Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna Lecture 064 on 05-July-2022

Full Transcript(Not Corrected)

In my last class, I have referred a beautiful poem composed by Saint John of the Cross. It was a Spanish mystic along with Saint Teresa of Avila. It is a short poem, but it tells us that there comes a time when every one of us has to transcend the realm of reason, logic and then enter into the daylight, the most brilliant light of faith, but paradoxically, he had named it the dark night of the soul, dark night for all the worldly people, but most brilliant light for all spiritual aspirants. Here it goes. In secret, seen of none, seeing not myself, without other light or guide, save that which in my heart was burning, that light guided me more surely than the noonday sun to the place where he was waiting for me, whom I knew well, and where none appeared, O guiding night, O night more lovely than the dawn, O night that has united the lover with his beloved and changed her into her love. What a marvellous poem. Books and books have been written as a commentary. This is what Whitehead calls a flight of the alone to the alone. Just a bit of commentary, my own commentary, so we can enjoy it. I hope you too will enjoy it. In secret, because it is the journey of the soul alone to the divine who is also alone. God is alone. Why? Because he is only one. Seen of none, nobody can see it, only he can see it. Seeing not myself, I have erased every thought, every vritti, excepting one vritti, Brahmakar vritti, without any other light or guide, save that which in my heart was burning. What was that light? A light of faith. That light guided me more surely than the noonday sun to the place where he, God, was waiting for me and whom I knew well. In fact, I do not know anybody else excepting him. And even though we are worldly people, but we see him all the time. We hear him, we taste him, we smell him, we touch him because nothing else exists. It is he who puts on such a dress, different dresses and is appearing, only we are not dogs. Why did I refer to dogs? Swami Brahmananda used to say in half funny manner, man is worse than a dog. Why? Because a dog can recognize its master in whatever guise he comes at any time, day or night. But man cannot recognize if there is a slight change. And it means psychologically also. Let somebody not show affection, not have property, prosperity and that is what he says, In our Bhaja Govindam talks, we are talking about as soon as a man stops providing, immediately everyone stops. And I know him and I know only him. O Guiding Knight, that means intuition that has been acquired through deep faith, O Knight more lovely than the dawn, because you can see only the beloved, O Knight, thou art blessed, thou hast united the lover, me, with his beloved, him, and changed her, the lover, me, into her love, changed everything into God. A beautiful analogy is given, as we approach a blazing fire, we start feeling the heat. But as we go nearer, we also become conduits, conduits of heat. And if we go to near, we become fire itself. And we can also burn anything, you put anything, fuel is an example, but this is one of the most beautiful poems, mystic poems. And when Mirabai, or Tulsidas, or Andal, or any great devotee, start singing and call my beloved, that is nothing but God. They have become Godmen, Godwomen. Now what were we talking about, faith. Faith means unfailing and the surest guide to that supreme reality. Here we were talking about where reason ends, there faith starts. It can be misunderstood. It doesn't mean reason disappears. What it means is, faith must be supported, must be standing on the platform of reason. But when we look at the lives of so-called professing devotees, they don't have their irrational, their emotional and their characterless, which I will discuss very shortly. So although real faith is founded upon reason, it doesn't stop there. Faith generally means belief in something, which reason cannot penetrate. Because if reason can work, we don't need faith. If I am seeing in daylight a tree or an animal, I don't need faith that there is an animal here. But I need faith, if it is a dog, that most probably it is not going to attack me and injure me or kill me, because I don't know. So every step that we take is totally dependent upon faith that everything will be okay when we cross the street, when we enter into a taxi or bus or plane or whatever we do, that next second always remains obscure and unknown. But we have faith that life will continue like that. So how can we attempt to understand those lofty spiritual truths with our rational mind, which is full of limitations? Reason can never understand. That is why there is a beautiful topic about our scriptures and aptly titled Revelation versus Reason. What is their relationship? Can reason reveal the revelation? No. Then what is the role of reason? It is to say we understand the scriptural truths properly and apply them properly. And we do, lest we may stray into irrational behavior. That is why so many psychologists have tremendous business, I would say, economically they are prospering. And most of the fellows are religious fellows, because they think their faith has betrayed. They prayed to God, they offered worship, but things went wrong in the life. They do not understand if these two very often need not conflict. So reason can definitely lead us to a certain point, after which faith must take over and carry us to the final realization of God. That's why Swamiji said, all religion, any religion is to go beyond reason. Reason is the only guide until we reach that place. This was what we discussed in our last class, just as a background. So we may not lose the thread. So Swamiji says, stick to reason until you reach something higher and you will know it to be higher because it will not desire with reason. It will not conflict, come into conflict with reason. It may go beyond reason, but it is not irrational or unreasonable. Intellectual conviction is essential, but this in itself is not faith. It is merely rational belief. Very important point, very often we are convinced intellectually, but emotionally we go just to the diametrically opposite way. Our intellect tells, for example, if we are suffering because of what we did, but our emotion says, why should not there be an exception in our case? After all we are paying premium, religious or spiritual premium by doing meaningless and mechanical japam and worship and all those things. Here comes a very beautiful incident in my mind, this happened in Varanasi. Once a devotee from Calcutta had come, Swami Adbhutanandaji was here and the devotee brought a sari to offer to Mother Annapurna and he requested Swami Adbhutanandaji, Maharaj, let us go to the temple of Annapurna, I have brought some materials, we can offer the worship to her and come back and Swami Adbhutanandaji joyfully, he has accepted. Actually there are two incidents here of similar nature. One incident, Adbhutanandaji started and suddenly at half the way, he stopped and said, why do you want to go to the temple, here is the living Annapurna, let us go and offer these things to her. He was meaning Holy Mother Sharda Devi who happened to stay here at this time. The second incident I am referring now, at half way Swami Adbhutanandaji stopped, let me see the sari you brought for Mother Annapurna and the devotee showed it. It was very small, even a small girl cannot be dressed properly with that and Swami Adbhutanandaji became very sad, said why do you want to offer, would you offer this sari to your own mother and ask her to dress in this, don't you, meaning he did not explain there that do you think Mother Annapurna is a small image and probably that is why you brought a small sari to adorn this small sized image, very small sized image of Mother Annapurna, but our Annapurna is a living deity, even you will have to understand her like a grown up woman, of course, even this is also our imagination only, truly who can cover the Lord, that is why he is called, Shiva is called Digambara and Kali is called Digambari, the reason is Kali is everywhere in the form of Kala, the deity or the deification of Kala is called Kali, who can cover Kala, no dress will be there, Digambara, Digambara means naked, Digambara means the space itself is the covering for this Divine Mother, but she who produced this space, how can space cover, it is impossible, anyway that incident came to my this thing, that's why I said intellectual conviction is essential, but that itself is not faith, is merely rational belief. When conviction in the mind is followed by response in the heart, when our beliefs touch our hearts and change our lives, only then do we begin to have true faith, this is a very important point which I find missing in most of the devotees' lives, what is the point that our conviction in the mind should bring about a complete change in our day-to-day behaviour, in our emotions and then only it can be called faith, as an example we can take the incident of Nanchiketha's father, we come across in Katha Upanishad, Nanchiketha's father as we all know, just I'm reminding you, he wanted to go to heaven, for that he had to perform a particular Vedic ritual and every Vedic ritual will have its own special rules, regulations, how to perform that ritual, Karmakanda and one of the rules says, if you want to go to heaven, then you will have to give away everything, you can't cling to what is worldly and at the same time be in heaven also, if you have that faith, by giving away everything, I can reach heaven and the heavenly happiness is incomparable to any other happiness in this world, incomparably incomparable, but he did, he had attachment, so he was giving away some type of cows which are inferior quality, but he had a son and the son Shraddha Abhivesha, Abhivesha had Shraddha faith, possessed him like a ghost, what is the faith that whatever has to be done, it must be done perfectly because heaven is real, this ritual is true and if it is performed properly, it will definitely take one to Svarga, by the way, Svarga means not a point of space, Svarga means the incomparably highest type of happiness, even if a person for example, a Jeevan Mukta is in this world, tell me in which heaven is he, is he in the Indra Loka, Svarga Loka, Brahma Loka, no, he is in Brahmananda Loka because it is not a Loka, it is a state, always we have to keep Svarga and Naraka are states of minds, when somebody is suffering intensely, that is Naraka and there is a beautiful story given by Sri Ramakrishna, just it came to my mind, the story is illustrated in the form of a auranic story incident, once Narada, one of the greatest devotees of God, before he became so great, he was a great devotee, he happened to visit Vaikuntha and he was there in front of Narayana, then somebody asked, Lord, since Narada had come to Vaikuntha, he has attained the highest state, Narada looked a little bit mischievously at Narada and he said, Narayana looked at Narada and said, no, but he is still impure, he has to go through some purification, he has to suffer in hell, then only he will be eligible to get this Vaikuntha Ananda, then Narada asked, he did not know what was Naraka, hell, so he asked, Lord, what is Naraka, then the Lord took a charcoal piece and on the floor he had written something and said, this is Naraka, immediately Narada rolled on that sketch and then said, I have gone through Naraka, the Lord smiled and said, how is it, then Narada explained, Lord, when you have written with your own hand, this sketch itself has become Naraka because you are the creator, you are the destroyer, you are the protector, when I rolled on that sketch, I really felt that Naraka Yatana, the angst of the sufferings of the hell in its complete 100% I have felt, it is not that I am simply rolling on a piece of paper, that is called faith, Narayana knew it and immediately said, all your papa karma has become destroyed, now you are fit to receive the highest love and bliss. This is one of the many stories Ramakrishna tells us about faith. So, most of us have been told since our childhood that God is, he exists and he listens to our prayer and if we pray earnestly, we can commune with him and really most of us believe it. Then the question comes, why then do we continually allow ourselves to be caught in the clutches of the world, to be consumed by our desires, to be sucked in by the materialism in our society? This is the tragedy each one of us because this gospel class is not a theoretical class, is a practical class. So, why is it that we have attachments to our family members? We want to see our children all the time, if they are elsewhere, we have to go and we go on pilgrimage, we go do so many things, but unfulfilled desires are there. How do we know the two things are there? When some untoward incident happens, which is not very pleasant and the first thing is we suffer, the second thing is we blame first God, then anybody else. Rarely we blame our own selves. So, how is it that we want to live long time? We want our children also to live a long time. We live all those whom we love to live a long time, but let the others go to the other place, let anything happen to them. Why is it we are so much caught? Because if we really believe, have that faith, then our life will be completely, it changes. So, why? Why does this happen? Because we lack faith in God, we have belief in God, we do not have Shraddha in God. What is Shraddha? Shraddha and Shri Ramakrishna illustrates it. Suppose somebody has been seized with madness, he is a madcap. Now, you cannot ask why, you cannot reason and many times we foolishly try to reason with children. Even though we are grown up, don't you see his poor child, how the child has to know what you are talking about. A child has got only, a child is understanding, but we have become children, we are incapable of understanding, children cannot understand what we understand. We have to come to their level and then try to do something about it. So, this is called lacking faith in God. We lack faith in the scriptures because if the scripture tells anything, it is absolutely true and the story of Nachiketa that we get in the Katha Upanishad, amply proves it. Just now, I referred to that. He completely believed that what the Vedas tells is right and there is a heaven and this ritual will give me the right, but why is it my father is clinging. Are you going to take your dirty old cow to heaven? Swami, there was one of our presidents, Swami Ranganathanji Maharaj and he used to tell a funny story about this kind of belief. We should not call it faith, belief. There was a village and they used to grow some vegetables, pumpkins, etc. So, one night the village people slept, got up next morning and saw that one of the field, most of the pumpkins which were ready to collect have been nibbled, eaten away. So, they thought some animal has come because a thief would have taken them away. It is only an animal which will eat. So, next night they kept a vigil and then to their great astonishment, they found that a heavenly cow was descending and coming into straight in the middle of the field and started eating with great relish. So, what does it prove? It proves that heavenly pumpkins are no match for the pumpkins grown on earth, especially in India. Anyway, the villagers were excited. So, they had a conference and next day they decided, we will do one thing. All of us will wait in the field and when the cow is eating, so one of us will go and grab its tail and the next man will grab the legs of that person and the next man the legs of that second person, etc. and all of us will go into heaven and see what it is like. So, exactly they were planning. The cow came down and there was an old woman of 80 years old and she was waiting at some particular spot and the cow happened to come exactly to that place and her tail was turned towards this hands of this old woman and as soon as the cow started eating, this old lady grabbed the tail of the cow and then the cow understood and immediately it wants to run away. It started rising slowly into the sky and the next fellow grabbed hold of the old woman's legs and the next fellow. Like that the whole village was slowly rising and they have reached quite a good height. Meanwhile, how to pass time? It will take like Indian trains, it will take time to reach heaven. So, will they be growing pumpkins in heaven? Of course, they must be growing because every villager will imagine Swarga Loka in a better way, better village, better pumpkins, sweeter pumpkins, etc. Of course, village pumpkins can only imagine like village pumpkins. So, the discussion was getting more and more heated. Meanwhile, a discussion which pumpkins are bigger in size, those grown in heaven or those grown on earth in their village. So, like that this everybody was telling it must be bigger definitely and like because it is heaven like that discussion was going and this old woman was first woman who grabbed hold of the tail. She was hearing it and she got very angry and said, you stupid foolish idiots, you have no idea how big will be the pumpkin grown in heaven and they all said, oh you think you have got, show me, show us the size and she opened wide her both hands and it will be at least minimum this big. Of course, everybody fell down as soon as that woman opened her hands, everybody just fell down into their village. So, this is the type of faith which most of the Hindus, I would say, most of the so-called religious people all over the world cherish. Now, what is the way our life must be transformed and story of Nachiketas amply illustrates the moment faith possessed him, his whole life has changed. How do we know? Because he was prepared even to face death. As we know, he went and asked what was the rule that whatever the performer was possessing, he must give away. So, this man Nachiketas went to his father, said father I belong to you, I am your possession. So, the rule says everything that you possess must be given away, to whom are you going to give me away and first time father didn't reply, second time he pestered, he did not reply, third time the same question was put, this time the father got angry thinking how dare you question your old father like this and he said in English language, go to hell, means you die and Nachiketas said my father had uttered these words, I must make his words true. So, that is how the Upanishads tells us he went to Yamadharma Raja like that. Anyway, this is just to illustrate but there is another story, we will talk about it. But as we know, say Ramakrishna was one of the greatest storytellers, parable tellers, comparable to Kalidasa, similes, beautiful similes he says. Here's a Ramakrishna story of a thief comes in. So, this story is Ramakrishna was graphically describing. Imagine there is a thief and one night he's lying down in a bed in a particular room. Somehow he comes to know that in the very next room there is invaluable, a huge quantity of gold is lying down and the partition in between these two rooms is so thin, like a small piece of cloth net, very easily he can break it. Having said this and say Ramakrishna had an inimitable way of describing things. Swamiji, Swami Vivekananda had and he is describing, he was considered as the greatest storyteller in the world. When he was describing, the listeners will feel as though they are seeing it in front of their own eyes. So, Sri Ramakrishna turned to his devotees and then asked them that suppose you are the thief, do you think the thief can sleep? Of course, the devotees have said no until he tears that and then gathers the gold and runs away from there and reaches a safe place and hides all the stolen gold in a safe place. Until that time it is impossible for the thief to steal anything. That is the point Sri Ramakrishna is making. That is the point illustrated by great devotees whether it is Mirabai. I will tell you an incident from the life of Mirabai. In the life of Mirabai, the life of Tulasidas, in the life of Andal, in the life of Narada, in the life of Prahlada, in the life of Nachiketas, every great saint do have this kind of faith. Then only it will work. That is why Sri Ramakrishna was born with that faith. As soon as he grew up, that faith had taken possession of him. He himself said that I was not planning to lead this kind of spiritual life. But what can I do? This great storm of spiritual realization has come to me and it has taken possession of me and I had no control over it. It had taken me and did not give me rest for about 12 years. My God! I could not even close my eyelids. That was what Ramakrishna had described. That is why he said I have absolutely no power to control myself. So, one day he felt very desperate. We know the story and he ran. So, he could cut his throat if he doesn't have the realization of the Divine Mother. So, this is how Sri Ramakrishna's story illustrates and this is what we have to understand in the life of every saint and this is what applies also. Of course, we don't have so much of faith. That is what we are going to discuss it. A little bit of hint how this by contemplating on the life of Prahlada. He was born Bhakta and you know the story that his father Hiranyakashipu, he wanted to acquire more power. He was already powerful. He subdued all the Devatas. He wanted more power. So, he left his home with the hope of pleasing Brahma or Shiva. There these Asuras are very clever fellows. They will never go to Vishnu because they know this fellow Vishnu is very clever fellow. He will cheat them. He will deceive them. He is never going to give us any boon. So, Brahma very quickly is pleased. Shiva, of course, is a foolish God. That's why he is called Ashutosha. The moment somebody calls, Ashu means immediately. Oh, my devotee is calling me. I must go and give him whatever he wants without any discrimination. He will give and then this is all stories concocted by devotees of Vishnu rather to denigrate Shiva and his devotees. As though Shiva and Vishnu, Brahma, they are all different people and they don't know what each other is doing. Anyway, this Hiranyakashipu had chosen Brahma. He was proceeding to do Tapasya, hard Tapasya, very very superhuman austerity. At that time Indra, he said this Hiranyakashipu himself is so great and we are not able to cope with him and his wife is pregnant now and the son that is going to be born may be even more powerful than his father, better to snip him in the bud itself. So, he went, captured the wife of Hiranyakashipu, Indra and he was taking her away with the idea of killing this son of Hiranyakashipu as soon as the poor woman gives birth. But wherever such incidents come, so suddenly Narada appeared and he made Indra become ashamed. Here is an Asura, he is going for Tapasya and here is the king of the Devata and he is like a thief and the husband is not there. You go and capture this helpless woman, hapless woman and then you are taking her. Indra tried to explain after all she is going to give birth and he may be even more troublesome for us. Then Narada reveals this secret. No, on the contrary, this boy is going to be one of the greatest devotees of Narayana and this boy will help his father achieve liberation. So, you better get the hell out of here. I will take this woman until she gives birth to her son and then this Narada went, took that woman and then every day, morning, evening, he will go on singing the glories of God. This is what you call modern terms, advertising, brainwashing goes on doing this way and there is a beautiful incident there. Narada will sit, this poor woman was in her advanced state of pregnancy and she was also a devotee of God. So, this Narada starts singing with the greatest enthusiasm and he tells the story and then the poor mother has to say yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. What happened after that? Sai, that is called Sai Deva. So, saying that yes, I am listening, what happened then etc. to encourage the speaker and then after a few seconds this woman becomes bored and then she goes to sleep but Narada was not aware of it. He was going on narrating the story of Lord Narayana and he did not understand that somebody was speaking to him. Yes, yes, marvelous, wonderful. What happened after that? Later on, he came to know this child in the womb of this pregnant woman, he because he was the greatest devotee and he was breaking his ears, he was listening and he was giving this supportive statements to the speaker and it is also true that what the parents speak, how they act and react, what kind of emotions these parents go through, the child growing within the womb of the mother that can influence to some extent. We don't say all the extent, to some extent. Why do we say? Because it is only one's own samskaras which will come up, not what the parents do. Parents' influence I would say is probably 0.1 percent. Whether it is schooling, whether it is society, people think that religious environment, people become religious. No, sir. It is the past general samskaras only that can help a person. So, this is the story of Pralada. Amply illustrates that because of his samskaras, he was born. But if I have to tell you the secret of this story of Pralada, Pralada's father was the closest devotee of Lord Narayana. Because some spiritual obstruction has come, he had to complete, remove that obstruction, purify himself. So, he was born. He had chosen to be born as a born arch enemy of God, not because he was there. He was a worldly person. He was one of the greatest devotees, Hiranyakashyapu and Hiranyaksha. They were the incarnations of Jaya and Vijaya, the doorkeepers. What does doorkeeper mean? You think that God is having a big building and he employed two gatekeepers? No. Gatekeeper here means these great saints, they have the ability, if anybody calling, they can separate what they call the chalk from the grain. So, they say this fellow is only uttering words, meaningless words. But this person, even though his speech is not refined, but he's really speaking from the bottom of his heart. So, they keep a watch and they know who is a real devotee, who is a fake devotee and they will always allow a real devotee and they help the real devotees to go nearer to God. But these Puranic stories are meant that however advanced a spiritual person may be, egotism can peep out through such persons and until a person reaches, God becomes merged in him. One should not say that he has reached the goal. That is why even after 1000 years of tapasya, Vishwamitra had fallen like a pack of cards because he was cherishing this desire for worldly desires in his mind. Otherwise, he would never fall for such things. So, how to develop this faith? Let us start with belief. Then Sriram Krishna had given us beautiful certain directions. Always cultivate holy company, first. Second, now and then go into solitude and call upon God more earnestly. Third, always discriminate that this world anything can happen at any time to anybody at any place at any time in any way. That is to say, I may die, you may die, anybody may die and every second, millisecond categorically proves that fact. But we are not, we are seeing it, we are understanding it, but we are not accepting, we are not changing our behavior. So, how to grow? That is where I said faith is like a muscle. It can, it develops slowly and it can be developed and what are the ways? Just now I mentioned the four ways. Karma yoga, bhakti yoga, raja yoga and jnana yoga. Live like a maid servant. If you believe in God, you should not have attachment to anything else. Just as we go to gymnasium to strengthen our muscles, so also this practice of these four paths, hints given by Sriram Krishna is the way to grow and as we go on practicing, our attachment to the world becomes less, our willpower grows and it becomes natural for us to accept whatever be the situation and then be glad about it because here is a fundamental truth. If we sincerely believe that God exists, automatically we believe that not only God exists, He knows everything. Not only He knows everything, it is only His will that is happening, whatever is happening in the world, whether it is war in Ukraine or shootings in the schools or gymnasiums in various places in any country including, I have to bring it this, recently a person has been beheaded in one of our states by extremists but if that makes our hearts beat faster and lest we may fall into false judgments, it happens by the will of God. If we believe in God and still say this is injustice, that means we do not believe in God because God and injustice, God and Adharma, they do not go together. So, if God exists, He knows everything. He has created this world. He is running this world. Everything that is happening is by His will and whatever is happening is for the good of the world, for the good of everybody. We have to be aware but what should be our response to this kind of situations? First of all, you pray for the persons. If it is possible to help, help them but ultimately, we have to yield to that particular what is called faith and say God knows best. He does best. This lesson was learned by Swami Vivekananda when he went to Ksher Bhavani in Kashmir. I think I have narrated this maybe many times. Swami Vivekananda saw the dilapidated condition of the Ksher Bhavani temple and that was done by some Muslims many centuries earlier and then Swamiji felt very sad and then he said, if I had been there, I would have sacrificed myself to protect this temple. Immediately, a thunderous response came from the mother. Is it you who can protect or is it I who can protect you? Then Swamiji understood. By whose will was her own temple broken? By the will of the divine mother only. Why did she do? To teach a big lesson to stupid foolish Hindus like us. Why do I say Hindu stupid? First of all, they don't cooperate with each other. Second, they don't need to spend billions or trillions on constructing new temples, enlarging temples, etc. Recently in Varanasi, more than thousand crores have been spent and according to me, you may judge me that I am a poor judge or my understanding is very poor. It is completely unnecessary. If a fraction of that amount has been spent on helping the poor and making the roads better, making the electricity available to people, there are many other needs. Do you think by making these things so enlarged and beautiful, people are going to become more spiritual? One funny fact that I have been noticing, now large number of people are coming. Previously, at least it is possible after some weight to go and have darshana, sparshana of Vishwanatha. Now after this, so much of these pilgrims number has grown so much. It is impossible to go even anywhere near unless you pay money and go early in the morning for the darshana like that. Anyway, my point is I am not saying that one should not improve. There are many temples which require improvement. Many are simply getting dilapidated and they should be cleaned, surrounding can be cleaned and they can be restored and that would be much more helpful than spending all just because I like this particular this thing. This is what people did in Somnath. If you still remember the history and 17 times Mohammed Gajani had raided, straight he will go there and all Hindus will given their gold, their silver, their precious stones to the temple as if otherwise God will be a poor God and he will strip everything, go back, year after year he will come and Hindus get it ready for him to be robbed and that tendency has not yet disappeared. I am sorry I am bringing these subjects because we have to be practical. Hindus faith means you believe in some Bhagavad Gita in the gospel of Sri Ramakrishna and you just do a little gudi gudi japam as what Swami Ranganathanji Maharaj used to tell and you expect the heavenly cow will come and it will take you and its horns and then toss you so straight you will fall into the lap of Indra. That's never going to happen. So we can develop this but that is where reason comes, that is where scriptures come, that is where the grace of the Guru means the understanding that I have a lot of defects and Guru has shown me the way how to purify myself, how to get rid of my defects and how to progress in life and how do I know whether we are progressing in life. I said four qualities of a saint. What is the first one? First one, I will be always joyous like a baby who knows my mother is there. He doesn't even reason out. He knows I have my mother. I have nothing to worry. He doesn't think whether my mother is going to look after me or not. Always happy and when he's hungry cries and when he wants to play mother is there, the brothers are there, somebody will be there to provide that companionship. First thing is ever-growing joy. Second is ever-growing love without any condition, unconditional love. Third is treating everybody with the same Drishti. What is the Drishti? That everybody is a child of God. It is God only whom I am encountering and fourthly a person's ability to sacrifice joyfully like Dadhichi sacrificed his physical life to provide Vajrayudha to Indra. So, anytime this every saint, every breath is used. Pranaharpana, Jagatatharana, Printhana, Kalidho. So, when we start slowly practicing these teachings of the scriptures that come through the Guru. What is the speciality? The Guru takes the same scriptures but slightly changes it according to the necessity, according to the mental condition of the student. So, when we start practicing, we begin to feel intuitively that the Lord is present within us and the seed of faith is beginning to mature. This intuitive knowledge is very interesting in that it goes beyond all intellectual knowledge. For example, we are told by the scriptures and men and women of God that the Lord dwells within. We may believe this but doubts continuously arise through meditation and disciplines. We begin to intuitively feel the truth of this great teaching. We may get glimpses of the beauty and majesty of God in nature because as we grow, as our mind also develops the intuition, we see that nature of God reflected in nature in the form of beauty of every imaginable sort, beautiful form, beautiful sound, beautiful smell, etc. And every now and then, we may feel a particle of His tremendous love for us. I'll give you an illustration. Radha's love for Krishna was so great that whenever she sees an yellow flower, immediately she forgets herself. She falls down unconscious. What is the meaning of this? That is, this yellow color makes Radha remember a Pitambara, the yellow robe of Krishna who is of blue hued, blue colored. That's why Sri Ramakrishna used to say from a distance, the water of the ocean looks very blue but you go near and take, it has absolutely no color. That colorless, guna rahita Bhagawan appears as colorful, as beautiful, sweet smelling, etc. So, Sri Ramakrishna used to say, there's a particular flower, it's called gulancha, very mild but extraordinarily pleasing flower and he liked it very much and whenever a garland is offered to him, he used to go into ecstatic states. So, any of the experiences of the five indriyas will make us make us remember God. You see there. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, somebody told when he was traveling through a village that the clay is used in the coal which is used in the kirtans. Immediately, he fell down unconscious because this web of emotion, this clay is used in Sankirtana. Kirtana is of Bhagawan Krishna. The name of Krishna reminded him of Krishna and ultimately that filled his heart and then he fell down. So, the whole nature is nothing but a manifestation of the real what is called ananda swaroopa. Ananda means by the way, the saundarya, the divine beauty of God everywhere. That is why when Sri Ramakrishna was I think seven or eight years old, one day he was walking and it was rainy season. The whole sky was covered with thick black clouds and just then a big flock of pure white cranes started flying across in a particular formation and Sri Ramakrishna saw because he was such a pure soul. Immediately, the beauty of God flashed into his mind and he fell down unconscious. So, as we grow, the beauty, the goodness, the purity, the gentleness of other people or either it is animals, birds will also evoke similar responses in our minds. So, you must have heard about Saint Francis of Assisi and he used to say when the birds are singing, they are singing the glories of God. Every animal through its own peculiar special voice is making sound. What is it? Lord, Lord, Lord. There is nothing else. So, once we experience as we grow spiritually, we see the same reality being reflected within us in our life, in other people's life before us also. But then a caveat is there. Complete faith in God comes only after one has directly perceived and experienced Him or Her. This is a fact. Hinduism emphasizes untiringly. Faith must be transformed into fact. Faith is good for journey but faith must end in realization and it is the supreme faith that Swami Brahmanandaji was referring to when he said in an ecstatic state, on the ocean of Brahman, I am floating on the leaf of faith. But until that high state of faith comes, we need a working faith, a faith in the unseen. So, Jesus said, blessed are they who have not seen me but have faith in me and Swami Brahmanandaji used to say to some of the novices, your faith is greater than ours and these novices, they could not understand. They asked for explanation and then he said, look here brothers, we have seen Sri Ramakrishna. We have lived with him and so it is natural, not surprising that we developed faith. But you have not seen Sri Ramakrishna. You are only seeing us, very pale reflections of Sri Ramakrishna and yet you have developed such a tremendous faith in Sri Ramakrishna which means God because every follower of Sri Ramakrishna feels that I am a follower of God. Ramakrishna is none other than God. There are some beautiful points, especially guilelessness and faith etc which we will speak about in our next class. May Sri Ramakrishna, Holy Mother and Swami Vivekananda bless us all with Bhakti. Jai Ramakrishna.