti.