Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna Lecture 033 on 06-April-2021

Full Transcript(Not Corrected)

Om Jananim Sharadaam Devi Ramakrishnam Jagadgurum Pada Padme Tayo Shritva Pranamaam Imohur Moho Ho Before we start our regular gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, there is one very important question. What is the correlation between Sadhana and Self-surrender? Before attaining Self-surrender, Sadhana is how we can completely surrender. Self-surrender, Sharanagati, is one of the greatest and yet one of the most difficult things. Somehow this ego tries to enter into it through myriad ways like air. Even in the slightest avakasha, it wants to just come in or go out. That is why Sharanagati has been given so much of importance by Dwaitins. Advaita also gives the same importance but they don't call it Sharanagati. They call it Guru Bhakti. For an Advaitin, follower of Jnana Marga, complete surrender to the Guru, that is the only substitution they have made. Instead of saying God, they say Guru and then they say Guru is God. But in substance, it doesn't make any difference. Upon the schools of philosophy, Vishishta Advaita has made a very special study of Sharanagati. From their viewpoint, Sharanagati is the only way out. There is no other way. That is why the last shloka in the Bhagavad Gita is considered as Charama Shloka, the final shloka, the ultimate shloka summarizing the entire teaching of Bhagavan Krishna. Many people misunderstand this shloka. Very briefly, I will tell you. Giving up all the other dharmas, take complete refuge in me and I will save you. Do not grieve. I will give you liberation. Do not grieve. Teaching of the Bhagavad Gita starts with this word Ashvachyan and ends with Ma Shuchaha. Now, what is Bhagavan trying to tell? That don't do anything. Just shut your mouth. Shut all the sense organs, eyewear organ. It is impossible. It is not at all advisable. What does he mean? Do not trust any of your efforts to give Moksha or to come to me. What it means is you must perform all these things 100% but depend totally upon me. Oh Lord, I may be the most perfect Karma Yogin. I may be the most greatest Bhakta. I may be the greatest Yogi or Gnani or whatever I am. It is impossible for me to have become such without your grace. If I had achieved anything, it is by your grace, through your grace. Without your grace, I am nothing. I cannot progress. Not only that, even if I have attained the highest Sakshatkara, if it is the will of God or Divine Mother, she can make me, he or she can throw me out of it to the lowest depths. कारे दाव मा ब्रह्मः पद. किसी को मा तुम ब्रह्मः पद देते हो. कारे कोरो मा अधोग आमी. And you are capable of bringing that person to the lowest imaginable position. शकली तोमारी इच्छ. Everything is done after their will. Oh Mother! लोके बोले कोरी आमी. People go on wrongly, falsely, mistakenly, deludedly think I am doing it. So सर्वधर्मान परित्यज्य. That means not giving up either Karma Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, Raja Yoga, Jnana Yoga. Not giving up Varna, Ashrama Dharma. Not giving up anything. But on the contrary, trying to do the best. But without the grace of God, two things are impossible. Rather I would say three things. The desire to follow Dharma is the grace of God. And our attempt and progress in following Dharma is also by the grace of God. And if we can see God, have darshan of God, साक्षात्कर, that is also only possible by the grace of God. That is what Bhagavan Krishna means. माम एकम् शरणम् रजा. Put complete faith in me. Depend upon me. Do not depend upon anything else. But never give up what I have asked you to do. Because it is not someone else. Tom, Dick, Harry who says you have to do this. It is me who says through these scriptures, these things you must do. And these things you must never even think about it. विधी अन्द निशेधा. Do's and don'ts. If you can do that by my grace, you will attain complete self-surrender and then I will rescue you. You become free and if you still are alive after realization, then you will live in that knowledge. And this has been summarized by Ramanujacharya through one verse but with six characteristics or six steps. आनु कोलस्य संकल्पः प्रतिकोलस्य वर्जनम् रक्षिष्यसीति विश्वासः गोप्तृत्ववरणम् आत्मनिक्षेपः कार्पण्ये इति शद्विधा शरणागते ही I will explain these things very briefly. First thing is I take a vow and I will never give up my vow. What is that vow? All this Sankalpa, it has to be done for all the six steps beginning from the first step and till the last step. What is that Sankalpa means? Strong determination, strong and a great vow. Lord I promise taking your lotus feet as my witness and what do I do? आनुकोलस्य संकल्पः I will do only what pleases you. I will not lift a straw of grass if it doesn't get your approval. प्रतिकोलस्य वर्जनम् I will never even think let alone do something which you have forbidden and which is sure to displease you if I do. So I will do what pleases you. I will not do what displeases you and in that order. All the steps are in that order. Then only through experience I come to know that there is only one being who can save me and that is God that रक्षिष्यति इति विश्वासः Complete without any doubt because of past experiences I know now nobody can save me excepting you. रक्षिष्यति Only Bhagawan can save me. इति श्रद्धा विश्वासः Then गोत्रित्ववरणम् Such is our sorry state. Even when we come to know that there is no other way excepting praying and taking refuge in God. Our old samskaras refused to accept God but a devotee who has progressed through these three steps अनुकूलस्यसंकल्पः प्रतिकूलस्यवर्जनम् रक्षिष्यसिति विश्वासः God gives him the strength. गोत्रित्ववरणम् I choose Like in the olden days unmarried girls used to choose the boy whom they love. So here the sadhaka loves only one and that is God. This is called गोत्रित्ववरणम् I choose you as my saviour because nobody else can save me. This is the fourth step. Having chosen God the next step is आत्मनिक्षेपः I have to transfer all that belongs to me my body, my mind, my possessions, my worries, my joys, everything. आत्मनिक्षेपः I place myself under your protection. I transfer all my responsibilities to you because like a kitten this is what Shri Ramakrishna used to say there are two paths the path of the kitten and the path of the young one of a monkey that is I can do something I have got the power to do self-effort that is called the भावा attitude of a young monkey but a kitten it completely surrenders to mother it only knows how to say मा the kittenish language to say मा is म्यू and wherever the mother is and whenever necessary it comes and puts the kitten its young one safely it is always keeping with a thousand eyes and watching so that no harm can come to the kitten आत्मनिक्षेपः with that faith I will not come to any harm and my mother will do the greatest good to me with this understanding place ourselves completely under the protection of God that step is called आत्मनिक्षेपः and having completed then how should one live? now I am very proud I have reached the goal I have completely surrendered myself no my sir you could not surrender you could not take a single step let alone these five steps it's all because of the compassion of God this is called कार्पन्य means with greatest humility without you I am nothing and with you I am everything I have everything in these six steps Pramanujacharya has completed the whole tattva or philosophy of complete self-surrender and to practice this self-surrender is called साधना with the knowledge that it is God only who wants me to do all these things and he has given me the opportunity this life and this much of energy this much of intelligence what to do what not to do if I practice with that idea that I am able to do this only by the grace of God and that is this साधना that is called self-effort self-effort by the grace of God and we will reach the ultimate goal of complete surrender to God that means साक्षात्कर only God exists nothing else exists and I am with God I am in God I am God I am with God the attitude of Dwaitins Dailies I am in God is the attitude of Isishta Dwaitins and I am God is the attitude of Adwaitins so this is the answer साधना is grace of God Siddhi is also grace of God from the beginning to the end it is the grace of God why and how because सृष्टि स्थिति विनाशान who created us God who gave us the बुद्धी God who deludes us God who again grants us the right knowledge like discrimination dispassion mind control and longing to rejoin our own father and mother God ultimately who holds us up God and who gives us his darshan साक्षात्कर God that is the answer now we will begin our regular gospel class in our past classes quite a number of classes we have been dealing with वन्नाश्यम धर्म why because that is how God establishes Dharma to be an ideal if we can study the life of any great soul not to speak of an incarnation of God we will find a perfection in the ideal of how to be a Brahmachari a Grihastha and a Vanaprastha and a Sanyasi Sri Ramakrishna's life is a perfect example even to study Sri Ramakrishna through this vision is a great meditation normally our meditation is a very poor type of meditation scattered meditation restless mind but if we can take this particular subject how was Sri Ramakrishna when he was a young boy what kind of student he was student is one who seeks knowledge what type of knowledge he was seeking what type of behavior he was having what was his attitude towards his mother and father what was his relationship with his friends and with the village women village men it's a marvelous study in itself then he got married and he was united with holy mother then what was his behavior with holy mother what was holy mother's behavior with Sri Ramakrishna is a perfect Grihastha Shama Adarsha ideal then Sri Ramakrishna very strange even after realization every Sandhya time the junction between day and night always used to follow certain routine all activities are stopped he used to only to go on clapping his hands and taking the greatest aids we can imitate Sri Ramakrishna in that way and that is indicating Vanaprastha Shama even while living with holy mother he was a perfect Vanaprasthi and he was also a perfect Sanyasi study of Sri Ramakrishna as a Vanaprasthi is a revealing subject similarly Sri Ramakrishna as the greatest Sanyasin Sanyasi Chudamani the emperor of Sanyasins Sri Ramakrishna prayed oh mother make me an emperor of devotees I just merely do not wish to become a devotee I wish to become an emperor of all devotees an emperor of all Sanyasins he was the greatest Sanyasin not because he was practicing but very naturally a Sanyasi characteristic is all the Sanyasin characteristic are manifest in and through him so study of Sri Ramakrishna as a Brahmana a real Brahmana who knows Brahman study of Sri Ramakrishna through these ashrama dharmas and that is the only way for us if I am a Sanyasi I have to study him as a Sanyasin try to imitate him if I am a householder I should try to imitate him as a householder and if I am a student and lifelong we are students in fact this very class is a great study you think Swami is a teacher and he is not a student that is the greatest mistake anybody can commit every time I open the gospel of Sri Ramakrishna and read every time I study the gospel of Sri Ramakrishna new insights come pouring in literally like flooding in and I am astonished I never knew about these things before but I have to thank you for that for giving me that opportunity so we are all students and what was Sri Ramakrishna's view upon this he said so long as I live so long I learn as long as I live so long I learn learn many things even a realized soul must learn many things Sri Ramakrishna may not know how to organize things in fact that was what Swami Shardaanji says he associated with Brahmo Samaj and other Samajas to study them how he can be effective in this world so he trained Swami Vekananda future Swami Vekananda at that time Narendranath he said this is how you have to organize love is important obedience is important strict control is very important above all never forgetting the ideal of an organization is very important Sri Ramakrishna trained Narendra and it was Sri Ramakrishna who actually founded the Ramakrishna order and Swami Vekananda was only obeying what his guru commanded him to do so how was Sri Ramakrishna as a teacher what was his relationship with his students etc so this itself is a great fascinating study as a student and lifelong as a householder as a vanaprasthi or simi with royal state and completely dedicated state to God which is called sanyasa it is all for this for the guidance of welfare of people like us and that's why I have taken so much time now we will take up a new subject with this Sri Ramakrishna's gospel about what is knowledge what is true knowledge and what is the ignorance and what is the relationship between knowledge and consciousness what is the relationship between knowledge or consciousness knowledge and life how does it affect how do we understand so most important subject is division between knowledge and ignorance so the first question that comes is there such a thing as knowledge or is everything a matter of opinion so here are two words knowledge and opinion whenever we have an opinion and even about God also even about the world also do we have knowledge or do we have opinion let us take the world do we have real knowledge about the world absolutely no we have to learn from the scripture the truth about the world what is the truth about the world that firm knowledge and that knowledge goes also by another name it is called Satyam or truth what is truth that is knowledge and what is knowledge that is truth now let us have a definition from the Vedantic point of view what is truth trikala abadhitam satyam that which never changes never undergoes any transformation within the three times what are the three times the past, the present and the future that which remains exactly the same for all the time in this world it is timelessness that is called truth and that is called knowledge in from this viewpoint let us take the example of the world we think we are in the world we know about the world of course nobody claims i know everything about the world that's not we are we are not talking about we are talking about what is the nature of the world what is the nature of my own self so three questions come here what who am i what is the world and whether if there is a god what is the nature of god and what is the relationship between god world and me i have posed four questions here who am i that means what is my nature what is this world what is the nature of the world second question is there a god and if there is a god what is god or what is our knowledge about god what is the right knowledge about god this is the third question and if there is a god then what is the relationship between me and the world and god this is called spiritual practice if we pursue this then ultimately what will we get we will get everything the question should be what is it that we will not get we will get everything and so let us find out now do we know about the world what is the nature of the world constant change is the nature of the world the world by even in sanskrit world we call many names jagat is one name samsara is another name jagat means gati gat means gati gati means movement continuously everything is changing in this world how do we know because we see everything in from the viewpoint of time space and causation in fact the name for our mind is time space and causation and whatever we look through time means what change i start looking at this particular time and after five minutes the whole world has changed i also has changed my understanding has changed my body has changed my mind has changed so the whole world has changed what is the nature of the world changefulness is the nature of the world what is the knowledge about world that the world is never unchanging but ever-changing that is the nature of the world And naturally this brings the knowledge of me because who is saying everything is changing? I am saying everything is changing and when I say I am convinced about it, I know about it that everything is changing. The law says that I have to be unchanging to know about what is changing. Two changing things can never know each other. Only one unchanging background can really understand what is changing. If two trains are moving in the same direction at the same speed, then when we look at each other sitting in two separate trains moving exactly at the same speed, then we will not perceive motion at all. We say we are just sitting there but even if I am not traveling, wherever I am standing the whole earth is moving and at mind-boggling speed and I am not only going round and round myself, I am also going round the sun all the time as every planet is moving at its own speed not only around itself but around every other planet or moving thing in this world like a kaleidoscope. So what did we discuss? The whole world is changing that's why it is called Jagat. It has another name called Samsara. Srijati, Sarati that is called Samsara. Always moving, continuous flux. That's why the Buddhists very often remind us no man steps into the same world twice. By the time you stepped, dipped your head and brought it up above the surface of the water, already a lot, tons and tons of water has flown, fresh water is flowing all the time but we do not take notice because of the practical life, Yavaharika Sathya. This is the second knowledge. I am the unchanging background and that's why I am able to witness everything, the whole universe as an object changing. Let us remember, not forget, my body is also changing, my mind also is changing, my body-mind is part of the changing world, Jagat or Samsara. Now what is the third question? God. Is there a God? Yes, there is a God and whenever we think of God in this way questioning, we come some individual being maybe extremely powerful and he is staying there. That philosophically that's a wrong thing. No individual can be God. Only the entire whole can be God. That means me and what is called the whole world combined together is the name of the God. If I am accepting my existence and if I am accepting the existence of the world and if I don't accept the existence of God, I am a fool, I am an idiot. What is the reason? Just now I explained. God is not some peculiar individual sitting somewhere and watching or moving all of us. God is the name within which I am there, the entire world is there. In other words, the name of the entire world all combined together. So all names are within him, all forms are within him, all qualities are within him. That is why he is beyond time, is beyond space, beyond causation. The being who has all the names, he is nameless. The being in whom all forms are there, he is formless and the being who knows everything and he is beyond time, space and causation. Therefore, the moment we answer these two questions, I and the world, God automatically comes in. If somebody foolishly asks, where is God? Where is not God? God is everything. That is the meaning of God. I am God, you are God. And another way of looking at it slightly, I would not take long time and confuse you. Whatever exists, that is God because the name of God is existence and everything that exists comes with knowledge. A table comes, the object called table comes. I am a table, my name is table, I look like this, this is my form. So that Nama, Rupa and Prayojana, I am used for this purpose. All these three things, name, form and that utility together is called knowledge. Every object in this world, whether it is a tree or a mosquito or a star or a river or a mountain, everything is another way of knowledge. Now I will give you another important idea. Existence is what we perceive or experience and how we experience it is called Chit. The name for existence in Sanskrit is called Sat and the name for the experiencer. The experiencer is one who is joined with the experience and some change takes place in that experiencer in the form of Chitta Vritti, thoughts, ideas. The moment I see a table, I become a changed person. Perhaps this is the first time I am perceiving a table. Before that I was not even conscious of the existence of a table. But first time I see a table. Even if you assume there is nobody and you are confronting a table, you will have a knowledge. This is an object. It looks like that. It has this form, sounds like this, smells like this, tastes like this. Of course if you lick that one and it feels like this hard or soft, this knowledge will be always there within us and that existence transforms itself into a particular type of idea called knowledge and that goes by the name of Chit. I hope I am able to convey this idea. Sat is what we experience. Chit is what we, how we experience it in the form of knowledge and whenever the conscious being I or you or we confront, experience an object, we know here is an object. How do you know? Because that knowledge is there in mind. Here is perhaps a table or a tiger and I know it is a table or a tiger and then the reaction comes. Is it a positive experience, negative experience? Does it create joy? Does it create dukkha or unhappiness? Shall I go forward? Shall I run away from it? So that is what we call Sukha and Dukkha and Ananda is a name we should never use while experiencing limited object. Limited objects always gives limited experience. Limited experience is called Sukha or Dukkha depending upon circumstances, conditions but when we can experience our identity, the Sat and the Chit. Sat as formless, qualityless etc and Chit as non-separation from that Sat then comes that which is beyond Sukha or Dukkha and that is called Ananda. Wrongly many times we use the word Ananda while experiencing sensual pleasures whether it is eating a sweet or a savoury or whatever it is. Though it is part of Ananda, it's not Ananda. Though what I see with form is part of existence, it's not pure existence. Though we have partial knowledge, this is a cow, this is a tree etc. Partial knowledge is not pure knowledge. It is a manifestation of knowledge. The next point most important and difficult to grasp. When anyone can experience the formless indescribable existence, his Chit also will be indescribable knowledge because it is pure knowledge. It is called absolute knowledge. It is called Chit. The Sat and Chit become one. Then there is nothing but pure experience called Ananda. But until that time partial existence in the form of partial knowledge and brings in Sukha or Dukkha depending upon the circumstances. So a silly question if God is Ananda that why is it every object should give only Ananda? That question can be solved only that as a subject and object division Ananda is not possible. Sukha or Dukkha is possible. I'll give a funny example if you wish. If a hungry tiger confronts us at a solitary place and we have no option to run or climb then that same event from our point of view is Dukkha and from the viewpoint of the tiger the most happy event. So what are we discussing about? Knowledge. What is that knowledge? Right knowledge. Anything that doesn't change that is called right knowledge. Time that means it is beyond time, space and causation. Past, present and future cannot affect knowledge and in this knowledge there are two types of knowledge that is where most important for today's discussion. What is the first thing? Knowledge about the world and we think we don't know anything about God. We have never seen God. We only heard about him or her only from the books, from the gospel etc. But we are not sure at all. But we are cocksure about the world. We are under the greatest delusion that we know the nature of the world. We don't know and yet curiously we also know it but we don't take notice of it. What is it? The whole world is changing. That means happiness changes into unhappiness, light changes into darkness, good changes into evil and life changes into death. But let us not forget life changes into death but death also changes into happiness, evil changes into good, unhappiness changes into happiness, everything changes into its opposite and the opposite again changes into its opposite. This is the nature of the world. But I who is experiencing this changefulness, changing nature of the world must by necessity be an unchanging agent. That means first of all I am a conscious being, secondly I am of the unchanging nature and as I mentioned if what I am experiencing is of changing nature that means what I am experiencing is the world, that means the world every object is having birth and it changes into in course of time, growth, old age, disease, decay and death. But that is where we grieve. Again death changes into birth. So this cycle is continuing. That's why the concept of a linear concept is not very good. The concept of a circle, continuously what is down goes up, what is east becomes west, continuous changing of death, birth etc. But that's not the only one. Take any point in a circle, from one side it is the beginning, from the other side it is the very end and every point is a beginning, every point is an end. If we can assimilate these ideas, we will be having very good thing about it. Our opinion, our knowledge about the world is not knowledge but opinion. Okay. Then our knowledge about ourselves also is an opinion. I am born at such and such a time, I am a man, I am a woman, rich, poor, happy, unhappy, good or bad. All these are opinions not knowledge. This is the background. What does the scripture say? The scripture says that each soul is potentially divine and what does that mean? Usually, immediately we descend into that morose, morass. What is that morass? That only living beings are potentially divine, non-living beings are not divine at all, potentially divine at all. For example, a piece of wood or let us say a boiled potato, boiled egg, it is not living. By the time we boil, potato is dead, egg also is dead. But what we fail to take note is the moment a person eats that boiled potato, that dead so-called dead potato comes into life becoming one with our body, with our mind, with our soul. Similarly, after digestion what we throw out, the living cell becomes a dead cell. So this continuous change, living is turning into death, dead cell is turning into living cell. Through the process of what we call eating, we fail to take notice of it. There is no such thing as living or non-living. Continuously it is happening. Another example, you drink water. When we eat a boiled potato or boiled egg, we are calling it earth. When we are drinking water, is water living or non-living? According to science it is non-living. But the moment we drink water, that water becomes prana and life comes there. Try it if you wish not to drink water, see what happens. Similarly, that water is becoming living and also becoming non-living. Continuous circular movement is going on. Take air. Every millisecond, if you ask any physicist, then he will say air. That is just a part of nature. It is non-living. But what is sustaining us? Can a non-living something sustain a living thing? It is impossible if it is not living. So this air that we breathe in, immediately becomes us in the form of prana vayu. What is air outside, vayu, becomes prana vayu as soon as we breathe in. As soon as we breathe out, this prana vayu becomes just a vayu. This circular motion is going on all the time. So also if we take agni or vishnatha, as soon we all require this vishnatha, I am feeling cold and I come near a fire. Immediately the heat of the fire enters into me and it becomes sustains my life. As soon as I move away, then that very agni goes out. This magic, this miracle is happening every time. And then of course space. What is space? Wherever I move, I swallow space. This space becomes me and I become this space. These two phenomena in a circular movement, I move inside the space and then it is me. And then I move outside the space, then I become separated from it. So the moment it becomes me, the space becomes living, vibrant, conscious being because the whole universe is consisting of these pancha bhutas. It is made up of the pancha bhutas, srishti. It is sustained by the pancha bhutas, sthiti. And it again becomes, goes back to that same elements, constitutional elements which is called laya. And again new formations are coming like a kaleidoscope. All the pancha bhutas are coming. This is the relationship between our body, our mind and what we call the external world. But this is not possible if there is no conscious being. And so the separation is that I am a conscious being. I am unchanging. I am unmoving. I am all-pervading. I am pure conscious being. And whatever I experience is an object with just the opposite qualities. But the moment we become united, it also becomes conscious being. The moment we become separated, we become again unconscious beings. So this combination and separation and unity is going on all the time. So what is the first knowledge? That I am potentially divine. Everything else is not. What is the second step? I am potentially divine. Everything in this world is also potentially divine. And in fact every bilisecond, everything is becoming both conscious and non-conscious. Both God and also so-called non-God at the same time. And then I move on. This Jagat, third step, that it is that one being who manifests as two subject and object. And after some time, both subject and object merge. And both of them merge in that indivisible one Akhanda Sachidananda and remain for some time there. And this Leela is going on. Srishti, Stithi, Laya going on in a circular movement. Life, sustenance and dissolution going on all the time. If we come to know about it, we have true knowledge because that is the right knowledge. Right knowledge is called pure consciousness. And pure consciousness is called Satyam. And what is the Satyam? Trikala Abadhitam Satyam. That's why ultimately our scriptures are forced to tell only about one thing. What is it? God alone is the truth. Or to put it even better way, truth is God. Because our peculiar concept of God is also what is usually is a being separate from us, very grand, all powers, etc. sitting somewhere glaring at us or looking very pleased with us, etc., etc. This is the background. And if we do not have this right knowledge, that is called Avidya, that is called opinion. So this is the distinction between knowledge and opinion. Opinion always changes. Knowledge never changes. So we have to add right knowledge never changes in time. It is timeless truth. That's why I said know the truth and the truth will make you free. So with this background, I will quote a little bit from the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna. One day the late Keshav Chandra Sen came to Sri Ramakrishna in the temple of Dakshineswar and asked him, How is it that even learned people remain so profoundly ignorant of things that truly matter in spiritual life although they have read a whole library of religious books? The master replied, The kite and the vulture soar high up in the air but all the time their eyes remain fixed on charnel houses in search of putrid carcasses. Similarly, the minds of the so-called learned men are attached to the things of the world, to lust and wealth, in spite of their erudition in sacred lore and hence they cannot attain true knowledge. That knowledge which purifies the mind and heart alone is true knowledge. All else is only a negation of knowledge. Sri Ramakrishna continues, What is the use of mere book learning? The pundits may be familiar with plenty of sacred texts and couplets but what is the good of repeating them? One must realize in one's life the truths embodied in the scriptures. Mere reading will not bring knowledge or salvation as long as one is attached to the world, as long as one is fond of lust and gold. Our so-called pundits talk big. They will talk of Brahman, of God, of the Absolute, of Jnana Yoga, of Philosophy, of Ontology and the rest. But there are very few who have realized what they talk about. It is easy to utter S A R E G A M A P A D H A N I with the mouth but it is difficult to play them on an instrument. It is easy to talk on religion but difficult to practice it. Sri Ramakrishna is graphically describing to us what is knowledge. That means what is true knowledge. What goes by the name of knowledge is false knowledge, wrong knowledge, temporary knowledge and Swami Brahmananda used to say beautiful word. What we call intelligence is really speaking ignorance. So Sri Ramakrishna continues. A parrot repeats by rote the holy name of Radha Krishna but as soon as it is caught by a cat it screams betraying its natural cry. Worldly wise men sometimes repeat the name of Hari and perform various pious and charitable deeds with the hope of worldly gains but when misfortune, sorrow, poverty and death overtake them they forget him and all such deeds. In the kingdom of God, I am repeating in the kingdom of God reason, intellect and learning are of no avail. There the dumb speak, the blind see and the deaf hear. There means in the state of Samadhi, in the state of God realization. This knowledge of God comes not to the person who is proud of learning or wealth. You may say to such a person there is a holy man in a certain place. Would you like to see him? He is however sure to put forward excuses. Such pride is born of ignorance and there are people those who have read a little become puffed up with pride. I had a conversation with a certain person on God. He said oh I know all this. I said to him does one who has been to Delhi go about boasting of it? Does a gentleman ever tell us that he is a gentleman? Ramakrishna was a pun master. P-U-N pun. Grantha means book. Grantha does not always mean a holy scripture but often it means Granthi or a knot that which binds us firmly, strongly to this samsara or ignorance. If a man doesn't read a scripture with an intense desire to know the truth, renouncing all vanity, the mere reading of books only gives rise to pedantry, presumption, egotism. What is water? It dried up at once. It poured on a heap of ashes. Vanity is like this heap of ashes. Prayer and contemplation produce no effect upon the heart, puffed up with vanity. Then Sri Ramakrishna is continuing the true end of learning. End means goal. Paravidya, higher knowledge is that by which we know God. All else, scriptures, philosophy, logic, grammar etc. only burden and puzzle the mind. The Granthas, books or sometimes most of the time Granthis, knots, they are good only when they lead to the higher knowledge. Only two kinds of people can attain self-knowledge. Those who are not encumbered at all with the pride of learning and those who after studying all the scriptures and sciences have come to realize that they know nothing. One ray of light from my Divine Mother, who is verily the Goddess of Wisdom, has power to cow down even the most learned of pundits and make him appear like an insignificant worm crawling upon the earth. Sri Ramakrishna is narrating a story. In the course of his pilgrimage through the southern parts of India, Chaitanya Deva once came across a certain devotee who was in tears all the while a pundit was reading from the Gita. Now this devotee knew not even the alphabet. He could not follow a single verse of the Gita and being asked by Chaitanya Deva why he was shedding tears, he replied, It is indeed true that I do not know a word of the Gita. But all the while the Gita was being expounded by the pundit, I could not help seeing with my inner eye the beautiful form of my Lord Krishna seated before Arjuna in a chariot in the field of Kurukshetra and giving out all those sublime thoughts embodied in the Gita. This it was that fills my eyes with tears of joy and love. There are some other quotations are there. I will talk about them in our next class. Hopefully after I shift this residence from this place to that place. But I would like to end this talk with a beautiful parable by none other than Sri Ramakrishna. Sri Ramakrishna was such a great parable speaker. Parable, he can tell the tale so graphically and this is one of them. One day a pundit was crossing Ganges in a boat and he was the lone passenger and perhaps nobody appreciated him and he wanted to exhibit his learning in front of this illiterate boatsman. So he asked, I just changed a little bit the actual parable. I am only adding a bit of masala. He asked, Have you studied Vyakarana, grammar? The boatman was startled and said, Sir, I never heard about that bird. Then one fourth of your life is gone. After few minutes the pundit asked him, asked the boatman, Have you studied Kavya? And this time the boatsman he was frightened said, Sir, what is that animal? I never heard its name. The pundit replied, Two fourths of your life is gone. After a few minutes he asked him, Have you studied Vedanta? The boatsman by this time was thoroughly nonplussed. He said, Sir, where is that mountain you are talking about? Three fourths of your life is gone. Meanwhile a huge storm had overtaken the boat and the boatsman knew the boat was about to capsize. He asked one single question, Sir, do you know how to swim? The pundit replied, No, I do not know how to swim. The boatsman's reply was only one, Your whole life is completely wasted. This was what Sri Ramakrishna was referring that if we have knowledge of who is God, we know who is me, who am I, what is the world. Without that, not that other knowledges are wrong, but they must be used only to attain to this end. Otherwise life is not really a waste, but this particular opportunity we waste. But God is compassionate. He will give us further opportunities until we reach Him. For a simple reason, we are all children of God. We come from God and God will not allow us to go on drifting endlessly. He will, if necessary, give a little bit of punishment or reward, carrot and stick and He is drawing every one of us to His lotus feet. We will discuss the further beautiful points are there in our next class.